Originally written by me, Lindsay Holt, and produced by the Monsters Out of the Closet podcast team for their episode titled “Creatures”, June 5, 2018.
Monster Out of the Closet Ep. 8: Creatures
Divestment
Mora, Grand Sorceress of the Royal Court, gazed out into the Arena from the small alcove that had been her holding cell for three days now. On the far side of the Arena’s raised platform, Mora could see a dais set with two thrones on it, awaiting the King and his mate. Above that, surrounding the whole structure, were rows and rows of viewing spots. Hundreds of people crowded into those spaces, scales flashing, fins and tails creating dizzying currents as aquines jostled each other for space.
Most of the audience were gliders, like Mora herself, with whiplike stingray tails and leathery wings that extended out from their arms, undulating as they glided through the water. There were also a few blade-tails, a militant race with sandpaper skin and shark fins on their spines. They’d come a long way to get here from their native waters. Bloodthirsty politicians, she thought. Rumors of the type of Ceremony to be performed here must have been quite gruesome indeed.
Mora winced as the ridge along the back of her tail scraped against the rock behind her. A wealth of silver bound her to that rock. They’d lashed her to it with layers of silver chains, covered her neck with thin silver chokers, and had even made her drink some silver in a potion before coming out here.
Ridiculous. People were still convinced that regular silver kept Mora captive and mute. Insulting. She let out a hiss of disgust.
Mora was suddenly aware of one particular strand of silver at her throat – this was the piece that had been hexed by their High Priest, and added to her collection of collars that morning. It seemed warmer now, all of a sudden, and possibly… was it tighter?
The loop of metal stayed tight against a vein in her neck, making her lightheaded. She moved, the pain in her back reduced to numbness. Mora wondered how well the Priest controlled this device.
At the far end of the Arena’s raised platform, King Borae and his mate seated themselves on the dais. A young proclaimer swam out beside them, and began to read:
“Hear ye all, the proclamation of the King! In the blessed eye of the Goddess of the Deep, with power granted by His Majesty, King Borae, First Guardian of the Seamount…”
A sharp CLANG sounded right beside Mora’s head as the guard took his knife to her bonds. One arm fell free. The guard held it at the wrist, then released the other arm and bound her hands behind her back. Feeling rushed into her fingers as they collided behind her, hundreds of hot needle pricks making her gasp in pain.
She shut her eyes and tried to cry out. No sound came. The strand of silver at her neck grew warm again.
The guard yanked on a chain wrapped around her middle, pulling her into the harsh stadium lights. Mora, once-Grand Sorceress of the Royal Court, was bound with arms and fins pinned to her sides. Her dark red hair was tangled and unkempt, and she had to swing her black-tipped tail twice as fast as her guards to keep herself steady as they dragged her along.
Her eyes raked the dais. The King sat there, grieving for the death of his son. A death he blamed on Mora. After all she’d done for him, for his family… the dark spells and runes she’d found in the princeling’s room after he died told her more than his family could stomach. They couldn’t accept what he might have been doing. So they offered her up, a sacrifice for his honorable reputation.
The choker pinched again. The sensation shocked Mora, and she realized she had been thinking through spells of escape, of combat. She forced herself to relax her muscles, trying to make room for the tightening silver around her neck.
They reached the center of the Arena, and guards began lashing Mora to a pole that had been fastened to the floor. The proclaimer was finishing up:
“As punishment, the Convicted shall be given over to the ministrations of the Priesthood, to be Divested of her Powers and Abilities until all of the Goddess’ Blessing has been taken from her body, where it has been so terribly misused.
“Praise to the Goddess. May Judgement flow from the Deep.”
A swell of noise rose from the gallery. The choker tightened.
—-
Far below the seamount plateau, bright lavender scales flashed in the darkness. Nadya moved quickly, darting from shadow to shadow toward the hidden cave she’d once shared in secret with the Grand Sorceress of the Seamount. It would be home to both of them again, she told herself. If Mora survived what they did to her.
