Of Ice, Death & Monsters

Henry sat back down by the balcony beside Mollie as he watched Derek and Topher trying to hit on Masha.

“...Do you know where the smokes here are? I could really use some.”

Mollie then undid a pocket from her lower pants, revealing a small packet of cigarettes. She took one out and handed it to Henry alongside a lighter. “Weren’t you trying to go cold turkey?”

Henry lit the end of the cigarette and began to smoke in an attempt to calm his nerves. “Yeah, I know…” He chuckled for a bit before hitting another smoke. “I didn’t think this job would be this bad. And I thought hauling ass around Canial was tough. Looks like I didn’t know shit.”

He laughed, shaking his head as he turned to Mollie, who was in the middle of lighting her own cigarette as well. “Hah, tell me about it. Can’t believe it’s been a few days here. I already just wanna go back home and lie back, forget this shit ever happened…”

She turned to look at Rook and Marian arguing behind the glass doors, chuckling a little while shaking her head. “We’re going to really fight Jane, huh? Marian ain’t gonna let her slide…”

“I wish she could, but I get it, if someone did that to anyone I loved…” He stared down at the ocean, saying nothing more, yet Mollie got the message.

“But Jane didn’t do shit. She wasn’t even in the same mission that got her husband all…” She raised a finger to her head and swirled it around a bit.

“Doesn’t matter, she’s still a Choir girl… And Marian is right, they’re a dangerous bunch. They disrupt roads, deliveries. Do you remember when one of them sent a bomb threat to a fully loaded office building?”

“Yet, there was no bomb at all.” Mollie raised her arms in the air. “They’re trying to fight back and shit, and I kinda get where they’re coming from… You’ve seen what Epithet does, right? You know what they did to Jane and the others.”

“You don’t need to remind me… I moved some of the bodies myself to the morgue.” Henry sighed as he looked down.

“And we’re just the volunteers who got in this gig for a bit, imagine what Charlie had to go through… She’s the real deal.”

“It still doesn’t excuse what the Choir did, what Jane is willing to do. She still needs to be stopped. The Choir needs to be stopped before they hurt anyone else?’

Mollie shot Henry a confused look as she blew some smoke away. “And who’s going to stop Ephitet?”

“...” Henry stayed quiet. There was no way to answer that. Ephitet was the foundation and cornerstone of Phorash, an entire nation. It couldn’t be destroyed, not without completely upending the system entirely and causing mass chaos.

“People who can understand the system more. People who could slowly and surely move Ephitet to the right direction, and who could change it from the inside out without having to tear at it by the roots.”

It was at this point that Mollie blew some smoke into his face. “How many bodies you think are gonna be piled up by Ephitet’s roots before that ever happens? How many more trips to the morgue?”

“There will be more bodies if we have Jane and the Choir have their way. One big batch that goes boom, there wouldn’t be any remains, just ash, and dust. Is that any better?”

“Maybe in the long run-“

“But in the long run, what’s the plan after that? Epithet is everywhere in Phorash. To even get fully rid of it, you might as well burn the whole place down, and if you could only destroy the major sectors, many of them would simply try and build it back up.”

He took another puff and continued, a sigh on his lips as he spoke. “Not to mention, what would happen to all the smaller companies under them, and all the other wannabe anarchists who’re gonna take advantage of it. She’s gonna start a whole apocalypse over there no matter what route she picks.”

“I guess there’s no winning, huh? Ephitet is too much into the weeds. There’s no way of burning it up without destroying the rest.”

It was her turn to take another hit as she did an O-shaped smoke ring. “But maybe that’s for the better, start with a clean slate and all. Fresh.”

“But you can’t ever start fresh. The pieces are all there; you can’t exactly travel back to the past.”

Mollie laughed a little. “You don’t believe that Epithet is trying to figure out how to time travel?”

Henry shook his head and sighed. “I don’t think time travel is possible. The best we have are time jumps, and all that does is place you where you were or where you could be. It doesn’t even reverse your own body’s conditions. If you get stabbed, you don’t get unstabbed, you just appear in a place you suddenly were before, hopefully away from the stabber.”

“Yeah, alright, buddy, and we’re definitely not going into the afterlife.”

“It could simply be where our consciousness goes after our physical form expires.”

Mollie rolled her eyes at that and took another smoke. “Yeah, whatever, dude. I’m just saying, it’s possible that Epithet had some insanely powerful thing cooked up in the works, maybe it could help out if they find it.”

“If only it wouldn’t go up in smoke…” He sighed and took another puff. “Listen, I’m not trying to say that Epithet is the best, just that… It’s the only thing holding this all together. Without it, we’d be pretty screwed over.”

“Yeah, I know… Just wished it wasn’t like this… Honestly, remove the monsters, and this place is way more relaxing than back home.”

Henry’s face twisted into confusion as he stared at Mollie, who shrugged. “Just take out all the danger, and you have us, chilling here with a bunch of hot and cute Fae while we smoke and talk shit.”

He laughed a little and shook his head. “I guess if you say it like that, then sure, it’s a lot more relaxing. Just forget that the Fae wants to eat us and that we saw the bodies of other people like us scattered all around the forest like a scavenger hunt.”

“Yeah, now you get it… Just, forget about it all for a moment…”

They both sighed and simply stared up at the sky. For a moment, they really did forget all about it, closing their eyes as they took in the atmosphere and relaxed.

But sadly, there shall be no rest for them at all, as Marian opened the glass doors of the ship, a smile on her face as Rook followed by.

“We have finally reached a consensus, let us enter into the underworld!”

