Page 22 of Shadowed Summer Sun
I smiled as I left the Hut behind, slinking through the large stand of willows that clustered together just before the Green Lands border. Their branches slithered toward me, smoothing and scratching down my skin. I hissed, halting my steps momentarily to enjoy the feel of them claiming me.
The Darkness that animated them sent Shadows leaking from the black that covered my extremities, and the subtle glow that suffused my pale skin intensified. I felt the vengeance and purpose boiling behind my eclipse-colored eyes and howled into the trees, monstrous and free.
Broaching the claim of the forest, I arrived once more on the old path past the Ironwing Mine. An uneasy quiet hung in the air, not even insects breaking the silence. A cloud followed me as I left the Green Lands, dotting the moonlight with Shadow. The wind whistled past me, carrying the scent of tar and malice from Ironwing.
Chittering screeches echoed inside the tunnel that led deeper into the mine. Instructing Badb to wait outside the cave, I stepped into the Darkness, unafraid, and sought out the Hungries who still lingered there.
I am stronger, and you are not welcome.
The rocky ground dug into my feet as I walked. I paid it no mind. Coiling Darkness that entombed the space, too strong for any light or flame, sought to blind me. I shrugged it off, winding deeper into the man-made cavern as it sank into the Earth’s depths. A foul rotting smell not of this plane bubbled up from the bowels of Ironwing. I followed it down, down, down.
At the bottom of the mine, the abandoned work of the mortals sat preserved in time. Pickaxes and carts were littered around a large basin-like chamber. There was a wall of silver-black at the rear and centered on it was a large crack that split the wall in two. The ax that struck the fateful blow was still lodged in the stone, and its wielder still gripped the handle tightly.
Petrified like wood, the man’s body had turned into a deep gray stone, forever connected to his sharp tool that pierced this unknown barrier between the Mortal Realm and the unnatural land of the Pit. Malice and ravenous hunger seeped out of the crack like radiation, tarnishing everything it came into contact with and infecting the miners with cancerous starvation.
Seemingly random barriers existed between the realms; in certain places, they were thinner than others. Before steel and innovation, the walls had been largely left alone. Still, progress and greed pushed humans to search endless depths for more fuel, more sparklies, more, more, more.
As I circled around the frozen miner, I noted his odd transformation. Not only was he made into the very ore he hunted, but his limbs had also stretched to grotesque proportions, his jaw hanging wide in a permanent scream. Rocky protrusions had grown off him, formed from years of dripping water. His eyes had melted away, but the blackened pits where they once sat showed the terror of his last moment.
I laid a hand on the ax and pulled it free from the crack, eyeing the evil that bled from it. Tossing the thing to the side, I smoothed my palm over the fissure, beginning my sealing. The Hungries clacked behind me, demanding I leave their home before they ate my flesh.
“Go home. Now.” My voice boomed like thunder as I compelled the creatures to return to the empty void waiting for them.
They did not want to obey. The Hungries dove at me, seeking to pin me to the Earth and tear my meat from my bones. As one leaped toward my face, I held up a hand, catching it and gripping its throat. Ripped from the natural cycle, Malignant Darkness animated the Hungry, rotting any mortal flesh it touched. It thrashed in my grasp as I released the Light of the Solstice Sun into its desecrated form.
The Hungry cried out, disintegrating into nothing more than specs of dirt, swept away into the cracked wall. The remaining Hungries were forced back from me, melting into sludge as they dragged their claws across the cave floor. It did nothing to stop their banishment.
With the last of them forced back into the Pit, I finished sealing the crack. I looked again at the man who’d unknowingly opened the way for them. His soul festered inside the stone and would draw more into the mine, encouraging them to pick up his ax and reopen the wound.
Sunlight blazed through my chest as I cast my radiant eye on him. The force trapping his soul glared back from the shiny gray prison. It sunk its claws deeper, greedy for its prize. I allowed the Radiance to swell within me, reaching out and pulling the Darkness from the miner’s petrified form.
Straining against the Spirit of the Hungry, I channeled the well of power within me, expelling his tormented soul and sending it on the next part of its journey. Breath heaved in my lungs as the stone man crumbled to dust onto the rough Earth of the mineshaft. Still, a seed of evil lingered within the tunnels of Ironwing.
Returning to the mouth of the mine, I snaked a vine from my coverings into a small linchpin point in the ceiling at the mine’s opening. I took a single stone from the roof, tugging it free with some effort, and turned from the cursed place.
It collapsed behind me in a whoosh of falling rocks.
Chapter Nine
Souls Must Return To The Cycle. To Interfere With Their Journey Is A Violation.
MakingtoleaveIronwingfar behind, I remembered the goat husk that had stopped me previously and told Badb to stay back as I dealt with it. I searched in the Darkness for the blackened creature, dead and desecrated. It still lay in the middle of the road, untouched by man or beast.
Kneeling before it, I stretched my hand over the husk, vines from around me crawled up my arm and dangled from my claws. In my previous interactions, I would have sought the suitable component from my pack, drawing on the innate magic of all things to aid me in my task. Now, as I focused on reaching into the husk to find what remained of the goat’s soul, I had no pack to draw from.
That’s when I noticed the blooms of horehound and lavender spring from between the vines entwined with my fingers. Quirking an eyebrow, I thought again of the proper herb for the occasion. Within a moment, angelica and basil sprang from the vines. I plucked them all, and they dried into a suitable powder in my hand. Sprinkling it over the husk, I pulled the Shadow from my veins forward.
The image of the King’s Servant came into my mind, the headless wolf beckoning the souls of the dead onward.
“Come home. This is not the place for you.” My voice was nightfall and moonrise, an echoing proclamation reverberating through the wide valley.
And then I felt it—The Taking coiled within the mummified body.
It clutched at the essence of the dead animal, both its physical form and the spirit that once occupied it. Swirling, otherworldly tentacles of malice circled invisibly around the corpse. It was a defiling malignance that wanted, selfishly and endlessly. Bits of creation existed in all living things, and this Taking coveted that power above all else.
It fought my Darkness, my Shadow, with its own, but the destruction slithering through it was beyond the World of Below. It was worse, wrong, and unnatural. A vengeful hatred festered in the Taking’s essence, drawn out by a like force. It had been called here to wreak this havoc. It had beensummoned.
“A witch did this.” Badb crowed as I fought against the Taking’s hold, arm shaking with effort.
