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| - We leave Stormwind under the cover of night, trundling along streets of cobbled stone, the harsh ring of ironshod hooves our only fanfare. I gaze at the cold shafts of starlight filtering through the moth-eaten linen above our heads and am grateful for the warm night air. Flaafenn whimpers anxiously, his feelers drooping, as she writhes and sweats upon the musty straw. Her deathly pallor sets Darwena to soothing her fevered brow with icy yet gentle hands, voluptuous lips thinned with worry. Even Jhomzazt glows pale beneath his customary deep blue tint, resolutely watching the streets fall away behind us. And they all turn to me, their eyes a mute appeal. Gobkol, help her. Help us. I look away, ashamed, and crawl up to sit beside him. The one responsible for our Mistress' pain, that which ravaged her now and that which was to come. 'Where are we going?' I ask. 'I don't know if she can endure this for much longer.' A low moan emanates from behind us and my heart twists in my chest. 'Duskwood.' He answers calmly, coldly. I stare at him a moment, wondering. What if she didn't have to die? He studies me as if reading my thoughts. 'Ineffectual as she is, you underestimate her love for me.' He speaks of her as if she were already dead. I hide my shadowburned hands from his amused gaze and go to her. Our Oriflame. So small and frail. She smiles wanly. 'Don't worry, Gobby, Alençon will care for me.' Another spasm of pain seizes her and I want to scream. * * * * What do we demons know of love? Nothing, until we are called to serve. We die countless deaths and give freely of our life's force for the agony and the ecstasy, the punishment of failure and the approval success brings. I remember the cold disorientation of the summoning, how the wind-lashed rain threw strange shapes through the stained glass windows. The stone walls seemed to pulse with a fel energy all their own, turning their uniform gray to sinister crimson, purple, and back. She stood there squinting with concentration, a tiny gnome woman, her hands extended. I saw him too, kneeling behind her with his long fingers entwined in hers and his lips to her ear. Like a puppeteer, I thought. I had not known the truth of my casual observation then. Three summonings hence, each with him at her back, and we were all here. Jhommo, Flaafy, 'Wena and I. There was not one spell, one ritual she could accomplish alone, but she was always kind to us and we grew to love her all the same. 'She reshaped our destinies as she did our names,' said 'Wena one day, and I laughed at her sentimentality. Moments later a china plate, edged with delicate blue scrollwork, clipped the tip of my ear and shattered against Flaafy's head where he lay drowsing by the fire. Ori returned, book in hand, to find us an amorphous whirl of limbs, the priceless carpet beneath us in worthless shreds and poor Jhommo frozen in surprise, a bucket of water held above his head. She made us all apologize and shake hands after she stopped laughing, though Alençon harped about insolence and the necessity of discipline. But that was not Ori's way, she who wept after seeing him punish his own felhunter for a minor infraction. The dining room stank of scorched demonflesh for a fortnight after. I would often watch her at her studies, almost lost in the sea of cushions upon her favourite armchair. She would pause to chat and laugh with 'Wena or scratch behind Flaafy's horns where he could never reach. I wondered how one so hopelessly inept came to be an apprentice of the dark arts, and it was not long before I had my answer. * * * * I wish those days could have lasted forever. I wish we were free of Alençon and his foul plotting. I wish her the life she should have had, even if we were never to see her again. I wish.... * * * * 'You wish you knew how she came to be here, n'est ce pas?' It is my shame to confess that he frightened me not a little, creeping up on me like that. As sumptuously arrayed as his home was, she loved the garden best, with its fragrant trellises and sun-warmed stone benches. I sat alone that day, watching 'Wena braid her raven dark hair while Jhommo reeled silk ribbons from his fingers for them, dutifully keeping them from Flaafy's curious nosing. 'She's shown no particular aptitude in any school of warlockery.' I venture, as calmly as I can despite my hammering pulse. 'Ce n'est pas grave — call her position temporary, if you will.' 'What do you mean temporary? What are you going to do with her?' He strolled off with a maddening insouciance, hands clasped behind his back. 