Mollie and Henry placed their smokes in the ashtray, standing at attention as Derek and Topher walked over with them, winking at Masha, who smiled back slyly.

“How wonderful, would you like the standard one-way or the two-way type?”

Henry’s face contorted into confusion upon hearing that. “There’s a standard one way?”

“Yes, that’s where I kill you all~” She sang out while opening her mouth, baring her fangs at them.

Immediately, Henry and Mollie took a step back defensively, yet the others didn’t seem so perturbed.

“Haha~ Of course I would never do that, but I won’t be coming along, my presence would be quite noticeable and even that of my other fellow Fae. However, I can bless you all, ever so slightly, like I did for Derek and Topher already.”

Rook frowned. Power came at a cost; he wasn’t going to be shackled like that. “I would have to pass on that offer.”

Marian didn’t trust it as well, shaking her head as she waved it away. “I, too, would kindly not partake in it.”

Henry and Mollie both stared at each other for a bit, the either wondering if this was a good idea to bind themselves to another powerful being, but if they were going to survive any further, they would need a fighting chance, a way to defend themselves and their masters better.

“We would like to accept your offer.” They both said at once, standing at attention to Masha’s delight.

While neither Rook nor Marian wanted any of the power for themselves, they both knew that as long as the Contract was in place, the volunteers would at least continue to belong to them, so they shouldn’t worry about what they could do so much as be delighted at what they could do now.

Masha raised her hands up into the air, and suddenly a bright green glow surrounded both Henry and Mollie. Instantly, their perception sharpened, and their breath slowed down. They began to hear the whistling of the wind and even the taste in the air.

Everything felt so alive, and their minds began to process all the new influx of stimuli so much faster now, too, as a dozen to maybe hundreds of thoughts began to circle inside their heads quite literally all at once.

“Wonderful, you are now all ready for what awaits you then~”

Rook raised his hand. “May you inform us of what actually shall await us? This is an underworld, is it not? How does it work? Usually, there are also guardians in such a place, who lie within?”

“So many questions, so little time~ but I’ll make it quick. The place after death is known as the Nawia. Powerful Fae such as myself can transport ourselves to it by traversing the roots of the Axis Mundi, and I’ll be sending you the same way and act as an anchor for you to return the same way as well. The main guardian would be Zmey, a three-headed dragon that guards the bridge between the outer and inner rings, but don’t worry, you won’t face him; only the others, like Jane, would ever be someone he would want to face. Other than that, well, just don’t fall into the river lest you be swept up in the souls and dissolved into the sea~”

“What does that even-” Before Rook could continue, Masha snapped her fingers and their bodies evaporated, transforming into clouds of faerie dust that lit up the air like glitter before disappearing completely.

“Now then… Let’s continue the party!” Masha brought out several bottles of rum from the cooler as all the Fae cheered on and activated the karaoke machine once more.

Marian felt herself fade, as if falling asleep into a deep dream. Her whole body touched upon the void and into the darkness of the world, and for but a brief moment, it was as if death took her. Yet, that would not be the case as light enraptured her body, enveloping her in its warm grace as a familiar voice began to whisper in her head ever so slightly.

‘Thank you for trying to remove those that threaten the peace of the world…’

‘They seek to destroy, to cause disharmony.’

‘But you, you will bring them to justice, to light.’

A small grin fell across Marian’s face. That was right, she will destroy those who seek nothing more than to inflate their own egos and ambitions. Those who care nothing but to pretend to be heroes who can save others.

She shall make sure that they will pay. That they will understand the consequences of their actions. That they bear the weight of their own responsibilities.

At that moment, an overwhelming force burst forth from Marian’s chest, enveloping her in a golden white energy that encapsulated the land, revealing her to be on a large mountain range that surrounds the perimeter of a beautiful meadow with rolling hills and small pockets of trees clustered every so often, concentrating especially in the middle.

Dotted across the land, and beside her are large tree roots that appear as pillars stretching all the way to the sky as if they were all under some kind of giant tree.

“Axis Mundi…” Rook’s voice came from behind Marian as she turned to find him and the others standing by the roots, overlooking all that they could see with a sense of extraordinary wonder in their eyes.

“The center of the world? Or perhaps, no, the world tree. Did Balthalem influence them? Or was it always like this?”

He rubbed his hand against the tree root as his mind suddenly raced back to the space where they disappeared, finding Masha and the other Fae partying together on the ship.

“Ugh, it’s a spatial displacement. We’re in another space now, possibly as ethereal beings composed of some kind of spiritual energy rather than matter.”

Derek blinked for a moment as he scratched his cheeks, looking both confused and scared to ask more, as he turned to Topher, who just shrugged.

Rook sighed and shook his head. “It means we’re all spirits right now, although what does that mean for our bodies when we return… I do not know.”

Mollie and Henry walked towards the edge, their heightened senses allowing them to feel more of the world as they both saw a storm up ahead, one that seemed to only exist at the perimeter of the lush lands as it fueled the river right below the mountain range.

They both heard wails, sobs, cries of pain and agony as they dripped by the raindrops and flowed into the river as a shiver ran up their spines. It felt so wrong to even hear it, let alone be close to it.

“They all sound so familiar, don’t they?” Henry muttered as he reached out, as if trying to grab hold of the raindrops.

“Yeah… I don’t like it… not one bit.” Mollie muttered under her breath as she closed her eyes in an attempt to try and look away from the scene. However, in doing so, she picked up something else.

She sniffed the air and her air twitched. A smell of familiarity filled her mind as she opened her eyes in complete shock and awe.

“I found her!” Mollie turned back to the group.

“I found Jane!”