An Unholy Child

[Quincunx]

Blitz One Banquet Hall, summer 1999

[Quincunx]

The trade was arranged. The shepherdess Theodora and her new husband packed their belongings on the sheeps' backs and prepared to travel to the distant kingdom. Maralinda watched her sister, sniffing occasionally. Minta's time in the mage guilds had stunted her growth so that she appeared only half as old as she was. Now here was her five-years-younger sister getting married, and she hadn't even outgrown her baby fat yet. She rubbed chubby fists into her moist indigo eyes and borrowed the wool of a nearby sheep for a tissue.

 

Theodora caught the head of a protesting ram under her arm and held the beast still as she told Minta, "Don't worry. I'm not going far. Also, our new village is sending a girl to you just about my age. She'll be like another sister to you."

 

"I don't want another sister. You're my Dora."

 

Theodora's husband carefully seated himself upon the ram. Dora freed its head, and the beast held its horns high. He tied reins to the horns, then jumped down. They caught and reined another ram as Dora again told Minta, "Don't worry, don't cry. Be nice to the new girl."

 

Seating herself upon the first ram, Theodora whistled to the herd. Her dark violet hair, streaming loose, bobbed above the milling sheep. She nudged her ram towards the boundaries of the realm, her husband guiding the sheep from the rear. Minta sat upon a fence, watching them go, unnoticed tears smudging her dirty cheeks.

 

She sat for hours, ignoring her mother calling her in to supper, ignoring nightfall, ignoring the houses bolted tight. A low shuffling finally drew her out of her reverie. Along the same road which Theodora had traveled, many feet thumped in the dust. Hoping to see the herd and her sister returning, Minta hopped down from the fence and ran along the road a little way.

 

The retinue shambled into view. A dozen ghouls formed the perimeter, glowing eyes illuminating the darkness around them, venomed claws held in the gesture of a rearing horse, flaccid skin pooling around their ankles and turning their lower lips into oblongs that hung upon their chests. Within their protection, a great mass of rotting flesh shambled and swayed down the road, with two or three feet hitting the ground every second. A flash of yellow showed in the center of the decay.

 

Maralinda was rooted to the spot with fear. Barely daring to breathe, she strained to discern the details of the central being. As the ghouls parted, the spiderlike construction skittered into the town, weaving sideways like a crab. In the torchlight from the tavern, Minta lost count of the many zombie limbs which supported the center, of the many bare bones which had ripped free during the journey. The flesh in the center had been shaped into a crude dais, and upon this sat the girl in yellow.

 

To Be Continued. . .

[Quincunx]

Minta's paralysis broke when the zombie carriage peeled itself away from its occupant. She backed hastily away as the girl in yellow numbered each disintegrating rib. Her indigo eyes stretched wider as she backed into the wall of her family's cottage. The girl in yellow ripped the last strands of flesh from around her waist, counting, ". . .twenty-three, twenty-four, twenty-FIVE!" She stepped down from the platform, head high, eyes unfocused. With each step, innumerable silver bells tinkled on her wrists and ankles.

 

Thump tinkletinkletinkle, thump tinkletinkletinkle. . .

 

Half of the ghouls surrounded the collapsing carriage, raspy tongues snaking out of their mouths; the other half formed a semicircle around Minta and the girl in yellow.

 

Thump tinkletinkletinkle, thump tinkletinkletinkle. . .

 

The girl halted in front of Maralinda, pointed at the pile of zombified flesh, and commanded, "Tell me. Tell what that is as this what I am doing is."

 

"Tell her what that is called," a ghoul clarified, slobbering venom.

 

Minta's teeth chattered. She gasped and managed to stammer, "Z-z-zzzzom-b-b-ies!"

 

"Z-o-m-b-ee-s," the girl repeated slowly, pronouncing each sound separately. "This is as I am doing now. . . .It is not here now. It was eaten. Eat."

 

The ghouls ate. Minta hid her eyes in her hands, but could not shut out the rips and rasps of the feast. The girl in yellow watched impassively, taking a small abacus and shuffling the beads about. As the heap of flesh disappeared, the girl removed a pouch from her belt and opened it to reveal many wooden disks; the ghouls left the village as she laid eight disks in a row in the dirt, consulting the abacus.

 

"You," she told Maralinda, "come here. I do not know what this is that I do. . . .Help me."

 

Minta peeked between her fingers. Finding the undead gone, she looked at the row of coins. Each one was marked with a number: eighteen, fifteen, nineteen, five, thirteen, one, eighteen, twenty-five. The girl in yellow turned them over to reveal "ROSEMARY".

