Chapter 11: The Lawbreaker’s Resolve

Note: Thanks to WRC264 for beta reading this. Alloria Valis Korvan – Dire Bay, Dead Isle

The Mermaid’s Tickler sailed past the large cliffs that ringed the entrance into Dire Bay. A pale fog hung over the bay, a layer of mist that clung to the surface of the water, hiding small, teeth-like rocks that projected out of the water. Only the small divots in the mist revealed these deadly obstacles.

The boat used its sweeps, rowing slowly across the waters. Sharp-eyed sailors stood in the bow, calling out commands to the captain to work the ship through the maze towards the distant beach of white sand. When the oars came up, something viscous clung to them. An oily rot that was hidden by the mist.

Skeletal trees grew along the top of the cliff that surrounded the only beach. More grew beyond the gray strand. A forest of trees without leaves. It was early summer, and not a single bit of green life was to be seen. More mist seethed deeper into the dead woods, hiding the dangerous undead that were said to haunt the island. Few ever dared venture here.

Only the most desperate would make landfall here. Foolish souls seeking the Whisper of the Dead, one of the oracles who could predict the future. Others would try to climb the Black Spire itself and intrude upon the home of the norns.

Beyond where they lived lay where Dauthaz, God of Death, hid the most deadly artifacts in the world. That must be one of the reasons the Lawbreaker had come here. For those foul artifacts. They were said to all be capable of inflicting massive casualties, of unleashing death on such a scale.

So Death himself had hidden them away with the norns.

I stared at the Black Spire. It was unlike any mountain I had seen, not even the Lone Mountain outside of Shesax. It was so narrow, almost a needle thrusting up into the air. Near its base, it widened into the flanks of a mountain that vanished into the fog. A shiver ran through me. I could feel a pull on me.

A tug.

My life, my very fate, led towards that mountain. My thread was woven into the tapestry of life like all other threads by the norns. I swallowed. The pattern of my life was found in there. The skein of reality. This wasn’t a place anyone should tread.

Why were we here?

Right, to save Pater.

I glanced at Bryce. He stood resolute nearby, his back straight. He stared at the mountain with such an intensity. He already wore his armor, prepared for the fight to come. I glanced down at the toga I wore, the white cloth contrasting with my bluish skin. Why was I here? What good could I do? Monica had her magic. The powers being pregnant with Pater’s child gave would be useful, but me?

“Bryce,” I croaked, my body trembling. “This ... I...”

He turned to me. “You will be needed, Alloria. Even you have a task here.”

“Truly?” I gazed back at the Black Spire. It loomed even larger now that we were halfway across the bay. “What can I do? I don’t know how to fight. I have no magic. There are undead on that island that will seek to rip us apart.”

“They are of no concern,” he said, his tone soft. He smiled. “You are vital. I need you, Alloria.”

A smile spread on my lips. His words were simple but touching. Had anyone ever really needed me in my life? Not for the beauty of my body, but for something of true meaning. The fear faded for a moment beneath this thrill.

“Truly? Me?”

“Truly,” he said and turned back to continue his vigil.

I did, too. The dread returned, but if I could be of help, I had to go. I used to be such a selfish and terrible woman. Everyone else was sacrificing to stop the Lawbreaker from killing Pater. I don’t know when this sense of responsibility had bled into me, but slowly, it had. I had changed.

I had no regrets about throwing my enchanted necklace off the side of the ship.

Leywife Monica

Excitement bubbled through me as the longboat drove onto the sand of the strand. Bryce stepped off first, his armor clattering. He drew his sword and set his kite shield. He looked so martial and strong as he scanned the skeletal trees and the fog that lurked beyond.

“Do we need to take the Ambrosia yet?” I asked as I joined him on the sand. It crunched beneath my shoes. There was something crusting over it. That same black sludge that covered the waters of the bay?

“No. We won’t need it until we reach the home of the norns itself.” He drew in a deep breath. “We’re here.”

“We’re going to stop him,” I said, grabbing my hands on my belly. I could feel my power gathering.

Alloria joined me. She swallowed, her face paled to a light blue. Her black hair didn’t so much as sway. There was no breeze at all. The air was so still the fog in the trees’ bare limbs didn’t rustle at all. I swallowed. This place was dead. Not an ounce of life lived here.

I extended out my senses. I had practiced this to detect an invisible enemy sneaking up on us. I learned this because of Lady Alloria and the mistakes that she had made. But she had learned, grown, and now was risking her life with us to save Pater and stop this terrible man.

I took her hand and squeezed it.

She squeezed back.

“Let’s go,” Bryce said, his voice sounding eager. He marched forward, the beach ending at a small berm of sandy soil with withered roots poking through it. He marched up to it and into the trees.

Monica and I followed.

