shadows and stones - an original fiction series of gothic, horror, dark fantasy

Alone in the desert, he tried to remember what Iyneferti had told him about seeking others. Her words had made it sound so simple: “Just concentrate, reach out with your soul. Sooner or later it will lead you to another of our kin. The more often you do it, the easier it will become. Eventually you will no longer need to try.” He had been straining for over two days, and still there was nothing.

Maybe she had lied to him, maybe there had only been the two of them after all. Maybe, now that she was gone, he was the last. If so, he wasn't certain he could go on. To be alone, forever? No, if that were to be the case, he would find some way to end his life, locate the means to die. In despair, he slipped to his knees in the sand. Perhaps, if he lay long enough in the sun, it would dissolve him and he would be with her again.

“Why didn't you tell me, Iyti?” he murmured into the sands.

Then he felt something. A tingling at the back of his neck, a pulling on the flesh around his heart. A whisper of words he did not understand brushed past his ears. There was another, he was certain of it now. A long way off there was another. None could replace Iyneferti, but at least he would not have to be alone any longer.

Eagerly he rose from the sands, stretching out his arms. Remembering other words of Iyneferti's advice, he prepared himself. “To think, is to become.” Envisioning one of the hardy desert carrion birds, powerful enough to carry off a yearling calf in its great claws, he leapt into the air. Effortless strokes of powerful wings carried him along the invisible thread which would take him to his distant kin.

Time had no meaning as he flew in bird form. Unaware of how many days had passed, he finally arrived at the place where his senses had drawn him. Wearily landing outside the mud brick house, which appeared thrown together at random in the middle of nowhere, he returned to his own bedraggled form. It seemed impossible anyone should live in this place, with no sign of food or water nearby, yet a steady stream of smoke issued from the chimney.

Here he would find kin, the knowledge was unshakeable in his mind, though he did not understand why. Unsteadily, having not used legs for some time, he walked to the simple wooden door and knocked.

Immediately the door opened. A dark skinned man stood there, displaying perfect milk white teeth in his smile. The man spoke to him, but he did not know the language and could only shake his head in confusion. Again and again the man spoke until finally, in Latin, the words became clear.

“Welcome little brother, I have been waiting for you.” So many years ago, Iyneferti had used those same words. He pushed the memory away: it did no good to dwell on what was lost.

“Greetings, honored elder brother. I have traveled far to meet you.” He replied in perfectly accented Latin, though it was not his native language. Iyti had insisted he learn it: eager to please her, he had done well.

“Enter.” His host stepped back, allowing him to pass inside. The little house was meticulously clean despite being constructed of earthen bricks and having an earthen floor. Feeling filthy and unworthy, he paused just within the doorway. It had been longer than he could remember since he had last been clean, and unlike his host, who wore a spotless Bedouin robe, he had only the remains of a singed tunic which barely covered him at all.

Brightly colored cushions were arranged around a low table, and the man gestured for him to take one. Unwilling to soil them, however, he knelt on the ground instead. Platters of fresh fruit and two glasses of wine were laid upon the table as though he had been expected.

“Please, did you know I was coming?” he begged.

The other man settled himself comfortably upon the cushions, staring down with a smile. “Naturally. Like the tug of a thread I felt your presence, and felt the distance closing day after day, until I knew almost to the moment when you would arrive.”

“Then, we are kin?”

“Oh, yes. Sons of the same father, we bear on our conscience the curse of his seed.”

Curse? It seemed an inappropriate word to him. Iyneferti had always referred to their power as a gift, one to be cherished and nurtured. Using it was to honor the one who had given it to them, was to honor life itself. Could anything be more exquisite? His confusion must have shown, for the other leaned forward as if in appraisal.

“You don't agree?”

“I don't understand.”

“Hmmm.” The man leaned back, like a monarch upon his throne, before continuing his questions. “What is your name, little brother?”