Nadya never intended to go to the Ceremony. She’d dressed for it, though. Her indigo hair sparkled with sapphires, and the violet tips of her tail had been lightly coated with metallic dust. She’d gone to all the pre-Ceremony parties, flitting in between groups of friends, so none of them would know which group she ended up going with. Sipping away from them was always easily.
The cauldron was bubbling when Nadya entered the cave. A giant crystal filled the bottom of the pot, imbued with layers of Mora’s spells. Nadya stirred the cauldron, as she’d been told to. The massive crystal began to glow. The light brightened and dimmed in a gentle rhythm, as if it were breathing.
She checked her list again. Everything had to be in place. Mora had insisted this next part could not be done before the crystal had reached its zenith, when it should dissolve completely…
Her hand was shaking. A wave of exhaustion washed over Nadya, followed by a spike of fear as she realized what was happening. She glanced down at her bracelet, a gift from Mora. A talisman. It began to glow, slowly, too slowly, pulsing like the crystal.
Nadya felt a bit of her strength returning. She closed her eyes, braced herself, then opened them and turned to face what was behind her.
A slim girl stared at her from around the corner of a bookcase. Her light yellow hair had been recently chopped to get some of its worst tangles out. She studied Nadya with pale green eyes. “When is Mother coming back?” she asked.
Nadya attempted to smile in a friendly way. She turned back to the pot to stir it, keeping the girl in her line of sight. “Soon enough,” she said. “Where have you been hiding?”
“I wasn’t hiding.” The girl stayed next to the bookcase, watching her.
Nadya reminded herself that this was a child, a lost, confused child, who’d come to their home looking for her mother and latched on to Mora. She couldn’t help… whatever she was.
She touched her bracelet. It was warm now, and she could tell her strength was back. She kept the girl on the other side of the cauldron anyway.
—-
No one had ever seen a Divestment Ceremony before, except the lunatics behind the walls of the Soran Temple. Even Mora couldn’t quite figure out how it worked. Divestment. She ran through it all again, thinking through the spells she’d set on that crystal to attract her magical gift if it left her body…
The choker burned against her neck, yanking her thoughts away from magic. She let out a hiss, the only noise she could make right now. A life without her gift… It could not be. There was no life there.
A chime sounded from somewhere behind her. Mora felt the currents change; Soran priests wearing loose wrappings of blue and grey fabric swam into her line of sight from her left and right, circling her. They chanted, their voices rising and falling as they moved. Mora was buffeted by the current they made with their bodies.
A dissonant note rose in their chanting, high and keening, grating at her nerves. Could everyone hear this? She gritted her teeth. The sound seemed to sear straight into her brain. Pain pulsed behind her right eye. The band of hexed silver burned at her neck.
The chanting swelled, then quieted. The Priests spread their winged arms and moved back and away from center stage. The audience hushed. Mora stared forward, trying to swallow against the choker.
In a doorway to the right of the dais, The Priest appeared. Serena the Blessed, leader of the Soran Temple priests, flowed toward Mora, silver hair streaming behind her in a single braid, matching the side-to-side motion of her silver tail. She wore a blue wrap the same shade as the tips of her fins, with end pieces that crossed her chest, rippling over her shoulders and down her back.
Mora watched Serena approach the center of the stage. The choker thrummed at her neck, possibly recognizing its creator. The cult leader swam in a wide circle, allowing everyone in the audience to view her from all angles. Mora hissed again.
Completing her circle, the Priest drew up close to the once-Grand Sorceress, looked her in the eye, and smiled, almost kindly. Then she raised her eyes to the high waters, and began to sing.
The first single note hung in the arena, a perfect, crystal sound. It grew into a wordless melody. The priests swayed, ringing the two figures, and began chanting again, creating a rhythmic structure beneath the song.
