Sacrifice
The milky opalescence above confused Emery; she momentarily wondered if she lay atop Tara, whether if she turned, she'd see Setanta asleep next to her, but then everything came crashing back, and she recalled that Cullen was dead! That feeling of waking from a terrible nightmare only to tumble into the relief of it having been just a dream--that was the opposite of what Emery experienced. Tara . . . oh, Tara! The memory had come at last, and she'd have given anything to return to it. But now she'd awakened to find Tara a dream and the nightmare of Cullen's death real.
Where was he? The last she recalled was holding his body after it'd fallen. Even the thought of such a man, her love, broken and defeated, brought tears to her eyes; her heart felt as if it would burst.
But she wasn't alone, she discovered, as her thoughts and pain were interrupted by a low, odd chanting, more muttering than any sort of singing. It came from all around her, but Emery found she couldn't move to sit up and find its source. Her limbs were virtually lifeless. Did she still have magic? She must. Inhaling deeply, the girl willed herself the power to move, but all she managed to do was turn her head, and even that caused pain in her forehead.
A simple look around was enough to recognize where she was, though--the temple of her visions, where she'd met Bres, but this time, it was no dream; her back was firmly against the cold altar, and she lay looking up at the unfriendly stars. She was again in that hideous white dress (how she'd gotten into it, she didn't like to think about), and she was bound to the altar with leather straps. The stones beyond her, circling the altar, had risen from the earth to reveal crude seats, and on those, surrounding Emery, sat the giants she'd met at the beginning of all this: the freakish goat-headed men; the deathly-pale woman with her onyx staff and rams' horns draped in something spider-webby and silver; the hideously ancient old man and his wandering eye, the skull he held glowing a deathly green; the elder version of Bres; the terrifying blindfolded ogre, lips like worms and crushed nose; and Bres himself. All of them had eyes on her, and all were speaking words too low and foreign for her to comprehend. Her heartbeat rose. This was bad. This was very bad. And where was Cullen? Had they left his body in the other world? She'd thought Bres had pulled the portal over all three of them, but then where was he?
Oh, he was gone. He was dead! And it was her fault! A sob welled up inside her, and she couldn't help but let it go. Another followed, and another, and with her anger and desperation came more control over her body; she was able to move, though when she tried to twist her wrists from their straps, the girl found she was too firmly bound to do much. Emery was sure she'd go mad if she couldn't move enough to properly cry.
"What then, Unsacrificed?" came a familiar yet unwelcome voice, and then the hulking shape of Mug Ruith stepped up to her. Emery startled to see him without his feathered mask, the mounds of scarred flesh where eyes should be mottled and dripping with moisture. "Has some dream weakened your Darkness?"
Emery didn't understand him, couldn't think of what he meant. The awareness that Cullen was really gone was swelling like a widening black hole within her.
Mug Ruith wore bones in his beard, in his scraggly hair, and his bull's hide cloak was adorned with ropes of little pods that rattled dryly as he moved. His mallet staff gleamed with color, but he put it aside as he stood there, substituting it with a black dagger--Little Fury! Emery's dagger! How dare he take it from her? And where was her sword? And the walnut from Cathbad? What had they done with her belongings?
With a jolt, Emery recalled her blackthorn necklace. She'd had Tara! Charlie had given her Tara! Wasn't she supposed to eat the twig, now? Not that she wanted to . . . but he'd said she'd regret it, and she had no other options . . . could she even do it, though? The girl couldn't move her hands to her throat to see whether the talisman was still there, but if she turned her head all the way to the left, pulled her chin toward her chest, strained her eyes, she could barely make out the twig lying against the stone of the altar, right above her shoulder. She did still wear it; somehow, they'd missed it. The only problem was how to get it close enough to her mouth that she could eat it.
Speaking in a language Emery couldn't understand, the very words guttural and demonic, Mug Ruith lifted the dagger over her stomach, and she was suddenly afraid that he'd bring it down into her, but he didn't. Instead, the druid held it horizontal in his hands, went on and on with his incantations, and then lowered it out of her sight. He next lifted a stone bowl which must've held some concoction, because he rubbed his finger in it and, similarly to what he'd done in the ring of fire, made a mark on her forehead, only he didn't ask permission this time.
"What was ignited is now consummated. I call forth the defiler," Mug Ruith said, raising his voice so those seated beyond could hear him.
