Soul Searching

This stared life as a blog post, but it grew into a full length story, so I thought I'd post it as a stand alone item. It can still be accessed through my blog as well.

This is a story I was inspired to write while 'searching my soul' to think of my New Year's resolutions. I wanted to write some sort of blog relating to the the new year, but nothing so boring as simply stating what my resolutions were. I thought of writing a piece about the process of deciding on them, which conjured up the title 'soul searching'. From there a strange, dark piece of fantasy emerged, which as it turns out has nothing in particular to do with the new year, resolutions, or the process of discovering them...but it sure is exciting. I hope you enjoy it! Happy New Year! 


        She had been queen, once. Beloved and trusted by her subjects. They were a small people, as were all the peoples of that world. It was a world where nature refused to be cowed and reshaped to suit the whims of animal inhabitants. Besides, there was no dominant species to shape it. All peoples were small tribes of one species or another, who lived in isolation in some niche carved into the jungle, desert, mountain or ocean, whichever suited them best. Entire colonies lived and thrived, or faltered and died out, unnoticed, unmourned and unrecorded by any outsider. The trials they faced mattered only to themselves. Her own people had numbered a little over one thousand. They had been a happy and harmonious people, who shared all that they had, delights and burdens alike. She had been their queen; kind, wise beyond her years, fair, just, benevolent and loved by all. Then, she had been their downfall. She had betrayed their trust and doomed them all. The knowledge never left her; how could it, when she experienced every nuance of suffering inflicted upon every one of their desperate, trapped, tormented souls?

        Her journey had been long, though it was far less perilous than if she had walked in living flesh. The dead cannot die, at least. Nor could dead flesh feel; no pain, no hunger, no thirst, never cold, nor weary. Her body walked forward tirelessly, league after long league, day and night, night and day. She never need stop to perform any physical task; no need to eat, drink, slumber or defecate. Only sometimes would she halt, as she neared the boundary of some inhabited corner of the world, and wait until all was quiet, until the population slept and she could pass by entirely unobserved. She did not stop out of fear. Fear is a physical response. It was merely a precautionary, rational act. She could not risk her body being imprisoned, enslaved or worse, destroyed. Her soul was still bound to the dead and rotting flesh. She needed her body to complete her task; to set them free. Each day, her skin turned a queerer shade of grey or green. Each day, a little more fell away from the bones beneath. Her entrails leaked through the holes that appeared in the decaying covering. Her time was running out before her body fell apart and she could go no further. She must have been a hideous sight to behold, a far cry from the beauty she had possessed when alive. Her wretched appearance suited her now, though it still could not equal the wretchedness of her soul.

* * * * * * * *

        “You will betray your people before the moons align once more” the crone had croaked, dark eyes shining feverishly, though they threatened to be lost amongst the wrinkled folds of skin surrounding them. Those deep, dark, starry pools were never still, but flitted first this way then that, never focussing on anything tangible to those whose consciousness is bound to this dreary realm. She stood bent backed, swaying slightly as she leaned upon her gnarled staff for support. The queen had received her with mixed emotion. The crone had lived somewhere on the edge of their civilisation for as long as anyone could remember. Histories recorded her visits to monarchs whose heirs, and the heirs of their heirs, had lived, ruled and lain buried for long years since. Between visits, the crone seemed to vanish from existence. No man had ever chanced upon her lodgings in the dark, tangled jungle, even if he had set out with specifically that purpose and spent long years searching. Somehow, though, she always knew when she was needed. When one of the citizens was sick or injured, they would be taken and left cradled amongst the magnificent, twisting roots of the great auralis tree. The crone would always come to them, healing those she could, easing the passing of those beyond hope of recovery. Every inhabitant of the jungle city for long centuries had left the world with peace and contentment written plainly upon their countenance. For this reason she was venerated by the queen and her people, some teetered on the edge worshipping her, though none could be said to love her. She was shrouded in darkness and unfathomable mystery. None knew her purpose, nor whether she bore any love for them. They knew only that she had great power and, for now at least, she chose to use it in their favour.

