Ashen Rider — Part Two

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TWO

In our darkest hour

We trudged through the sands.

Beneath clear, open sky

We boiled in our armor.

My horse collapsed at my feet

And I was thankful.

Her suffering was great

Existence tortured.

I did not give her a name

If I had, I would not have remembered.

Unknown author

“March to Idraan,” found on a soldier’s body, Year 31.

I — On a thoroughfare in Monrovia

The Vale Betwixt, first layer of Pandemonium

There had been no time to think; she could only run. Kateryna had no desire to think. Thinking meant reflection, and what she had just seen was nothing she wanted to reflect upon. No, instead, she ran across town, surrounded on all sides by mass degradation. Every one of her neighbors was beset with pestilence in an instant.

Morgana’s visage was burned in Kateryna’s memory; she saw the Dread Angel’s sickeningly perfect face every time she blinked, felt her grip constricting her lungs with every breath. This is my fault. How could it not be? She had, after all, taunted the Goddess Corrupted in full view of her million eyes. I called to her—and she answered…

No time for doubts, nor second-guessing. Kateryna now had but one goal, and not a second to spare.

I will find you, mother. I swear it.

Sounds of carnage spilled from the adjacent block: blood spraying, limbs splitting apart, bone chilling ululations of the damned as they are sequentially torn to ribbons by their matron. I am prey. She is saving me for last.

The warped, old faering she and Fulcrum used to tack up welds on the outer stilts was still docked at the pier. Kateryna threw her harpoon on the deck, leapt into the rear seat, and rowed with a fervor she had never known, pumping her arms faster and harder than she thought possible. I cannot let her have me, she thought as the sluggish little vessel slogged through the grime collecting on the water’s surface. I must find her!

Kateryna had seen it through the gaps in the wall panels: the Dread Angel gingerly opened their front door, as if checking in between errands; light footsteps cascading down the hall, her mother’s baleful scream… her death knell.

No! She would not think of it. The burden would only weigh her down. Her soul is out there, somewhere, and I must be swift.

* * *

Sailing the Congealed Sea

The Vale Betwixt, first layer of Pandemonium

Viscous water lapped against the side of the faering as she rowed. Heavy drops of grime fell from the mast, dotting her soaked clothes with dark stains. The storm had subsided to a drizzle. Kateryna wondered if Morgana was tired—if such things were even possible for a divine.

The sun was rising anew for the day, shining bright through meager clouds. Rays warmed her broad shoulders; if Kateryna had been a superstitious person, she might have thought it symbolic—sailing out on a quest against Dusk, with the light of Dawn at her back. But Kateryna had given up on such things. In her tortured prolonged existence, she was certain the gods above did not give a single shit about the souls writhing down below.

She was, like everyone else, damned to Pandemonium, forgotten.

The wind picked up, so she lowered the sail and traded oar for tiller. As she cut across the Congealed Sea, she searched for any sign of Seth; he had left a few hours ahead of her, but she was by far the stronger rower. If he lived, she could catch him. Then she might not feel so alone… so discarded.

A nauseating surge rocked the boat, sending it listing starboard. Kateryna pulled at the sails, using every ounce of strength to keep the vessel from capsizing. It settled, and she fell sprawling on the deck, her own wind stolen from her chest.

There’s no way… Seth was not a sailor in life, just a hobbyist who seldom took a fishing boat out on Lake Valentine—from what depths this memory resurfaced, Kateryna was unsure. Still, strange thoughts arrived like overdue letters on the doorstep of her mind, the farther away she got from Monrovia. He can’t be alive. There’s no way. She hoped desperately that she was wrong, yet she saw no alternative, and that realization somehow crushed her heart, one already stamped flat in the dirt.

Seth was a kind soul, a loyal, loving man. But such traits, as much a boon to his loved ones as to him, did not make Seth a demigod hero capable of striding the deadly planes of hell.

It did not change the fact that his body was eating itself from the inside out, just like hers.

Every gust, every drop of water, carried with it this taste of fury—of rage. Kateryna wondered if it was her own dissociated emotions manifesting in front of her, but began to doubt that once a raindrop landed in her eye… and she felt envy, the pure, unadulterated, jealous rancor of a spoiled child. That’s not me. That has never been me.

Hours went by, memories and understanding rolled in. The air was sweet, cool as it traveled down her inflamed windpipe. She scanned the horizon for land, only knowing the shore opposed the sun, or so claimed one of the mad visitors passing through Monrovia.

Another surge sent vibrations through the worn planks of the boat. Ahead, she saw the rotting tail of a serpent whip out of the water before slithering back below. There it is. Kateryna retracted the sails, grabbing her harpoon with one hand and the gunwale with the other. My second death awaits.

Her stomach lurched as the boat suddenly launched towards the clouds, riding a wave taller than the hobbled belfry at the quay.

Struggling against inertia, Kateryna braced the harpoon against the deck and prepared for impact. It was futile, she knew; they were barely able to fend off such a beast with twenty armed men in the watchtowers. She was but one woman alone in the sea—death was assured. She had known it would happen. So did Seth.