Bres left his throne and approached the altar, something utterly vampiric about him. A tremulous apprehension came over Emery--Cullen's death had been her fault, to be sure, for she'd allowed Death to make the choice knowing whom Death would choose. But she'd seen Bres's sword punch up under Cullen's armor, and that horrible image impressed on her mind played over and over as Bres drew near. When he arrived, he gazed down at her with a blazing ferocity, a ravenous hunger evident in his empty, eager eyes, his barely-parted, quivering lips. Emery wanted to tear off his face.
Mug Ruith bent low so that he was out of Emery's vision, but then he rose, holding something high over his head, going on in more of his black language. When he looked back to the altar, Emery was horrified at what it was he held; it was a fawn, like the one Charlie had bit into right in front of her that night outside Lugloctha Loga, although from the look of it, this one appeared to be already (though recently) killed, for blood flowed freely from a gash at its throat.
"Now we complete the circle, for all that begins must end, and every dawn concludes in dusk." And to Emery's revulsion, Mug Ruith rubbed the deer's carcass across her cheeks, neck, and chest, tossing the fawn onto her stomach, crimsoning the white dress with dark splotches as the creature bled out on her.
The girl was desperate and disgusted, but she didn't know what to do. She couldn't stop these monsters from hurting her, and what point was there in trying, anyway, after what she'd done to Cullen?
But then Mug Ruith did something unexpected, taking Little Fury and slicing the leather strap binding her scarred wrist, then retying it at her elbow so that her forearm was free to move. Before she could reach for her necklace, though, the druid forced her wrist to turn, and Bres leaned to it, the nostrils of his refined nose twitching.
"The mate of the Unsacrificed receives the first drink," Mug Ruith declared, "from the gateway of the Darkness." He handed the dagger to Bres, and Emery knew what was coming next. The girl tried to pull her hand away, but Mug Ruith held her firm, and Bres tipped her dagger toward the sealed wound and reopened it, causing Emery to scream. This was no normal injury, and it did not breed normal pain.
Her face damp from tears and sweat, Emery tried to protest, but that seemed only to inflame Bres, who hovered over her, taunting, "We dine on you tonight, my queen," before he put his mouth to her wrist and sucked deeply. Emery felt as if every vein in her body was being pulled toward him, as if he were ripping all of them out of her, and she burned with an excruciating fire that threatened to consume her.
Almost losing consciousness, Emery willed herself to hold on so that she could try to do as Charlie had told her. Her vision swam with the incandescence above, with Bres's cruel face indulgently licking its lips, and she heard Mug Ruith call something to the others, something about their turns, and about opening new wounds because only the defiler was allowed the gateway, and she knew that if she didn't do something fast, these horrifying monsters would be doing exactly what they'd forewarned--they'd be eating her. She couldn't let that happen . . . but she had so little strength and mobility! The Darkness that had given her magic seemed either disinclined to empower her now or had been, as Mug Ruith had implied, weakened by her blissful memories of Cullen.
The giants were descending from their thrones, were starting toward her, but in a sudden flash of clarity, Emery saw that Bres was distracted with their approach; he'd turned away! And he held the hilt of her dagger right above her bleeding wrist.
Gathering all of her energy, Emery flipped her hand and snatched Little Fury from Bres, and when he spun back to her in surprise, she stretched the leather strap at her elbow as far as she could and jammed the blade up through his eye.
Unlike Charlie, Bres bled.
A black stream of liquid poured from his eye socket, and he howled in what she could only assume was pain--if these Fomorians could be hurt, they could be killed . . . couldn't they?
Bres ripped the dagger from her and slid it from his head, but Emery didn't care about the weapon or him, and she yanked the strap toward her shoulder at the same moment Mug Ruith went after her flailing hand. She had only just enough time to snatch the blackthorn twig and shove it between her teeth before the druid was re-securing her wrist.
But they hadn't seemed to see what she'd done, and she chewed and swallowed so furiously that in the time it took them to tie her back down, the talisman was inside of her.
Now what?
Charlie hadn't said what it would do, and for about thirty seconds--enough time for Bres to get up in her face and, a hand over his missing eye, hiss furiously between clenched, trembling teeth, "Anymore of that, and I may just fall in love with you!"--Emery felt nothing different and feared all was lost.