        On rare occasions, the crone arrived unbidden and ventured within the bounds of their little city. Inevitably, on such occasions, she bore dire news. Visions of disaster to be wrought upon the people. Warnings of terrors glimpsed in their future. With her counsel, the leaders were often able to divert the worst consequences borne by the onslaughts of fate. Her visions, though, infallibly came to pass, no one had ever succeeded in preventing them entirely. It was just such an unbidden visit, such news of a vision of imminent disaster, that saw the crone standing before then, telling her she would be a betrayer.

        “I would never betray my people, I love them as a mother loves her children. I love them as they love me. Explain yourself crone.” The queen had no cause to doubt the truth of her own words, yet still as they escaped her lips they sounded hollow and tremulous. The crone was never wrong.

        “You will betray your people.” the crone repeated “that much is known to me”. She had paused then, her eyes for once still, though they stared unblinkingly at some thing far off and unseen. It seemed to the queen that her look held more melancholy than any she had ever seen. The crone seemed a shadow of the dauntingly powerful being that she had glimpsed at other meetings. She seemed defeated.

        “More than that, I can hardly tell you. My vision grows dim and gets turned in endless circles when I attempt to penetrate the veil that has been cast over the future. I see near as little as your own kind now. I cannot hope to stand in the way of what is to come. The events are already under way, being orchestrated by a power far greater than my own, with a purpose darker than any I could have imagined. So dark is it, that it blinds me. All will be lost and none can be saved. This evil will happen and cannot be stopped. I give you now the only gift I can, one it has taken all my remaining strength to fashion. I hope that it may allow you a chance to rectify some small part of the wrong you will do to your people, after the event. I hope, but I cannot promise”.

        With these words the crone had handed her the amulet she now wore. In it was set  stone that seemed filled with light and darkness; bright, burning fire and deep, swirling water. It seemed to pulse as she took hold of it, the vast energy it contained was palpable. She stared at it in her hand for a moment, uncomprehending. Then, before she could utter a word, the energy seared up her arm, every nerve screaming as the pulse charged along it at the threshold of its capacity. She felt as though she was burning alive in white hot flame, gasping for breath as she drowned in frigid water, yet still as though a powerful bolt of lightning was rending her in half. She could not scream, she could barely think. DEATH, was the only thought available to her. It echoed through her consciousness an endlessly repeating scream. It seemed to convey several notions at once, somewhere deep in her subconscious. The crone has killed me before I can harm them. Why must my passing be such pain, when others were given such peace? Death should be quicker than this. It is not me that's dying.

        None of this entered her consciousness, encumbered as it was with the excruciating torrent that flowed through it. Yet somehow as the pain ended and her senses dizzily returned, she was aware of each thought. If it's not me, it must be... The thought ended there, having already raced ahead in her subconscious and set in motion the action of moving her eyes to the spot where the crone had stood before her. All that remained was a withered, white husk. The crone's robes had burned away, now a pile of ashes around her feet. If she'd had any flesh upon her bones it had disappeared, only lose skin hung down, sheets of wrinkled wrapping with no discernible shape. Her dark eyes had become colourless orbs that rolled unseeing in their sockets. Her lips clacked dryly together and she uttered a final statement in a whisper that seemed to echo from beyond the grave.

        “Through this amulet, your soul is bound to your flesh. Your body will die, but you will remain tethered to it and in control of it. This is my gift. Never remove the amulet until you have done what must be done.”

        The husk remained standing for a moment more, before it crumbled into a fine white dust upon the floor. The queen had remained there, in shock, until her courtiers had grown worried enough to venture inside and discovered the scene. She had told no one the truth of her experience, only that the crone had come to her with an incomprehensible warning and promptly burned away before her very eyes. How could she tell them she was to betray them? How could she tell them they were all doomed to suffer some great evil and there was no hope of stopping it?

