Red Tsonia & The Witch In The Dark

"I must borrow power for the spell," she explained. "This tomb is the final resting place of an ancient god of the moon and tides. He is long dead so there will be no debt to him. But all power in this place flows from his remains. The temple was built to contain that power, but it has been seeping out for millennia. The verdant marbling you see in the stone—it is the essence of a dead god seeking escape and re-birth... And the fools in the Green Cities think it 'pretty'."

"I care not for the history lesson," Tsonia replied, pacing impatiently as Amalthra made her preparations.

"As you wish," Amalthra smirked. "I'll need a bit of your blood, nothing you can't spare."

Tsonia submitted to the blood-letting, the wound in her wrist knitting closed just a few moments after the witch had drained the black ichor she required.

"Stand here," Amalthra instructed, gesturing at the etched lid of the sarcophagus. "Place one hand on the inscription of the full moon and one on the gibbous moon. Do not move your hands until the spell is complete."

Tsonia did as she was told, scowling at her reflection in the polished black stone of the dead god's tomb while Amalthra formed powdered incense into an intricate pattern and lit it. In the smoke of the burning incense, she mixed Tsonia's blood with a preparation of herbs and powders, muttering to herself in a stygian tongue Tsonia could not identify.

Amalthra stood, and Tsonia turned to watch as the witch dabbed a flattened spoon in the paste. She turned the warrior's face back towards the sarcophagus and smeared the fragrant unguent across Tsonia's left cheek, massaging it into the skin. From somewhere, a puff of a breeze stirred Tsonia's hair. Crackling sparks of lightning prickled at her palms where she touched the inscriptions. She felt the muscles on the left side of her face twitch and spasm involuntarily. The paste on her cheek burned and she clenched her teeth but did not move her hands.

Amalthra continued her incantation, her voice growing stronger and faster with each dark syllable that fell from her lips, and traced arcane symbols into the infusion with a quill formed from dried leather Tsonia preferred not to focus on. It was all gibberish to her, all but one word—"Tsonia"—hissed in her left ear causing her eyes to dart warily. The witch set down her mortar of paste and drew a wet rag from a silver bowl. Standing behind Tsonia, Amalthra washed the residue from the warrior's face, all the while chanting the unintelligible incantation, and the name "Tsonia", in her right ear.

In the reflective stone, Tsonia could see her cheek now clean and unblemished. The debt-mark had been washed away by the witch's potion, though her words of power continued. Amalthra set down the bowl and took Tsonia by the wrists from behind, the witch's pert breasts pressed into the warrior's back, and hips into her ass. As Amalthra's words reached a crescendo, she pulled Tsonia's hands free of the stone, turned her around taking her startled face in her hands, and ended the spell with the word "Tsonia!"

"That's it then? We're done?"

"See for yourself, sweet Tsonia," Amalthra gestured towards her scrying pool.

The face that looked back at Tsonia from the dark water was her own, yet the debt-mark sigil remained as obvious as ever. Tsonia wheeled on the witch, sword in hand, and shouted "Liar! What spell have you cast upon me?"

Amalthra threw her head back and laughed, a deranged sound that echoed in the stone chamber.

"You didn't want the lesson, my dear! The magic comes from a moon god and it's tied to the phases of the moon. The debt-mark has been hidden whenever the moon is full or gibbous, but a crescent moon hangs in the sky today. And so the spell must be cast twice more for the debt-mark to be concealed fully. Now if you'll stand back where you were, and touch the crescent and the half moons, we can continue."

Tsonia glared at the witch. Her treachery wasn't a betrayal so much as it was belittling, and so Tsonia lowered her sword and trudged back to the ancient sarcophagus to begin the spell again. "You know, for a devotee of chaos, I find you quite pedantic," she groused, placing her hands back on the inscriptions. This set Amalthra off into more peels of unhinged laughter.

They repeated the spell, and this time when Tsonia peered into the water, the indelible debt-mark was invisible to her eyes. Satisfied, she returned once more, touching the inscription of the new moon for the final casting of the witch's spell.

Amalthra set aside her empty mortar and picked up the silver bowl for the final time. Tsonia was anxious to be freed from the pinpricks in her palm when the bowl suddenly dropped to the floor with a reverberating clangor. The witch broke off her incantation and gasped, clutching one hand in the other.

"My runes are crossed!" Amalthra hissed. "Trespassers approach... Many of them."

The witch abandoned her spell and turned to the scrying pool, muttering yet another charm, invoking yet another oddly jointed gesture.

