.....It was the smell that woke me. At first I thought Hiram must not have showered before climbing into bed (he’s the day shift supervisor at the lumber mill, and the raw shadewood they work with has such a horrible smell). But then I took a good, hard sniff: this was the stench of spoiled meat. And not just the ordinary stuff; no, this is the kind I imagine would’ve been left out in the sun for a week or so, a community chamber pot for any number of woodland creatures or slime clusters to
on.
.....
Green Mother save us. Unfortunately, the Divine Dryad doesn’t exactly have a great track record when it comes to intervention. Probably because there’s no such things as gods and goddesses. (A bad habit of mine, asking for help from non-existent beings. A childhood steeped in New Dryadism is incredibly hard to overcome.) I got up on my elbows, closed my eyes, listened.
.....There: guttural moans; incomprehensible babbling; the click-clack of chattering teeth.
.....Zombies. They never know when to shut up, but I suppose that’s on account of all their head trauma. Still, being dead, I expected better.
.....I reached up to twitch the heavy curtain aside—
.....—and went still when dark red light flooded the room.
.....It was an awkward angle, lying on my back looking up, but I could see the blood moon. Immense, crimson, unmistakeable. I lay there, frozen, an ache building in my arm, and only lowered it when the screams began.
* * *
.....Hold on a moment. It’s reached my belly. Tricky, pretending what’s happening to me actually isn’t. I won’t be able to keep up the make-believe much longer.
.....But yes, terror; I should know all about it, having a Master’s degree on the topic. Well, the degree is for Pre-Terran Literature, but with strong horror themes. I write in the
dungeoni style: gloom and doom, moody symbolism, tragic outcomes. Five years at the Royal University covering Imperial History and Terran Classics, with a mandatory three month stint in the army against the “goblin threat” (reduced from the usual six because I was a student, and also because I wore a low cut top to emphasize my chest when the recruiter came by). Then another four years of graduate studies with the brilliant wizard Meryln Seonag. Brilliant mostly because he’s insane but hides it so well from the rest of the faculty.
.....None of that did me any good in the end. Most I got out of it was a private dinner with the King and his Small Council during a Frost Moon festival. A reward for a new novel of mine (
Cursed Flames; pure rubbish, but I kept that to myself); that, and I received a small gold trophy.
.....Fake, of course. There was just about enough worthwhile metal in the twisted lump that I could pawn it off for some clipped silver coins. I left the capital after that, ended up in the dull town of Coprianik, where I met Hiram and fell in love (and maybe fell a bit out of love) and I haven’t left since. Maybe if—
.....
Oh. The pain. I need to rest for a bit.
* * *
.....Dampness. I touched my pants. Smelled my fingers. I’d gone and pissed myself. Fear would do that.
.....“Hiram,” I said numbly.
.....He muttered something and pulled the blanket over his head.
.....I let go of the curtain’s hem, plunging the room into gloom. Then I reached for the bedside stand, fumbled at the lantern’s catch, slid the little copper shield to the right and turned the knob for more oil. Weak, yellow light spilled everywhere. I blinked slowly at the flame.
.....Again I said his name. After a couple more tries I lost my patience and shook him awake, hard.
.....“What is your problem?” he groaned; but then another agonized scream split the air, and his expression changed. He knew.
.....I slid out of bed, padded barefoot to the dresser. There was a drawstring bag on top; I began to fill it with clothes, then dumped everything out again and just stood there. Head bowed. Breathing ragged. I had to think.
.....I heard him get up. He walked past me out of the room. I was alone except for my shadow on the wall, flickering in the lantern light. I watched the edges of the dark stain tremble.
.....Into the next room, after him. He was by the chest, his back to me. When he turned round I saw him slip on a regeneration band.
.....I frowned. “Where’d you get that?”
.....He ignored me, instead reaching into the chest and pulling out two pairs of boots. I took the ones he offered me. Dyed green, yellow trim, with designs stitched at the heels (I took a closer look, and sighed). He put on his pair. Stamped his feet experimentally.
.....“Here’s the plan,” he said briskly. “We can outrun the undead using these Hermes boots. I was thinking maybe we could head to the woods, lose them in there—”
.....“That’s where they’re coming from.”
