Tragedy of Rain 19 Chapter 19: Mother and Father

The scratching became clawing as splinters of wood seemed to peel from the door. The walls themselves were under seige as the sounds surrounded them.

"What in the seven hells!" Zane stood in front of her as if expecting to defend her.

Rain's hands bore balls of flame which grew up her arms, she felt raw energy surge through her soul. She was afraid, but she was more angry than afraid. The scratching only increased with renewed venom as a sound of wailing screams shattered what was left of the glass on the windows.

And then it all ceased, the silence was haunting as the pair stood in the shadows. A light flickered into being, one by one each of the candles that had been cruelly erased came back to life. The building groaned as if a hand had been squeezing it. Boards shook and rafters creaked under shifting pressure. Rain didn't move a muscle until the sounds finally subsided. It was the longest minute of her life waiting for the sounds to come again...but they never did.

"I hate this place," Rain couldn't relax, she remained on alert studying every movement however slight.

"Didn't someone say this place was haunted?" Rain asked quietly.

"I've heard stories of revenants...but they were just stories." Zane answered meekly.

A scream sounded from above, it was short but piercing. They both rushed up the stairs, passing Fiala who had remained on the floor. The second floor was eerily dark.

Tap...!

The sound was born from wet fingers and old wood. Rain looked down the hallway, counting the seconds with every heartbeat. The air tasted metallic as she walked toward the sound.

Tap...!

It came again, a sickening wet sound. It was closer. It was coming from Maxine's room

Tap...Tap...!

She put her hand in the door handle.

Tap...Tap...Tap!

A hand shot out of the rotting wood with corpse grey skin and dried fingernails. Rain felt it's icy touch like a spear ramming into her heart. Zane reacted quickly, his sword drawn he made a downward stroke to free her. As the blade impacted the skin of the revenant it shattered, the iron falling apart.

The thing grabbing her pulled Rain with the strength of a dozen men, pulling her through the doors rotting boards. It then embraced her with a sour grin and fiery eye sockets. Its tongue held loosely in the air as it's jaw bone had been crudely removed. Flesh was stuck in between its blackened teeth.

It had Grails face...

Rain attempted to use her magic but felt it immediately getting sucked away, the thing was somehow able to siphon the magic from her. The curse mark grew darker and moved on her skin reacting to the monsters strange abilities. It siphoned and siphoned until she felt her blood grow cold, her skin turned a milky white. The mark began to shrink, slowly but surely drawing back to her shoulder and moving down her arm.

"You cannot save them all unless you let me in." A voice filled her ears as the creature forced open her mouth with its long fingers. It's slimy tongue plunged down her throat, making her want to vommit. The revenant gazed into her soul, wanting every bit of it. It didn't occur to her that Zane had been held down, two other creatures about to do the same to him. She struggled under the monsters snare as another similar terror was standing over Maxine, forcing its mouth against hers. A single drop of blood tearing from her eye.

"Let me in!" The voice cried in the back of her skull. It was the same voice she heard in the catacombs, "I cannot stop the revenant unless you let me in."

She could feel her body grow weaker, her skin started to get tighter against her bones. The mark was only on her hand now.

"It's alright, please let me help you save them." The voice was calm, gentle even.

"Help me" She asked it, not with her voice but with her heart.

"Will you let me in...?" It asked almost like a friend.

"Yes..."

And with that the world turned upside down.

Rain found herself standing in a field of long grass, the sun beat warm light against her face. A flock of birds flew overhead heading south for the winter. They were singing. A figure stood on the horizon with porcelain skin and long brown hair, she looked upwards to the sky watching the clouds for eerie shapes. Rain recognized her, even at a distance, even from behind she recognized the woman who had given birth to her and raised her through hell or high water. Her mother turned to her with a mix of expression. There was love there, but also sadness and even a little fear. She had never seen her mother look that way before.

Was this a dream? It felt like one...a lucid one perhaps?

Her mother looked away from her, her brimstone hair waving in the wind. Her white gown was spotless against the midday sun.

A trail of smoke entered her field of view, she could smell the ash being carried by a new air. Someone leaned over her, his head meeting her shoulders, a rich spicy fragrance met her nostrils. Looking at him she expected to see a haunting creature like before, a blood stained terror. Instead she saw a man who by all definitions was beautiful, his hair long but clean, his face sculpted and firm. His eyes were a bright yellow, and his skin a rich cream. He looked at her like a long lost father, or distant uncle happy to make her acquaintance.