A tangle of bulging cords emerged from the sea, encasing the vessel in a cage of entropic scales. Kateryna blinked sea foam from her eyes, opened them to look into the gaping maw of the serpent, lined with countless rows of sword-like fangs, every gap a waterfall. Its breath was a low rumble as the boat slid down toward the serpent’s undulating esophagus.

“Spare me no pain!” she screamed at the serpent, sores in her throat ripping open. “You never have before!”

Kateryna leapt from the deck just as the serpent snapped its jaws, crushing the boat to splinters. She fell, content to watch the translucent surface of the sea rush up towards her at a quarter of the speed it should have. How amusing, that adrenaline should play such a role in the afterlife.

A pulse resounded through the realm, a subtle pull she had grown used to, now obviously out of place so far from Morgana’s fog and storms: a tug on her soul, an external hunger, reeling her back in.

Something possessed Kateryna to thrust the harpoon in front of her, then, catching the serpent’s throat, which slowed her descent by tearing a ragged rent in the creature’s dead flesh. Acrid fluids showered her as she dangled from the harpoon in mid-air.

The serpent screeched a horrific ululation, lashing violently in every direction, jostling Kateryna senseless, her head a pounding, muddled mess of misplaced thoughts and half-forgotten convictions. She had resigned herself again to just let go, to free herself of certain pain in favor of uncertain pain at the other end. She was about to let go—until she saw the rider gliding towards her just over the horizon, the wings of his griffin extended in a wide, all-encompassing arc.

“Cain!”

Again and again, she cried out to him.

A thousand times she had begged him for help. A thousand times he had denied her. She hated the man for abandoning them, for driving her mother mad, for choosing his wicked goddess over his own family. And still she called his name, praying to any who would hear, that this be the time he finally listened, that he would finally give in to his duty as a father, rather than a god’s Chosen.

“Cain!”

The griffin drew closer. She could see the shimmer of its ebon wings billowing in the wind, its yellow slitted eyes narrowing on her. Kateryna looked into her father’s empty, black eyes as he flew past her, leaving her to her fate. Her heart broke a third time, seeing on his face the expression of a stranger passing another on the road.

“Cain…”

Shame appeared in place of salvation. She was a fool, in truth. Her head pounded, pressure about to explode. The pain of her straining fingers, gasping lungs, her whip-lashed spine… it was too much, and her grip was failing. She gaped at the roiling waves of brown and black below.

Wherever I end up, she thought in a moment of perfect clarity. I will be one step closer to finding her.

Kateryna let go and fell towards the sea.

II — From the collected journals of a mad wizard

I do not expect you to sympathize with Morgana’s Chosen, dear reader. He does not deserve it, nor does he need it. He will, however, earn your utmost attention in the pages to come—perhaps, even your respect.

He has earned mine.

Morgana was a vengeful, possessive matron. But she was not always so. During most of Cain’s life, and for the millennia leading up to it, Dusk served as the shepherd of the dead, escorting the souls of the dearly departed across the treacherous rapids of the River Acheron.

All of that came to an end around the time the Kaza’dur appeared in our world. That was unprecedented, and even now, centuries later, at the time of my writing, we feel the ripples of their forceful arrival.

Nevertheless, some time after they appeared, Dusk became Morgana—and all hell broke loose.

That night in Monrovia, Morgana left the comfort of her beloved throne and wreaked slaughter en masse upon the poor townspeople. She started with Anastasia, the only soul capable of stealing her most prized possession, and sent her soul careening through the ether with naught but a cold glance. A flick of her wrist spread late-stage pestilence to the rest.

If not for the wards sewn into my tarp, I too would have succumbed to Morgana’s plague; my body bloated and scarred with burst pocks and cysts. My soul lost to the void. This is why a wizard must always take ample precautions, dear reader. We are not infallible.

Though I was spared the illness, a terrible fever took me as I dreamt: it began with the nightmare, then my synchronous shadowing of Cain. I twisted and turned, woke briefly for a gulp of water, then I returned to my fitful slumber to find a room painted red with blood, lit solely by the presence of a divine.

Not only would I see through one’s eyes that night, but I would also gaze into them.

* * *

Morgana stood a head and a half taller than Cain, who was a hulk of a man in his own right. He sagged broken to his knees, staring at tremulous hands, dyed crimson.

The Dread Angel was horrible in her beauty: paper-white skin, contrasted by lips and eyes black as night. Her face was carved marble, honed to perfect proportions, her figure full and shapely as befit the Mother of Darkness, the Matron of Night. Mounted upon her back were the wings of a great raven, their span so encompassing that she could shroud a room full of people in her dark embrace.

Her inhuman countenance unreadable, she glowered at Cain, who bent before her, kissing the festering floorboards. He cowered like a dog at her heel, mumbling desperate apologies under his breath in an unending loop.

Morgana smiled, summoning illusory compassion, feigning understanding for the folly of a man’s heart.

