Twisted Tales Contest

Once, during her days adventuring in the desolations of the north, Saga had found herself bereft of her army, alone in a craggy mountain, where she had pursued her enemy, the Demon Lord, to the highest peak, to which he hid in a dark cavern filled with sculptures of his likeness.

Lord Maleficent Locus was a pale shadow of the primeval Demon Lords of Yore, and had acquired his power through soaking the energies of the dead into his body. The Bleak Sword was his conductor for this transition, and presently the sword identified him in the dark, amid the innumerable ranks of stone statues. It was slung across his back and glowed like bright ember in the darkness, slowly rising and falling with his panting breath.

Saga brandished her own sword. “Light”

The blade of her sword exploded in brilliant light, blinding her for a second, and flooding the misty chamber in brightness. The rows of statues threw sharp, wicked shadows across the cavern floor.

The Demon Lord drew Bleak Sword in front of him. His eyes burned with crimson light, his pale face streaked with blood, and his dark hair plastered across his brow with sweat. “Have you any idea where you stand, young human?”

Saga drew her eyes to the thousands of sculpted statues. They were all Demon Lords, drawn in different poses, possessed of minute distinctions in their cruel, horned features. A tomb? A place of worship? The Demon Lord’s retreat for his hobby of sculpting? Saga’s lip twitched on that last one. Maybe not. “A distraction. From your fate.”

Lord Maleficent chuckled. “That would be a futile effort by me. No, I will die tonight with honor if I must die by your hand. We are both at the end of our line, and I have already done all I could to deny my fate.”

“You can no longer change your destiny.” Saga shambled across the chamber, dripping blood and sweat with each step. “You have given up.”

Maleficent bared his teeth. “I understand…limits. It is not the same as giving up.”

There was only one thing she needed to know. “Will you fight?”

“I will,” He stood, rising higher and higher still until his spiked shoulders nearly brushed the ceiling and his head craned down like a serpent. “If only to pass the time.”

Saga frowned. “You joke? Now?”

“There is no better moment.”

“Has fear of death stolen your sanity, Demon Lord?”

Amazingly, he grinned. “Not fear of death, no. And if nothing else, I believe I am sane for the first time in my life. I will share this sanity to you, young human, before I die, and it shall be my mark on this earth.”

“We leave no marks.”

“Such is the doctrine of your cult. You could be so much more…”

Her whole life, Saga had fought for the First Order. Her life had been the destruction of darkness, her fate carved out for her before she had been born, and the sword in her hands was no less evidence of her being alive in the world than the mountains of dead husks of her enemies; than the air she breathed or the blood in her heart. Her life was a dictation, a directive. Demons should not talk. Demons should not hope, or dream. If I can not, by what right can they aspire? This cycle of killing and being killed, it is what defines us and tells us we are alive.

Their swords clashed and flickered, throwing sparks. Their bodies were at their limits, each barely able to stand upright without falling apart. So both their movements were slow and ungainly, stumbling and lunging like drunks, while glaring at one another behind their swords.

Lord Maleficent swung his sword, a black horizontal blur. Saga jerked away, staggering off balance, panting hard. Her back pressed against the cold chest of a stone sculpture. She flinched, then looked up at its terrible visage and shivered. The Bleak Sword came again, and Saga ducked. It cleaved the statue in half behind her.

The statue exploded in pieces when it struck the floor. Saga coughed as dust rose. Her own fingers tightened around her sword and she leapt, whipping the blade at the Demon Lord.

But the blade struck hard stone, not flesh. When the dust cleared, Saga saw she had impaled the dead chest of another statue. Its frozen stare drove accusatory daggers down at her and she yanked the sword out. The statue crumbled.

“I ask you again,” grated the voice behind her. “Do you know where you stand?”

Saga twisted around, but the real Demon Lord had not moved. She held her sword a little higher, wincing at the pain in her arms. Blood from innumerable past battles dripped down her face and limbs, pooling at her feet.

