23 - Iona #2
Forcing her feet to move, Iona approaches her, noting a drop of blood on Moira’s chin that she hadn’t bothered to wipe away.
Impatience has Moira reaching out to grasp her wrist and drag her forward through the shifting sand to where a small pyre has been erected.
A middle-aged witch with mousy brown hair is chained to the ground, her hands bound behind her back, and her unseeing eyes blank.
“See? Only a novice. Not like the Crone… I don’t envy you that fight,” Moira says, then gestures at the woman. “Harmless as a lamb. I took her eyes, her wand, and her tongue.”
Iona cringes when she spots the severed tongue discarded in the sand within a pool of dark blood, until a wave pulls it out to sea.
“Now,” Moira says, “let’s see about you gaining some much-needed confidence.”
“What do you mean?” Iona asks, truly regretting following Moira now.
“Kill her,” she says.
“What?” Iona stumbles back.
The malefician hears this and struggles in earnest against her restraints, crying out in fear but unable to articulate much more than wails.
“Kill her,” Moira points at the woman. “The first is always the most difficult, but I’ve made it so easy for you. With it over and done with, you shall find it easier in time until you don’t think of it at all.”
“No!” Iona exclaims. “Are you mad?”
“Iona…” Moira rubs her forehead in frustration. “This woman stole magic from her own mother, a decrepit old woman unable to care for herself, then slit her mother’s throat and watched her drown in her own blood. She has nothing to offer this world but pain and suffering.”
“I cannot do it,” Iona insists.
“Take a moment to consider it.
“…No.”
“Why?”
“It would violate my every closely held belief in…” Iona struggles to articulate all her mother once taught her, “compassion… decency… mercy…”
Moira stomps through the sand, leaning down until their faces are far too close. “If you are too weak even to do this, I doubt you will be much use to anyone. Or shall I go fetch Ariadne to do it for you?”
“Please take me home.” Iona’s lip trembles. “I want to go home.”
“Where is that, exactly?” Moira asks.
Iona stares up at her, blinking away tears. “Is… Is there no way to reform her? Or imprison her? How much of it was her, or the poison of maleficium corrupting her mind?”
Moira rolls her eyes and steps away. “Oh, my word, Iona. You’re making this far more complicated than it need be.”
She approaches the malefician and snaps her fingers to get Iona’s attention.
“Look,” Moira says, then flicks the woman’s ear.
A spike of ice goes clean through her skull, through one ear and out the other end.
Blood drips off the tip of the spike as the woman goes rigid, her terror-filled eyes bugging out of her head.
Iona screams, putting her hands over her mouth, and watches in horror as the woman spasms, then falls to the sand, dead.
“That’s all it is,” Moira says.
Iona trembles, then doubles over and vomits everything in her stomach, until there is nothing left, but her body still heaves.
“There, there…” Moira awkwardly rubs her back.
Iona flinches away, sputtering, “You’re depraved.”
Moira’s red eyes are hard and unrepentant.
“Imagine, if Ariadne hadn’t been so obstinate, if she had sent a letter to her mother, or to mine, informing them of your troubles at college, Elise would have been dead within a day.
Instead, you suffered for months, not knowing what to do or who to attack.
It must have been torturous for you both.
So unnecessary. That is what these townsfolk would suffer if left alone to fight a witch infinitely more powerful than they, and who would only grow more impossible to kill with every passing second.
Just today, an entire town was nearly decimated, wasting away in a deathlike sleep, or so Sebastian tells me.
If you’d have managed to kill the Crone in the desert, they would have been spared those unspeakable horrors.
The memories of their plight were wiped away from those humans’ minds, but even so, the trauma will still sit in their bodies for years to come.
So, tell me, what is the greater mercy?”
“You mutilated her.” Iona can barely speak the words aloud. “I see no mercy in this.”
“Neither do I.”
A myriad of conflicting emotions pass over her at the sight of Ariadne leaning against the side of the cliff. She wonders how long Ariadne had been there watching. She doesn’t meet Iona’s incredulous gaze, instead keeping her eyes trained on Moira, frowning with distaste.
“Then you are both fools,” Moira shakes her head. “When either of you discovers a way to defeat darkness without bloodshed, I will be glad to hear of it. Until then, you must set aside your misgivings and accept the cost of peace.”
She then goes to the base of the pyre were a knapsack is left discarded.
Rifling through it, she pulls out a black book covered in symbols branded onto the leather binding, the runes overlapping in an illegible, hideous pattern.