"Oh, it's only my ghouls," she sighed with some relief and some disappointment. "But why do they approach unbidden? And in such numbers?"

"It doesn't sound as if you're very concerned," Tsonia grunted, stretching out one hand for the fallen wash rag while keeping the other hand pinpricking on the final inscription. "So, if we could continue?"

"No, the spell is ruined. I'm afraid we'll have to start-- Wait now, who is this Northerner among them?"

"A Northerner?" Tsonia asked, relenting the broken spell and crossing to look into the scrying pool as well. "By the gods, that's Joras! Joras lives!" If she had been eager to take her leave from the witch's chamber before, the joy and relief Tsonia felt at seeing Joras turned her impatience to urgency. Tsonia grabbed her pack and her sword and was already squeezing out past the sarcophagus when Amalthra called to her.

"Stop!"

Tsonia stopped "Why?"

"Their numbers," Amalthra conceded. "They must have assembled every sub-human thing that dwells beneath The Cairn. We cannot stand against so many."

"Joras seems fit enough. Perhaps they mean no harm." Tsonia continued through the narrow gap towards Amalthra's door.

"Stop!" Amalthra ordered again, following Tsonia. "I have named you thrice and bound your will to mine. You serve me now, Red Tsonia, and I forbid you to unbar that door."

Tsonia stopped and turned back on the witch with a curious cock of her brow. "Because you spoke my name thrice during your spell?" she asked.

"Yes," Amalthra affirmed. "Your will is mine and you would do well not to resist."

"Sweet Amalthra," Tsonia shook her head with a chuckle. "The name 'Tsonia' has no power over me."

The flame-haired warrior crossed the hall in long strides and pulled free the bolt that held the door. She turned and saw the expression on Amalthra's face change. The smug condescension gave way to fury and a moment later to terror as the first of the ghouls barreled recklessly through the door. The witch fled with a scream of rage at the betrayal, but the emaciated shadow-things pursued her, shielding their large eyes from the candlelight and skittering three at a time through the narrow passes on both sides of the dead god's sarcophagus. The scrying bowl was toppled as they barreled past, clanging forlorn in the gloom.

The ravenous flesh-eaters poured through the door, ignoring Tsonia as she tried to wade upstream through their current. Behind her she heard screaming, crashing, a crackle of lighting, a burst of thunder, but Tsonia did not look back. Ahead of her in the ante-chamber, standing off to one side, just out of the onrushing flow of gaunt man-things, stood Joras, pad in hand frantically trying to capture the spectacle on paper.

"Joras!" she called, as she pushed her way out of the flow.

"Kaela!" he replied, throwing his arms wide, his sketching forgotten for the moment.

"I've told you--"

"Yes, yes, Red Tsonia, I know," Joras placated her. "By my brushes, you look like you've been fucked to Hell and back."

"You don't know the half of it, but it's a tale to tell under open skies. Let's find our way out of this damnable place."

"I am just as eager as you, but first, do you happen to have any food in your pack?

'

Tsonia's brow furrowed at the odd timing of the request, but she unslung her bag and rooted through it. "Half a skin of wine, some salted pork, and a wedge of hard cheese," she answered.

"Perfect! I believe I can hire us a guide."

***

The first light of dawn colored the eastern horizon a delicate shade of red while overhead, the velvety black of night glittered with an untold number of stars. Tsonia and Joras ducked out of the hidden passage while behind them, the stone rumbled back into place, obscuring the secret exit from prying eyes. They had emerged on a high tier of the ziggurat, thus far untouched by the ravages of The Cairn's inhabitants. As far as the eye could see, the dunes and crags of the wastelands reached towards the horizon, where the Green Cities loomed. Even from here, Joras could see a viridian glow tinge the night sky. The majestic view was disrupted by an unholy racket emanating from somewhere to their right.

"Remind me, why are we up here?" the artist asked.

"To avoid an ambush by DuFrain's lackeys," Tsonia patiently replied. "Shaskar was his assassin, but a petty man like DuFrain rarely has only one scheme afoot."

"I did ask you to tread lightly around him, didn't I?"

"You did, and I did not. If you've met him, you would have done the same, believe me." Tsonia said, heading off towards the noise.

Following the shouts, bangs and creaking of strained machinery, Joras and Tsonia crept along the towering blocks of the ziggurat until they reached a corner beyond which the tranquility of the early dawn was gruesomely shattered.