Mora stiffened. Sudden agony gripped her body, pain running through her veins as if her blood were boiling. Her head jerked upwards, the pain behind her eye exploding, blinding. She realized she’d been screaming. It could have been seconds…or hours. Her body and mind flew apart, time was forgotten, everything forgotten.
—-
“I don’t like it.”
“Then don’t help me.”
“Mora…” Nadya reached out and held Mora’s arm as she swam past. It was two days until the Ceremony, and possibly the last night they had together; it would be nearly impossible to sneak her out of her holding cell again. But Mora had barely looked at her. She’d been darting around the cave madly, pulling down potions, double-checking the blue crystals she’d been growing to make sure they were still… growing, Nadya guessed. There was nothing more to do to them, but she kept touching them anyway.
Now, she stopped, glancing at her arm where Nadya held it. Her expression softened. “Nadya,” she said quietly, “What would you have me do instead?”
Nadya gripped Mora’s arm harder. “You could escape,” she said. As if it were the first time she’d suggested this.
Mora sighed. “Yes, Nadya, and go where?” she asked. “I leave the sacred mount, I am disconnected from the Goddess and I lose my power. I go through with this punishment, I lose my power as well…”
“And you could die!”
“… Or I could live,” said Mora, “and regain what I lost. You follow the plan, you keep that child safe, I can get all of it back again.” Her gaze grew cold and distant. “Then others will die instead.”
Nadya knew all this. They had been through this exact conversation so many times, but she needed it again. Anything to keep Mora talking to her, facing her, to keep her with her. They were almost out of time…
So Nadya said her next part: “But if we leave, at least we could live.”
“My life is here!” cried Mora, shaking her arm free. “This is our home, my home. This is my gift. I will not simply give up what is mine.”
She paused, looking at Nadya. She put a hand to her cheek. “I will come back to you, my love,” she said. “We will have everything. Everything. You will never know fear again.”
She kissed her, long and deep, all their planning momentarily forgotten. Nadya pulled herself against Mora’s body and tried her hardest to believe her.
—-
Nadya shook herself free of her memories. The glowing crystal was no more, completely dissolved in the mixture she’d been stirring. This was it, then. It was time.
She picked up a red sponge, squeezed it, and thrust it into the shining liquid. When she pulled it out again, it was glowing with the solution it absorbed. Nadya stared at the power in her hands, fascinated. “Shay, sweetie,” she said, “Can you come here?”
“I’m here.”
Nadya looked up. The girl had come right up to the cauldron in complete silence.
Nadya steadied herself, then held out the sponge. “Drink up, little one,” she said. “Your mother needs your help with this part. She needs you to have this. So, drink up, ok?”
Shay looked at Nadya for a long moment, expression unreadable. Nadya forced herself not to look away. Finally, the little girl took the sponge. She held it to her lips and started drinking.
Her eyes grew wide. A feral hunger burned in them, like nothing Nadya had ever seen. Shay sucked down the liquid from the sponge, then started toward the cauldron as if to get more.
“No!” Nadya reached out and almost touched her, then caught herself. “I have to do that part, Shay. Mora… your Mother said I had to do it. You stay over here. OK?”
The girl looked at her, lips curling.
Nadya flinched. “You… you want to do what Mother says, right? Right, Shay?”
Shay blinked. She backed up a bit, then held out the sponge.
Nadya tried to keep her hand from shaking. She took the sponge carefully, filled it, and brought it back. Each time she handed it to the girl, Shay would practically rip it from her fingers, desperate for the next drop of Mora’s magic. Her pale eyes turned dark emerald green, and seemed to glow in the dim light of the cave. Even her skin seemed to take on more color.
Nadya gripped the ragged sponge and wiped up the last bits of glowing liquid from the pot. All the light in the room was gone, replaced by a dull green glow that seemed to lift off the little girl’s scales.
Shay squeezed the sponge of all it had. Her bright eyes snapped open, locked on Nadya. She took the sponge from her mouth, and for the first time Nadya had seen, she grinned. “Mother will be happy with me, won’t she?”
Lindsay, Written Down 