As an outside observer, I saw a twisted kind of satisfaction in that grin, words written in my mind’s eye: Yes, you are mine. Remember, you are mine, not hers. Never hers!

“Rise,” decreed the Goddess Corrupted, her harmonious voice dripping with lascivious allure.

Cain rose. He was splattered head to toe with the remains of his love—his true love.

She smacked him across the face with an open palm, a petty gesture in the hands of one that damned an entire populace without raising a finger.

“Forgive me, dear Lady. I have forgotten myself.”

“Yes. You have.”

Cain slowly raised his head to meet her gaze. Even to him, a man who had seen them countless times before, the Dread Angel’s eyes were gravity wells, pulling in everything that dared to draw near.

“You understand, my dear Chosen,” Morgana cooed, “why I demand undying loyalty from you?”

He nodded meekly.

“Because love is finite,” she said anyway. “And I require all you have to give. I have given you my hand. You are mine—and thus, you have nothing else to give.”

“Yes, mistress.”

“Alas,” the goddess sighed, caressing his chin with soft, slender fingers. “It is your nature to stray. To make the same mistakes, time and time again. I have been so very patient with you, my love.”

“Yes. More than I deserve…”

“I cannot forgive so easily this time. You’ve broken my heart with your betrayal.”

Cain took in a ragged breath, barely withholding tears.

“Clearly, this simple appointment is too much for you. You’ve become distracted by the demands of these insects. Worry for them no longer, I will take care of all that. You, my love, must again earn my favor. I have given you love, I have given you ecstasy beyond the dreams of even the most hedonistic of kings. And still, your eye strays…”

Something writhed inside him, possessed him to cry out, “I have given you everything!”

“Not everything!” Thunder crashed; a pall fell over the room. In a discordant meld of masculine and feminine voices, Morgana whispered, “Your heart remains yours.”

“No…”

“Descend the Stair. Unearth it. Present it to me.”

“Please—”

“Bring me your beating heart!” Light returned to the room, her voice gentle again, “Only then will you be restored in my eyes. Only then will I invite you to stand by my side once more.”

“At your side….”

“Where you belong.”

The Dread Angel swept out of the room to carry on her wanton slaughter of the Monrovians, an extension of Cain’s cruel punishment for his adultery, his daring to desire the woman who once held him and understood him like no other, and once wore a ring emblazoned with his house’s sigil now laying in a pile of viscera.

Syr Arthur Cain stumbled into the dark of night, mentally calling for his mount, and together they took to the skies on a fell errand—Morgana’s Chosen set out fully intending to unbury his heart from where it rested in the deepest depths of Pandemonium. His matron—his mistress—owned his soul, and thus his freedom to choose, but as they flew farther from her storms, from her hold, the fog strangling his better judgment began to fade.

Soaring over the Congealed Sea, he heard a derelict vessel splinter to pieces and the piercing scream of a woman calling his name. He looked down, locked eyes with his daughter, dangling from the shaft of a harpoon, impaled in a great serpent, mere seconds from her second death.

But Morgana’s fog clung to his mind, as it had long lingered there like a foul odor setting into a blanket. He shook his head, trying to dislodge the fingers prying at him—always prying and pulling and demanding foul things of him he did not wish to give!

Cain saw the light leave his daughter’s green eyes as he soared past her, watched Kateryna give up and let go of her meager hold on whatever hope had dared to remain. He had seen that same deflation, that same defeat in Anastasia, when he told her the king had ordered him to march against the Kaza’dur.

The haze burned away.

“Not again!” Cain yelled, a battle cry—a promise. “Never again!”

Gritting his teeth, Cain pulled on the reins and commanded Montauk to dive. He leaned forward and low to cut through the misty air. Cain held open his arms, and Kateryna smashed into him, sending Montauk spinning, nearly crashing into the bitter waves.

Once stabilized and safe from the hunger of the serpent, Kateryna opened her eyes. Recognition, then confusion, spread over her face. Clearly, she had expected to wake up to a whole new hell.

“You… you came back,” she croaked before she was overtaken by a fit of hollow coughs.

“Yes,” Cain said, holding her tight, so that she did not fall from the saddle. “I did.”

* * *

In the Vale Betwixt—once a place between worlds meant to ease the soul’s transition into death, now an underworld desiring to hoard their boundless energy—Morgana’s eyes are everywhere. They weep from storm clouds at nearly every minute of nearly every day. They overwhelm those who toil beneath their scrutiny—not that many still do, I can assure you of that, dear reader.

Surely, the Goddess Corrupted witnessed her lover’s final betrayal, which must have burned her in an unknowable way, I hope never to dream of. Had she still been in Monrovia, she might have taken flight to end him, once and for all. But when her many eyes reported his treachery, she had already returned to the comfort of her seat—her rightful place atop the Scarlet Chair.

The ground pulsed like heartbeat, and the Goddess Corrupted decided to let him find his own end, for surely his path could end only in demise. Another pulse; she shivered, pressing her thighs together for an instant, then regained her composure before the ever-plotting heathens in her court noticed her flash of weakness.

