Chapter 42
Seated upon luxurious divans in the main reception room, the 85th waited for Nebuchadnezaar to begin his story. With great verve the playwright obliged them, "You wish to hear of romance and tragedy, the mortals and their gods," Nebuchadnezaar's plump cheeks turned crimson, "You wish to hear of women."
Eros prompted him, "There's one story in particular that interests us."
Nebuchadnezaar waited patiently with a neutral expression.
"Arethusa," Astraea cut in.
"Oh! How wonderful." Nebuchadnezaar came to life, "My best work, the Sorceress Wars recounting the story of the greatest there ever was." He paused, seemingly gathering his thoughts, contemplating how best to tell the story.
"Arethusa lived in a time long passed when the many kingdoms first learned about the source of magic - magus. There was a race to collect it. Kingdoms collided," the playwright bent forward, his eyes wide, "War on a global scale!"
Astraea sat silently verifying all that the playwright said.
Nebuchadnezaar drew a deep breath before continuing, "Arethusa loved her family and feared that in the fires of war they would perish. Many a night she sat alone in the darkness, unable to sleep." The playwright curled up in a ball at the far side of the room. He gazed out the window plaintively.
"Arethusa knew what she must do: she must lead her armies to victory.
The war came. Monsters, swords, arrows, spells, war machines. Mages, knights, necromancers, sorceri. All fought and perished in those battles that defaced Lucretia. But much of the killing was done by Arethusa's hand. The once young, beautiful, vestal sorceress became an adept general.
The sanguinary sorceress soon sat upon a seat of power that spanned half the globe.
Only one other adversary remained--"
Astraea uttered, "Nala."
Eros turned to face her.
"You've seen my play," Nebuchadnezaar said.
Astraea smiled uncomfortably.
The playwright asked, "And what became of Nala?"
"Arethusa killed her," Astraea looked away at the remembrance.
"Indeed, Arethusa was not the person she once was. Perhaps the former Arethusa would have been merciful, but that was not the sorceress who had spent decades campaigning.
Before all the nobles, and ministers of the kingdom, Arethusa executed Nala."
Nebuchadnezaar slumped to the floor when the imaginary ice bolts penetrated his chest.
Astraea shuddered.
"The Great War was over, but Arethusa could not go back to the way things were. She became obsessed with defeating a new enemy. High in her tower she experimented, pushing the boundaries further than any had dared to do before her. The once beautiful seraphim became an abomination, a terrifying demon that bore a mutilated form. Her rule became oppressive. There were rumours of abductions - human experimentation.
A band of warriors formed a secret society named the vita obscura with the sole ambition of ridding the world of Arethusa. Each wore a ring to identify himself as one who led a secret life."
Eros looked at Astraea because the creature he'd seen before, as if beneath the surface of her skin, slithered across her countenance flaring up in her eyes. Her entire visage was changed. Eros pulled her arm and looked closer but the creature had gone, only Astraea's fair visage remained.
"What is it?" She asked.
Eros regathered himself, all eyes were on him. "Nothing, I'm sorry."
Nebuchadnezaar paused before continuing, "But their plans were abortive. The sorceress was too powerful; ruthlessly she made the most frightful examples of the perpetrators. I don't have the heart to say what evil executions she performed."
Astraea interjected, "What of her parents? Her mother and father, her sister whom she loved dearly."
"Her parents died of illness. Arethusa was campaigning at the time and dealt with her parent's death by immersing herself further in the war. She didn't forget Priya, however, who was now alone. The general was still a big sister.
Arethusa summoned Balthazaar - a trusted warrior. She gave the care of her sister to him, but before he departed she issued him a warning: Priya was very beautiful, and he was under no circumstances to love her.
Priya was very different to Arethusa, but not the less precocious. Where Arethusa performed adroit magic, and was skilled at politics and war, Priya wrote beautiful poetry, sang, and danced with abundant grace, dexterity, and beauty. The cold battlefield was far away from the warrior, whose heart soon rested at Priya's delicate feet.
It was one night that Priya laid her head upon Balthazar's chest, asked when he would again depart for battle; Balthazar responded that he never again could, that he couldn't bear to be apart from her. Priya returned his confession of love.
In less than a year hence, Priya gave birth to a baby girl. Balthazar felt prouder than when he had forced Gall to capitulate. It was then word returned from the front: Arethusa had conquered all the western territories, and would be returning to Arcadia after a long and hard campaign.
Balthazar was fearful, apprising Priya of his oath to her sister. But Priya was confident that Arethusa loved her, and upon seeing how happy she'd become would forget the promise that was made. However, as we know, Arethusa was not the same as she was before. She executed Balthazaar.
Priya made numerous inquiries to her sister, "Where is Balthazaar?" And, "When would the father of her child return?" Arethusa insisted that he yet remained on the front, commanding the armies in her absence, that he would be engaged for some time.
After several months passed, Priya realized that Balthazaar was dead. She knew that her sister had not come back from the war, and she made a plan to save her from what she had unknowingly become.
The younger sorceress walked into the hall while her sister sat upon the throne. She descried the appalling transformation: Arethusa's veins showed through her emaciated skin, her black eyes had sunk into the back of her head, much of her hair had fallen out. Exhausted, the haggard empress wheezed.
