Chapter 31 Chaos
Something happened when Lizzie stepped into the Otherworld. She had no idea how to explain, but everything became more vivid, brighter, and louder, as if her five senses were magnified there.
“Magic is a lot stronger here,” Fayla guessed her thoughts, “Your world is like a washed down version of mine.”
Lizzie did not bother replying to the disdainful comment, scanning her surroundings in awe.
Maybe that was it, and yet…
They were on a rocky lake shore remarkably similar to Loch Tay. The waters were impossibly blue and sparkly and the leaves of the trees surrounding the lake had a silvery gleam. Lizzie felt like she had walked into a fairytale.
Only with the Evil Stepmother in toll…
Fayla held her medallion and muttered a spell. Her little psychopath slash ruthless executive dress dissolved into mists and in its place a long-sleeved black gown appeared. Her short hair was replaced by long silver-blond locks that reached past her hips.
A glamour! All smoke and mirrors!
“You have done well, Elizabeth Endellys!” she drawled, sheathing the dagger into a gilded scabbard hanging by her left hip. Then her eyes sparked with pleasure and she took a step towards Lizzie, “At last I will exterminate the last of your cursed bloodline!”
She swallowed a dry lump and closed her eyes, bracing herself to die.
They heard a thud of bodies crashing and grunts of pain. Brun and Finn stumbled through the tunnel, landing in a tangled mess of arms and legs just as the gateway closed.
Somehow, both men jumped to their feet. They seemed to be disoriented for no more than a few seconds, before resuming their fighting stances. Brun still had his claymore, but Finn was now holding a hunting knife.
Covered in blood.
Lizzie clamped her mouth with her hands to hold a scream. His T-shirt was ripped and drenched in blood.
Her stomach fell. Was that just a flesh wound or had he been stabbed through the ribs? God, it was his left side! Had the blade pierced his spleen? He could bleed to death…
Finn swayed and lifted a hand to his neck. Blood was seeping down on his T-shirt. There was gash there, right under his right ear. Very close to his carotid artery.
However, any considerations of how fatal that wound was, faded away when Brun released bright red sparks that hit Finn in the arm. The sickening sound of bone being crushed filled the air, along with Finn’s bellow of pain when his arm twisted back in an impossible angle, the shattered bone stabbing through his skin. The hunting knife fell from his limp fingers and clattered on the rocks.
On the next breath, Brun lifted his claymore and swirled on his heels as if he were spinning on an ice skating rink.
Lizzie screamed, when Finn’s head tumbled over his shoulder like a bouncing ball and then fell forward, rolling into the water. His body convulsed for a few seconds when all muscles contracted at the same time before releasing. A second later, the headless body fell on its knees and then chest down, like a gruesome bloodied dummy. Lizzie watched in horror as it twitched and then went still, while a river of blood flowed from the gaping neck, marring the clarity of the lake’s waters.
A blasphemy, the uninvited thought sprouted in her head.
She had of course seen countless corpses and body parts during her anatomy classes but had never seen a human being (or otherwise) die before her eyes, and certainly not in such a gruesome way. Had she not spilled her guts only a moment before, she would definitely retch some more at the horrifying sight.
She gawked at Fayla, who seemed to be moderately annoyed by her minion’s death, as if it were just a minor inconvenience and for the first time in her life, Lizzie acknowledged the presence of true evil.
Brun panted, restraining a groan of pain, lowering his claymore to the ground. He watched as life left Finn’s body feeling a sense of justice being served. Finn had been Fayla’s accomplice in killing the Endellys sisters and had used magic to take advantage of Lizzie.
Heavens, he had as good as raped her!
Closing his eyes tightly, he took a few deep breaths to restrain his anger and sharpen his focus on the task ahead. One mistake and both of them would die there.
Then he looked round for only a moment, taking in the spectacular landscape.
True to what the Fae had always told him, the Otherworld was not much different from the human world, and yet it was nothing like it. The sights were brighter and more colourful and Brun could feel his magic pulsing with life…
He stared at his bloodied hand in shock.
That was not coming from the ring. He was feeling his own magic for the first time in his life and it was an odd sensation to feel the power pulsing from inside him, coming from deep within his core as something which was unmistakably part of him.
His eyes found Lizzie kneeling on the rocky shore, covered in mud and dried blood.
Brun walked – or rather wobbled towards her. The blood loss was taking the toll of his strength. With a grimace, he pressed a hand on his flank, muttering a healing spell. It would not save his life, but hopefully it would buy him enough time to save Lizzie’s.
It was the only thing that mattered to him.
“Lizzie!” he called, feeling his own desperation in his voice.
“Brun!” she cried in warning, her eyes fixed on something behind him and he turned.