Morgana lifted her chin, ever so slightly, so that she looked down on all who appeared before her. Her expression was unreadable. There were more important matters for her to attend to. She would send the others after him.

* * *

I woke, dear reader, to find my hovel flooded.

The town was devoid of life and slowly sinking. Disbelieving all that I had seen, I weaved the sorcery of transposition, and I opened a gate. I fled Pandemonium to lick my wounds and to ponder my aching thoughts.

Do not be fooled. I am a coward, most foul. A wizard who is not, is not a wizard for long. Always trust your instincts, always listen to your intuition. These things keep you alive, and your soul—safe!

III — A conversation, somewhere far away.

Are you remembering now? I hope so, for all our sakes.

Understand, my friend, everything is riding on you. Rest will come, but only after you’ve finished your errand. Now rise, stretch your legs. Time is short, and there’s still much to cover.

Three weeks after your sixteenth name day, Ibrahim was waiting for you in your chambers. He told you the elders were sending you to Valencia, the city of gold. The Golden City was much smaller then, little more than a stout fortress tucked between the three great mountains damming the South Sea and the Black, far from the world power it has become.

You begged him to stay; he didn’t want to send you.

“This is the only way I can ensure you survive,” Ibrahim had said. “Our chapel is not long for this world.”

“I can’t!” you cried. “Dusk teaches love above all… And you would send me to fight?”

Ibrahim showed his teeth, but you knew it was not a grin in truth. Behind that mask, you saw grief consuming him. “Dusk loves her children, my son. This is why she commanded us to send you and the others away. Yes, you will fight. But you will have a chance that the rest of us will not.”

“I’ll stay. I choose to die.” You said, eyes bright with conviction. “I will not leave you.”

The old man backhanded you for that. Your smooth cheek burned where his hard knuckles struck.

“Do not defy me! You are my pupil—more important, you are my son! I claimed you as my own so you could live!” When he saw your tears, he softened. “You are still a boy. You have so much yet to learn… but I cannot teach you. Our time has run out. My poor boy, I am so sorry, manhood must be thrust upon you now, of all times. But you must answer the call with grace. You must trust that the Great Mother will guide you. You must survive to carry our flames into the night.”

Ibrahim clasped you in a warm embrace. It is the first time you’ve felt such warmth from another. Your true father was not an affectionate man, nor was your mother a tender woman—such treats they reserved only for each other, and never extended these gifts to you.

You heave, trembling in Ibrahim’s arms, knowing only too well what it means to see someone for the last time.

You and five others were smuggled away from the chapel in the dead of night. The priests delivered you to a remote dock on a lagoon along a major ocean trade route. An Ionian captain with a thick oiled mustache had his deckhands stuff you all in fish barrels for safekeeping.

The Kaza’dur controlled the northern tip of Skan’basan—the governor of your unnamed colony was among the first to adopt the new regime.

“Don’t you worry!” came the captain’s muffled voice above the lid of your barrel. “I’ll get you lot to the Golden City in one piece—and there you will win glory!”

After a long, sickening voyage, your party was delivered to the captain of the guard in exchange for a silken purse swollen with coin.

In the barracks, you learned most of the Imperial forces were scattered to the wind, lost navigating the sprawling dunes of the unnatural erg that came with the arrival of the Kaza’dur. That land had once hosted a green, lush deciduous forest. Now it was arid, a true sand sea implanted in the northern hemisphere.

Casualties were so high that the Valentine Governor resorted to buying young orphans to helm the walls. The city guard was a mere two hundred strong, most of them seeing no more battle than a street brawl. This scant company, joined by a troupe of displaced youths, was all that lay between the Kaza’duran invaders and the heart of the Empire.

You had but a day to rest, then your training began.

Scouts reported a siege force approaching. They were to arrive in just two weeks. Yet in those two weeks, you discovered something within yourself, a natural affinity for combat that you never possessed with words. You shed your youthful padding; your face slimmed and hardened; your arms swelled from long days hefting spears with lead weights affixed to their heads.

The camaraderie you knew between your fellows who had sailed the South Sea had kept you breathing during unending days and sleepless nights. You traded quill and papyrus for spear and shield. You became a soldier. Dusk’s gentle touch in that hot spring was a fading memory. You craved battle, driven to find honor in the glory of liberating your people.

For six months, the Kaza’dur laid siege over the Golden City. Though the white walls held against the tide, the losses were overwhelming. Two of your companions perished; a boy was run through on the parapet, and a girl withered from starvation.

I will not burden you with the details of the conflict. There was nothing honorable nor glorious in what occurred during those long months. There were memories even I couldn’t uncover, and I can’t blame you for wishing to keep them buried.

However, there is an image of a woman, a healer, you first saw amputating a man’s leg after he was struck by a barbed arrow. She was a beacon, a light in the carnage, her fair skin reflecting the overwhelming sunlight. You marked her as a foreigner by her clear azure eyes, a signature trait among the striders of the Wyse.

