Michael Foster - She Who Has No Name

‘I don’t know if I know how to be a husband or a father.’

‘Don’t be foolish, Samuel. She loves you. You two were made for each other. Go. Be with her.’ He then turned once more to look at the sorry woman lying on the floor. ‘Goodbye, Rei. Please, let them enjoy their final moments. Put aside your petty jealousy for once in your pitiful existence. Their lives will be hard enough.’

‘But what about the Demon King?’ Samuel asked. ‘We can’t just give up. What can we do to stop him?’

‘Nothing, Samuel. Don’t even try. It will only make things worse.’ And with that, silver magic blazed around him and he arrowed away into the sky, towards the west.

The woman once called Rei climbed to her knees with her hair hanging down around her face. She sobbed wildly and crawled towards the hole in the wall.

‘Thann, my love!’ she sobbed. ‘Thann!’

During their conversation, he had time enough to reclaim much of his power, but he did not have the heart to strike such a broken woman. She already looked utterly defeated. Instead, Samuel turned away and left her to her tears.

The palace was completely abandoned and it only took a few minutes for him to reach the Koian woman’s room. The guards and wizards were gone from the halls and he easily broke down the door to her room with a spell, with a good section of the wall crumbling around it. Shara was still there at her side and Samuel rushed up beside them.

‘She’s doing well,’ the old lady said. ‘The pains have subsided. I think all the noise and ruckus outside must have scared the dear thing. You look like a new man. What was going on out there?’

‘Nothing,’ he told her. ‘It is over.’

The labouring god-woman looked weary. She looked up at him with weary eyes. ‘Why won’t he come out? I’m just so tired. I need our baby to come out so I can rest.’

‘I know. It should not be long. Then you can sleep for as long as you want.’ He then turned Shara. ‘Should we move her? The palace is abandoned. We could take her down into the city? We could find somewhere safe and comfortable, and perhaps someone to help us.’

‘I don’t think it’s wise to move her, but we could use the help of a healer, just in case. And we need water and fresh towels. This is no way to have a child.’

‘Very well. I can move her,’ Samuel said and he reached carefully beneath the pregnant woman and plucked her up like a flower, sheets and all. Using his magic, she felt like little more than a pillow in his arms.

He was about to move to the door, when he felt magic building behind him. He threw up his shields, but the spell that came hurtling into the room was not meant for them. Shara screeched as the magic struck her and she burst into cinders.

‘Damn you, Magician!’ Alahativa said, holding herself against the broken doorway. She looked tragic, with her dark eye make-up streaked down her cheeks, and her hair knotted and matted about her face. ‘I will see you dead before I let you leave. At least I shall have that! You will never enjoy being with your woman! You will never feel that child in your arms!’

‘Damn you, witch!’ the Koian woman returned. ‘Why can’t you leave us in peace?’

‘Because of who I am. Because of who you are. Why should I give you peace when all you have given me is such misery? You could have done your duty and died like you were supposed to. Instead, you turned Thann against me and I will have to endure another thousand years of torment before I hold him again!’

‘That was by his own choice, not my doing,’ Samuel responded.

‘We Ancients made our choices long ago, Samuel. There is no pleasure to be had in our lives. At the very least, I will have the joy of watching you die, and seeing the misery on her face. Then, I will drive my armies for the sake of Lin, until there is nothing living upon the earth.’ She cast forth her finger and argent lightning burst forth, driving towards Samuel anddeflecting from his spell shields. The stone walls blew to pieces wherever the spell flickered upon it, but Samuel and the woman in his arms remained unharmed. ‘Your magic will not last forever, Samuel. I know you are tired after facing the old magician. He was much more powerful than me, but I don’t need much power to defeat you. You can’t fight me while you hold the girl, and you can’t protect the both of you. I have you!’

A thrown clay pot landed at the Paatin Queen’s feet and she looked down instinctively. Black soot lay spilled around her feet and dark vapour curled up from it and wafted around her. Too late, she realised what it was.

‘Poison!’ she said, and she gasped, clutching at her throat and gagging. Her lightning spell ended as her attention was distracted. She staggered away from the deadly vapour and came stumbling further into the room, coughing and throwing out spells to whomever had harmed her. A length of wall collapsed and Utik’cah could be seen standing there in the hall. ‘Damn you traitor!’ she squealed. ‘What are you trying to do? Poison cannot kill me. I am your god!’ Already, she was using the power of her ring to expel the toxin from her body. It would only distract her for a few moments at best. She sent out a whip of magic and used it to drag Utik’cah near to her. ‘You will die by your own hand, traitor.’

And at once he, too, began to choke, caught in the toxic fumes that clung to her. ‘You have not saved our people, but cursed them with your evil plans,’ Utik’cah told her. ‘You brought us in from the deserts only to use us for your selfishness. You have no honour and you are not a god. You deserve to die!’

‘Shut up!’ she bellowed. She empowered her fist with magic and slammed the man down to the floor, snapping his back and leaving him writhing in pain.

Something silver glimmered in his grasp,something slender and cylindrical. Utik’cah could not speak for,even as she held him,he clutched onto the thing with both hands and looked at Samuel desperately. Samuel knew what it was and he realised Utik’cah had no idea how to use it. Within it was a hideous spell. It took an instant for Samuel to passthe mana message-a feeling of twisting planteditselfin the Paatin’s mind and he knew that Utik’cah understood. He held the thing as Samuel had prescribed and readied his palms to turn it.

Samuel needed no more indication than that and threw himself out the broken window, stillholdingthe pregnant woman in hisarms. She gasped as they fell, but he would not let them be harmed. He tore his shields down and salvaged the power to cushion their blow, landing softly.

‘You can’t escape me, Samuel!’ Alahativa cried out after him, still spluttering. ‘I vow to destroy you for what you have done to me. Even if you kill me, I will be reborn. I will find all thosewhomyou treasure and destroy their lives. Nothing you touch will ever feel happiness. I curse you as I am cursed! I curse you forever!’

Without a pause, Samuel continued vaulting away, with the Koianmoaningin his arms. He cleared the city in three desperate jumps and set out into the twilight of the Star of Osirah. They landed amidst the pastures beside the gentle river,although it was now strewn with the dark shapes of floating debris and corpses. He dreaded seeing the Paatin Queen pursuing them, but he need nothavefearedfor,in that moment,Utik’cah must have managed to twist the object in his hands. The terrible magic trapped within it was unleashed and Samuel felt the Great Spell’s wrath escape in one awful moment.

The palace vanished in a ball of white light, just as the fortress of Ghant had been destroyed, but this sphere of destruction kept growing, swallowing the city and moving out towards them with incredible speed. Samuel took another leap, bounding away with all his strength, but the wall of blinding fire was behind him. He made the first set of dunes but landed roughly. He dropped to one knee and cradled the woman in his arms as he turned his back to the blast. He threw up the strongest barrier he could muster, and held on tightly.