Ena, ‘The Mad’

Third Sibyl of the Coven

Wake the Witch

The old estate, a three stories high structure, crumbled on its footprint blowing debris, cemented large pieces of stone bricks the size of boulders and burning redwood beams that raped the Imperial Bank building across the street.

And set it alight.

The ground shook violently, cracks appearing on the red tiled street and dark soil spilled out. So many spells had been fired all at once, the air had vaporized, the vapors turned to ash and everything with a heartbeat had gone silent. The sound coming back periodically, amidst the subsequent explosions and the roaring blasts of the Flaying Wind.

The Blue Sorceress made a circle with her staff, blue onyx crystal glowing like the sun and stepped through it. She appeared on the rooftop of the crumpling estate building, just as the massive Wyvern’s horned head peeked out of the corner. A red eye glowing, the other hollowed out and leaking down its elongated black scaly snout.

Nororis raised her staff high and the sun dimmed, the electrical discharge so powerful Ena’s mouth locked up and she felt the muscles in her right arm tearing, the tendons snapping, when she hurled the burning five meter long beam towards the injured Black Onyx Wyvern. She dropped on her knees, shoulder banging on a meter high sharp stone block the bone shattering, her own covered in bloodstones staff clattering down amidst the debris next to her legs.

The burning beam found the cracked, steam covered patch of scales the lighting had just struck and sunk two meters deep with a crackling sound. Black-red blood poured out of the cavernous wound at the Wyvern’s sides, Nororis snapped a wild blue head her way, eyes turned to the white, as she had just foreseen her death and out of the half-collapsed rooftop came a polished black spear-sized stinger, sharp as blade. It caught the sorceress between the legs and sliced her in two, the bloody head remaining stuck on the stinger’s gore covered tip.

Ena screamed an otherworldly soul scarring sound, dislocating her jaw and the Wyvern’s gnarly mouth that had turned her way vomited a fiery orb of lava that rolled down Sibara’s main street and liquefied anything it touched for three longs seconds.

One… shall give you voice, but he’ll be human, Szilhali told Nym accepting her offerings in the Circle.

Sssh, said Qerrali her sister, hard feet clattering on the tomb’s tiles. I’ll protect you!

Sleep now sweet kinfolk.

Two… queens he’ll crown. The First Sibyl had warned, but the king kept it hidden and took a male lover to prevent it. One he’ll cover in gold, the other in ice and those who learn the thief’s secrets he’ll turn to stone.

Agh, Agh… Agh, a gutted Rinariel wept in her agonizing final moments, broken bones poking out her bloody chest and the lava swallowing her thrashing burning legs. Same words as the half fossilized Ena’s answer to her hysterical mother days later.

Three… foes he’ll vanquish. From three continents. Most cities he’ll visit will burn. Only the good king’s death will give him pause, if his line isn’t severed.

I’m not going to Cazan, Galadriel, the Second Sibyl whispered in the memory, hand touching her cocoon. I’ll perish there by blade, fire, or water. Someone must stop him, or he’ll eat the Realm.

Noooo! The distressed Arachne screamed in her dreams, the world crumbling and cracks appearing in the darkness. Leave her! Leave her alone!

Bad souls. Away with you, the creature screeched.

She’s mine.

“Is that?” A male voice said sounding spooked.

“Cut the webs quick,” ordered another gruffly. “Watch the fucking shadows!”

“Something is in here,” a female voice warned them. “I can feel its eyes watching us.”

Ena felt air pouring into her dry lungs. The heart fluttering, its tempo erratic and very loud.

Boom.

Boom-Boom.

She’d spider webs in her mouth. Down her throat. Her skin felt like porcelain, where the flesh was missing. Slick like almost dried up resin. A torch burned over her eyes, the colors red and brown. Black with shades of orange.

“Just get her out of the sarcophagus! Cut the darn roots away, I don’t care!” the first man ordered, a hint of panic in his voice. “You! Watch the bloody entrance. Are you deaf?”

Hmm.

Get away, the Arachne told her anxiously. I’ll hold them off.

“Nelon! What the fuck is wrong with him?”

“Watch out!” the female yelled and then came the sounds of fighting.

Ena opened her eyes.

She stared at the initially dark, but quickly revealing its beautiful frescos ceiling where the webs had been disturbed and then tried to lift herself out of the ashen-grey granite large sarcophagus. Old resin breaking as she moved, thick webs packing the interior and healing stones scattered under her body.

Spent.

It takes eons to drain them, she thought and clasped the edge of the sarcophagus with a dark-orange hand. The skin color strange, its feel keratinous and completely translucent, her finger bones visible underneath.

Fake skin, spell-forged to keep her soul trapped in her frail body. Ah, Edlenn, she thought recognizing the High Priestess work. Why waste your time?