.....“Oh. Right.” A quartet of shrieks rose to an orchestra of agony. We waited for the noise to die off, but it didn’t. The town would be overrun soon. “That one sounds like Bailey,” he said thoughtfully.
.....Oddly enough, the howling did sound like the party girl. (Oily hair dyed pink, eyes perpetually glassy, the smell of raspberry beer like a cheap perfume around her; then again, I thought, it was hard enough living in this town sober, so on balance you really couldn’t blame her for trying to escape reality through bottles and bad music.) We listened to her going on.
.....“Quite the pair of lungs.” Hiram’s smile was skewed, his forehead shone with sweat.
.....I looked at him. “We might be able to run off,” I said eventually, “but the boots won’t be much help.”
.....“But they’re Hermes boots.”
.....“Fakes, actually.”
.....His eyes grew wide. “
What?”
.....“Here.” I showed him the stitched design on my pair. “Should be wings. This looks more like” —I squinted, tilted my head— “looks more like a seal throwing up.”
.....“You’ve never seen a damned seal before,” he said accusingly.
.....“I’ve read books.” I looked at the regeneration ring.
.....His shoulders sagged. “You don’t think…?”
.....I walked over and lifted his hand to inspect it. Then I lowered my head and bit into it.
.....“Cherry candy,” I announced, sucking on the shards. He looked like he was having a headache, but in every part of his body. “How much did you pay for these?” I asked.
.....He told me; at which point I let go of his hand and took a step back. Hiram is an attractive man in his own way, but there are times when he can be so monumentally
stupid. I resisted the urge to pinch his cheeks until they bled.
.....“So much for our life’s savings,” I said, my voice tight.
.....He opened his mouth, as if to offer defense against the damning evidence of his gullibility; there wasn’t one, though, so he just stood there like a gasping fish.
.....Speaking of which: breathing was a chore, now that we could hear them up against the house. The whisper of running feet; then the crash of a large body hitting the door.
.....Cracks in the wood. The door slowly bulged towards us from the weight pushing on the other side.
.....“Green Mother,” Hiram breathed, walking backward. “This isn’t happening.”
.....Another body slammed into the door. The frame shook, the cracks skittering outward like spider legs.
.....I turned away. So: obscenely expensive boots, a broken candy ring, the cheap house that would fold like paper shortly, neither of us fast enough to outrun them, or strong enough, no weapons, nothing to fight them off—
.....I frowned. Walked round Hiram to our bookshelf. Saw the cracked purple spine.
.....There’s a saying: desperate times, desperate measures.
.....Even so; I stared at the book, hesitating.
* * *
.....During my final year of graduate studies at the university I wrote a book.
.....Standard
dungeoni stuff: the idealistic adventurer enters the blue-brick dungeon to retrieve a weapon that will save the kingdom, except the monsters waiting in the depths find him and torture him and make whips out of his vocal cords and intestines. It’s the same book that got me a dinner with the king, along with that cheap trophy.
Cursed Flames.
.....A rubbish narrative, as I’ve mentioned; but the book as a whole was another thing entirely.
.....“Belletristic-thaumaturgy,” explained Merlyn. “The art of fusing literature with sorcery.” The wizard took out a small indigo book from within the forest of his robes. It fit snug in the palm of his hand (of which there was only an index finger and thumb).
.....We were in the south tower of the Language Quadrangle. It was raining lightly, I remember that. Sky scabbed over. Water like blood seeping through. Out west charcoal grey clouds were smudged black. Highlights of white lightning— but no thunder, no sound.
.....He led me to the window, where we stood to either side of the open shutters, looking out. No words, just silence. I stuck an arm out, enjoying the cool patter of rain. There were people down below, running across the courtyard. Some had taken shelter under the massive statues of various paragons: Virtue’s wide brim hat offered a circle of reprieve, whereas Justice with her raised shield just about kept you safe, so long as you stood directly beneath and sucked in your belly.
.....I was afraid to look at Merlyn directly. You could see the insanity in his eyes if you got up close. Alone, like this, he didn’t bother to hide it.