There was a path. It led straight towards the mountain. An unnatural line of clear soil. Who trod it? No one lived here? Was it the undead? Why would they need it? I could feel them lurking in the fog around us. They watched us. Their unnatural bodies hardly moving as my senses detected them.

I clutched hard to Alloria’s hand as we hurried in Bryce’s wake. Neither one of us wanted to let him get far ahead of us. The fog was thick, choking off sight. The Black Spire faded from view as we entered the thickness of mist. A soup of mist clung to us. It had a weight. A dreadful chill permeated the miasma.

The dead didn’t so much as move to attack us. They knew we were here, but most of them didn’t even move. Like they lacked the energy to care that we were treading upon their domain. The bleakness of this place permeated even them. The miasma had choked out their will, too. It was insidious. It grew thicker and thicker until it swirled about our feet and Bryce, only an arm’s reach before us, became indistinct.

It dragged at us. I wanted to just stop. To take a break from trudging through the thick vapor. It clung to my legs and arms. It wreathed my hair and grabbed my shoulders. Every step grew more difficult than the last. Why was I bothering?

What was the point of being here?

Why try? It was too hard. It was easier to just standstill. I would be safe. Surrounded by the mist. Nothing could ever find me in this thick fog. Nothing could harm me. Just close my eyes and let the world fade away into nothing.

Rest. Peace. No burdens. No cares. No desires. No wants. No pain. No suffering.

“Don’t listen to it,” Alloria whispered, squeezing my hand.

“What?” I asked as I forced myself to take another step.

“That dumb voice. You think it’s safe to stop here?” She laughed. It sounded forced. “I’m not an idiot. I have found something to live for. I’m not going to just stand here and be like these dead trees.”

I shook my head, knocking away these thoughts and remembered what I had. “I have my baby. Bryce. You.”

I glanced to her husband. He still marched forward through the fog. He didn’t slow down. He plowed through the thick mist with a will of iron. I would match him. I walked faster, gripping Alloria’s hand. I felt the warmth of her touch. Felt the life in her. It was the opposite of the fog. What it promised was numbness. Emptiness.

There would be no pain and suffering, but no joy or satisfaction. No pleasure. No delight. You had to risk being hurt to find anything meaningful. You had to open your heart to rejection to find love. Numbness wasn’t an escape from the world, it was giving up everything that made life so sweet and delicious.

The bad stuff made the good stuff all the more precious. All the more worth fighting for.

And I would fight. For my baby. For Pater. I wanted my future with Bryce and Alloria. So I battled through the fog. I marched forward armored in certainty. The depression on my mind lessened. The mist’s weight on me dwindled. It couldn’t touch me any longer. Couldn’t drag me away from my purpose.

And then, looming out of the fog, a wall of black appeared. The Spire.

The path led to a staircase that rose up into the fog. It was carved into the obsidian that made up the spire. The unnatural mountain thrust like a knife into the sky above us. Bryce mounted the stairs. We followed him.

The stairs switched back and forth as it ascended the steep slope. We rose out of the fog, creasing through it. The bay appeared behind us. The Mermaid’s Tickler lay in the harbor. Safe. Sound. It would await our return. The sun shone weakly upon us. It’s light somehow muted. Cold despite the warmth we felt on the deck of the ship.

We climbed higher and higher. Every step grew heavier than the last. My breath quickened. My thighs burned from the exertion, but Bryce didn’t flag in his armor. He was a shining beacon before Alloria and me.

We followed him. Today, we would save the Father of All.

Illina

I shivered as the River Whisper entered Dire Bay. Foam and Wave were in the bow. They were peering at the fog that wreathed the water. It rippled, almost spilling over the low hull of the sylph ship as it flowed into the unnatural harbor. The breeze dropped. The sails went still. The boat drifted to a stop.

“They’re already here,” I shouted. Off in the distance, near the beach, a familiar ship rested. The Mermaid’s Tickler. “We need to get there now.” I grabbed Dauthaz’s dagger, eager to enact my revenge on that bastard. “Hurry!”

“No wind,” Captain Azure said. “We have no oars. And there is no current. Ready the launch. We’ll have to row them in from here.”

“There’s no time,” Stefan said. “They could have been here for hours.” He stared out at the Black Spire. The mountain thrust like a tear in reality. So black the blue sky beyond it looked ripped apart. Death itself bled through into our world. I could feel the thread of my life in there. It tugged at me.

A shiver ran through my nervous system.

Stefan, his lips stained with Ahlona’s pussy juices, concentrated before him. He’d eaten her out as we approached the island to get himself fresh pussy juices, saving his vials for the island itself. The air bent and warped before him.

It became a lens. Through it, the side of the mountain appeared. The gleaming facets of obsidian that made up the Black Spire coming into sharp focus. My stomach lurched at the magnification. It was disorienting. And then he moved it, the distant land blurring.