'Such charming dévotion is unseemly in a demon, you know.' * * * * Futile as I know it to be, I clamber vanward once more to talk with him. 'She does not improve,' I say. 'What if the babe comes?' He stares at me agog and it is plain he never even considered the possibility. 'But there are protocols for such an event, rituals vital to my success.' He flings the reins at me, sighing exasperatedly as I fumble. Thankfully, the hipshot nag plods on, indifferent. I hear him settle beside her, the rustle of straw as he leans closer. 'Chérie,' He murmurs. 'I only want your happiness; my love for you will remain should you wish an end to this.' The ringing hoofbeats drown out her reply, though I strain to listen, gripping the reins so hard the leather stings my palms. The bastard. He knows full well what her answer will be. But a part of me pleads for her to refuse. To spit in his face for what he has wrought upon her. My fears are confirmed as the wooden seat creaks beneath his weight. His smug smile makes me want to incinerate him where he sits though the effort would most certainly kill me. Instead, I place the reins in his outstretched hand and return to her side. * * * * I ran after him as fast as my legs would carry me though the bastard lengthened his stride, the scuff and scurry of our footsteps muffled by the lush carpet. Down the long, portrait-hung halls. Up the winged staircase, the diorama'd balustrades gleaming in the sun. Still, he started to speak, gesturing animatedly. 'There exists a demon powerful beyond any we possess the power to enslave. I speak of course, of the felguard, scions of the mo'arg of the Burning Legion. None may match their skill in combat, their sheer strength and force of will. 'The Legion commands entire armies, but I am content with dominion of but one. With the rituals described within —' He held up an ancient tome and lovingly stroked its hidebound cover. ' — I may enslave one for myself. However, I needs must prepare for its arrival in a most specific manner.' He paused before a variegated bronze mirror and worried at his mustachios fastidiously, turning his head this way and that like a peacock. 'Specific...manner?' 'It requires an earthly vessel through which it may manifest itself in the flesh, oui.' he replied airily. 'You mean to kill her, don't you?' I croaked through desert dry lips. The gilded furnishings spun and blurred before my eyes and I leaned heavily against a gilded bench nearby. 'Not intentionally, no. But it is a possibility.' He rubbed his hands together excitedly. 'Think of the tremendous potential! Once the methodology is perfected, we warlocks would be virtually unstoppable!' 'I can't let you.' I murmured, and my heart leapt into my throat as I realized that I'd spoken aloud. 'Quoi?' My answer was the crackle and swoosh of a firebolt that broke against the enveloping nebulousness of a banishment. I could only watch, mute and helpless within the diaphanous green murk, as he walked away once more. * * * * 'Wena's gasp of pain jolts me back into the present. Even in the weak moonlight, I can see how Ori grips her hand so tightly her knuckles strain bloodlessly against her skin. 'Scream if you must, chérie,' calls Alençon. 'We shall be there soon.' Ori's head whips from side to side, her huge belly jutting upward as she arches her back in agony. Something thrashes from under skin stretched taut, so quickly I could have imagined it, and I shiver involuntarily. 'Please.' I find myself begging. 'Please, please, please.' Then she breaks and wails, 'Maman! Maman!' The blood comes without warning, a swift gush that turns the straw beneath her black as it floods across the cartbed and fills our nostrils with a charnel stench. From the corner of my eye, I see that Jhommo is almost colourless out of fear for her and I am suddenly so angry I begin to shake. Enough. I beckon Flaafy to me and cup my hand against his audial ridge. As I whisper my plan to him, I swear his tooth-crowded jaws curve in a smile. Outside, the flaxen grasslands of Westfall loom ever closer. We're almost there, Fel help us all. * * * * We never spoke of it, but he did something far worse than simply rape her; he made her love him. A lingering touch here, a tender glance there, and she was his. He was no stranger to profligacy and her naivety stood not a chance against his fervor. She called us to her one day, her cheeks flushed with rapture. And it was that day that she raised her hand to us for the very first time. 'I have the most wonderful news, mes enfants,' she gushed. 