Since the time of his birth he had been called by many names, but they had all become meaningless to him after he met her. Iyneferti had given him a new name. “A new name, little brother, for a new life,” she had said. He bore it proudly, it was all he had left.

“Ra-teh.” It was not Latin, but a much older language – her language.

“Barbaric,” the elder commented, after trying unsuccessfully to repeat the sounds properly. The closest he could come to it was ‘rath’. “That will do for now,” he reflected.

To Ra-teh, it would not do at all, but he chose not to argue. He had come seeking kin, what they called him was inconsequential so long as he was not alone. As he started to ask for the name of this elder brother, however, the other cut him off with further questions, which startled Ra-teh into confusion.

“Do you believe in God, Rath?”

“Which god, brother?”

“Ah, you are ignorant then? You are not aware that there is only one true God.”

Ra-teh reflected before answering. Where he’d been born, in Cymru, there were many gods. Once he had even believed one was his father, though later he learned it was untrue. When he lived in Rome he discovered that the world was filled with gods and goddesses, one for every purpose a being could think of. Even Iyneferti had been unable to tell him which, if any, were real.

He recalled, however, she had once told him about an old king of her homeland, who tried to make his people follow one god. In the end they had risen up to destroy him for his heresy, but for a time his will had been supreme. What had the god’s name been?

“Aten?” Ra-teh was certain that was correct.

“No!” The elder brother nearly screamed in frustration. “You come from Roman lands, that much is in evidence from what remains of your clothes. Did you hear nothing there about Christ, the son of God? Did you never speak to his followers who are martyred by the hundreds? Did you, yourself, never hear him speak?”

Vaguely Ra-teh could remember some of their servants discussing a man named Christ, or something of that sort. He had not paid much attention to their ramblings. Iyneferti had been his religion: he’d needed no other.

“I have!” Eyes burning, the older man leaned forward, clenching his hands on the cushions. “I have seen him, have touched his hand and heard his word. All my life I had believed myself to be the son of a god, allowed myself to be worshiped by any who passed by. I took it as my due, as my right. I was a fool!

“When I heard of this stranger, who performed miracles and claimed to be a god son, I went out in search of him, determined to destroy a rival. What I found instead was my own salvation. His words pierced me like arrows. I realized that I was not the son of a god, but the son of a demon, sent to this world to destroy the souls of the innocent and damn them to hell. On my knees I proclaimed myself before him, begging him to destroy me. Yet he laid his hand upon me, and told me not to despair of my previous path, but to go forth and do good works in the name of God. Thus I would be forgiven.”

Sliding from the cushions, the man knelt before Ra-teh and began to change shape. During the years of living with Iyneferti, Ra-teh had learned to take many forms, and seen her take many others. Never had he seen anything like what this strange brother now created.

In a bizarre perversion of human life: curving horns sprouted from the sides of the mostly normal face, while the flesh seemed to shrink from the arms and torso, leaving nothing but a paper thin stretch of skin across prominent bones. The Bedouin robe sank down until it caught upon the bony protrusion of the hips, where it rested like the wrappings of a mummy.

Ra-teh backed away in horror as the skeletal hands reached out for him. Suddenly he felt terribly afraid.

“Come little brother, join me. Take, as I do, this demon form, a penance for the sin of pride which leads us to believe we deserve to live. Follow me on my mission as I perform the task which God has given me to prove myself in his eyes.”

“Task, what task?”

“Why, the destruction of all our unholy kin. Those who move across this world like a blight, heedless of the word of God and bringing ruination upon the innocent, must be destroyed.”

Ra-teh could not answer, could not conceive the magnitude of what he was hearing. He was no innocent to death. Before he had met Iyneferti, he had sent many men on the journey to their makers, but all of them were worthy foes defeated in honest battle. Never had he killed anyone without cause, and to kill blood kin…he didn’t need her wisdom to perceive it as the ultimate wrong.

