Rembrien Chapter 9.

Chapter 9.

 

Into the Dead World.

         

Sophrayni left the inn before dawn. The road to the east was dry and crumbly, dust floating in the quiet air. No birds sang. No dogs barked. Even the wind had gone silent. She passed the last green field, but no one stood watching this time.

The sign by the roadside was a splintered board, its name long since scoured away. The fields were dead, not harvested, not burned, but withered from within. The town emerged slowly from the haze, its rooftops sagging like tired shoulders.

Shade stopped and pawed at the ground, his eyes wide with instinctive dread. Sophrayni dismounted. “Well, my friend, it seems this is the one place where you really do not want to go. Stay here. King Syldan will look after you if I do not return.”

Without a backward glance, she walked into the silence.

The buildings were intact but fundamentally wrong. Doors hung open on silent hinges.

Somewhere, a clock chimed once, then stopped, as if embarrassed. She felt the Dragon’s Heart pulse faintly in the box at her side.

“The gate is here,” she whispered, her own voice the only company she had. “I will find it, and decide whether to open it or seal it forever.”

As she walked the empty lanes, she sensed more than fear. There was a desperate longing. The evil entities were here, drinking the dread of the town, growing stronger on the despair of disappeared children and ruined farmers. They didn't just want to escape; they wanted to return to their own realm to conquer it, and in doing so, they would tear open the veil that kept Sophrayni’s world safe.

“You’re not just trying to leave,” she whispered. “You’re trying to bring back something worse.”

Between two crumbling houses, she found it: a narrow passage, barely wide enough for a child. The heart almost burst against the lid of its box.

An old man sat beside the gap on a stool carved from root and stone. His robes were threadbare, his beard a veil of dust. When Sophrayni approached, he smiled a weary smile.

“I knew you’d come,” he said, his voice like dry leaves. “I’ve waited centuries.”

“You were the guardian,” she said, bowing her head.

“I was sent to guard it until the right person came. The witch with eight shadows. Now, my task has ended.” He did not move; he simply turned to dust. No wind scattered him. He was, and then he was not.

Sophrayni stepped into the passage. There was no flash, no wrenching of space, only a shift in the quality of the silence.

The world beyond was finished. The sky was pale and still, like parchment left too long in the sun. The ground held no scent, no warmth, no memory. It was a vast, pale plain of ash pressed into stone. The sun was a small, weak ball in a colourless void. There was no resistance here, for there was no life left to protect.

She stepped back through the gate into her own realm. The air felt taut, like a string pulled to the breaking point. She had a plan: to lure the entities into that dead world where they would find nothing to feed upon.

But they were waiting.

Abigail Goodfellow struck without warning. She lunged from the shadows, her eyes wild and her hands clawed with a jagged, stolen magic. Her voice was a chorus of hungry shadows.

“The heart,” she hissed. “Give it to me!”

Sophrayni dodged, casting a spell that cracked the air. The duel was fast and brutal.

Abigail grew to a giant form, and Sophrayni matched her, her eight shadows streaming out across the empty town in the morning sun.

Then, the horror began.

One by one, the witches inside Sophrayni began to scream. They were being wrenched from her soul by the force powering Abigail.

Anigone was the first. She burst forth in a shroud of storm; rain lashed the air and thunder cracked like grief before the storm collapsed inward and vanished.

Magrib followed, her exit a grotesque ripple of flesh and a squeal of transformation. Ghostly pigs scattered and faded into dust.

Sharon flared white-hot, turning the air to ash before her spirit crumbled mid-flight.

Jecks was torn out like a breath denied, leaving the world cold.

Athaga resisted, her drought-born fury cracking the ground until her spirit dried to dust.

Tracy shattered, stone crawling up her throat until she crumbled into gravel.

Sophrayni fell to her knees, hollowed and trembling. Only Calizone remained. She did not fight the pull.

“Don’t resist,” Calizone’s whisper echoed in Sophrayni’s mind. “Don’t fight her. Send me into her.”

Sophrayni opened herself. Calizone’s spirit flowed out like light through a crack and entered Abigail. The possessed charmer froze. Her face twisted through rage and confusion until it softened into Calizone’s own wise, triumphant features.

“Well done, my child,” Calizone’s voice faded from her mind.

Abigail collapsed, her body shuddering as she returned to herself. “I didn’t mean to,” she sobbed. “I didn’t know.”

Sophrayni stood slowly, her limbs aching with the sudden, terrible absence of the seven. She was alone now, hollowed, but singular. She took the box and walked to the gate.

She opened the lid.

The Dragon’s Heart flared with a pure, ancient light. The entities came, slithering from shadows, rising from the dust, blind with hunger. They followed her through the passage and into the dead world.

When she reached the centre of the ashen plain, she placed the box on the ground. The entities swarmed it, trying to drink the light. They did not notice as Sophrayni stepped back.

She returned to the passage and raised her hands. The buildings on either side groaned, stone shifting and wood cracking as they leaned inward. The passage narrowed. The gate vanished. The dead world was sealed forever.

Exhausted, she sank to the ground and wept for all she had lost. She did not move until Shade came to nuzzle her. Painfully, she lifted the unconscious Abigail and draped her over the horse's back.

Back at the inn, Syldan met her at the door. He did not ask questions; he simply nodded and stepped aside.

She stayed only long enough to recover her strength. She understood now why Calizone always returned to the cottage, to hold herself still after holding the world together.

Sophrayni rode west, past the green fields and the watchers. She returned to the cottage in the Dark Forest. She stepped inside, placed her hat on the table, and sat in the quiet.

“Everyone knows who I am now,” she said to the empty room. “You have served your purpose.”