 

"Rosemary," read Minta.

 

"That is as I am."

 

"Your name?"

 

Rosemary sighed and answered, "It is as I am; those (pointing to each letter in turn) are what I have, but I do not have what you say. I say, but I do not have. Understand?"

 

"No," groused Minta.

 

To Be Continued. . .

[Quincunx]

Rosemary collected the disks and replaced them in her pouch, wrist bells tinkling. She stood up and looked at the sky, then at the setting moon. "It is dark," she observed, "but that like this (pulling out a silver mirror) there (pointing at the sky) is going. This is as that is."

 

Finally Minta understood. "Yeah, it's nighttime. . .Uh-oh!" she said, looking at the moon and yawning. "I stayed up way too late! Mom's really going to be angry! How come you're not tired?"

 

"I am as dark is, not as bright is. I am pale. Pale is bright in the dark, but pale is not as bright is. You are bright. Bright in bright, bright in dark. You see bright and don't hurt." Rosemary smiled sadly, exposing the overlong canine teeth set in her upper jaw.

 

The mage guilds had trained religion out of Maralinda, but she jumped anyway. "You're a vampire!" she gasped. "Don't hurt me! Go away!"

 

"I don't hurt," explained Rosemary, suddenly taking Minta's arm and gesturing wildly with her free hand. "Those that hurt, those like I am doing, those. . .those. . ."

 

Minta blurted "Words!" while trying to free herself from Rosemary's powerful grip.

 

"Those. Those that hurt have been eaten. They are not mine. I am not theirs. They are dark, and I am not dark. Pale is not as dark is," Rosemary emphasized. "They who are as pale is, are as dark is; they who are of mine are not."

 

Minta took a deep breath, then sighed forcefully. "Okay. Okay. You're not dark, whatever that is. I don't think you want to remember. Okay," she repeated, as Rosemary released her arm and sniffed her way over to the sheepfold. She sat on the fence again and wrinkled up her brow in thought. "So we have to find you someplace to sleep during the day. . .and we better ask whatshername, the mage who rules here, what to do--"

 

She broke off abruptly and stared at the sleeping sheep. Four now had slight bloody wounds on their ears, and Rosemary was calming a fifth. It looked even more confused than usual as she nipped its earlobe and licked off the welling blood. "They walk. They are as they were," she told Minta, slapping the rump of one of the wounded sheep. Aside from its puzzled expression, it moved normally.

 

Minta got off the fence and began walking towards the cottage, but Rosemary halted her. "Don't tell them, they aren't pale," she cried. "One hundred moons, and bright can't think as pale thinks." She looked toward the roofed section of the sheepfold, where the lambs were kept. Minta nodded, and Rosemary climbed up the poles and nestled in the thatch.

 

"Tomorrow night," Minta told her, "I'll get the mage to do something, okay?" She turned her back and went back to her own bed. In sleep, she dreamed of capricious mage rulers, voracious wild beasts, corrupted undead, and the young vampire who walked fearlessly among all of them.

 

To Be Continued. . .

[Quincunx]

The next night, Rydia rode the circuit of the realm one last time, making sure that the dryads' Double Time still held. They giggled maniacally, the spell driving them to hyperactivity. Yet it would be needed to secure the borders while the Field was in effect. She spurred her pegasus, which rose and deposited her in the center of her realm.

 

Never before had she tried to envelop the entire realm in a single spell outside her specialty. Rydia wanted to make sure, however, that her mentor should find the place as homelike as possible. If that meant slowing down the entire realm for a night, so be it. She twitched her whip at the twelve points of the clock-face, and the Temporal Statis Field settled upon the lands. Feet lifted slowly, words blurred, blinks took an eternity; only the dryads were keyed to the time the rest of Terra still used.

 

The young girl who had been dashing into Rydia's court could not handle the change of pace; she stumbled and slowly tumbled to the floor nose-first. Rydia's earrings rose and fell like waves as she turned her head to address the distraction.

 

"Ryyydddiiaaa," said Minta, then stopped and assessed her lengthened words with surprise. She thought for a few seconds, brightened, and blurted out the rest of her speech. It came at normal talking speed.

 

"There's a weird new girl here. She came when Dora moved away, and now I don't know what to tell her. Can you help us?"

 

"No," snapped Rydia, "I don't have the time! My mentor is coming here tonight and I have enough to handle. Now hurry! You're supposed to be at the welcoming ceremony."

 

"But--" Minta began, but the archangel Cecil hustled her out and into a squadron of cheering peasants. She wriggled her way free of the crowd and ran back to the sheepfold. Rosemary had already awakened; three sheep had mangled ears. She finished off the fourth and explained, "I am not as I was, so I will be where bright is and not be pale as pale is."