Fayla was slashing at him with her dagger. He was so weak he barely parried the blow in time. His muscles trembled with the effort of holding her off and she smiled, all her cruelty flashing on her eyes.
Then she closed her hand into a fist and punched his injured flank.
He howled, falling on his knees at the blinding pain. It took everything he had not to pass out and the sword fell from his hands as his body spasmed.
With an expression of pure hate, Fayla lowered the dagger towards his eye.
“Stop!”Lizzie screamed, the power inside hertrying to take control, very much like it happened at Glennloch’s kitchen weeks before.
Or had it been months? Maybe years… The last hours felt like years…
“Stop!” she screamed again when Fayla motioned to stab Brun in the face.
To her surprise, Fayla obeyed.
But her face turned a purplish shade of red and her eyes seemed to be bulging from their sockets. Lizzie gasped, realising that she was doing that, that somehow she had frozen the bitch with her magic.
You see? I told you that she can do this only with her voice.
Something similar had happened to Finn on their two accidental encounters. He had been strangely stiff and she had assumed he simply had swallowed his words, but instead, she must have compelled him, even without knowing she was doing it.
Enchanters were immensely powerful but had little control of their magic, insomuch as that every word they uttered could create chaos.
Lizzie allowed her power to fill her completely and her whole body began to hum. Panting through the pain in her ankle, she stood up, and limped towards them.
“Step away from him!” she shouted again.
Fayla growled in anger, stepping back like a puppet being pulled by invisible strings and Lizzie could not help but enjoy the scene.
Faylamoved away from him and Brun was astounded. She was the most powerful Conjurer to have ever lived and Lizzie, who until a month ago did not even know magic truly existed and who could cast only half a dozen spells was compelling her simply with her will.
“Toss your dagger in the lake!” Lizzie commanded and Brun shivered at the power in her voice. It made everything around them vibrate in response. The leaves on the trees shook, the pebbles underneath him hummed and there were even ripples on the lake’s surface.
Aranna had told him once that the magic in the Otherworld was far more powerful than in the human world, but Lizzie’s magic felt three times stronger here.
Three times…
It was almost as if she were a blend of the three Endellys sisters.
Blood drained away from his face.
Heavens! This is it! Aranna’s trap!
Lizzie was the trap!
He shivered. Lizzie would not be able to control all that power, she was like…
A ticking bomb!
He looked at Fayla who, in stiff movements, threw her dagger in the lake. Lizzie could be compelling her, but she was fighting back.
It was just a matter of time…
“Lizzie!” he warned, trying and failing to stand up. He was so weak now that his legs would not obey. His fingers were feeling numb.
Her eyes flickered to him, her face was marred with worry, “Brun…”
“Lizzie, you must leave now and seal the passage again!”
“No!” she shook her head stubbornly, “I will not leave you here. You will come with me!”
Brun only realised their mistake when the tip of Fayla’s boot made contact with his jaw, sending him flying back and he almost fell in the lake.
One moment of distraction had been enough for Fayla to free herself of Lizzie’s compulsion. Holding her medallion, she muttered a spell and her body glowed.
She was raising a shield!
Next, she broke a branch from a tree and with another incantation, turned it into a whip.
Brun froze.
Suddenly he was a child again, cowering on the corner of his narrow chamber as Fayla punished him for every transgression. Always a disproportionate punishment, leaving him raw and aching for days, even weeks.
Every hit, every torture had been a calculated act to break him.
Panic gripped his senses. He broke into cold sweats and his heart accelerated into a flutter. He had no defence against that.
He was alone.
Alone.
She lifted her hand high and in the next breath the whip hit him across the chest.
He screamed.
“God! Stop!” Lizzie shrieked as Fayla began to flog Brun over and over, turning his clothes into tattered rags in a matter of seconds. There was just so much blood everywhere. She was going to kill him.
“Stop!” she screamed again, but Fayla was undeterred, immune to Lizzie’s voice. She could scream till her voice went hoarse, and conjuring little balls of light would not help them now.
Both of them were going to die.
Thirteen fathers will be in their graves after the gate is opened.
Nine mothers will be born before the second comes.
Victory arrives when the bridge of time is crossed.
Darkness is vanquished when the heart is sacrificed.
The song of the nightingale shall be the thief’s last.
What did those stupid verses mean? How could she defeat Fayla?
The terrifying whistling sound of the whip and of Brun’s cries of pain tore at her heart.
Her heart.
Darkness is vanquished when the heart is sacrificed.
The heart is sacrificed.
Calm washed over her. There was only one thing she could possibly do and she was ready.
“I will give it to you if you stop,” she shouted over the agonizing sound of Brun’s torture.
