Ekron

Crystal Statues - 3

From the upper levels, the easier way to exit Kish without being noticed is through the Necropolis and take the elevator to surface. Carmina walked between the graves, some of them familiar from her childhood in Kish, and noticed a glorious mausoleum she had no memory of. She approached the monument, twenty feet high with gorgeous ivory columns, four bronze statues at the entrance: a dog, a vulture, an ox, and a goat. In black letters carved on stone in said, "In memory of Gul Goker Gokshe".

She laughed a little and thought, "So much to bury half a man," then looked at the statues and remembered, "he did not create the ox and the goat, a thief, even after death."

She took the elevator and got to the surface. Then she flew to the shores of the Baltic sea, unsure of what path to take in her situation. Night came and she felt the stings of hunger and thirst. She lit a fire rubbing her nails on the sand and recited verses in Qatrian, a language that she learnt at an early age due to witchcraft practice and was fluent in. The fire became green and reached higher than Carmina's head; sand under the bonfire began to melt into glass and following Carmina's verses it grew upwards forming a transparent cauldron. She stopped her spell and the fire disappeared, then she took the cauldron and washed it in sea water.

She sat on the sand, with the cauldron by her side and the Black Vulture in her hand. She gazed deeply at the sea and the moles under her eyelids became bright red, and her eyes turned black disappearing in the night. Minutes later, a dark-red shark came out of the sea, barely advancing on the wet sand, asphyxiating but resolved to advance towards Carmina. She casted a ray to its head with the Vulture, leaving a hole across its body, then dragged it out with the needles of her weapon. She bled out the creature on the cauldron, and mixed its blood with her own, from her left wrist. She Drank half of that mix, ate the shark's raw head, and fell asleep. At dawn she had an idea, a stupid but simple and feasible idea: communicate with the Empress, wherever she may be, by using a summoning spell that the Empress herself had taught her, designed to call an ally. It wasn't completely absurd, as the ally was so close, that a part of him had permeated into the Empress's soul; so, even if the ally himself may not be available, the Empress would definitely perceive the calling. Under different circumstances, it would have worked the way she expected.

Using the remaining blood in the cauldron, she drew two concentric circles in the sand; inside the inner one, she drew two eight-pointed stars to the left and two to the right. As she had no candles, she lit four fires on the outer circle with her fingernails, one pointing to each cardinal point. In the center she drew a cross and knelt in a space between the cross and the inner circle, facing the cross. Then she closed her eyes and visualized the Empress's image. When she opened them, she was at the bottom of a cliff, on a black stone platform, at the shores of the Humner. By her side, a beautiful blonde girl, apparently in her twenties or younger, dressed in rags and fur from unidentified animals, had her arms chained to the platform and cried in desperation. Carmina stood up and saw the same symbols she drew on the sand carved in black stone beneath her. The fetid stench of the Humner made her nose itch. She looked at the girl by her side, thought of asking her something, but Cymra emerged from the black water in front of her, suspended in the air without moving his wings. She recognized him, although they had never directly interacted.

Cymra seemed confused by her presence, and took a moment before asking, "Are you the demon am supposed to ally with?"

"Of course not, I've seen the corruption you can inflict on a soul."

"I am not corrupted, the Black Dog made us abandon our faith."

"Then help me destroy the dog, and you will pray to any god that you want."

"So, you propose an alliance after all? I will not concede truth to that prophecy, or Teremy would have died in vain."

That said, Cymra projected his tongue towards Carmina, and she, having fought against worms several times, moved swiftly to her left, and energized the Black Vulture. The tongue passed by her right side, impacting the rocky wall behind her, and she severed twenty-five yards of Cymra's tongue with one swing of her weapon. The pain made Cymra shake and dive again into the black water. He went back to his cave having the sour feeling of being hurt beyond repair. A year passed before he could eat again, and even then, it was a painful process. The sore never completely healed, and Cymra never fully recovered from his encounter with Carmina Drekkva.

Carmina looked at those twenty-five yards of tentacles still slightly trembling on the black platform, then observed that the spot in the wall impacted by the tongue, had become a piece of crystal, and had an idea. She touched the tentacles with her boot to make sure they weren't dangerous and started untangling a couple strings to collect them.

Then Carmina asked the blonde girl by her side, "How long have you been in this... territory?"

"I've wandered Qatra for two years, my Queen."

"Finally, someone with manners."

Carmina cut the chains that imprisoned the woman, realizing she could be a good source of information.

She gave her the tentacles collected from Cymra's tongue and said, "What is your name?"

"Sephia, your Majesty."

"Hold this for me, Sephia, I will hug you very tight so don't worry."

"What are we doing?"

"Getting out of here."

Carmina opened her wings and flew holding Sephia until they reached a valley, where they rested and had a conversation.

When Carmina asked Sephia, how had she ended up chained there, she answered, "I lived in Kish, practiced cartomancy, necromancy, necrophilia, and some prostitution, I sold my soul to several entities and when I died, I ended up in Sibara, then wandered eating worms for two years until I was captured by spider-octs, who offered me as a sacrifice for Cymra."

"Where did you get the time to do all that, how old are you?"

"I died at ninety-two, I performed a rejuvenation spell, it worked but it also killed me. I guess I did it too many times before."

"Well, you don't have to worry about that anymore, your soul was naturally transmuted to get you here; you will keep this form until your eternal soul is destroyed. For me, unfortunately, is a totally different issue."

Sephia smiled and Carmina smiled back. Their relationship looked mutually beneficial, a loyal servant with vast occult experience for Carmina; protection and status for Sephia. They kissed under the blue light of Qatra's bigger moon and drank their blood mutually.