Wards Against Nightmares
Ashen Rider. Part Two. Chapter V.
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Greetings, traveler,
This chapter introduces some of the fun nuance behind the mad wizard’s epistolary narration. The guy experiences the tale by dreaming from the POV of other characters who are not usually narrated. This opened up so much freedom to get into the dirt of Pandemonium.
This also concludes Part Two. We’ll take next week off and perhaps share a short story in the chapter’s place. Then, we’re on to Part Three—where things really start to get heated.
New chapters arrive every Wednesday. If you’d rather not wait, Ashen Rider is available now in paperback and hardcover.
From the collected journals of a mad wizard
When first I returned home, I thought I might be free of those hellish nightmares. Wishful thinking, really; the stench of Pandemonium lingers, and no amount of soap nor baths did anything to remove it from my tainted, mortal flesh.
My heart dripped with worry. I feared for poor Kateryna, and I was captivated by Cain’s betrayal of his beloved matron.
I had arrived in my quarters by way of advanced transposition—not instantaneous, more like a tunnel leading directly to your destination. Such travel is exhausting and time-consuming, especially when folding between layers of reality. I spent the next several hours meticulously weaving wards into every inch of every wall, into every blanket, chair, door, window, anything that held any chance of carrying a curse or plague-ridden bacteria.
When finally I lay my weary head upon my pillow, I crumpled into my mattress like a bag of bones. But there was no rest awaiting me in slumber. No, dear reader, I did not need even to cast an incantation for prophetic dreams of hell to find me. They came on their own, unwelcome and insistent.
I found myself back in Pandemonium, standing in what I intuited as the hall of Morgana’s keep. When I cast my oneiromancy, I can maintain complete control of my perspective, and oft I opt for a bird’s-eye view to avoid detection by my subjects. But since I saw through the eyes of the Goddess Corrupted, I no longer had control of the dreams. I was standing in someone else’s shoes, in a memory, or perhaps experiencing that moment simultaneously.
* * *
Kneeling, I felt the heat radiating from the floor through my poleyns. In Morgana’s court, the walls were naked, built of shimmering, black granite. There were paintings when we first arrived, but she ordered them taken down… I will never know why. Who can understand the machinations of the divine?
She had me kneeling like a dog for a long time, as though testing me. Morgana glared, as if Arthur’s stupidity was somehow reflected in me. I was fucking terrified; I thought she might have my head for the fun of it. I could not even fathom what horror awaited me after a second death.
I had borne witness to much crueler fates than what the poor sods in Monrovia knew. The gods only know what hell they suffer now.
“I want him gutted. I want him burned. I want every trace of his thrice-damned existence reduced to ash!” Morgana raged, her cacophonous voice storming through the hall, shaking the walls. Then, all sound ceased, the quivering walls stilled, and a terrible chill deeper than the Wystran winter limed the hall with black-frosted hate. “Do you understand me, Syr Derrida?”
“Yes, mistress,” I said. My voice was a rasp; I felt like my vocal cords had hemorrhaged. “I will inform the others.”
“Go.”
Morgana sat upon her throne. Lord Sanguine had apparently dubbed it the Scarlet Chair, which never made sense to me—the damned thing was made of tarnished copper, patinated sea-foam green. Veins undulated between the jagged peaks making up the throne’s back. I always wondered if it was somehow alive.
The corner of Morgana’s lip quivered. A flash of discomfort, corrected in an instant.
I had noticed such… slips, occurring with growing frequency, and I found myself mourning my matron’s state. She had once been so pure, beyond the limits of the human condition. Now, like an aging housewife, she was sending us to wreak petty vengeance on a mortal man.
“You are now my Herald, Derrida,” Morgana purred, tilting her chin up ever so slightly, and tilting the rest towards me, ever so slightly. “Do this, and I will reward you graciously…”
Hunger stirred within. I never dared fantasize about having Arthur’s place by her side—that would be blasphemy. But now, the Goddess had called me only by that name which she bestowed upon me, and stoked my desire with her divine will. Or I had done that myself. How does one resist?