* * * * * * * *

        The evil had come to pass, just as the crone had said. The beast had entered their happy little civilisation at the queen's unwitting behest. She hadn't slept since the awful events with the crone had transpired. She had no appetite and could focus on nothing other than the movements of the moons. Already, the three sisters, Allustra, Shimfina and Ellusia, hung visible above the world. Each night their paths slowly convened. She had so little time. She fervently willed the crone to be wrong. Just this once. She tried hard to believe that the crone's words were the rantings of a mind, gone insane as it teetered on the edge of oblivion. The crone could look into the future, wasn't it possible that she had been driven out of her mind on observing her own demise, so close after such long centuries. Never before, if the histories were to be believed, had she issued such a vague and cryptic warning.

        If I confine myself to my chambers and take no decisive action until the sisters have convened, perhaps the evil will not come to pass. How can I betray them if I do not act? Such thoughts swirled around her head, but she could never be sure. Action or inaction, both could be deemed a betrayal. I could shut myself away and they could die around me crying for my aid as I cover my eyes and ears. She went so far as to consider killing herself, but that action too could be the betrayal that the crone had spoken of. Besides, the crone's final words would not leave her. Even if she killed herself, she would remain tethered to her body and able to act; able to betray. Unless I remove the amulet. Removing the amulet was perhaps the worst possible action she could take, though. The crone had seemingly sacrificed herself, after clinging to existence for an almost inconceivable span of time, just in order to give the queen the power of the amulet and the chance to right some great wrong after it had happened. She had no reason to mistrust the crone's sincerity. She could not remove the only promise of redemption offered to her.

One evening, as the moons rose overhead, she could stand to be confined, watching their progress through her chambers' windows no longer. She donned a heavy velveteen cloak, pulling the hood up against the cool Frost-Season air and ventured out. She encountered no one as she left the palace and ventured on through her gardens. There was no one around to counsel against it or offer an escort, as she stepped over the bounds of the land they had claimed from the jungle and into the thick, tangled wilderness beyond. She did not fear, for she had walked this way many times before. The path was a familiar one and she had not far to go. Her footfalls filled her ears, loud against the unnatural stillness and silence that pervaded the twilit forest. It's just nerves and imagination, she told herself, it's a night like any other. The wild things always stay away from the city limits and tonight they'll be hiding from the frost. She began to hum a vigorous tune that the more womanly and wanton wenches oft danced to at the Moonturn festival. She hoped it might fill her with some of the spirit they displayed, but it sounded weak and weedy, dying quickly as it left her lips and making the silence seem even more oppressive. She gave it up before she reached her destination, arriving before the knotted roots of the enormous old auralis tree, with all the heraldry of a sprite's shadow.

She did not know what she hoped to find there, drawn by some unconscious urge. Now that she had arrived she felt almost silly. She stared up at the magnificent tree, unable to see higher than the lowest boughs. The auralis tree had a trunk as wide, at least, as her entire palace. No one had any inkling of just how tall it grew. Some had tried to climb it, but no one ever reached the top. Some said it continued all the way to the heavens and if anyone ever did reach its limits, their fingertips would brush the sisters as they passed. Tonight, the tree was as silent and unmoving as the rest of the jungle. No breeze stirred it's leaves, no creak or groan emanated from its mighty boughs. The queen lay down in the cradle of its roots, the very place the sick had been healed and the dying found peace. Perhaps the gift of peace could be discovered to her. Perhaps it was the tree with the power and the crone had been nothing more than some crazy, old envoy. She closed her eyes and for the first time in many nights, fell asleep and began to dream.

        The crone had appeared to her as she slumbered, once more in the shape of an ancient woman in heavy robes, though now she appeared insubstantial and ephemeral.
“I feared you would not come, my child. Heed me now, and forgive me. In all the aeons I have endured I have acted foolishly only this once, but this could have been the end of everything. I rejoice that you have shown the wisdom and sagacity to interpret my call and seek the dwelling place of my spirit. My vision has has cleared since I am no longer encumbered of my physical being, I see the future plainly. I see a way to forestall the evil that approaches. There may still be time, but we must return to the city at once. Awaken now, I shall remain with you”.