"For so long I have waited to finally meet you," his voice was like a harped instrument, fluent and regal in tone, "You took your time, but don't worry everything will be made right."

"Whtt are you?" Rain stuttered her eyes frozen to the creature.

"No need to be afraid little one, I am not the monster you framed or imagined me to be. They did a good job...the priests and other lost ones...to hide my true face under a cloud of lies. But they cannot hide me anymore." He put a hand in her shoulder, music could be heard in the wind, "Thank you for finally letting me in."

Rain opened her eyes as realization collided back to her. A scarlet moon glowed overhead like a blood stained eye giving a silent scream. Time had passed, but she had no recollection of it. The inn was on fire behind her, it's structure collapsing into ruin. Her clothes had been burnt away as the immolation had been born by her power. Naked, she stood in the center of Coppermill, her body fullly restored. The mark had spread to cover both arms and her entire back, addition interwoven lines wove around her breasts and the sides of her body down to her hips. Her skin was grey, her hair frost white.

Surrounding her were the bodies of revenants, their souls being dragged back into the cold darkness from whence they came. Their bones crumbling slowly into dust as the magic they had stolen evaporated back to the world. But they were no longer relevant for she was not alone. In front of her stood a small army, about a hundred cultists clad in brown robs. The majority of them had no eyes, dried blood colored their cheeks. Many of them had hands extended offering her their eyes as some sort of ritualistic pledge. A small collection still had their eyes intact, and instead wore masks covering their face with ghastly images. They all weren't human any longer, although many were once.

Three of the cultists pinned down Fiala, Zane, and Maxine. All of them were weakened and severely thin. The revenants had nearly emptied their magic and, unlike her, they refused the gifts of their father.

"Rain..." Zane looked up at her, his hair falling from his scalp and eyes sinking, "what have you done..." his voice was hoarse as a spittle of drool left his lips.

Rain looked at him, it was her turn to smile, "Don't worry Zane, I'm going to save you." As she said the words a look of horror came over him. She bent over to the mark on his neck and put her lips against it. She kissed it softly.

"NO!" Zane cried, it did little good. As her lips left the curse mark it broke free from whatever had held it at bay. It shot across him spreading over his body, it's tendrils like spiders legs. He writhed and screamed as the curse mark remade him, his bones breaking and reforming. The crackling noise should have made her sick, but it hadn't.

"He was always weak that one, he will join the other Hestati." The father spoke to her. He sounded next to her and afar at the same time.

She looked at Maxine who was only barely conscious. And approached her next, Rain opened her eyes with gentle fingers. Her mark was there drawing intricut weaves in her pupils. She closed her eyelids and kissed them gently, "You've always followed me, will you continue to do so?" She asked her as she pulled away slowly.

"I'm..." Maxine started speaking as black lines extended from her eyes to her forehead, "yours, I only want to be at your side." She began crying as she said the words. The mark covered her then, changing her as it did Zane but not nearly as radical.

"Such a lovely fool, dont you think?" The father asked, "I will let you choose how to make her." Rain could just imagine the approval as she held the reigns of the vellums power. She rebuilt Maxine, restoring the scarred features making her more beautiful than she ever was. When finished Maxine stood not as one of the cultist Hestati, mindless in their single minded devotion, but an example of delicate strength.

As this transformation took hold she went to Fiala, who looked at her in disgust and pain. "I'll never join you!" She fought the Hestati holding her down. Magic was her only tool left to her, and she burst into flame to break free.

She looked at Rain and charged as fire as cold as ice casted forward from her hand.

Rain moved faster than Fiala ever could, whipping around her with a deathly grace. One arm wrapped around her throat while she kicked the back of her leg. Fiala fell to her knee and struggled to break the deadlock.

Her fires couldn't touch Rains skin, instead Fiala's fire burnt out. It couldn't compete for the same air as hers.

"Marvelous! I always enjoyed her spirit, it's just too bad she was such a failure." The fathers voice spoke with a twisted sense of humor, "She will see what I have to offer...one way or another."

One of the Hestati cultists approached her. Fiala tried to maneuver her jaw to bite Rains arm. The cultist peered down at her and brought his hands to her face.

"No No, Let me go!" Her pleas soon became screams as the cultist dug his fingers into her eye sockets and freed her of all that the worlds limited sights could show her. Her cries of agony echoed into the woods around until her voice finally gave out. Fiala blacked out shortly afterward allowing Rain to gently pull her head back, and like the others she kissed the mark on her forehead. At that moment, Fiala saw the world as the father had seen it.