Nothing is certain in the heat of battle, but you hoped to see her again—and you did, the next day, after you took a pike in your shoulder. You felt that warm spring water lapping on your skin as she brought you back from the Great Mother’s grasp.

After a series of hard-fought battles and a lot of luck, Valencia’s scant defenders pushed back the invaders, forcing their retreat back into the Endless Sands, as the desert has come to be called.

With so many lying dead, the four of you from Dusk’s chapel across the sea were named and knighted in the Valentine tradition. In the towering, extravagant cathedral dedicated to the Dusk and Dawn, Lord Governor Esteban Vidoq laid the flat of his gilded longsword upon your backs. The knights who rose before him were dubbed Syr Gabriel, Syr Derrida, and Dame Citha.

You rose as Syr Arthur.

The cathedral seemed like it might crumble beneath the thunder of applause, but everything fell silent to your ears as you glimpsed those northern blues watching you from the crowd of faceless onlookers.

After the ceremony, she stood alone on the balcony overlooking the Bell Quarter. People danced in the streets below, singing in myriad languages the praises of their stalwart defenders, who stood tall against mortal odds. The cityscape was breathtaking, a view unlike any other, its people and their candles pulsing like vigorous blood in the veins of a giant of myth—but you didn’t see any of that.

Your heart fell into the pit of your stomach as you imagined her turning to look at you with those eyes you’d thought might remain accessible only in your dreams.

You leaned on the railing next to her.

She pretended not to notice.

You stood in silence for an uncomfortable moment. You were used to being spoken to—or rather, spoken at—and so you had no notion what to say.

“Thank you,” was all you could manage.

It was the first time you’d spoken to anyone in the Golden City without being addressed first. You were a knight now—you had become a man.

She looked up at you, her expression indecipherable. Your heart skipped a beat as she placed a slender, callused hand atop yours. The gesture was so forward, so improper to the delicate sensibilities of the Valentines—and it drove you wild.

“I’m Anastasia,” she said, her voice a sweet harmony, heavily accented. “Names are important to my people. You should know the name of the woman who saved your life.”

“Yes…”

You had no clue what to say next; you were lost in her gaze, which must have seen the world to have arrived there. You imagined a sprawling, frozen landscape, from the northern reaches to the southern edge and the eastern shores.

Who was this woman, you wondered? Was she nymph or muse? No, my friend, she was just a woman—and she was all you wanted from that point hence. You absorbed her features, her long, dark hair flowing to her lower back in thick braids, her subtle curves whispering through her plain clothes, dotted with blood.

Her raised brow pulled you from your reverie. This woman would have you speak—and speak well!

So you spoke: “Arthur.”

Her lips curling upward relieved you of the itching anxiety that you may have misread her.

“That’s what the Valentines named you. I want to know what your mother named you.”

“I relinquished all other names when I devoted myself to Dusk.”

Anastasia snorted. “Ridiculous! The name given to a babe is a sacred thing.”

“Why is that?” You truly wanted to know. You yearned to understand everything about this woman and her foreign land and her foreign traditions. She was a yarn waiting to be unraveled, and you wanted to spend your life uncovering her secrets.

“On the Wyse,” she sighed, taking a breath. Was it a painful memory that appeared behind her mask? “There is no telling if a child will live. When a child survives, they are given a name. It is earned. This marks them as worthy to live a full life.”

“I’ve never thought about it that way.”

“Of course not! You’re from the south. Skan’basan, yes?”

“Yes. My colony fell years ago. My home…” You winced, remembering that warm embrace, now so far away. “Was taken in the invasion.”

She exhaled, closed her eyes, and muttered incomprehensibly under her breath. Was it a prayer? Silence returned, and you both stood looking out at the revelry below, an air of mourning from your shared, unspoken losses.

“Cain,” you said, not wanting a wall between you two ever again.

Anastaisa turned, her brilliant eyes sparkling in the moonlight.

You said it again. The word bites hard on your tongue. It was a sin to utter that name; you had relinquished it before the eyes of the Mother. But then you said it a third time. Suddenly, your greatest fear was disappointing her, and you’d commit every sin there was if it meant pleasing her.

Thankfully, she never asked that of you. Not her.

Never her.

“My name is Cain.”

IV — In the fog of the Screaming Fields

The Vale Betwixt, first layer of Pandemonium

Kateryna shivered by the dwindling campfire. The air was temperate, at least compared to the gales on the sea, but her fever was worsening, and comfort had become an impossibility. Worse yet, her clothes were damp, reeking of waste now that she was on solid ground.

Solid ground.

For the first time since her first death, she was on solid ground. Earth, dirt, sulfur, the whole nine continents, and the seas between! Do any of those things still exist? She wondered if she still resided upon Earth—or was Pandemonium somewhere else altogether? So many questions swam through her mind at once, as if all her thoughts had piled up against Morgana’s wall and spilled over in the moment it crumbled.