She tosses the book into the flames and shields her face when it explodes in a blaze of sparks.
“Reconcile yourself to the great wisdom of our Goddess,” Moira says.
“Or else these misfortunes will become commonplace. We are already burdened by the sheer multitude of maleficians born every day. If more like the Crone are awakened by our inefficacy, the darkest times of our histories shall be upon us once more. You cannot be weak. You cannot relent. You cannot fail.”
Only when the maleficium grimoire turns to ash does Moira leave with her head held high, glancing only briefly at Iona before retracing her steps back up the trail to the waiting carriage. Once she’s far enough away, Ariadne turns her eyes to Iona, her gaze softening only slightly.
“How did you know…” Iona swallows hard, her throat raw.
“I saw an image of the beach in your mind and read your thoughts to know it was Denmark.” Ariadne glances at her staff and shrugs. “That seems to have been enough. I suppose…”
She trails off when Iona’s eyes drift back to the dead woman. She’s surprised she has any left to shed, but sure enough, hot tears drip down her cheeks, until her breath comes in ragged gasps.
“Do not look at her,” Ariadne says softly.
Iona averts her gaze as strong arms envelop her, and she sinks into Ariadne, needing her warmth more than she ever has.
“Moira is right, you know,” Hecate says.
Ariadne’s arms tighten around her, but the gesture provides little comfort. Reluctantly, Iona leaves her embrace to find the Goddess draped in black, her golden earrings glinting in the moonlight.
“Perhaps I’ve misjudged you, Iona,” she says as she stoops over the fallen malefician. “Do you not understand the magnitude of our current circumstances?”
“She is trying,” Ariadne says, but Hecate silences her with a look.
“You need not be brutal, like Moira, if you do not wish to.” Hecate stands and approaches them.
“I merely ask that you do what must be done to protect the lives of innocents. How you accomplish that is your own to determine, but these subsequent failures will only cost us in the end. We do not have the luxury of time.”
“I will prevail,” Iona says. “I will… I must.”
“Indeed, you must.” Hecate’s smile does not reach her red eyes. “And with that assurance, go and rest my daughters.”
Her black skirts drift over the dead malefician’s body and it disappears in the blink of an eye. The Goddess nearly disappears as well, but Ariadne takes bold steps towards her before Iona can think to hold her back.
“Why must all this fall on Iona’s shoulders?” Ariadne asks. “Do you not possess the magic to intervene? Surely the Crone does not have greater power than that of a Goddess of magic.”
Hecate’s form shimmers in a partial state of incorporeality, but Ariadne’s words stop short her exit. She gives Ariadne the oddest of looks that slowly turns to resignation.
“Follow me,” Hecate finally says, and with a wave of her hand, a portal appears.
Hecate lifts her gilded torch to light the way through an abyss so dense with shadow, the blackness is almost tangible.
Every step is more strenuous than the last, as if their weight is doubled within these hidden depths of the Underworld.
Perhaps gravity works differently in this realm.
Perhaps gravity does not exist here at all.
Iona thinks of Morgan’s marsh, and of Merlin’s secluded island. She wonders if their heavens are tucked away somewhere here or if they exist on another plane of reality entirely. And what of the many other powerful beings that Crescentia had listed who rule over their own covens?
She decides that the enormity of life, death, and divinity are far too vast for her to worry on then. Not with Ariadne’s grip so tight on her arm that she loses circulation. Her short anxious breaths so loud in Iona’s ear, she worries her beloved might faint.
“Ah, here we are,” Hecate says when they reach the gaping mouth of a cave so massive, the light from her torch shed a scant glow against the outermost edges. “Take care not to fall. The rocks can be a touch slippery.”
“What is in there?” Iona whispers.
“Nothing dangerous,” Hecate says.
“Not another damned cave,” Ariadne murmurs so quietly, Iona strains to hear it.
“It is safer for you in there than out here, I assure you,” Hecate says, glancing over their heads with sharp eyes.
“Why?” Ariadne asks warily.
An ominous flapping sound comes from far in the distance. They tense with apprehension.
“There is a nest of harpies nearby,” Hecate explains. “They may feel compelled to investigate the light and would not hesitate in flaying you alive for their supper.”
Iona shudders at the terrifying image of a harpy in Ariadne’s thoughts; half-woman half-bird, with a formidable power over wind.
“Where exactly have you taken us?” Ariadne asks.
“Tartarus,” Hecate says, in such a casual tone, it takes Iona a moment to comprehend what she’s said.