But as her sword rose, it brought the Demon Lord’s features clearer in view. She could see now that he was dying even faster than her. Blood leaked down his face, crusted like a mantle across his collarbones.

Saga flinched at the sight. “Why-” She paused. “Why do you look so human?”

Maleficent Locus stepped forward. Saga did not react; she knew he could not continue their fight. Instead she watched him spit a glob of blood and wipe his mouth. His voice was raspy, obviously in pain.

“This is for us Beings of Darkness, the most sacred and revered place in the entire world. We stand in Ravenholm – the true Ravenholm, and you and I are the first to have treaded its hallowed earth since the Gods themselves convened to imprison Lord Lucifer, the first of my kind, to the Twilight Tower. Before I continue, humor me this, where are the rest of the First Order’s Knights?”

Saga spoke calmly. “The army has proceeded to Lord Vice Morningstar’s castle where he has hidden himself. After I slay you here, he will be the last Demon Lord in the world.”

“My kind is going extinct…”

Saga cocked her head. “It’s as you said yourself: fate.”

He nodded. “I have reached my limit; I know I can no longer change my fate. Nor do I believe you can change yours. You will die shortly after you kill me?”

Saga nodded back. “My own fate will end with yours.”

He smiled. “Both our stories have come to their respective ends then. The nameless hero will slay the evil lord, and that will be that.” Maleficent’s brows furrowed angrily and he scowled. “But why should I end like every Demon Lord before me. Why must I bow to fate? If I cannot change my fate,” He suddenly jabbed a finger at Saga, trembling, “then you will change my fate for me! And I will change yours!”

Saga plunged her sword into the Demon Lord’s chest, felt it part like sand before her. She had heard enough. She was tired. She wanted to it to end. Maleficent’s eyes bulged. He gagged, arching his back, his fingers curling and uncurling. Bleak Sword clattered to the ground. He sank to his knees.

Saga tried to yank her sword out, but she had no energy left in her body. She collapsed instead, grasping the entrenched sword for support. She could not even lift her head up. The ground looked grey and cold, and as blood pooled over it, she saw her reflection in the lurid red.

A tired, weathered face. It shocked her how young she still was; her hair was still as blue as the day she had set off only two years ago. But her eyes were dead, emotionless pits of cobalt. How many scars had she accumulated? How many lives had she taken and how many of her comrades had fallen before her? How many would continue to fall? And still, more would take their place. Such was the decree of fate. Such was the meaning of her life in its entirety.

To be born. To fight. To die.

She fought for the safety of others, other humans made of the same blood and flesh as her. What did their lives have, that meant so much more, so much differently than hers? Why was her role to die for their nameless faces, and theirs to explore the fullness of life, a fullness she had never had a right to even comprehend before she was born? What was this sick orientation that people called life? For her it had been an occupation, a series of motions that had led her here in some abandoned corner of the world, alone, forgotten, to die quietly. And when the curtain was drawn, there would be no trace of her to show she even existed. All her experiences, her thoughts, her emotions and triumphs and sorrows, vanish the moment she closes her eyes.

Well this sucks.

Saga smiled bitterly. Why have I not let go of my sword? Why do I refuse to collapse? Am I really regretting my fate, now, before Death’s door of all times?

The sword began to move.

It rose up, Saga refused to release her hold of it, knew she would finally die when she fell to the cold ground, and so was dragged up with the sword. She thought she heard an unfamiliar voice.

“Ravenholm is the birthplace of darkness. As light had come to oppose darkness, you could say it is the birthplace for light as well; and the eternal struggle between them. It is where Demon Lords come to die and long ago, where the first Demon Lords were forged.”

Saga looked up. Lord Maleficent Locus had risen from the dead and loomed over her, draped in shadow. Her sword no longer pierced his body; instead he held the blade with one hand, holding it in front of him.

He is no longer bleeding, Saga realized.

He is made of stone.

The voice came again, behind her, above her, all around her. “Tell me child, why have you come to Ravenholm? What is your purpose?”

“I have no purpose. My purpose was fulfilled. I am done with this life.”