Cain sat across her, hunched over his sword as he ground a whetstone across its edge. Dense fog encroached on all sides. A mournful cry resounded in the mist, now and again. Someone in pain. Someone dying. Her eyes fell on Cain’s blade.

It occurred to her then that she had no idea how Pandemonium worked. Scripture painted the Great Beyond and the Underworld as spiritual places, beyond the body. But there Cain was sharpening a sword. She, and everyone, and everything else, was as much flesh and bone as she had ever been. Hunger, thirst, disease, fatigue—it was the same.

No… it was worse.

Kateryna had languished in Monrovia so long that suffering became the norm, beneath her notice; every emotion and sensation, every thought and worry—everything had remained below the surface and never survived long enough to blossom.

The suffering and the toil were the least of it. Above all, Pandemonium isolated its victims, separating them from everything that made them whole.

Kateryna closed her eyes and rubbed her hands in the cool dirt. When she was a girl, the country around the estate was completely wild save for narrow dirt paths and a few wheat farms. She remembered coveting those early mornings when she snuck out from the walls to roll in the red grass and play in the dirt.

She had felt so connected to the world then, she had thought that she felt the Great Mother breathe—giving birth, taking life, starting the cycle anew. There, in Morgana’s demesne, she felt nothing but a subtle, beating pulse. The land was dead, picked clean.

True hell is the place farthest from the gods.

An old scripture. She did not remember which.

Somewhere, a man screamed. There was no way to know how far or how close, but his rasp and subsequently smothered breath sounded all too near for Kateryna’s liking. She imagined Seth somewhere out in the mist—hunted for sport.

The thought made her want to vomit, but she had already lost the entirety of her innards during the flight.

“Where are we?”

Cain looked up briefly from his work, then back down. “We call these parts the Screaming Fields.” He slipped, slicing his finger on the blade. Wiping the blood on his trousers, he rose to sheathe his very sharp sword and to stow the whetstone in a loose saddle bag. “This is where the lost wander until they are devoured.”

“Yes, that much is clear.” Another scream rang out as if to punctuate the statement, a woman this time.

Kateryna shivered, everything about this place unsettled her to the core—as it was designed to do. “But what about the rest of it? Why are we dead but beholden to the needs of the living? How does any of this work?”

Cain looked up, as if searching for the answers behind the clouds. “I don’t know.”

“Since we died, it’s been… years? Decades? All this time licking Morgana’s boot, and you don’t know how this place works?”

Cain shuddered at the utterance of the Dread Angel’s name. His eyes traced a path between the fog and the blackened dirt at his feet. Recognition lit up in his eyes, followed by a spread of realization. “Before now… I’ve never thought about it. I was not allowed to.”

Kateryna fought the urge to scream at him then, if only to avoid luring some terrible demon to devour them. Her throat was a shredded mass of ribbons, so she was unlikely to muster the voice, anyhow. Rage bellowed deep within, calling for reprieve. She was about to say something nasty—it was the least she could do to strike back—but the look in his black eyes gave her pause. His expression was not one of thoughtless ignorance, but of sudden epiphany. Kateryna watched the glaze seep from the whites of his eyes as his gaze settled on her.

He is seeing. Perhaps for the first time, he sees me.

“Yes,” Cain continued, squatting next to her. “We’ve been living in hell… We’re dead, and have been for a long time.”

Kateryna had no clue what to say to that. Instead, she was consumed by a rib-clenching coughing fit as she opened her mouth. She clutched her chest, doubled over, hacking and wheezing. When finally she regained her composure, there was a puddle of black blood, pooled in the shape of a star beneath her.

“You should have let me drown…” she groaned. “At least that way I could have continued on without this damned plague.”

Cain shook his head. “That would have been no better. This place is vast; you'd have been lost, and I’d have to find you too. That, and there’s no telling what terrible form awaited you.”

Kateryna pushed herself back onto her haunches. “You’re…” She almost had no will to say it, to invite the same disappointment with which she had become so intimate in this unnatural life. “You’re going to help me find her?”

Without hesitation, Cain said: “Yes.”

A gust of wind roared in the sky, joined by an avian caw growing louder. Cain’s raven-like monster landed with a thud next to him. It dropped a grotesque, rotting eel at his feet.

Cain smiled, scratched the creature under the chin until it flopped over on its side like a bison-sized house cat. The sight was nothing short of ridiculous; a man, who had until then been a constant antagonist in her life, giving a monster affectionate scratches.

“Kateryna,” he said, waving her over. “This is Montauk. It’s important you two meet properly.”

She reluctantly inched towards them. The monster—Montauk—rolled onto its feet and backed away as she drew near.

“Careful, she’s slow to trust.”

Something I can relate to.

“It’s a she?”

He grinned at her then, to which Kateryna did not know how to respond. “Of course. Also, she doesn't like being called it.”

“What should I do?”

“Hold out your hand.”

An image of her hand severed at the wrist came to mind; Cain, lifeless, staring ambivalent, disinterested daggers into her corpse as she bled in the dirt. It seemed to her a reasonable anxiety, given every prior interaction she had had with the bastard.