        The queen snapped immediately back into consciousness and there before her, as promised, stood the ghostly figure of the crone's spirit. A tear slid from her eye and trickled slowly down her cheek.

        “Crone, you cannot know the agony you have caused me to suffer with your words. Tell me what I must do to avert the evil that you foretold. I beseech you, tell me it is possible to save my people”.

        “There is a way child, though we must act quickly. You will need my help, but first you must aid me. I cannot leave this place in my current form. I need a physical host for my soul. I need the power of your amulet. Do as I say child and all shall as it should.”

The queen nodded her assent.

        “Walk toward me until you occupy the very space where I appear to stand. As you draw near, you mind will revolt at another presence entering your body and you will experience strange and unpleasant sensations. You must not baulk, keep moving until we are one”.

        The queen took a tentative step towards the crone. Her face was ghastly pale, her lip trembled with fear and her mind swirled with doubt and trepidation. The crone had been good to her people for many generations. She had given her own life so as to try to help them in their time of direst need. She had returned as a spirit to help them once more. The queen knew she must do whatever the crone required of her to save her people, no matter how unnatural it seemed. As she approached the place where the crone's spirit stood shimmering, she was first overcome by a wave of nausea, so violent it threatened to bring her retching to her knees. She stumbled, but steeled herself. She warned me of this. She forced her feet to shuffle forward as the edges of her vision began to turn black, her sight narrowing to slits and then blinking out entirely. Suddenly blind, a sense of panic rose up within her. I can't do this. I mustn't do this. She faltered, an icy sense of dread seeped into her core. If I do not do it, I will be betraying them, just as she said I would. I must save them. Perhaps this is the test I must pass. I will not betray them. She surged forward, unseeing towards the place where she knew the crone stood. She could sense the spirit, though she could not see it. She only had to walk in the direction that all her senses screamed was the wrong way. Every step took an inconceivable effort, all around her voices seemed to scream at her to stop, to turn back. Voices filled with unimaginable terror. It is a test, she told herself, I will pass. Those few steps seem to yawn in to eternity, but finally she was there. She stood at the epicentre of the screaming chaos; she stood as one with the crone's spirit.

          It's not the crone. The realisation came to late. The jungle resounded with a deep, booming laugh, full of menace, but without a single note of humour. Her vision returned, but she felt to her knees as her strength and the control of her body left her. She clawed at her throat, her airway was constricted and she could not take in any air. Her lungs screamed, her head throbbed as though it was going to burst, but there was nothing she could do to save her self. A spirit, powerful beyond imagining controlled her now. Her consciousness remained, a horrified witness, as her body slumped dead upon the ground. She no longer saw through the corpse's dead eyes, but she had an awareness of the world around her. It wasn't vision, some other sense peculiar to the spiritual realm. She could sense all that lay ahead in any direction. She could sense another realm calling her spirit to return to it. A realm from whence it had been born. The call compelled her beyond all reason, it reverberated at the core of her being. She longed to float peacefully toward it and merge at once with the great flow of consciousness to which she had once belonged. She knew that true understanding and unlimited knowledge awaited. She knew she could become whole and all suffer no more until the end of eternity.

        She knew she could not get there. A cold, unbreakable chain tethered her to her body. Her body was occupied by another, a beast, one made only of darkness. She could sense its wild derangement, its sordid desires. She recoiled from it, but there was no escape. She knew that even if she were unchained, the beast would overcome her before she ever reached the flow. She knew that only torment and despair awaited her then.