Fayla halted and straightened up, glaring at her. The bitch’s hair was not even tussled, though her face was covered with blood splatters.
Brun’s blood.
“What did you say?” she snarled.
Lizzie took a step closer, trying not to look at Brun’s slumped form on the ground. His breathing was very weak.
Please, Brun, hold on! Please, please, please!
“I said, I will give it all to you, all my magic. I will surrender it to you if you let him live.”
“Lizzie…” his voice was nothing but a whisper, “No, you must leave…”
“You must swear you will heal him,” she went on ignoring him, “Heal him, erase his memories or whatever and send him back. You have tortured him enough, bitch! Swear you will set him free!”
“Lizzie…” he tried again, but then his head fell limp on the water edge and his eyes closed.
Fayla laughed and her gray eyes sparkled with greed. It took Lizzie all her self-control not to launch herself over that monster and gouge her eyeballs out.
“That’s what you want, isn’t it?”
Lizzie gazed upon that beautiful land, knowing that Fayla would destroy it, but right now all she could think of was saving the life of the man she loved.
If Fae and magic are real, maybe there is such things as reincarnation. Maybe we will have another lifetime together sometime…
“Very well,” Fayla replied at last, tossing the whip aside, “You have my word, Elizabeth Endellys. I shall heal him and set him free to live the rest of his pathetic life in the human world.”
Then she grabbed Lizzie’s hand and placed her medallion on her palm. The feeling of it was foul.
Corrupted.
“Now, repeat with me.”
Fayla began to sing slowly and Lizzie repeated the words.
The song had a different feel from the other spells that Brun had taught her. It was like a chanting and it caused her the same discomfort that putting a spell on Mrs Clisham did, only a hundred times darker.
The chanting became faster and her power bubbled close to the surface, only it was so strong that Lizzie could barely restrain it. Her skin glowed, a halo of light surrounding her. It shifted and turned, then it began to pour out of her like water from a tap filling a bucket, being sucked into Fayla’s body.
Fayla smiled, “Oh you are indeed stronger than Triarell! When I drained her she was not half as strong as I had expec–”
The open tap turned into open floodgates.
In the next second, the dam broke.
“What is going on?” Fayla screamed, “It is too much, stop! I cannot take it!”
The Dreams Thief was going to get more than it had bargained for.
But Lizzie could not stop even if she wanted to. Every nerve in her body was firing, she could sense every muscle cell in her heart beating. She went rigid as a stone statue.
She heard the breathing of the animals nearby and from afar, and even the sloshing of the sap flowing through the tree trunks. Brun’s haggard breathing was like airplane turbines and the sloshing of the lake’s waters like thunder.
All smells of the world were inside her, all tastes. She knew the name of every colour, could sense every atom in everything. Her eyes turned up, staring all the way across the dawn. She could see every single star in the universe.
In that moment – a second, a minute, or an eon – she became life itself.
Pure chaos.
Yet no human can carry all the power of life, therefore it was killing her.
But it was killing Fayla too.
Darkness is vanquished when the heart is sacrificed.
She looked down at Fayla Theynore, the elusive Dreams Thief. Her gray eyes were as wide as saucers and her skin had become translucent. Lizzie could see the magic power filling her up like an air balloon, rupturing everything inside her: every vein, every sinew, every bone in her body, pushing her from inside out.
The song of the nightingale shall be the thief’s last.
The intensity of the magic power surrounding him was so strong that was making the whole ground shake. Brun lifted his eyes in awe. Lizzie had become larger than life, a more glorious version of a human.
Her eyes had become as big as an owl’s and they glowed with their own light. Her voice was the sound of something holy, the secret voice of a goddess.
It was like witnessing the birth of a star.
I am glad I had the chance to see this…
Then the edges of his vision darkened and he lost control of his neck.
His head fell hard on the rocks and he sank into oblivion.
For a moment Lizzie felt sorry for Fayla.
A very, very brief moment.
“Stop! This is not what was planned!” Fayla screeched.
But her scream was swallowed by the hum of the power overwhelming her. She had no control over it. It was like trying to hold fire with one’s bare hands.
Enchanters could keep the energies of the world in balance with their innate power of creation.
Then Fayla’s body became rigid, her arms spread in a cross and her mouth froze in a silent scream.
Her skin glowed as if she were becoming incandescent and her hair stood up like a golden crown for a brief moment, before turning into ash.
Then lightning shot from her body in all directions.
Fayla’s eyes bulged out of their sockets and then they melted like marshmallows on fire.
It was pretty horrifying to watch.
Then she exploded.
The blast knocked the air out of Lizzie’s lungs, and the shockwave threw her backwards, straight into the icy waters of the loch.
The last thing she felt before losing consciousness was the strong smell of citrus and sandalwood.