"What do you do - in there?" Priya said feeling uncomfortable under Arethusa's stare when she handed her a drink. She pointed to the room where the empress often locked herself away.
The harshness vanished from Arethusa's countenance, her expression softened, Priya thought she saw her sister again as she turned from the door to her, "I am close Priya." Arethusa held her hand. "I can almost bring them back." The disfigured woman fell back in her chair.
Priya was puzzled, "Bring who back?" She said.
"Mother and father."
"But they're dead."
"I've discovered a way, I can go back, and save them. I just need a little more time."
Priya, herself, began to cry because she saw her sister again, still fighting, even now. All the experiments had been to conquer her greatest enemy - time.
She looked up at Arethusa who breathed languidly, she looked tired.
"You can stop," Priya said, "You've already done so much."
"I cannot. I will not." Arethusa became distant again, retreating into herself. She didn't look at her little sister.
"Let us drink then," Priya said between tears, "To mother and father," she trembled.
Arethusa took the cup and, looking Priya deep in her teary eyes, her expression soft, put the chalice to her lips, and drank. Immediately her legs, and feet began to turn to stone. Priya heard the cracks as the tonic went to work. She started to weep, it was still her sister. Arethusa knew she'd been betrayed. She reached out her arm, and raised Priya's chin. Smiling, she brushed her baby sister's cheek as the stone worked its way up her neck, then all of a sudden, she smirked.
At the end of the throne room, a guard left having witnessed all.
"I pray at last you find peace, I love you," Priya sobbed while she still held Arethusa's hand.
It was when she looked into her stony visage that she saw there reflected three assassins. The vita obscura felt their victory close, but yet feared the empress's sister who now stood to inherit the throne.
They pulled daggers from their belts.
"Do what you will to me, but I beg you, do not harm my daughter."
"The sorceresses must be stopped - all of them."
Priya wailed.
The assassin drew close, and ran his blade through her, but the barrier she'd conjured stopped it. She passed an ice bolt through the temple of his head, and engulfed the other two in flames. Then she fled.
Her daughter, awoken from her slumber, wiped the sleep from her eyes, "Mommy, what's going on?" She said. Priya trembled, and, taking her up in her arms, she fled the palace. When she broke across the open plain, heading for the river and her salvation, she was pursued by the vita obscura.
Priya ran as fast as she could. Her child was in her arms, and the boat was within sight. The men gained on her, and would catch the sorceress before she made it to her salvation. Then a cloaked unknown emerged on the field; a volley of ice bolts shot from his fingers - a dozen men fell. Lightning crackled, and then a barrage of fireballs. The attackers were cut down in their hundreds.
The sorceress turned at the cries; she saw the devastation the unknown wrought, but his position was soon to be overrun: the kingdom was in revolt; scores of men broke across the field.
Lightning crackled past Priya's side. The unknown signalled to her to continue her flight.
Zeus Ordain ran his sword through the unknown's abdomen when he was distracted by Priya. The phantom fell to the floor in a heap. Then the champion's eyes were on Priya. Nothing now stood between the vita obscura and their prize.
Priya was pushing the boat down the river when the arrows pierced her back. The child cried, looking from the boat it saw the men fall upon her mother, stabbing her over and over."
Silence engulfed the room. The playwright wore a melancholy expression. "The vita obscura inherited the crown. The sorceress of stone is believed to yet sit upon her throne - frozen in time. And the child was never found. The line of the sorceresses survived in secret, throughout the ages."
Eros's mind fastidiously set to work: the vita obscura acquired power, and never let it go. Thanatos was on a crusade to right this wrong. Priya, and her child most certainly are Astraea's historic relatives, as is Arethusa, the sorceress who lies somewhere in the world around them encased in stone, a prison that Thanatos intends to free her from.
Nebuchadnezaar excused himself when his valet de chamber entered requesting his attention; the team closed around Eros.
"We know what Thanatos plans, he will free her."
Sabriel said, "We can't let that happen. If this sorceress is as powerful, and cruel as we are led to believe then--"
"I know," Eros said. "He has all three stones, he needs only find her and he wins."
"But where is she?" Asked Typhon.
Eros thought long, and hard. He thought of all the events connected with the affair, and, at last going back to the beginning, the knight remembered he and Thanatos hiding behind a pillar in Hyperion, listening to Aavak confer with the king.
"He said, 'she's here.'" The others stared blankly at him.
"Who did?"
"Aavak. He said 'she's here.' He was of the vita obscura; he was in a power struggle with them. What if he sought help, what if he tried to resurrect the old enemy?"
Astraea started at the mention of Aavak. When she was a thief, and had been arrested, the king had shown her kindness, and had let her go.
"But he didn't have the sorceress's stones?" Typhon said. "Why would he seek her when he couldn't free her?"
"What if they aren't the key? What if the key to unlocking her is something else."
"And the stones are an insurance policy," Aegis interjected.
"That or Thanatos was deceiving the devil, buying time to find a way to escape his pact. He's been protecting the sorceri from Bahamut all along."
Aurora said, "But Thanatos will be headed to Hyperion--"
"And we must stop him."