Why won’t you listen?

You can’t save everyone.

What has you spooked so?

A crack and she detached herself from the bottom. Her emaciated body feeling light. Decaying garbs dropping as she jumped outside the wagon sized sarcophagus. Knees creaking, her breath rasping as it came out of dried up lungs. The smell of blood reaching her nostrils.

Ena stepped into a pool of it and dipped a long thin finger in. She brought it to her mouth and opened her jaws slowly, muscles stiff and hardened. Parts of her jaw not made out of flesh at all.

Mmm.

“Is he dead? Fuck!” a soldier said breathing heavy.

Ena turned her eyes on the female Ranger and she immediately twisted around sensing the witch’s intense stare. Her face scarred, a hand burned and badly healed. Because no healing can bring back what isn’t there.

He-he.

“Faelar’s acolyte?” She asked her, the voice coming out croaky and the taste of blood in her throat rejuvenating. The ranger recoiled, her hand dropping to her shiny axe.

The guard gasped scared seeing her, the scarred officer grunting next to him, bloody sword in hand and the lord of her dream frowned. He gulped down nervously, but didn’t lower his own blade.

“Hallowed Third Sibyl,” Rothomir started in pretentious Court Imperial, but Ena sent an invisible essence thread to loop around his throat and cut off his breathing, along with his haughty words. The male Zilan stumbled back dropping his blade, both hands clasped on his neck and the Ranger went for her peleg with a well-trained ‘quickstep’ to snap the thread looping at her feet.

She’s dangerous, the sorceress thought.

Which means she’s useful.

“Stay,” Ena commanded rooting her in place and reached for the rushing her scarred officer. “I need your flesh, not your bones,” she told him using some of the Ranger’s lifeblood to break his bones and the Zilan abruptly collapsed on her feet. Ena eyed the shaking soldier, the Arachne lowering over his head and stooping ripped the thrashing Vulas throat out with a claw like hand. She sealed the wound with her lips and drank with her eyes closed.

The only sounds those of the suffocating Lord Rothomir, the muffled screams of the soldier Qerrali had started cocooning and her pointy feet clattering on the dusty granite tiles.

“Speak,” Ena said when she finished eating Vulas’ heart and lungs. She had to pry open his chest cavity with her fingers to do it. Ah, yes. “Qerrali empower him,” she told the busy cocooning Lord Rothomir Arachne.

Devour?

“Free him. Thou can imbibe the soldier dry later. Don’t be avaricious.”

Delicious, Qerrali rhymed self-servingly per her species manner.

The sorceress turned to the Ranger while the very frustrated Arachne cut her webs with the claws of her tarsus. Ena allowed the ranger to move again in the meantime and she stumbled on her feet with a gasp.

“Gods!” she cried and glared at her.

“I’m awake,” Ena reminded her and wiped her mouth with a translucent hand. The ranger frowned in shock hearing her words repeated. “You’re not supposed to walk the Garden unattended girl,” Ena reproached her. “This isn’t a hunting ground.”

“There are no witches left,” she retorted. “Or sorcerers. The Garden is just a forest now.”

Ena blinked, one eye seeing only still images of the ranger, which was confusing.

Sorry! An easily distressed Qerrali shrieked. I wanted to make you more, but the stupid witch wouldn’t let me!

“I have an Arachne in my head. Linked,” Ena told the ranger. “Which is something only Edlenn could do. Am I recalling things erroneously?”

“That was…” the female Zilan gulped down. “Many centuries in the past.”

“So?” Ena probed and stared at her left hand, the one with flesh on. It had recovered somewhat. She glanced at the mutilated and half eaten Vulas. Hmm.

“Things changed witch.”

“Thou are disrespectful. Brazen and full of anger. Has the king been defeated?”

“The King is dead.”

“Baltoris rules?” Ena probed.

“She’s dead. Everyone is dead witch,” the ranger spat bitterly, her misery having a fresher undertone.

Ena glanced at Qerrali and the Arachne stopped poking holes in Rothomir with her front legs to wake him up. The large spider had enough eyes on the sorceress to know the latter was looking at her.

“Now is the time to convey what transpired,” Ena warned in her guttural voice and the ranger told her.

Rothomir used a cloth to wipe some of the blood from the many small puncture wounds Qerrali had inflicted on him, but paused in alarm feeling the Arachne climbing his back and four pairs of legs hugging him from behind.

“Be compassionate,” Ena urged him. “She has just learned her species got wiped out.”

The rare Wraith Arachne were native to Cydonia and with the interconnected large island chain now sunk to the bottom of the Scalding Sea, the possibility some of her sisters had managed to cross the waters and survive was very small. They hated water with a passion.