        She saw, if it can be called seeing, her body twitch and begin to rise. With impending dread she watched her dead hand move toward the amulet she wore. She knew the beast's intentions, he let them be plainly sensed. He meant to remove the amulet and take her soul for his own; to add it to his collection of anguished playthings. Her corpse fingers closed around the pulsating stone. An agonised screech tore the air as the beast writhed and burned. He cannot remove it, she realised. The crone had been a powerful adversary, so powerful she could glean enough about the beast's true nature to foil him in that, at least. The queen gave thanks. Thanks she would never have given if she knew what lay ahead.

        The beast had a body now, he had a physical vessel that would allow him to walk right into the city. He did not move. Instead, he let her body lie limp and lifeless where it had fallen upon the ground and retired inside himself so that she could barely sense his presence at all. The night drew on, the empty hours seemed interminable. She watched as a sparkling blanket of frost crept over the ground and over her body. Watching and always wondering what his next move would be. She thought of her people, sleeping peacefully, unaware of the danger that lurked outside their gates. She wished she could contact them and warn them all to flee, to go far from this place and never return. There was nothing she could do. She was tethered to her flesh, but exiled from command of it. She could only wait.

        No creature stirred around them that night, no breeze ruffled the leaves of the trees. All was still and silent. The night time hours dwindled into dawn, the sun seemed to lumber slowly and heavily into the sky. As it's first rays began to trickle through the leafy canopy, there finally came a change. She She sensed a new presence on the edge of her immediate consciousness. It was a presence constituted of light, heat and abundant energy; it was life. She sensed the snap of every tiny twig, the crunch of the splendid, white frost, under their feet as her men neared the roots of the auralis. It was two of her household staff, simple pleasant men who tended to her palace and her gardens. She had been missed, at last. She could sense the thoughts of the men, their concern for their missing queen; the horror and sadness that flooded through them when they stumbled upon her frozen corpse. One bent down to close her eyes, pausing to gently stroke her long silver hair before he stood again. An aura of puzzlement and astonishment surrounded him. All her staff had worried for her health over the days since the crone had visited, but none had thought she was so close to passing. The guards assumed she had sought the auralis in an attempt to recover from some sickness, or to find peace in death. They were filled with profound melancholy when they beheld her stricken features.

        “There's to be no more peaceful passing then”, one of them said, “this tree no longer offers sanctuary, just another place to freeze to death”.

        The queen was forced to bear witness to the events that followed. She could only watch in silent repentant despair and lament her own foolishness. Her body was covered in a shroud and carried reverently inside the city. Men were sent running through the streets, ringing bells to raise the people from their beds and tell them of what had befallen their queen. She was laid out on a great dais at the head of the city plaza. On the plaza a great crowd of mourners slowly formed. They would all come, she knew. It was the way with her people. Even the infirm, sick and elderly would come to pay their respects. No one would leave until her whole people had gathered to give voice to their loss, a great, well meaning cacophony of voices rising and falling as they sang the magnificent hymn of the dead. The great gong rang out to signal that they all were gathered and the first notes of the hymn began to surface from the crowd. With each line more voices joined and the sound swelled like a great ocean wave. The citizens sung fervently, some weeping and wailing the notes, others booming them out at the top of their strong voices. Then, there was another sound. A great rumbling bass line that undercut the exalting chords of the singers. The ground began to shake and the singers faltered. All around them the city trembled. The rumbling grew louder until the citizens had to cover their ears to shield them from the din. They looked on dismayed as the buildings of their fair city crumbled to dust around them, blocking the exits to the plaza. Children cried and mothers hugged them close. Men ran around in circles with no clue what to do. All was madness an chaos.