A staircase appeared. It was carved into the rock of the Spire. He moved the mirror up. Ahlona pressed in close to his side. I studied it, hating how my stomach writhed. There were times I wished I was all mechanical like my ancestor Krab had built.

But being mostly flesh had its joys, too.

The lens stopped moving. Three figures climbed the Spire. Sir Shitlicker himself with Monica and Alloria in his wake. They were high up. Stefan adjusted the focus, the trio growing smaller and smaller. The top of the staircase appeared at a thick set of black doors set into the mountain itself.

The entrance to the Hall of Doom. Where the fate of all was woven together.

“They’re almost there,” I said in horror. I glanced at the terrain. It would take us hours to get there.

“Ahlona, can you carry Illina?” Stefan asked, banishing his spell. “Carry her and fly.”

Ahlona glanced at me. “Yes.”

“Do it,” he said and then he rose from the ground. His robe fluttered around him as the wind whipped at him. The very air carried him.

My heart’s rhythm burst with excitement as Alloria moved behind me. She hugged me to her body. Stefan rushed over the sails, flying towards the Black Spire. He looked heroic. A man heading to save the world.

He wasn’t after just revenge like me.

Alloria’s wings flapped hard. The air whipped around me. My stomach lurched. The deck fell away. She held me tight to her. The angel had strength. Her wings soared us over the top of the sails. My legs dangled. The mist-covered waters of the bay flowed beneath us. We were traveling fast.

And then a strong wind blew from behind us. I gasped as it propelled us even faster. It gusted around me, flowing up beneath my toga. Ahlona’s halo pulsed with golden light around us. She soared after Stefan, the powerful breeze hurtling us towards the Black Spire.

I clutched my knife in a tight fist. Sir Bryce Cartith would die today. I would gut him open and laugh as the blood spilled out of his body. I would stare into his eyes as the life left them, witnessing the death of his dream to kill Pater.

I would avenge my Barg. That shit-eating, cock-sucking, pustule of a rotten man would not get to live a day longer. Not when my Barg was dead.

Alloria Valis Korvan

I clutched to Monica’s hand. The warmth of her kept me going through the fog in the forest and the climb up the mountain. I glanced behind us. Vertigo assaulted me. We were so far up above everything. The Mermaid’s Tickler looked like a toy ship floating in a small pond from up here.

I turned back and swallowed. Bryce stepped off the stairs onto a small ledge cut into the mountain. A massive set of gray doors, carved out of basalt, lay before us. They were unrelieved. Flat and plain. There was no handle to them, just a small crack that marked where they met. I shivered at that. I could feel my doom on the other side.

This wasn’t a place the living were ever supposed to tread. The doors were sealed tight against us. Bryce stopped before them and sheathed his sword. Then he unlimbered his shield and set it upon the ground.

“How do we get in?” I asked, moving closer to him. Monica moved with me. She stared at the doors. Her face looked as white as my toga.

“The Ambrosia?” Monica whispered.

Bryce turned to me. He stared at me with this stony expression. That flat look he always had. “That’s why you are here, Alloria.”

“Me?” I asked. “How can I open the door?”

His left hand seized my arm. I gasped as he hauled me right before the door, his grip crushing. I winced in pain, staring up at him. Confusion wreathed me. His other hand ripped a dagger from his belt, the blade flashing silver.

He slashed it so fast. Before I could even react, a hot tear ripped across my throat. My blood sprayed scarlet before me, splashing the door. I gasped, my crimson life running down the door and then vanishing into pores in the rock like it drank my life.

I swayed.

Monica screamed.

I stared at Bryce in horror. My heart beat faster and faster. Dizziness swept over me. My throat blazed with pain. I struggled to grab at my throat. My blood soaked my hand. I felt the pulse of my life spurting from me. I tried to speak, but only a ragged wheeze escaped my lips.

“I haven’t forgotten that you tried to murder me,” Bryce said, his voice a cold, hard whisper. “You are guilty of breaking the law, Alloria Valis Korvan. You sent Fox to kill Monica and me in our sleep. Your pet warlock rammed a spike of earth through my chest. You used your magic to dominate me, the men of the Mermaid’s Tickler, and so many more. Death is the only fitting punishment for your crimes.”

My legs collapsed. I fell to the ground. My body to heavy to move. I stared at the puddle of my life, my vision growing darker and darker. He killed me. Betrayed me. But I had changed. I wanted to say that. To tell him I wasn’t that woman.

Monica rolled me over. She stared down in horror at me. She attacked the fastener of her robes, preparing to save my life with her magic. I stared at up her, seeing the pain in her face. The emotion. She cared about me.

One person in my life cared for me.

None of the men I had dominated. Used. Abused. They had lusted for me. Worshiped me. But none of them had cared for me. Not my maids like Yellia would stare down at me with such horror and fear for my death.