“You are insane,” he sputtered, scrambling to his feet, putting distance between them. In his longing to find companionship, he had instead stumbled upon a madman. “I will not help you murder kin.”

For a moment defeat shone in the other’s eyes, then they lit even stronger with the desperate spark of fanaticism. Rising with blinding speed he caught Ra-teh by the arm, twisting it around while burying his other hand in Ra-teh’s hair. Pulling hard he forced Ra-teh’s head backwards until the ear was level with his mouth.

“Pity, little brother Rath. I had hoped you would be reasonable. I should have realized the whore’s influence would have been too great. I should never have left you with her for so long, but I had other, pressing matters to attend to before I could take time to destroy her. At least I know you are immune to fire, since you survived her funeral unscathed.”

Ra-teh’s mind reeled at the words. The fire! He had believed it an accident, an overturned oil lamp or unattended brazier. That it may have been deliberately set had never dawned on him.

Sensation overwhelmed him as he remembered that last evening, lying in her arms, safe, so they thought. The smoke had warned them too late, their room was surrounded with the orange glow and heat. Iyneferti had never told him of her vulnerability, he thought her as immune to the flames as himself. They had been embracing when the first flames entered the room. Then, in the changing of one moment to the next, he had gone from holding her body close to clutching ashes, blown in the air. She had not made a sound, simply dissolved away.

“Murderer”! he screamed. Anger and hatred giving him extra strength, he reached back, grasping the curving horns and using them to pull his brother into the air. Straining he flung the inhuman burden across the room into the lit fire.

“May you also burn!” he cried. Only the remains of the white robe caught fire however, the bony body rose unscathed, stepping towards him once more.

There were only three ways to kill one of their kind, she had told him. Death by immolation in fire, death by submersion in water, or death by burial beneath earth. Fire had been handy, easy to try, but neither earth nor water were here in a form which was useable. Looking around frantically, he spotted a long pole, like a walking stick, leaning against the wall. Hoping the wood was of a strong nature he grabbed it, thrusting it straight at the heart of his attacker.

Taken by surprise there was no attempt at defense: the pole passed through its target, protruding from the other side. Not willing to take chances, Ra-teh pulled it quickly out then used it like a bludgeon, striking his brother again and again, making certain he could not easily be followed. When the monstrous figure lay in seeming immobility on the floor Ra-teh dropped his weapon and fled through the open doorway.

Outside, he thought himself into the swift shape of the falcon, shooting like an arrow towards the distant horizon. Tears almost blinded him as he flew further and further away from the home of his enemy, once his brother. He hated to escape, hated to leave the revenging of her death incomplete, but he knew he did not yet have the strength to fight one so powerful and old.

Rath, he had been called. Anger. So he would continue to be called, so he would not forget what had been done to Iyneferti, not forget what he owed her memory. One day he would be strong enough to come back and destroy this bringer of sorrow, the master of grief. One day they would fight again.

Back in the house in the center of the desert, the demon rose bloodied and broken, yet still able to move after a fashion. He crept to the window, watching the tiny speck streak off into the distance. When it was no longer visible he still traced it, using the same senses which had warned him of Ra-teh's approach earlier that day. Grimly he smiled. He could not pursue now, Rath had been very thorough in ensuring that. But one day they would meet again, of that he was quite certain, and then he would send the little brother to join the little sister, and many others, in the deepest pit of Hell.

�

episode i: journey into darkness - episode ii: tea party - episode iii: awakening
episode iv: the book of grief - episode v: paterfamilias - episode vi: breaking points
episode vii: the dark of the mind - episode viii: decisions
episode ix: momentary distractions - episode x: exorcising demons i
episode xi: porcelain visions - episode xii: the nature of jackals
episode xiii: exorcising demons ii - episode xiv: the invitation
episode xv: body & soul - episode xvi: mothering sunday
episode xvii: imbalance of power - episode xviii: interlude
episode xix: between life and death

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