Hero

“You were in this together,” said the witch. “You and the imposter.”

“If you say so,” said Saturday. “But you will not be harming him today. Or ever again.”

The pronoun had the desired effect. “Him?” The lorelei’s skin swirled black and blue. The clouds shot lightning into her claws and the cage and Cwyn’s scarlet wings. Saturday swore she heard a crack in the very ether itself.

“FILTHY HUMAN! I WILL KILL HIM!”

“I can’t let you do that.” Saturday threw her weight back, pulling the lorelei’s arm. This time the witch slammed against the blade-bars of the sword cage. Her demon skin split into even lines where the blades bit into her face, and blood dripped down to her chin. Saturday only wished she’d gotten an ear.

Cwyn fluttered frantically, like a silk scarf tossed in a sea of lightning. Her crimson wings began to swirl with black as well.

The lorelei stared Saturday down with her empty, bloody eye sockets. Every inch of the witch was blue-black now, even the tips of her hair and the pointed horns at her temples. The air in the kitchen crackled with power.

“I WILL KILL YOU ALL.” The lorelei’s unearthly voice echoed throughout the chamber. Faint voices from the world beyond the cauldron answered her cry.

“Not if I kill you first,” said Saturday.

She moved one hand to the demon’s struggling wrist, braced the other against the handle of the stuck fire sword, and slammed the lorelei against the bars again. The enchanted sword began to glow, but Saturday had no time to wait for its magic to manifest. Throwing her head back, she called out a rhyme of her own to the gods.

“Fire from earth’s hallowed ground,

Help me take this demon down!”

Saturday inhaled and felt the power from the cauldron-clouds enter her body. Her bones became iron in the heat of the forge. Lightning shot from her fingers. The blue-green bracelet at her wrist burned with an i

The lorelei gasped as she took her last breath of this life, but she did not scream. “Thank you,” she said. Her body seemed to melt at the edges, and then disappeared in a puff of brilliant blue steam.

Behind her, the raven fell into a pile of crimson ash.

The flames engulfing Saturday and the cage vanished, though the blade-bars still glowed red with heat. The swarming clouds of colors shrank to the size of pebbles before exploding in one last great burst of sound and light. The explosion cracked the cauldron and spilled its corrosive contents to the floor. The liquid quickly burned its way down through the icerock, down and down to the Earthfire far below.

The hungry screams from the world beyond had been silenced. In the aftermath, Saturday heard only her ragged breaths and the stubborn beat of her defiant heart. She was glad there was no one to witness her tears.

A bright red glow filled the cave. Saturday raised her head. It was not the bars emitting the light, but the pile of Cwyn’s ashes. From those ashes rose the silhouette of a young woman. As the shadow solidified into radiant flesh, the beautiful woman grew old and round. “Well done, child,” was all she said before she vanished completely in a puff of black smoke.

Two-faced witch. Saturday was not sorry to see her go. She only lamented that Vasilisa had not freed her from the cage of swords first.

Alone again, Saturday blinked into the quiet darkness. If the witch’s geis on Vasilisa had broken with her death, then why hadn’t the cage fallen to pieces? Saturday leaned back and kicked her boot against the bars. They didn’t budge. She tried again, the force of the blow resonating in her bones. She might as well have been kicking the wall of the cave. Carefully, she reached out and felt along the bars with her fingers.

The blades of the swords were no longer sharp. The heat of the fire she’d summoned had melted the weapons together, solidifying the bonds the demon had created with her magic. Grasping the bars with both hands, she tried to lift the cage, but its weight was beyond her strength. Stubbornly she tried again. And again.

Sweating with the effort now, Saturday fell back into the middle of the cage. She had defeated the lorelei, and in doing so had imprisoned herself even further.

Beneath her, the ground rumbled. Saturday had felt this sort of tremor before, on the day she’d broken the earth and called the ocean. The rumble came again.

As predicted, the mountain was waking up, and the dragon with it. And if she had truly fulfilled her destiny, then she could die now and would, here in this cage of her own making at the Top of the World.

“NO!” The screech Saturday let loose would have made the witch proud. She railed at the bars. She pulled and lifted and kicked and strained. She made up nonsense rhymes and cried them into the darkness, one after another, but the magic in the walls did not answer her. She screamed at the ceiling in fear and frustration, her shrieks turning to hysterical laughter at her predicament.

“I thought you’d killed the lorelei, but I could swear I still hear her.”

The voice that split the darkness was not Peregrine’s. “Betwixt?”

“To the rescue,” said the chimera. “Though to be fair, you rescued me first.”

In the blackness Saturday could not see what new form Betwixt had taken, but the sound of the bars creaking apart was a blessing in her ears. She stood to face the noise, and was subsequently embraced by a pair of very large and very fuzzy arms.

“My hero,” Saturday said into the musky fur of the chimera’s shoulder.

“My hero.” Betwixt returned the greeting. The mountain shivered and rocked. “We need to get out of here.”

“Do you have a light?”

“There’s no time,” said Betwixt.

“I’m naked,” said Saturday. “And unlike you, I can’t see in the dark.”

“Ah.” Saturday stood still while Betwixt rummaged in the dark. A bundle of cloth hit her in the midsection. “Put those on. I’ll see to a light.”

One of the items Betwixt had tossed her was a shirt. She quickly put it on. The other was a skirt, but she could not tell the top from the bottom. Eventually, she discovered a drawstring in the thing and pulled it tightly around her waist. Though she was covered in yards of cloth, she still felt naked, but there was little time to care. She heard flint strike steel and waited. And waited. Her ruined ear throbbed. She pushed her muddy hair over the ragged lump of flesh. The mountain bucked and chuckled at her predicament, tickling the dust between her toes.

She heard the unmistakable crack of a fingerstone before it plummeted to the floor behind her. It was nothing like the crack of the portal to the demon world the witch had almost made. Those inhuman cries would haunt her for a long time.

A spark burst into life, and within moments Saturday could see the torch. It was held by a hulking, ugly minotaur. Dark fur bristled over his wide chest and bare human feet. Dark horns sprouted from either side of his head. His well-muscled arms and legs radiated pure brute strength.

He was the most beautiful thing Saturday had ever seen.

Betwixt handed her the torch. “Let’s go.”

“Is Peregrine with you? Is he safe?”

“He’s fine. I’ll take you to him. But we must hurry.”

Saturday followed the chimera’s lead through the caves. Around them, boulders trembled and fingerstones fell. The blasted skirt continued to tangle in her legs, catch on protrusions, and trip her up. When the floor became too steep for her to climb and hold the torch and her skirt at once, Betwixt grabbed the back of her shirt and hauled her up the rest of the way.