Ahead, Joras could see swathes of torchlit activity, clusters of groaning and cursing workers attacking the black stones with hammers and picks in hopes of reducing the gargantuan blocks to a more manageable size. The biggest of those chunks were lowered by crane towards the ground, to be more easily divested of the precious green mineral housed within than was possible on the narrow and cluttered tiers of the ziggurat. Smaller chunks were crushed right then and there, with steep chutes transporting rivers of green and black gravel down the ziggurat's flank.

Wide ramps allowed for travel up and down the edifice and a constant stream of bodies milled along them, drained and fatigued workers and hungry lizards which had earned some respite from toiling in the huge drums powering the cranes shuffled downwards while fresh bodies were herded up towards the ledge. Guardsmen kept knots of workers in check with jeers, kicks and liberal application of the whip. The Green Cities were ravenous for the bricks produced here and sleep was a luxury few could afford.

Joras sighed. "I really don't fancy a climb down every ledge to ground level." His every bone ached after the ordeal in the tunnels and leaden fatigue bore down heavily upon his brow. "Like it or not, we'll have to go through there if we want to leave The Cairn with our lizards and provisions."

"Then we shall do so," Tsonia said, shrugging. "It appears DuFrain's guards are not looking for me up here. No undue distraction to the quarrying operation." She patted her pack. "There is still enough gold left to bribe our way through if we must."

Joras had to hurry to keep up with Tsonia's purposeful strides. The flame-haired warrior headed straight for the first tangle of workers, tired men fumbling with boards, ladders and chalk to measure cut marks on their assigned stone block. A bleary-eyed guard stood close by, half-asleep and leaning on his spear for balance. When his gaze caught on Tsonia, he snapped to attention, face going a sickly shade of pale.

Tsonia stopped just outside of the man's spear reach and cocked her head in query. "What kind of specter did haunt your dreams this fine morning?"

The guard threw a quick glance over his shoulder, then ushered Tsonia and Joras back behind the corner, away from prying eyes. "Do you recognize me, m'lady? No? We met five days ago, when you paid for entry into the Warrens," he confided. "Now the Overseer has issued a bounty for your head."

"You don't seem too eager to collect," Joras observed.

The guard laughed nervously. "I'm afraid of what happens if I fail. Being run through by Red Tsonia's sword seems a preferable outcome to what happens to those who incur the Overseer's wrath."

"What are you babbling about, man?" Tsonia snapped, her customary impatience rising in her voice.

"I can show you," the guardsman said, unslinging a length of rope from his hips. "All I ask for is some gold so I can leave this godforsaken pit behind and return home. I have a wife and children in Xhastria." He held out the rope, a pleading look on his face. "Pretend I caught you, at least until we've cleared the quarry."

"Can we trust him?" Joras wondered.

Tsonia opened her mouth to replay. She caught a whiff of the man's scent. There were layers of it she hadn't known existed—the whiff of the stale ale he had a few hours ago, the acrid aroma of his sweat, and underneath, the all-consuming bite of fear, a fear so profound it could not be faked. It seemed Xelathu's blessing had not only restored her, it had granted her even more unnatural power.

Wordlessly, she took the rope and bound Joras' wrists in a sailor's knot he could slip with a quick shrug, then she held out her wrists to the guard. "Your life will be forfeit if you try to betray us," she warned him.

"Never." The guard bound Tsonia's wrists. The rope was dry and old, not much of an obstacle should she need to break it. "I'd rather throw in my lot with you than DuFrain, after what happened to the Captain." He looked them up and down. "Your weapon, please. Can't pretend you're caught when sporting such fine steel."

"Why not throw blankets over our heads as well, to make sure no one sees who we are?" Joras snarked.

"That's a good idea, o artist of mine," Tsonia said, nodding at the guard. The man hurried back to the quarry and returned a moment later with a sand-crusted tarp he cut to size with his dagger.

Shrouded and bound, they were led at spear-point along the quarry, into the maelstrom of bodies on the packed mud ramps. To Joras' utter surprise, no one accosted them along the way. None of the other guards even raised an eyebrow at the two huddled forms being paraded past them.

After a small, breathless eternity of claustrophobia between shoving men, snapping lizards, and shouting guards, they reached the lake's edge and the brickmakers' stalls. The guard led them towards the terminus of the gravel chutes. Here, the maimed and weak were put to work, those who were too mangled or infirm to work in the quarry proper but still had strength enough left to exploit. They were tasked with powdering the gravel chunks under great iron mill wheels.