        Madness and chaos was exactly what the beast thrived upon; it was precisely the effect he'd been going for. As the chaos peaked and the buildings fell, he cut the effects. The rumbling and shaking ceased in an instant, and the plaza fell quiet almost at once. Nobody knew what to do, so nobody did anything at all. They just watched, open mouthed and wide eyed, as their dead and frozen queen peeled back her shroud and prised herself off the dais to stand before them once more. None had time to gather their wits and react, before she opened her pretty mouth and out of it issued a darkness that overtook them all. The blackness flowed from the queen, enveloping each man, woman and child in a silent, black pocket of isolation. Blind and deaf they stumbled about, but their outstretched hands never met with the comfort of another body. Then the blackness filled their noses and their mouths, they were suffocating; drowning in an intangible darkness. There was no way to fight it, nothing they could take hold of, nothing they could cut with daggers or burn with fire. The blackness reached down deep inside every one of them at once and took their souls captive. They all fell to their knees, clutching and clawing at their throats and eyes. None had any awareness of anybody else, each citizen felt completely alone. They died as one, all leaving the mortal plain in the same dark instant, each isolated from the rest and desperately afraid.

        The beast had left her with one last thought.
“I cannot take your soul for mine own, but you will not escape so easily. Your suffering will be a thousand fold, for you will feel everything that they feel. Your soul will know every torment inflicted upon all of the thousand souls I've claimed today. I only mourn that I may not share and bask in such sublime suffering, but it is enough to know that it is true. So long as you insist on remaining tethered to this world, this will be so”.

        He vanished, covering the long leagues to his lair in a moment, carrying with him his prize of souls. She was left alone and unfeeling; her soul occupying a hollow shell of a corpse, in turn occupying the hollow shell of a city. The beast's words had been true, from that moment forth she experienced every terrible nuance of the pain and torment he inflicted on the souls of the citizens. For a while she went mad, it was too much to bear alongside her own loss and betrayal. She had curled into a ball, there on the dais and let the suffering wash over her, unable to resist. Her will had always been strong, but it took everything she had within her not to rip away the amulet. She knew she had the power to end it all at her dead, decaying fingertips. She need only to remove the chain and she could join the flow. She need never know a moment more of her peoples' agony. She knew, though, that she was their only hope of redemption. Should she forsake them, they would be doomed to their unbearable existence for-evermore. It was her duty to attempt to free them, no matter how impossible that seemed.

* * * * * * * *

        She had walked for days and nights beyond counting. She needed no map, the screams of a thousand traumatised souls served as a beacon, to which no other could compare. She simply walked in the direction that the screams grew louder. With each step the agony of suffering grew harder to bear, but she forced herself onwards. She passed, unmoved, by sights that would have filled her with astonished wonder when she'd lived. Amazing spectacles of nature she could never have hoped to witness. Nothing touched her, no beauty could take root in her soul while it was saturated with the dark and sordid, excruciating tortures that so delighted the beast. She walked unseeing and unfeeling, closed off to the world around her, a writhing torrent of madness and pain.

        Finally she stood at the place where she knew the beast must dwell, a gargantuan mountain range towered above her, reaching up into the heavens and marking the edge of the mortal plain. She climbed high into the cold grey mountains. Nothing lived here, there was only snow and stone. She could not have survived such a climb in a living body, but the cold that would have claimed her life served her well in death. The frigid temperatures froze her remaining flesh to her bones, preserving her as long as she needed. Her climb had been slow and arduous, it was difficult to drag her frozen corpse up through the mighty peaks. Her muscles had all but decayed to nothing, but so long as her bones held together she could go on. She knew what she risked; should she fall, her corpse would shatter. She would be only bones and broken ice. If she was lucky, the amulet would fly from her neck and her soul would be freed. Something told her, though, that such a thing would not happen. The amulet held vast power and would remain with her bones unless she consciously and intentionally ripped it free. Should her body break, she would be tethered forever to a pile of broken bones, she and her people would suffer together for eternity.

        For weeks she had dragged herself slowly through the mountains. Over the weeks she came to realise the beast had set a veil of deception around his lair. She would pursue the screaming beacon for leagues in one direction, only to have crossed a vast glacier and suddenly find herself turned around and the screams echoing from the way she had come. It seemed she could search forever to no avail. She had no idea how she could possibly overcome the beast if she found him. It seemed to matter little though, for she couldn't even achieve that much.She lay down in the snow and gave up all hope. She would not move another step, there was no point. She could not save them. She had doomed them all to an eternity of agonising pain and torment. The only vague solace she could offer was that she would continue to wear the amulet, suffering with all of them, burdened with a thousand times their anguish. It was a useless sentiment that they would never know, but she would make the sacrifice nonetheless. The beast had won.