 

"You are not. . .what were you before?" decoded Minta. "Hungry, I guess? Doesn't matter. Rydia agreed to show us," she lied, "to another mage who knows a lot."

 

They had much more difficulty getting through the crowd than before. From the harbor towns of Terra came a large white cocoon on a wagon. It filed past the peasants, who gaped at it while Minta and Rosemary joined the honor guard of young amazons. Rydia stepped forward to greet the procession, then looked with puzzlement at the cocoon. She rapped on it with the butt of her whip, but nothing responded. She tried casting Holy Light on it, but the spell rebounded and burned the nearby knights of Squadron S-A.

 

Rosemary took out her mirror and held it high above her head. Turning it this way and that, she caught the moonlight and reflected it onto the cocoon. She held the light steady as the white substance disintegrated, and the powdery form within stretched and awakened.

 

To Be Continued. . .

[Quincunx]

The body in the cart brushed the white powder from most of herself, then rose slowly to her feet. She had left powder enough to conceal her nakedness, but not by much. Her only adornment was a long strip of fabric knotted around her head. From the ends of this strip she untied a transparent flask and a scroll, reading the one and presenting the other to the goggle-eyed Rydia.

 

"Tzimfemme!" Rydia gasped, diverting her concentration from the Statis Field, "what happened to you--what happened to your clothes?!"

 

Tzimfemme ignored the question, tilting her head towards her former apprentice. She stepped down from the vehicle and began walking slowly along the street, pausing to chat with peasants, knights, and research mages. Knight Squadrons S-A, S-L, I-C, and Z-D, all male, simply gawped at her, so she moved on to speak to the female squadrons. The amazons, young girls of Squadron S-T, nodded and chirped answers to her questions.

 

"Yes, yes, here, she's here, she had it, in here, mirror in here, she's mirrored, she is!" they said severally, pushing Rosemary forward. Minta bullied her way through the amazons and caught up with Rosemary as Tzimfemme questioned her.

 

"Now, then," Tzimfemme began, "how did you know that moonlight would break through the cocoon?"

 

Rydia shrieked, "You! Purple-haired one! I told you to stay away!" She ran up to Minta and seized her by the arm. "I really don't have time for this!"

 

As she mentioned 'time', the Temporal Statis Field wavered. Minta's dodge occurred doubly quickly, and she broke free.

 

"I am as the moon is, as you are--pale," explained Rosemary, tracing around Tzimfemme's head with both hands.

 

Rydia gritted her teeth and set the Statis Field back in place, then slowly advanced on Minta, who stared her down with chubby hands firmly placed on her hips.

 

Tzimfemme inquired, "Auras? Archmages can't see auras. Sometimes I almost can. . ."

 

Minta stepped slowly backwards, bumping into Rosemary, as Rydia advanced. Rydia looked at the cornered girl and said, "You are far, far too stubborn for your own good."

 

"Much like yourself, when you were mortal," Tzimfemme interjected. She turned her attention to Minta. "Persistence pays off, especially in an archmage. Tell me what was so important that you would disrupt this entire ceremony."

 

"I wanted to know if you knew anything about her," replied Minta, pointing at Rosemary.

 

Rosemary tried hard to melt into the crowd, but Tzimfemme watched her too persistently. "Of course I do," said Tzimfemme, "she and I are of similar stock. Mind you, I was an archmage before I became a night creature. She can't ever be an archmage now, although she would be a good assistant.

 

"Now this girl here, this wild talent, could be. In fact, I think she should be. Take her on as an apprentice, Rydia, and you shall graduate from having that title. As as for you. . ."

 

"Minta," supplied Minta.

 

"Minta, you are now the apprentice of the archmage Rydia. I want you to take this girl Rosemary as your assistant; her innate kindness will balance your aggressiveness. I must add, though, that she will only be able to help you with one sort of magic."

 

Rydia denied, "There's no way that I can train her to be a nether mage! I don't even know the spells myself!"

 

Rosemary cut into Rydia's protests.

 

"Dark is as we are, as we are as they. This is dark, this is dark, this is dark (pointing at everything in turn). You want to be dark as dark is, or dark so dark will not be?" She took out her wooden disks and rearranged them as the others watched, spelling out "BRIGHT" one one side and "DARK" on the other. Taking Minta's hands in her own, she placed one between the words and the other near "DARK", adding, "Contain it."

 

Minta clapped her hands together, distorting the row and destroying the word.

 

The End