"Over there," the guard muttered, his spear pointing at a stall where, under the watchful gaze of fresh guards, two men labored in a gang of a dozen around a well trodden track to turn the heavy wheels. One man had an ugly scar elongating the edge of his mouth up his cheek while the other was broad-shouldered and tanned. Both men's mouths were packed with blood-crusted rags, and bloody bandages girding their loins. Both strained in their yokes, obviously favoring their groins. Every step caused them visible agony, but each time they faltered, one of the guards was quick to administer a lash with a whip.

Tsonia inhaled sharply.

"You know them?" Joras whispered.

She nodded. "The man with the scar? He's called Tommek. And the other is Captain Ivor." Tsonia sighed. "I took them in DuFrain's stead."

"As in 'I bedded them'?" Joras asked, disbelief etched onto his features.

Tsonia chuckled warily. "In DuFrain's bedchamber, with the Overseer watching." Another sigh.

"That explains much," the guard muttered, a blush rising on his cheeks. "The Overseer ordered them castrated and their tongues cut out. They are assigned hard labor unto death. Now you see why I have no desire to remain here any longer. If this is the fate awaiting those who incur the Overseer's ire, then I want no part in it."

Tsonia shrugged, breaking the flimsy bonds holding her wrists. "Thank you for showing me," she growled. "You've more than earned your gold."

"You are not planning to avenge these men, are you?" Joras asked, removing his own bonds.

"Amalthra revealed some disquieting truths," Tsonia said, softly touching her left cheek. "She called me an 'agent of chaos'." She gnashed her teeth angrily. "I am no one's agent, so DuFrain will live. But I will pay him a visit and inform him that he lives only because I will it so."

She pulled a sack of gold from her pack and tossed it to the guard. "You should not linger here as a deserter waiting for passage. Help Joras retrieve our wares and load the lizards and you can cross the wastes with us."

"I- I will! Thank you!" the guard sputtered, not believing the riches which had, quite literally, fallen into his hands.

"Kaela-" Joras began, a pleading note in his voice. "Don't make this even worse than it is now." He shot a sympathetic glance towards the mutilated men slaving away, tormented by their former peers.

"Don't worry," Tsonia said, cracking her knuckles. "I won't be long. Buy rations and water. As soon as the beasts are loaded, head north. You have what you need to make paint enough to finish my mural. I'll catch up with you in due course."

***

DuFrain twisted his hands in the wench's hair, causing her to squeal in protest around his flaccid manhood.

"You are doing it wrong," the sweating Overseer growled. "Put more effort into it! How hard can it be?"

The trembling redhead spat out his uncooperative lance, staring daggers at him. "m'Lord, I've done all that you've asked. I've nursed it all night, swaddled it in my tits and toiled away like a madwoman, but-"

DuFrain's hand sent her reeling into the disheveled sheets. "I will not tolerate such impudence from your useless lips, whore," he snarled, pouncing on the sobbing wench with strength fueled by his venal anger. His bulk pinned the thrashing redhead to the mattress as he closed his meaty hands around her throat, thumbs brutally pressing down on her pipes.

"If you cannot even ply the simplest trade, your life is worthless," DuFrain growled, grinding his impotent loins against her supple flesh. His blood roared in his ears as her struggle intensified, but it would not find its way to his unaroused cock.

Too soon another dead whore lay in his bed and his desire remained unconsummated. DuFrain kicked the corpse away and eventually slipped into a restless sleep.

Somewhere close by, a door fell shut.

DuFrain shot upright. At this hour of the morning, no one but him was allowed in his private quarters. Not even his guards had leeway to disturb him, not without loudly knocking. He slid out of bed, ignoring the cold body on the floor. Quickly, he grabbed his robe and wound it around himself with a gilded sash. His elaborate dagger, a gift from his mother, was right there on the nightstand.

Emboldened by his weapon, DuFrain left the bedchamber in search of the intruder.

"Kaene? Is that you?" he called. Ivor's replacement was eager to please but even dumber than that muscle-bound ox. It would probably take a whipping or three to properly educate him on how to approach his lord and master. Brandishing the dagger, DuFrain turned into his study where piles of irksome reports and inane problems awaited his deft hand to be solved.

"Good morning, Overseer."

DuFrain nearly tripped. Standing next to his desk, garbed in tattered chain armor and casually hefting her blade in one hand stood Red Tsonia! Her other hand held his favorite goblet. She took a long swig and smacked her lips at the light wine DuFrain preferred for breakfast.