“Then why do you refuse to die? You speak of passing, yet you fight with every inch of your will against it. You scream your desire to live when you know it is impossible.”

The injustice of it was lost on Saga, for she never understood injustice, never being exposed to any standards beyond her own to create a contrast of just and unjust. But curiosity was a more base emotion, and Saga wondered what incredible factor had set her apart from what could be imagined as a normal life, the lives of those she protected from a distance. And again, by what right, by what power, they exercised that freed them from the invisible shackles Saga had worn her whole life. How had they escaped her fate? What had they possessed that she did not?

“…but why should I end like every Demon Lord before me. Why must I bow to fate?”

Choice. That was the difference. The concept that you yourself could make a decision beyond what was laid out for you. To walk a path on your own accord, and desire freedom through the definition of your actions.

“I have come here,” Saga said, staring at her clenched hands. “To stay alive.”

The voice sounded bemused. “But you said it yourself: you are finished here. The script written for you has been played. And your time on the stage is finished, your purpose fulfilled.”

“I don’t care. I want to live.”

The voice paused. “For what new purpose?”

“For no purpose. I want to live for the sake of wanting to live.”

“What a childish notion.” A laugh seemed to ripple through the air. “I will not deny it however. Do you understand what it would mean to heal you?”

Saga closed her eyes. “I don’t care.”

And frigid darkness poured into her body. And the pain vanished.

“…then you will change my fate for me! And I will change yours!”



In the crimson reflections of the dying sunset, the last Knights of the First Order scavenged the battlefield looking for the survivors. They stood like erect shadows in the brightness of the sunset. A howling, freezing wind buffeted their ragged cloaks, kicking up ashes.

The body of the last Demon Lord stood impaled with a hundred swords, surrounded at his feet by the corpses of a hundred Knights he slew before they had killed him. He had crawled back to his throne and crumpled into its seat while succumbing to death. Vanity painted him a pretty portrait though, not that anyone would ever see his enthroned corpse again.

The first Knight to perceive cried out. He picked up a fallen sword and raised it at the figure in the distance.

Heads turned to the horizon and beheld what their brother saw. A slim silhouette, wrapped in tatters that rippled and cracked in the wind, materializing slowly out of the clouds of ash. It held in one hand a sword that burned like ember through the grey.

The Demon Lord did not deign to cross their path however. A gelid chill gripped the first Knight’s spine as he glimpsed her scarlet eyes. Then she turned her head away, and the clouds of ash covered her. And when the wind scattered the ashes again a second later, she was gone, and only the horizon faced their expectant faces.

“A trick of the light,” muttered a Knight, sighing.

The remains of the army set up camp, but did not leave the desolated lands. They knew the First Order would not be expecting them back. They had sent an army to slay the last Demon Lords and the last Demon Lords had been slain. New Knights will be created and new armies raised. These Knights had no other purpose. For these Knights, their lives had been over the moment Lord Vice Morningstar died on his throne.

A footstep.

The Knights turned their heads again as the new Demon Lord appeared next to the throne, looking down on them. Her hair was long and midnight blue, framing her face. Her red eyes scanned their ranks.

The Bleak Sword pierced Lord Vice’s body through the back of his throne. Dark energy rippled through the blade and entered the young woman’s arms, coils of iridescent shadow burrowing into her flesh.

The corpse shriveled, and the swords entombed in it clattered to the ground. She gasped, eyes wide. From her back, a pair of dark wings exploded out in a flurry of feathers. They unfurled slowly, like ragged shadows.

“Those were the last Demon Lord’s wings,” said a Knight, shocked. “She took them.”

Their leader, a lieutenant who had been promoted during their last battle when his superiors had been slain, unsheathed his sword and stabbed it to the ground. The sound echoed through the air. He addressed the new Demon Lord, voice choked in grief. “We cannot defeat you. We have…failed our destiny.”

The Demon Lord observed him. She smiled slowly, a sharp white crescent.

“I will give you a new destiny then. All of you.”