* * * * * * * *

        She did not know how long she had lain there, the world had ceased to exist for her long ago and with it had evaporated all sense of time. Gradually all memories and experiences fell away from her, depleting to nothing her sense of self. Out of nowhere, came a change in the unending flow of pain. Faintly, oh so faintly, half remembered words probed at the edges of her consciousness. Through the screams and the agony, she reached towards them and tried to catch hold of the fleeting memory. It was something her mother had told her and oft repeated. Something buried deep within her, one of the most fundamental building blocks of her personality, one of the last memories to leave her mind.

        “When all seems lost and you know not where to turn, turn inwards. You must search deep in your soul and you will find the answer. The truth lies within us all for we are born of the truth and the light”.

        The words tickled the remnants of her being for the longest time. They seemed reluctant to leave and fly away as all the others had. They held no meaning for her, they were just sounds that echoed in a loop amongst the pain. They searched tirelessly for something to connect with, some association to give them meaning. Then suddenly they found it; somehow, somewhere in her, all things connected and fell into place. She saw the full extent of the the beast's deception, in its full and maddening glory. The beast loved games. He played vicious games with the souls he tortured, feeding them lies, giving them hope, toying with them and letting them think there was an end to the suffering, an escape. He would dash these hopes again and again at the critical moment, perpetually augmenting their despair. He had taken a mighty gamble in the game he played with her.

        She saw that the beast was within her still, bound by the amulet just as she was. He had never left, it had all been a ruse. By inflicting the torment upon her he had made it seem that he wanted her to remove the amulet more than anything, but this had been part of the deception. He knew she would rebel against his will and the more he tried to tempt her into removing the amulet, the more determined she would become never to do so. The amulet was what had bound them all, he had used it's power to capture the souls of her people. Her frozen corpse was not only the vessel that carried her own soul, but all of them. The beast could only hold them with the power of the amulet. His greatest deception, perhaps, had been to fool the crone into creating the vastly powerful relic, thereby removing her, the most theatening piece, from the game and giving him the means to achieve his goal. He had almost succeeded, almost fooled the queen into giving up all hope and letting him keep the souls as his playthings for eternity. Now she knew, all she had to do all along was remove it.

        With a enormous effort of will she extended her consciousness out to the frozen corpse. She focussed her will entirely on her fingertips and raced towards them with her mind. The snow fell constantly in the mountains and her corpse had been buried long ago. She wiggled her fingers, then her wrist, and then her lower arm. Slowly, she forged a hollow in the snow and gradually widened the arc in which she could move her arm. She worked for hours, always aware that the beast could glance in her direction at any moment. He could become aware that she no longer lay pliant and defeated, but was attempting once more to outwit him. What he would do should he notice her, she didn't dare to think about. She worked as mindlessly as she could, trying to eliminate all sense of hope. He would notice the change surely, should she let herself feel anything of the sort.

Finally her finger bones closed once more around the amulet. She didn't hesitate for a moment, but ripped it, with all the strength she could muster, from her neck. A monumental cry of anguish and rage rent the air, loud enough to drown the screams of all the suffering souls. It came from the beast. All around her the torment and suffering of her people had turned to relief and rejoicing, which emanated from them as they streamed in a mighty tide toward the flow of consciousness high in the heavens. The dark, snowy sky lit up in countless, beautiful hues, as a thousand souls returned to their source, rejoining the great flow. The queen exalted as her own soul spiralled up amongst her peoples'. Those that noticed her presence bore her no ill will. It was over now, their suffering ended. She paused and took one look back at the crazy world she left behind, then plunged onwards triumphant and at peace at last.