Rule of Three Part 4/4: "Striking Bargains"

This is the fourth of a four-part story for the Rule of Three Blogfest.

Part 1 is here.
Part 2 is here.
Part 3 is here.

Three dark-haired young women, all named Melinda, conversed in a cavern in the Roundeli Mountains.

At a glance, they appeared to be exactly alike. On closer examination, however, the one who sat ramrod-straight on the divan had skin darkened by the sun, and several long scars down her neck that disappeared under her loose desert tunic. The one who sat by a steam-pool and trailed patterns in the water spoke little, and the rare times she lifted her eyes it was as if she gazed at another world. The third one, whose catlike pacing over the rocky floor suggested that the cavern was her domain, had eyes like dark oil, opaque and full of secrets.

“So you killed the demon,” desert-Melinda said. “And Renaissance suffers without his blessing. I stopped there only briefly; the townspeople live, but like animals and brigands. There must be something we can do to help them.”

“Perhaps,” said cave-Melinda. “The demon is dead, but the sacrifice to earn the town’s fortune was only a partial one. Are the two of you willing to sacrifice yourselves to save a town that abandoned you to die?”

“They knew no better,” said desert-Melinda. “I wasn’t ready before, but now, I would do so.”

The quiet one, forest-Melinda, looked straight at cave-Melinda. “You would kill us,” she said. “But you and I—our forms were made from clay. If you kill her, the original Melinda we are copied from, we’ll become clay once again.”

“Is that so?” snarled cave-Melinda. “Very well. You know the witch’s tricks and trade well enough. You will put my consciousness into the body of our friend here. Hers, you can put in the clay, and the clay will be sacrificed.”

Cave-Melinda ordered collars of yellow crystal bound about the necks of her other selves, and she watched avidly as their eyes dimmed and their breath grew shallow.

Compelled by the collar of obedience, forest-Melinda went to work. She requested materials that cave-Melinda’s servants provided, and soon she was ready to perform the ritual.

“Your collars must be removed,” forest-Melinda said.

“Fine,” said cave-Melinda, ripping off her own collar of diamonds, and signaling a servant to remove the yellow-crystal collar from desert-Melinda. Forest-Melinda took both collars, gazing at them, brow furrowed. Then, she spoke the words to perform the spell of transference.

The cavern began to rumble. Women everywhere screamed and ran as the walls shook, embedded crystals and diamonds shifting, flowing like living fire. Below, a single Melinda lay in a puddle of clay that dripped down the divan.

Struggling to her feet, Melinda ran for the entrance with the others. Once outside, the cavern collapsed. Melinda saw that the gemstones that flew out from the impact were neither crystal nor diamond, but a blend of both, with no power remaining that could help or harm. The collars of cave-Melinda’s servants were likewise neutralized.

“Go back to Renaissance,” Melinda told them. “Tell the town they can rebuild. Whatever they create will be on their own merits now—no easy outs, no undeserved punishments.”

She gazed at the women, half of whom no longer had tongues. “Those of you who can speak will have to do so for all,” she said. “I will return to the desert. I have done great evil, and I cannot live a normal life now.”

The women went south, and Melinda southwest; she walked with a heavy heart. But sometime during the evening, something shifted in her eyes—her pupils grew opaque, as if deluged with dark oil. She smiled, shook back her hair, and strode out with confidence.

599 words

Prompts used:
• The misfortune is resolved/accepted.
• Relationships mend/ are torn asunder.

Rule of Three Part 3/4: "Payback"

This is the third of a four-part story for the Rule of Three Blogfest.

Part 1 is here.
Part 2 is here.

I hated those who had left me to die—the people of Renaissance, the witch Ursine, and most of all, two parts of myself who deemed themselves worthier of life. As the dregs of Melinda, I was cast to the demon.

A tongueless woman wearing a collar of copper and yellow crystal took me far north, to the so-called mythical mountains of Roundeli. There, we entered an enormous cavern, and I found myself momentarily blinded by walls encrusted with diamonds and yellow crystals. Lamps in sconces cast flickering lights across the gems, making them appear shifting and alive. Women were everywhere—diamond-collared beauties relaxing on divans or in great steaming pools, and others, crystal-collared, preparing food, cleaning, or servicing the diamond-bearers.