"She will serve the Hestati as well, she will learn the truth I have to give." A shadow suddenly materialized seemingly from nowhere. The father, the creature that bore no name, faced her.

There was a long pause of silence as Rain looked at her bloody fingers. Seeing her friends writhing in exquisite pain suddenly made her stomach churn in revulsion. For a brief second she saw through the fabric of mysticism clouding her sight. Like a red fog or drug induced hallucination it was hard to concentrate as that moment passed. A realization dawned.

"This isn't real..." Rain looked up at him breaking through the deception that had clouded her eyes. The father, or whatever it was, wasn't beautiful. He was hideous.

"No no no no no" He stammered, "You don't get to unmake you're choice. I offer you power to break this world, to remake it as you see fit. After all I have given, how could you still refuse?"

As he spoke the words another figure had manifested behind him. A woman she recognized instantly. It was her mother.

"No no no!" The father screamed again with a wet tongue, "look at me my little diva, I am the one who truly cares about you. Who has always cared about you! I give you magic, and more!"

"He didn't give you anything, he merely wanted to corrupt what you already possessed." Her mother walked past him, and it tried to grab her with outstretched claws. It couldn't touch her, he was suddenly powerless.

"Mother," Seeing her made her cry.

"It's ok little diva, I've got you." She looked at her with kind eyes. Rain felt warmth restoring to her. "You were born with the gifts of magic, you just never knew. That is why I said you were special, why I knew you were meant to leave the alienage...you have the power to live a much better life than I could offer."

"I don't want this...please save me." Rain looked into her mother's kind eyes. The fear that had been present before was long gone.

"Don't worry little diva, I already have." The moon changed from a crimson orb to glowing white. The father lashed at her again as some unseen force dragged him back into the night. The cultists evaporated and were erased. Her friends seemed to revert backward returning to their former selves. Despite this the inn continued to burn.

"How are you doing this?" Rain asked. None of this felt real, which only added to the confusion.

"My little diva, I may be gone but you're not the only one with gifts." With that her mother smiled and Rain looked down at herself. She looked like the girl from the alienage, but stronger and healthier. Her hair seemed to argue with itself changing from white to brown, and return to white. The mark faded away until it was no longer on her skin. Another realization hit her about how this really did feel like a dream, how none of this made any sense.

"Why are you calling me that?" She asked her mother. Time froze and then spun in all directions, as if the magic of the world had been unanchored.

"Little diva, please wake up." Her mothers eyes changed color. Rain felt her lungs burning as if she hadn't been breathing this entire time.

As she inhaled the world seemed to explode around her amid angry cries. When she awoke the horror that she had just experienced faded from her mind, or perhaps it was a dream this entire time? The inn was on fire but everyone had made it out safely. Zane craddled her tightly until she calmed down enough to process what was going on.

"Was I...dreaming?" Rain looked above to see his face.

"Little diva you literally passed out on the floor within moments of returning. I had been trying to wake you up since," He shifted his weight suddenly relieved to see her awake, "We we're trapped in the smoke so long I feared we had lost you."

Had truly nothing happened? She didn't understand. She looked at her arm and the mark was still there but it had changed.

"Why is the inn on fire?" Rain asked him. She somehow found being held comforting.

"Oh yeah that...you can blame the minx there." He nodded toward Fiala who was sleeping near the well, "she got drunk and tried to light the candles on her own."

"Are you kidding me!" Rain tried to process what had just happened.

Grail stood in a half slouch in front of the inn, he was crying loudly, "All my whiskey is gone! Why!" He sank to his knees and beat the earth as the inns structure caved in.

"Of course, thank the gods the sparrow was upstairs to wake everybody." As Zane spoke Maxine came up behind him to pat him on the shoulder.

"Hey 'little diva'" she said sarcastically.

"I think I'm losing my mind." Rain replied.

Maxine sat next to them leaning against Zane, she seemed both hung over and tipsy at the same time, "That's a lot of smoke..." she observed the ash rushing into the sky.

"Yep..." He answered, "Someone's definitely going to see that."

The trio watched as Grail and the others observed the giant fire for the rest of the night. Eventually claiming an adjacent structure that still had a ceiling. As the morning sun broke through they all prepared to leave. There wasn't much debate as to where they should go next. There was only one place for them left to go, and they needed to hurry.

Chapter end