“Ahm,” Rothomir gasped and Qerrali clicked her mandibles sadly in his ear freaking him out.

“It’s a monster,” Axilyel hissed all wound up. “Let me free him.”

“He’s her gift for staying loyal for so long. As for the other remark, so are Wyverns,” Ena replied. “But they aren’t as sweet.”

Treat! Qerrali agreed, sneakily spraying web on Rothomir’s feet, so he couldn’t move fast.

“Not everyone felt comfortable next to them,” Axilyel snorted.

“Who survived?” Ena asked a shifting nervously Rothomir not bothering with her.

“Eh, I told you all I know.”

“Edlenn? She never left the Garden. If you fools at Abarat made it, I can’t fathom her perishing to an earthquake!”

“She died here, not long after the war ended,” Rothomir replied. “There was a disagreement with the Queen.”

“Baltoris had Edlenn killed?” Ena asked casually, her hoarse voice giving an ominous tone to the query. “Why didn’t the Council overrule her?”

“She didn’t favor the Old Ways,” Rothomir murmured moving the Arachne’s hairy leg out of his mouth. “Her laws were enforced and those disagreeing left. She had the votes.”

“Or were killed,” Ena added. “You all cowered, because she had the Wyverns. Goras and Elauthin ever causing mischief.”

“People wanted to move on. The Aken were gone. The Onyx Wyvern slain.”

Only there’s another one roaming about.

“Of what you said, only one thing is true,” Ena hissed her head hurting. “Why?”

“Ugh? This is what happened. The war was over. Peace for centuries. She didn’t need magic.”

“She needed the Wyverns and her soldiers though. So there must have been some fighting,” Ena taunted him and got up from the floor. “Go bring me a cumquat. Pick a rich orange one. Two. Thank the tree,” she ordered the frowning Axilyel. “I have quite the appetite for it.”

“What are you going to do?” Rothomir asked.

“Does he have any witches with him?” Ena asked and picked up the expensive piece of jewelry in her hands. A Capricorn carved on it, the metal a rare white gold, its art passable.

A trinket.

But not his.

“Not that I know of. There are no witches. Most fled to Cydonia. The Queen rarely went there and well… you know the rest.”

Galadriel hadn’t.

“Did she kill her daughter too?” Ena asked him staring at the light coming in from the tomb’s open entrance.

“No. But they reconciled afore the Fall.”

Ena thought of the young mischievous Aelrindel.

Then of her own slain sister and her face hardened.

“There’s no way that’s true,” she hissed and glared at Rothomir. “If she escaped then the sorceress has made more like her mother. Baltoris would never befriend her, nor would Aelrindel ever forgive her. She could hold a grudge for years. Whomever told you that story was lying.”

“She had to. Reinut had burned half of Goras, brought the walls down.”

“Reinut? That’s not a Jelin name.”

“He’s an Issir. They came from beyond the Scalding Sea. Somewhere south of the Sinking Isles. Even stopped there for a moon.”

Uh?

“Mistland.”

“No, further east than that. They landed in Central Goras.”

“Mistland reaches as far the Sinking Isles! Noble Goddess! Where were you schooled? In Lo-Minas?”

Rothomir frowned. “I trained with the Phalanx—”

“Enough!” Ena snapped not wanting to hear more.

Rothomir tried again. “What about Hardir? He has the Council—”

“The Council betrayed you,” Ena cut him off impatiently. “Why is Paeris not here? He is a bard, you needed him to unlock the spell. You didn’t have to cut the roots!”

Rothomir blinked and puffed out exasperated.

“Yeah but he hasn’t sang a tune in years. People have stopped using magic Sibyl,” he replied and tried to pry his feet free. “Vulas was my friend,” Rothomir added with a frown. “You shouldn’t have killed him.”

“I didn’t,” Ena replied hoarsely and Qerrali clicked her mandibles excited. “You did. I thought about sparing you to help me fill in the blanks…” she paused realizing Rothomir was no longer hearing her.

Devour? Qerrali asked innocently and Ena let out a sigh afore nodding, then glanced at the cloak the first slain soldier had on, before her different eyes returned at the open tomb’s entrance.

If the fruit is sweet, I’ll spare her.

Ena had always a soft spot for Faelar and respected damaged souls.

She felt a little apprehensive, even unsure about going out and into that strange world alone.

The time of Hardir O’ Fardor sister, the witch thought sadly, the lump in her translucent throat moving with difficulty. Her taste not all there.

I wish you were here to witness the beginning of the Third Era with me.

Make it black, wood stuck in a sack, the witch chanted with her eyes closed, when Axilyel returned with her fruits.

Make it grow, but not thrive.

Slowly in the womb to plough

And open it like a shive.