Giving up every call to reason, Kateryna held out her hand.

Montauk only stared at first, narrow slit eyes moving between Kateryna’s face and tremulous fingers, but then the griffin drew closer and sniffed her hand. She heard a low rumble as Montauk moved to nudge her shoulder—Gods in hell and up above, she’s purring!

Cain watched silently from a careful distance.

Kateryna looked at him; he nodded his approval. Montauk dipped her massive head between Kateryna’s legs, tossing her into the saddle. Despite herself, Kateryna giggled. It reminded her of childhood—those mornings alone, rolling down hills. Decades ago, maybe more. Another life.

“She likes you,” Cain said.

“Yes!” was all Kateryna could manage as the griffin bucked like a rambunctious hound. She grabbed the saddle horn and felt something smooth. Looking down, there was a drop of fresh blood on it. “I want to get down now… alright, Montauk?”

The beast paid her no heed. Cain raised a fist, and the griffin halted instantaneously. Kateryna climbed down, fell back onto the ground, head spinning.

“She’s a bit overzealous, sometimes,” Cain said, scratching his head.

“It’s not that…” she whispered, suddenly overwhelmed by a blizzard of emotions and pains and searing contradictions. Her heart thudded against her chest, her brain swelling inside her skull. “For so long, I’ve cursed you. Prayed for your second death.”

She looked up at him, surprised to see his black eyes dejected.

“You abandoned us… even though you swore to my mother you would never leave us behind. You swore an oath before the light of the High Noon. Marriage is supposed to be binding, no?”

“Yes. It is.”

An image of a newly carved tombstone came to her then, uninvited. An arch of lavender, unattended. She shook away those painful memories. Not yet.

“How do you expect me to trust you? At every turn, you’ve ignored me—or betrayed me!”

Cain’s head sagged. “That’s exactly what I’ve done.”

Kateryna heaved, seized by another coughing fit. She crumbled to the ground, feeling like she might soon become one with the sulfuric soil. Her blooming migraine spiked, and suddenly she was rattled by chills.

“Kat!”

The world spun round and round, and blackness swallowed her all at once.

Minutes passed—or hours, who could tell?—before Kateryna awoke, Montauk curled around her like a mother lion with her cub. She was wrapped in a knit blanket she had not seen since before her first death. The yarn was stiff and ratty, but the color was still vibrant. Mother knitted this when I was still toddling.

Cain stood vigil beyond the threshold of the camp. His back was to her, his sword drawn.

The incessant screaming in the distance had ceased for the moment, and so too the miasmic nausea that had plagued her since leaving Monrovia. Kateryna settled back into the warmth of the purring griffin. Will you earn my trust, father? She was unsure. So much had changed.

But evil and pain were all that hell could promise….

V — From the collected journals of a mad wizard

When first I returned home, I thought I might be free of those hellish nightmares. Wishful thinking, really; the stench of Pandemonium lingers, and no amount of soap nor baths did anything to remove it from my tainted, mortal flesh.

My heart dripped with worry. I feared for poor Kateryna, and I was captivated by Cain’s betrayal of his beloved matron.

I had arrived in my quarters by way of advanced transposition—not instantaneous, more like a tunnel leading directly to your destination. Such travel is exhausting and time-consuming, especially when folding between layers of reality. I spent the next several hours meticulously weaving wards into every inch of every wall, into every blanket, chair, door, window, anything that held any chance of carrying a curse or plague-ridden bacteria.

When finally I lay my weary head upon my pillow, I crumpled into my mattress like a bag of bones. But there was no rest awaiting me in slumber. No, dear reader, I did not need even to cast an incantation for prophetic dreams of hell to find me. They came on their own, unwelcome and insistent.

I found myself back in Pandemonium, standing in what I intuited as the hall of Morgana’s keep. When I cast my oneiromancy, I can maintain complete control of my perspective, and oft I opt for a bird’s-eye view to avoid detection by my subjects. But since I saw through the eyes of the Goddess Corrupted, I no longer had control of the dreams. I was standing in someone else’s shoes, in a memory, or perhaps experiencing that moment simultaneously.

* * *

Kneeling, I felt the heat radiating from the floor through my poleyns. In Morgana’s court, the walls were naked, built of shimmering, black granite. There were paintings when we first arrived, but she ordered them taken down… I will never know why. Who can understand the machinations of the divine?

She had me kneeling like a dog for a long time, as though testing me. Morgana glared, as if Arthur’s stupidity was somehow reflected in me. I was fucking terrified; I thought she might have my head for the fun of it. I could not even fathom what horror awaited me after a second death.

I had borne witness to much crueler fates than what the poor sods in Monrovia knew. The gods only know what hell they suffer now.

“I want him gutted. I want him burned. I want every trace of his thrice-damned existence reduced to ash!” Morgana raged, her cacophonous voice storming through the hall, shaking the walls. Then, all sound ceased, the quivering walls stilled, and a terrible chill deeper than the Wystran winter limed the hall with black-frosted hate. “Do you understand me, Syr Derrida?”