Then, abruptly, something filled her vision, a dark, glittering veil fell across everything around her. She could see, but what she saw was, though strangely somehow darker, more clear than she'd ever seen it. Her stomach began to turn, to feel so terrifyingly awkward, as if there were eels writhing within, not particularly painful, but uncomfortable, and bizarre, and they were moving swiftly, through her arms and legs and up into her throat as if they were looking for a way out when all at once, her body lifted from the table. Emery felt no control whatsoever, was almost unaware of what was even happening, but the shifting and twisting inside of her moved her upward, stretching the leather straps that were binding her until they snapped as simply as if they'd been rubber bands. Up she rose, turning so that her bare feet rested upon the altar and she stood upon it. Arms out, legs splayed, face toward the firmament, Emery stood like a five-pointed star, and suddenly, from her toes and her fingertips, her eyes and her mouth, beams of pure black--pure nothingness--shot out into the night, she their lighthouse, their beacon.
Emery the girl, the frightened and despairing girl, had curled up within herself and was entirely unaware of what her body was doing. She found she was inside a void, crying into her hands, her tears watering the empty space around her. All was quiet; she'd never felt so lost and alone. But then, she wasn't quite alone, was she? Someone--or something, more like--was with her. She took her hands from her face and saw in the strange pale circle of light separating her from all of the nothing beyond, a boy she knew. A boy in a dark robe but who otherwise was familiar, all curls and freckles and deceptive charm, something both sinister and wayward about him.
"Charlie!" Emery rose to her feet. "What--where is this? What's happening?"
He stared at her for a moment, coldly at first, but then the sharp edges softened. "I wanted to see you here, before it's all over."
Emery was confused in more ways than one. "Where is this, though?"
"Nowhere. It's my home."
"But I--I don't understand."
"I am Dark, Emery. You know that."
She shook her head. "The Darkness . . . ?"
"I am not the Darkness. I am aos sí, I am The Dark Man. We are not the same."
"But you're alike--"
"No, we are not."
Then why were you helping them?"
Charlie stepped closer to her. "We are not alike. Though we are made of the same stuff, we are not the same. Like stars and fire. And I had no truck with them until they twisted me to their purposes." He scowled. "I fought subjugation; I dislike working for others. But their conjury is fouler, stronger than mine."
Anger filled Emery. "So it was all because you were forced, is that it? No, you're as evil as they are, Charlie--you hurt me."
"And didn't I also help you?"
Emery tried to speak, but he cut her off.
"I'd never done more than reach into dreams, give signs, ask my questions, prophesy. But they told me to come for you, to coerce you . . . I don't know how to be. I am not meant to operate on such material planes. I . . . you were so difficult, but I also--and yet I had to do as they--" He was troubled by some emotion Emery couldn't place at first, but she then realized it was self-loathing.
She understood, then, why she'd never quite detested him as much as she should have. She'd known that in his corrupt way, Charlie cared about her, and she pitied him for that. As much trouble, as much suffering as he'd brought her, he'd also given her the greatest gift she could've asked for: her memories.
Knowing her thoughts, Charlie stepped closer yet. "I did see them, your memories," he said so quietly she almost didn't hear him. "They were terrible. Disgusting."
Emery studied his deep blue eyes, seeing in them the opposite of what he spoke, maybe even something like envy. "Thank you," she said, meaning it.
"He's not dead, you know."
The girl's breath caught. "Wh-what do you mean? I--I saw him--"
"You know what to do."
"No, I don't. Tell me! Please--"
Suddenly, he grabbed her shoulders and shook her, hard. "You are a Goddess, Emery! A Goddess! You have all you need." He calmed. "And you have my magic, too, until I go. You've had it all along; it's what hid me from them, when I was around your neck."
Emery held onto his arms. "Can't you come with me? Help me! I--I don't know how I can--"
"I am with you. And even when I'm gone, I will always be near, in the shades and shadows, in the deeper parts of the forests, in the corners where torchlight doesn't touch." He leaned toward her, pressed his forehead against hers, placed his hands tenderly around her neck. "When you wake from a dream, go to your window, and look into the night, I'm there. And when your dreams turn to nightmares and you're in torment, I'm there as well." He drew slightly back, kissed her forehead, and pushed her away. "Now go." With a brutal certainty, he added, "We'll slaughter them."
Shaking her head, Emery was entirely ill at ease, despising and pitying and appreciating Charlie all at the same time. But if he were going to help her, whatever his reasons might be, she wasn't going to turn him down.
His features distorting, Charlie shimmered out of her view, and suddenly the emptiness around her began to fill with the stunned faces of giants, the glowing stone pillars of a temple, the dead meadow beyond . . . and all at once, there she stood, on the altar, looking down in as much shock as the Fomorian monsters looked up at her.
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