They had just feared me.

What had I done with my life? Nothing. I had carved a life of ease. Of pampered existence. I had drifted from pleasure to pleasure not caring about anything but my own. But I had changed. It was so unfair. I wanted to shout out.

Bryce seized Monica’s arm, yanking her from me. The doors creaked open. Fed by my life. The world grew darker. My heartbeat slowed. My eyes fluttered closed. My life came to an end.

My soul rose from my body and left this world behind. It wasn’t fair. I loved him. I truly, truly did. I thought he loved me back. That he had seen how I changed. My soul howled in rage at his treachery. I screeched my anger at what he did to me.

It didn’t matter. A gentle hand led me away. A shadowed figure. Dauthaz. Death himself with eyes gleaming with tears. A great pity for me. Compassion. I didn’t fight as he took me from my life into the next world.

Leywife Monica

“What did you do?” I screeched at my husband, not caring that the doors into the mountains had creaked open. “You just ... She ... Why?”

“It’s time to kill the Lawbreaker,” Bryce said, throwing the dagger down onto Alloria’s body.

She looked like she slept save for that ugly, red wound across her throat. Blood soaked the front of her toga. More flowed across the ground. Tears spilled down my eyes. I jerked at Bryce’s grip. I tried to rip myself free.

“You bastard!” I screeched at him. “She changed! You saw it! I saw it.”

“Does her change mitigate the crimes she committed?” Bryce asked as he pulled out the ambrosia and drank it. “No. The law was broken. Punishment had to be given. Death.”

“But ... but...” I spluttered. “You brought here her to kill her. To murder her. How long have you plotted this?”

“Since she chained me. I knew I’d have to end someone’s life to get in.” He drew in a breath. “Why not a murderer?”

“You said you loved her.”

“I lied.” His eyes fell on me. They were bleak. Cold. “Now it’s time to kill the Lawbreaker. Pater.” Rage crossed his face. “It’s time for the Father of All to pay for his crimes. His betrayal. For what he did to my wife!”

The madness in Bryce’s eyes struck me. I had never seen this wild rage from him before. All the emotions he kept bottled up inside of him burst out of him in a flood of odious rage. His hand squeezed tighter about my arm as he dragged me towards the door.

“You?” I croaked in horror. “You can’t be the Lawbreaker.”

“Pater is,” he growled. “That bastard needs to learn there are prices to be paid for ruining a good woman. For turning her into a whore!”

“But ... You ... You’re after the man who murdered your wife.”

“Destroyed her,” Bryce said, darkness falling on us as he dragged me down the corridor carved into the mountain. “I killed her. Executed her for her role in the betrayal.”

“No,” I croaked. The world spun around. Tears poured down my cheeks. “That means ... You ... You sent the goblins to ... to...”

“Attack your temple?” he asked. “How do you think I was there to ‘rescue’ you?”

“NOOOOO!” screeched from my throat.

The power in me, the gift from my unborn demigod, swelled in me. I focused on him, this terrible rage swirling through me. The pain of his lies, his betrayal, struck me. I thought he loved me. That he was my knight who’d cut through dangers to rescue me. I gave him my body. My heart. I loved this man and the entire time.

“I needed you,” he said. “The easiest way to keep you biddable was to make you think you were my companion and not my prisoner.”

The horror shot through me. I had thrown myself into his quest. How he must have been laughing behind that flat expression. I thought pain had choked him up, but he didn’t have emotions. He was a vile thing.

I felt so dirty. So soiled. I had given myself to him. I had opened myself up to him. I thought he loved me. The pain in me became rage. This white-hot ball of fury that had it burst out of me would rip him to shreds.

I wasn’t that weak woman any longer who cowered when the goblins attacked. I could defend myself.

“You call Alloria a murder, but she never killed anyone!” White light glowed before me. The ball of energy that would slam into him. “She changed, but you? You murdered her. You killed your wife. All those priests and their wives. Bishop Tomas! Regina! Maryanne! Kassandra! Yennifer! They were my friends. They were soon to be my family. You stole that all away so you could avenge being cuckolded? That’s it, isn’t it? Pater fucked your wife, and you couldn’t accept the blessing of—”

His hand released my arm and seized my throat, cutting off my words. He squeezed down tight. I thrashed as he choked me.

“Blessing?” he growled. “He soiled my wife, stole the promise of her womb from me, and turned her into his whore. I heard it in her moans. In the way, she shuddered beneath him. In how she gasped beneath him. I had come home from risking death and danger to find my wife rutting like a bitch in heat beneath Pater. She broke her vows to me. He left, and she thought I would be fine with it. That I didn’t see the burning heat in her eyes. That same heat I see in yours. You all want him. You just settle for us normal men.”