“Yes, mistress,” I said. My voice was a rasp; I felt like my vocal cords had hemorrhaged. “I will inform the others.”

“Go.”

Morgana sat upon her throne. Lord Sanguine had apparently dubbed it the Scarlet Chair, which never made sense to me—the damned thing was made of tarnished copper, patinated sea-foam green. Veins undulated between the jagged peaks making up the throne’s back. I always wondered if it was somehow alive.

The corner of Morgana’s lip quivered. A flash of discomfort, corrected in an instant.

I had noticed such… slips, occurring with growing frequency, and I found myself mourning my matron’s state. She had once been so pure, beyond the limits of the human condition. Now, like an aging housewife, she was sending us to wreak petty vengeance on a mortal man.

“You are now my Herald, Derrida,” Morgana purred, tilting her chin up ever so slightly, and tilting the rest towards me, ever so slightly. “Do this, and I will reward you graciously…”

Hunger stirred within. I never dared fantasize about having Arthur’s place by her side—that would be blasphemy. But now, the Goddess had called me only by that name which she bestowed upon me, and stoked my desire with her divine will. Or I had done that myself. How does one resist?

“Thank you, mistress.”

She bade me to rise, and so I did, and rushed out from Morgana’s hall, ascending darkened stairwells and traversing sharp corridors with inhuman urgency. My mind swam with the possibilities before me. The world was mine for the taking.

As I drew further into the keep, my loins calmed, and I was left with an unwelcome, intrusive thought. I don’t think I can kill Arthur. I was not nearly so skilled in combat as he—or anyone, for that matter—but moreover, he was my friend. But she is my Goddess, and she offers me her hand, which that fool squandered.

I found myself dumbfounded at his stupidity.

The Goddess loved him, clearly. She would not send us after him if it were not so. He had scorned her, and somehow, he had wounded her. Arthur chose a mortal woman over the Goddess. That part I could not wrap my head around. In life, my wife was a pleasant woman, and she birthed me two sons, but we married for political gain. Our indifference was mutual, and I had not spared her a thought since awakening in Morgana’s service.

And now Morgana might give her love to me. The stirring returned, and I imagined what wonders lingered beneath those perfect dark silks and blackened armor plates. Such a sight would be too much for mortal eyes—I might go blind. A risk I’m willing to take.

In the aerie at the top of the keep, my comrades—now underlings—tended to their mounts. Citha, a lithe Skanu clad in sleek brigandine, fed living trout to her griffin, which took the aspect of a gyrfalcon. I have always been attracted to her exotic features; her thin, corded musculature, her tight braids, smooth umber skin. Alas, the legendary Dame never looked twice at me. Not that I need her affectations—not after Arthur’s through.

Gabriel, a great, bloody ox of a man, groomed his incongruous condor griffin. I had little hope of winning his loyalty, despite our matron naming me Herald. I hoped he would not pose a problem.

My own mount, beautifully crafted by our matron in the aspect of a Kaldean eagle, nudged my shoulder. He sensed my unease. I sighed deeply, shook out my hands in preparation for the reaming I was about to receive from these two.

“Our matron demands blood,” I said, shifting in my stretched and torn boots, now too loose on my feet. “We take to the skies immediately.”

Dame Citha scoffed. “We don’t take orders from you.”

I swallowed. I need to keep my cool. “I have been named Herald. Now, mount up! We must ride.”

“Who died and made you so gods-fucking important?” said Syr Gabriel, towering over me. He bent down and prodded my chest with a finger the size of a sausage. How I loathed Gabriel, the shit-crusted whoreson.

“Arthur is marked for death. We must depart now if we are to catch up with him before he crosses the Goddess’s threshold.”

Citha and Gabriel exchanged worried glances.

“It was only a matter of time before she found out what he was up to.” Citha said.

Gabriel took a step back, gracing me with an inch or two to breathe. “He went home to his wife, eh? Bloody fool.”

I nodded. “You know how our mistress prefers this done—silver through the heart, silver through the brain.”

“Too bad,” Gabriel went on. “He was a good Herald. Better than you’ll be, I reckon.”

You’re not wrong, there, buddy ol’ pal.

Citha patted her griffin on the head, then swept onto her saddle in a single fluid motion. She closed her eyes, muttering some old Skanu prayer that had long since lost its power in the Vale Betwixt.

My mount shifted his weight between his front legs, whining softly until I placed a hand on his forehead. “Hush now, Krakow…” My boy was an empath, always anxious when I was. “Everything will be fine.”

Gabriel and I retrieved our saddles and weapons from the wall and geared up. We sat in silence for a time before taking off. There was a shift in power, and all of us felt it—none of us knew who would survive to benefit from it. I nodded at Gabriel, and he and his grotesque monster bounded through the landing bay into the open sky. I followed, Citha taking up overwatch at the rear. I hoped Gabriel felt my glowering hot on his back.

I will be the one, this time. Me.