.....Peripheral movement: he prised the book apart, rifled through the pages, chose one and spat on it. Then he closed it. Spoke softly.
.....A spell. I lowered my arm, dried it quickly against my shirt, then shifted several degrees to watch him more closely.
.....“What’s this?” I asked.
.....Merlyn laughed. Then he stuck the book out the window and levelled it at the sky.
.....Crystal shards of light blasted from the book. They raced through the air, scatter-shot. A swarm of fireflies, leaving lilac ghost trails.
.....
.....Pretty; but what happened next is what matters.
.....Hard to concentrate, though, when there are nails scratching at my belly.
* * *
.....Survival; it’s an undeniable imperative, it trumps logic and lies.
.....I snatched up
Cursed Flames, repeated Merlyn’s actions from so long ago.
.....Hiram was shouting. They’d broken through. The stench was everywhere, cloying, choking. I looked over my shoulder, saw one of the creatures shove through the press of bodies, a dead man, its skin grey with the grave and parasites falling off in clumps as it staggered forward, at first unsteady, then running down the hallway, shadows for eyes, a shriek in its lungs, catching my husband before he could get away, weighing him down to the ground and sinking teeth into his soft throat.
.....The dead man jerked his head aside, tearing away a chunk of flesh.
.....Blood spurted from Hiram’s throat. He clapped a hand to the wound, trying to stop the bleeding; so the dead man lowered his head and took the fingers in his mouth and chewed through them at the knuckle.
.....Warmth. I looked back at my hands and saw that the book was covered in green flames. It didn’t hurt much, but the pain would come soon enough. Already the enchanted fire had bathed my wrists, was climbing up my forearms. All that mattered was that I survive.
.....I turned round to face Hiram, who was still moving, and the dead man pulling apart his jaw, and the undead staggering closer.
.....Screaming, I thrust the burning book at them all.
* * *
.....So had Merlyn. He adjusted his aim. Lowered the book.
.....Another muttered phrase; then the crystal shards rained death upon the courtyard.
.....The statues of paragons exploded under his assault. The students who’d taken shelter were disintegrated where violet violence struck them.
.....I saw a couple attempt to run. Seconds later they were skeletons. Shortly after that they did not exist.
.....“Belletristic-thaumaturgy,” the madman said calmly, putting the small book back into his robes. “The art of fusing literature with sorcery. The business of making weapons of words.”
.....He informed me that for my final project under his tutelage I would produce a similar piece.
.....He told me that should I refuse I would not even make it to the door, let alone out of the tower.
.....“Look at me,” he instructed.
.....I did. And in his face I saw not just madness but rage. It twisted his lips and etched deep lines across his skin. Hatred so deep, so pure; he fed off it the way a vampire would, and it gave him strength. Terrifying strength, and terrifying purpose.
* * *
.....My purpose, my book, my weapon: it consumed everything alive in the hallway. Shadows burnt away along with painted wood. I threw the book down, beat at the flames on my arm.
.....But these creatures had been long dead. What drove them now was the power of the blood moon.
.....This is what it means to know fear.
.....A dead woman strode through the jade curtain of fire. Her movements were slow, dreamlike; her cheeks had rotted away to reveal yellowed teeth. I could see at the back of her throat more flames, radiating outward— but she did not seem to feel suffering.
.....More of them came forward. They stood beside her, waiting. Each one an inhuman candle. Their light had caged me.
.....“Damn you all,” I said quietly, before diving for my book.
* * *
.....
Cursed Flames, indeed.
.....He called his book of death
Crystal Storm. Neither faculty nor police caught him, or even suspected him, since his killing spell left no trace of its method.
.....Merlyn yoked my will to his with chains of sorcery. Guided me in creating
Cursed Flames. Thirteen years; that’s how long I’ve been made to keep his secret.
.....I thought remembering what happened that day in the tower would distract me from the present somehow, but it’s pointless: they got me before I could reach the book, bore down on me with the weight of mountains.
.....One of them has managed to open my belly. Another’s stuck a hand in, up to the elbow. The sense of violation is breathtaking. I can
feel the fingers tearing me apart. Soon teeth close around my throat, and when they pull away there is only agony.
.....And everywhere I look, the world burns in emerald flames.