'Alençon has asked me to marry him!' Our uneasy silence was met with rising hurt and disbelief, her eyes darting from one face to another as she began to tremble uncontrollably. I spoke then, for all of us, though I knew it would wound her most terribly. 'Mistress, trust him not. He means you ill.' I could scarce bring myself to meet her brimming eyes as I told her of his true intentions. How she was but a convenient womb to him and nothing more. 'That is a preposterous lie! Alençon loves me!' 'He will die before he harms a single hair of yours.' Jhommo interjected. Her expression was horror made flesh as her lips shaped the geas, both sorrow and anger vying for supremacy. The windows bowed and shattered before the fel winds that swirled throughout the room to fling everything aside as if they were toys. Deaf to our entreaties, she bound us with flame and shadow, with heart and soul, never to lay a hand upon him as long as she drew breath. She went to his bed that very night, leaving us cowering both in fear of her and for her, listening as her laughter turned to tears, her sighs to sobs. And there was nothing we could do when the screaming began. Nothing but salve her bruises and dress her wounds after, and wash the blood from her ravaged body. 'It's not too late — only bid us and we may yet escape him.' I clasped her hand in my twisted claw, afraid that the slightest pressure would crush her. She smiled at us and I knew she was lost. 'Alençon loves me.' Then she gently took her hand from mine and fell asleep. I tried to kill him that night and my firebolts turned in the air to blaze agonizingly against my own skin. I cast one after another to no avail, until I collapsed under the weight of the searing pain, his scornful laughter echoing in my mind long after he had left me weak and defeated upon the cold stone of the terrace. It grew rapidly within her, that fel spawn, until she could barely walk. And still she stayed with him and we with her. What else could we have done? Even when the nightmares began, and we would find her standing on the edge of the roof, or knee deep in the pond, still asleep. In the kitchen, knife in hand, her eyes shut to the waking world. She could eat nothing but raw bloody meat, and though the sight of it nauseated her, she never failed to turn ravenous at the mere scent of it. Time and time again, as we led tenderly led her back to her bed, afraid to wake her for fear she would succumb to the horror her life had become. As her eyes would narrow in disgust even as she hungrily raised her hand to her mouth, dripping with gore. Through crimson-stained lips she would say brightly, with unerring faith, 'Alençon loves me.' * * * * 'Gobby, something is wrong....' 'Wena's fear-hoarse voice forces my gaze from the coarse wood, tacky with drying blood. Even above the creak and rumble of rickety wood, I can hear Ori gasping fitfully, her hands clutched to her chest. Her panicked eyes begin to dull as a fresh gout of blood patters wetly to the floor, washing over our feet. 'Now, Flaafy!' I whisper fiercely, and he begins to howl long and loud, his feelers tensing with effort. Hardly a moment passes before Alençon thrusts his head aft, face reddened with annoyance. 'What is the meaning of this? Do you mean to have the 'shire upon us?' He finds no assistance from any of us; we will not meet his eyes. Cursing healthily, he lunges for the felhunter, oily shadows swirling about his fingers to shoot forth and tighten viciously around Flaafy's throat. Silenced, he turns to me with a plaintive whimper, his eyeless face contorted in pain. They struggle back and forth, their feet finding no purchase on the blood-slick wood, and the cart begins to lurch alarmingly. The firebolt sparks unbidden in my hand, runnels of pain snaking up my arm and bringing tears to my eyes. Then they disappear from view, enveloped by a hulking blue shadow. 'Jhommo!' The very matter of his being shrivels and recedes where it touches Alençon, but he holds fast, his eyes blazing with agony. 'Go now!' he spits with no small effort. 'Get help!' And I run, leaping from the cart though my knees jar sharply against the hard stone road when I stumble, the shrieks of pain and shouts of fury fading in my ears. I run, past the silent trees and the sleeping farms. Through the deserted village green. The moon-silvered spires of Stormwind soon loom above and I charge blindly past the guards on numbed feet, my sobbing breath tearing at my throat. I let memory guide my footfalls, crashing to a halt against a heavy wooden door emblazoned with a gray tiger astride a globe. Then the darkness, turning my tongue to stone and my limbs to liquid. Then nothing.
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