Chapter 8- Episode 23-...a devil's lie...

ejaredallen (60)in #story • 5 years ago

A devil's lie...

Agva’s breath against Khali’s face as he leaned close, felt like the flames of Hell, tormenting and yet seductive at once. She repulsed, wincing back at the stench and heat.

“It’sssss been such a long time.” Agva’s voice was like that of a snake, not unlike his appearance, lean and deceptive. No one who had ever seen Agva had mistaken him to be a trustworthy person. A snake inside and out, selfish and seeking only destruction and death for the world.

“Not long enough.” Khali said in rasped tones over the rough and scratchy patches in her throat. She wasn’t proud of her history, and had never been quite honest with herself about why people saw her as a witch… it was because she was. Agva had made her, molded her into the person, the pawn she felt like she was today. She had tried to stay away, but here she was, back at the start.

“Oh, come now.’ Agva tisked at her shamingly. “What have I ever done to you but raised you to be the confident, beautiful woman you are today?” Agva was convincing, but then snakes always were; it stemmed from a deep seated misconception that they were always right.

Khali’s eyes flamed at his inciting question. He had no right to speak to her like a proud father! He was only proud of himself and loved nothing and no one else. What had he done to her?

“You stole me from my parents…” Khali paused to see what reaction she would receive. The flaming figure of Agva in a sea of dark flickers of blue fire dismissed the accusation with a wave of his hand.

"Foster parents with barely enough money to buy bread, let alone raise a little girl.” Agva argued, defensively. But Khali wasn’t stopping there.

“Then you burned my village…” She again paused, awaiting his inevitable excuse.

“A village plagued by an accelerated strain of Weeping, which, would’ve burned them from the inside out. I showed great mercy in reversing the death process, believe me.” Believe him? How could she ever do that again? She’d fallen for his charms once, every woman bought a snake’s lie at least once. But the accusations kept coming. The guards just stared and watched in statue stillness and robotic patience as Khali hurled crime upon crime at the Witch King; and watched as he deftly deflected every one of them with a perfect excuse. Wasn’t that typical of evil to always displace the blame everywhere except itself.

What did he want with her? Khali wondered, down on her knees before him, (a position she’d promised herself never to be in again). All of her accusations seemed to fall flat. Nothing would ever be Agva’s fault. Even for a creature as prideful as the With King, admitting to convicting crimes was not in his nature.

Khali was in the midst of spouting off another accusation against Agva when the Witch King cut her off, “as enlightening as this… passioned discussion has been, I really have other maters to attend to.” Agva’s voice hinted of dark things, unpleasant things; things Khali knew all too well. Her past had come to require payment: it was her turn to make excuses for her crimes.

The guards grabbed Khali by the arms and escorted her into the blanketing darkness, which only seemed to give way to vision of a few inches ahead. One had to know where they were going to navigate the lightless prison of a palace. Agva designed it in such a way that only those who knew the way could find it: in or out. The palace itself was controlled by an elder one, a dark power capable of terrible things.

Khali didn’t need to see the way, she’d memorized them. Knowing intimately every inch of the palace shrouded in darkness. Where sight failed, feelings took over. Khali let go of her mind as the guards drug her along a familiar trial to a familiar nightmare. Khali’s room of torment. Every person has one, a place deep in the mind they wish to forget for all the Hell that lives inside. Khali’s room was filled with screams, gurgling blood in throats of tortured souls, crunches of broken bones, whispering whips and cranking machines… every horror her former life had committed under Agva’s banner and for his cause.

Agva led the way. Khali couldn’t see him, but she could feel his presence as she was led to the chamber of penance: would she find forgiveness or would she be broken for her sins? Agva was with her from the hall to the chamber, from the door to the table, as they guards disrobed her, as the bludgeons rose and fell, as the knifes slid over her naked body, as the fire liked her skin leaving black streaks. Agva was there day and night, day in and out, every second of every torment, watching as Khali’s body was pressed to breaking so her mind could be stolen back from the light.

Agva knew of the exorcists of the land, how they had stolen many of his minions by breaking through the darkness with the light, but he had developed a method of conversion himself. To steal a creature of light one must first plunge them into utter darkness, stealing any hope from their mind, for only in a heart of despair can evil be born.

Khali’s body writhed until it became immune to pain, and stilled its futile thrashing, submitted to her torturer’s will. They had nearly done it. Agva watched his methods succeed and smiled, they couldn’t fail; either Khali would break or die, but he’d rather have her alive. Agva like Khali, there were few who could do what she did, and none matched her headstrong spirit.

After countless torture sessions, Khali’s body laid bruised, broken, bloodied, and mangled on the table. The guards stood by mechanically, having done the deed, they felt nothing in their cold hearts: slaved to Agva. The Witch King walked toward his prize with ominous steps. Khali was conscious but incoherent, her cognitive and communicative functions had been destroyed by the torture methods.

The Witch King circled her broken body slowly in serpentine movements. He began chanting a phrase over and over until it seeped into the deepest realms of Khali’s mind. She couldn’t think on her own, as if she was a newborn babe, but the phrase echoed in her ear and in the halls of her mind over and over until it became her identity, the only truth and reality she knew.

The devil’s lie, like a poison arrow found its mark and poisoned Khali’s mind. The single thought he placed in her head grew like a cancer and overtook everything. She knew nothing but these four words: light is the enemy.

Khali’s eyes rolled over in her skull and became green with flecks of red in them. Agva saw the sign and knew he’d been successful. He’d turned her, again. He smiled.

“Now to get you back on your feet, my precious girl.” Agva caressed her bleeding and marred face, then chanted a phrase, low at first, then growing louder. Agva summoned the power of the elder one to come like a blue flame and surround Khali’s destroyed body, barely breathing. The flame fell upon her and fused together the creature into wholeness. When the flame finished, Agva beheld his creation as Khali rose mechanically from the table and turned to face her master.

“It’s good to have you back, daughter.” Agva smiled with perfectly white teeth in the light of his own flame, then turned into the darkness as he light went out transforming in the darkness into the creature he really was. The blackened face, charred by fire was missing most of its skin, and the teeth which had appeared white were rotted and black. The light was a lie, but who wanted to live in the light of truth when they knew what they looked like in the darkness?

Thanks for reading episode 23!

We're still doing this folks, on the home stretch with a week left. Catch the ending as we wind down this fantasy novel written day-by-day for a month! Upvote, share, comment, all that jazz:) you're epic!