The Stone Sorceress

Chapter 46

The king said to the people nearby, "It's him."

"Why are you on this crusade?" Nobunaga, who was the head of the secret order, said.

Thanatos looked about him with disgust. Left and right were lined hundreds of aristocrats - direct descendants of the people who destroyed the line of sorceresses. "You are rakehells," he shouted, "Who've lied and arrogated power. You killed a woman, and tried to murder her child - a crime that shall be paid for."

Nobunaga had motioned to the fighters in the room; mages, and soldiers on all sides stood to confront Thanatos. The devil stood at the centre with his sword drawn, but then she entered. Arethusa glided into the hall, and now stood beside her protector. She looked askance at everyone in the room in a moment, and in the next she began casting a flurry of spells. They were faster than a swordstroke, and flowed with the elegance and grace of a hawk. Men and women on all sides burned alive, were frozen and shattered, were impaled by granite, suffocated, or simply were made to fall on their own swords - their minds having been conquered.

Perceiving the futility at fighting the formidable sorceress, and the devil at her side who hadn't struck a single blow, the others attempted to flee; but they found the doors hermetically sealed. They were trapped. Murdered kings and politicians with etchings of pain still on their faces filled the hall - blood covered every surface.

Arethusa laughed.

Erebos however, had cracked the enchantment sealing the door on the far side. The density of bodies obscured him from Arethusa's view, who was busily massacring everyone. He crossed the threshold, and was followed by Ixion, but the king was caught by a hex. Arethusa had at last sensed that an escape hatch had opened up, and was quick to close it once again.

"Help me Erebos!" Ixion clutched the frame of the door.

The mage paused, and looked at his friend. "I'm sorry," he said as Ixion was dragged back into the carnage. The door was sealed anew. Only Erebos escaped, running off into the woods.

At last silence reigned in the hall - no more voices cried out. Arethusa closed her eyes as if the slaughter had been cathartic. Then she began a depraved practice. It was the art of seizing the souls of the dead, and feasting on them. There would be no afterlife; they were merely food. By this means the ancient empress would be fully restored.

Thanatos had watched the slaughter with indifference. He thought that the vita obscura deserved what they got. Ever since Bahamut had made him a sorceress hunter, and he'd learned of the history of man, had he dreamed that the sorceresses would be restored to their rightful place, and the secret society theirs. Now it was all happening around him. He was glad to have been a part of it. He thus looked upon Arethusa as she feasted with delight.

His moment was to be disturbed however, like the men who lay dead all around, by the sound of footsteps. He turned, and, drawing his blade, he took a step forward to investigate. All the horrors he'd just witnessed hadn't upset him as much as the sight of Eros and Astraea - hand in hand.

"How did you survive?" Thanatos said.

"You're not the only one on terms with a sorceress."

Thanatos was glaring at Eros when Astraea put the question to him, "How could you not tell me that I was possessed?"

"Would it have helped, if I had?" Thanatos continued with tones of nonchalance. "It was better for you not to know."

"Really?" Astraea's sonorous voice rose. "Look around."

"I see only that you are avenged."

"Not like this," she said.

The souls were presently fleeing in death as they had in life, but Arethusa dragged them back. Her emaciated soul opened its jaws wide.

Astraea focused her eyes upon Thanatos, "Stop."

"No."

Eros said, "Do you know what you've done?"

"I've restored a monarch, and destroyed a most secretive evil order. This was the only way."

"This is the only way you saw."

"She isn't evil," Thanatos said turning to Arethusa.

Eros knew Thanatos had shades of himself. He'd said this himself about a sorceress.

"Do you even know that you've left the underworld unruly - that demons spill out upon Lucretia?"

"They will be dealt with under our rule; order will be restored."

"You're mad."

In one deft move Thanatos summoned ice bolts, and cast them at Eros upon hearing this remark from his former friend's lips. They would have skewered him, had not Astraea conjured a barrier before him. A thud sounded upon impact; the shards dropped harmlessly to the floor. She countered with a lightning storm, which was blocked and channeled along Thanatos's ethereal sword. He thrust it back, but she deflected it.

The blades began to clash. Astraea joined Eros in the melee. Dagger and sword struck one another time and time again. Astraea fired off lightning during brief openings, but Thanatos evaded, blocked and countered. He was an agile and elegant swordsman, repelling attacks from both Astraea and Eros. The fight was still in its infancy when it was precipitously ended. Thanatos was the last to realise that Arethusa was stood beside him. When she had emerged from her stone prison, she was her emaciated, haggard, and almost witch like self; but the rejuvenation of the souls had replenished not just her abilities but also her appearance. Her skin was like ivory, her dark hair once more fell down her back. She wore a corset dress that showed her aquiline figure. Her perspicacious eyes glanced from one to the other of the people before her. Her red lips prepared their words, while her dress trailed through blood.

Arethusa came before the young sorceress, pressed her hand gently in her own, and said, "I know how much you've struggled. You've been alone for too long; but it's over now."

Astraea was repulsed by what Arethusa had done, of course she was, but she also admired her. Through Arethusa's memories she had learned about her - her intellect, beauty and strength in magic. Arethusa had bested a dragon at twelve to protect her sister. She'd persuaded politicians on matters of war, and in that war she had excelled over her peers. Astraea identified with Arethusa's loss of her parents, and the burden of being a sorceress. The two were the last of their kind, and she knew that only Arethusa would truly be able to understand and guide her. Astraea too felt joy because the vita obscura were dead. They'd killed her mother, and they'd persecuted her her entire life.

The two sorceresses were coming to an understanding.

Eros meanwhile, had also become enamoured by the old sorceress. It is an awful thing to say, but this close to her beauty, with a kind of chemical, instinctual sense of the power she possessed, it was too difficult to resist her will. The knight looked at the two ineffable sorceresses side by side, and he was ready to lay down his life for either of them.

Astraea looked at him. He didn't know, but at that moment she was thinking about how he had forgiven her - that even when Thanatos stood ready to kill him on the schooner, she at his enemy's side, he still didn't blame her. She knew that he loved instead of hated. His pure heart had won hers long ago. Arethusa had been like that once; but she was no more. The young looked into the old's eyes, and said, "You were the mightiest of us your highness. I admired you, but you have become lost. Your campaigns and experiments have ruined you."

Arethusa, whose dress was as covered in blood as it had been stone, maintained her countenance with difficulty - at last a thin smile broke across her lips.