“Thank you, mistress.”
She bade me to rise, and so I did, and rushed out from Morgana’s hall, ascending darkened stairwells and traversing sharp corridors with inhuman urgency. My mind swam with the possibilities before me. The world was mine for the taking.
As I drew further into the keep, my loins calmed, and I was left with an unwelcome, intrusive thought. I don’t think I can kill Arthur. I was not nearly so skilled in combat as he—or anyone, for that matter—but moreover, he was my friend. But she is my Goddess, and she offers me her hand, which that fool squandered.
I was dumbfounded by his stupidity.
The Goddess loved him, clearly. She would not send us after him if it were not so. He had scorned her, and somehow, he had wounded her. Arthur chose a mortal woman over the Goddess. That part I could not wrap my head around. In life, my wife was a pleasant woman, and she birthed me two sons, but we married for political gain. Our indifference was mutual, and I had not spared her a thought since awakening in Morgana’s service.
And now Morgana might give her love to me. The stirring returned, and I imagined what wonders lingered beneath those perfect dark silks and blackened armor plates. Such a sight would be too much for mortal eyes—I might go blind. A risk I’m willing to take.
In the aerie at the top of the keep, my comrades—now underlings—tended to their mounts. Citha, a lithe Skanu clad in sleek brigandine, fed living trout to her griffin, which took the aspect of a gyrfalcon. I have always been attracted to her exotic features; her thin, corded musculature, her tight braids, smooth umber skin. Alas, the legendary Dame never looked twice at me. Not that I need her affectations—not after Arthur’s through.
Gabriel, a great, bloody ox of a man, groomed his incongruous condor griffin. I had little hope of winning his loyalty, despite our matron naming me Herald. I hoped he would not pose a problem.
My own mount, beautifully crafted by our matron in the aspect of a Kaldean eagle, nudged my shoulder. He sensed my unease. I sighed deeply, shook out my hands in preparation for the reaming I was about to receive from these two.
“Our matron demands blood,” I said, shifting in my stretched and torn boots, now too loose on my feet. “We take to the skies immediately.”
Dame Citha scoffed. “We don’t take orders from you.”
I swallowed. I need to keep my cool. “I have been named Herald. Now, mount up! We must ride.”
“Who died and made you so gods-fucking important?” said Syr Gabriel, towering over me. He bent down and prodded my chest with a finger the size of a sausage. How I loathed Gabriel, the shit-crusted whoreson.
“Arthur is marked for death. We must depart now if we are to catch up with him before he crosses the Goddess’s threshold.”
Citha and Gabriel exchanged worried glances.
“It was only a matter of time before she found out what he was up to.” Citha said.
Gabriel took a step back, gracing me with an inch or two to breathe. “He went home to his wife, eh? Bloody fool.”
I nodded. “You know how our mistress prefers this done—silver through the heart, silver through the brain.”
“Too bad,” Gabriel went on. “He was a good Herald. Better than you’ll be, I reckon.”
You’re not wrong, there, buddy ol’ pal.
Citha patted her griffin on the head, then swept onto her saddle in a single fluid motion. She closed her eyes, muttering some old Skanu prayer that had long since lost its power in the Vale Betwixt.
My mount shifted his weight between his front legs, whining softly until I placed a hand on his forehead. “Hush now, Krakow…” My boy was an empath, always anxious when I was. “Everything will be fine.”
Gabriel and I retrieved our saddles and weapons from the wall and geared up. We sat in silence for a time before taking off. There was a shift in power, and all of us felt it—none of us knew who would survive to benefit from it. I nodded at Gabriel, and he and his grotesque monster bounded through the landing bay into the open sky. I followed, Citha taking up overwatch at the rear. I hoped Gabriel felt my glowering hot on his back.
I will be the one, this time. Me.
Next Chapter → Part Three: Folly, Laid Before You