My guide clamped a collar of yellow crystal on my neck. I nearly doubled over from the weight of a soul-leeching oppressiveness that would have killed any joy, had I felt any. I could muster no will, and I discovered soon that I felt compelled to obey any command. I was stripped and bathed. Then I was led, naked, to an inner chamber, where a beautiful dark-haired man with eyes like stone reclined on a bed, propped on his elbows. His eyes raked down my body, and he smiled.

“Welcome,” he said. “I am Lagonha.”

“You’re not a demon.”

He laughed. “No. But I certainly have the power to do what the simple folk of Renaissance believe me capable of. I can give them prosperity. Or I can destroy them. Come here.”

“Magic?” I asked, going forward against my will.

Lagonha pulled me onto the bed, hands pinching and fondling, stone eyes kindling a passion, but not a kind one. “Your collar bears crystals that kill the will to live and to disobey. Please me, and I will give you one of diamonds—the same kind as my devices aimed at Renaissance bear. They create fortune and prosperity for the town. They would for you too. Serve me well, and I will serve you with bliss beyond your wildest dreams.”

His hand tightened in my hair. “If you do not please me, I will cut out your tongue, and you will continue to wear your collar of obedience. Or you will die.”

He was cruel, and he took pleasure from hurting me.

What he didn’t know was that I was a Melinda incomplete. My partial self contained little of what Ursine had considered worth saving; what formed me were the abilities to hate, hurt, and manipulate. I had little will to live beyond my desire for vengeance, and as I lay in Lagonha’s embrace, bruised and bloody, I knew that the collar could not control one such as I. I fought back its oppressiveness with a hatred that burned so hot I felt the collar singe my neck. Then, it died.

As dammed energy surged through me, I ripped my collar off.

I sliced the point of a yellow crystal across Lagonha’s neck, laughing as his blood bubbled free.

I made the caverns mine. I cut out the tongues of the pleasure-women and put the collars of obedience on them; all served me, willing or no.

I found the device that controlled the fortunes of Renaissance. I changed the diamonds for yellow crystals. Let them die as they left me to die.

I ruled there. But I dreamed of more vengeance. And one day, I knew I would have it, when I heard my own voice call my name from the entrance of the cave—“Melinda,” it said, and I turned to see two mirror images of myself.

Prompts used:
- The impending misfortune foreshadowed in the 1st prompt comes to pass, but one or more characters laugh at it.
- Betrayal is in the air.
- A long-kept secret is revealed.

599 words

Rule of Three Part 2/4: "Partial Refund"

This is the second of a four-part story for the Rule of Three Blogfest.

Part 1 is here.

I remember little of the months after the ritual in which I was split into three parts—one set free, and one sent to be sacrificed to retain the demon Lagonha’s goodwill towards my town of Renaissance. I remained with the witch Ursine in payment for saving our life—one of our lives, at least.

Ursine was kind to me, and my work was light. It had to be, as I found it difficult to concentrate, and my memory was poor. Many chores—picking and sorting herbs, stirring brews, painting charms for her to peddle in town—I would abandon halfway through, and Ursine would find me staring into space, my task forgotten.

One night Ursine drew a bath for me.

“A year I’ve prepared us,” she said afterwards as she combed my hair, almost caressing the tresses. “I’ve aligned our auras, our daily rhythms. Neither of us are happy with our half lives—myself, because I am old, and you, because you’ve been riven from your greater parts and are little better than an idiot. Tonight, the moon is full, and we will become whole, you and I.”

I furrowed my brow. Something about what she said worried me, but I couldn’t place what it was. No—it wasn’t what she said, but what I could feel from her—was she going to eat me? But she smiled, and that sense of her wanting to devour me eased.

It returned when she bade me lie down and tied my wrists and ankles, then slashed my palm and held it dripping over a cup. “No,” I said, and I remembered how to cry, but not how to resist. Ursine as shadow oozed into me, and I retreated before her, cowering into a corner of my mind; she saw me there and opened wide to consume me.

Then the door of the cottage flew open. I felt the shadow’s fear, and as I stared at a mirror image of myself approaching me, I felt my weakening identity solidify and once again fill my body. One of my Melinda-parts had returned. The shadow fled, and Ursine beside me drew in a ragged breath.

I could see now that the other Melinda was different from me. She was sun-browned and her eyes betrayed an indefinable hardening. She cut my bonds, striking Ursine when the witch tried to stop her.

“You have no right,” Ursine hissed. “I saved your life. This copy is mine. It is to be my new body; I deserve it, after all I’ve suffered.”

“The bargain is broken,” Melinda said. “I have seen Renaissance. The town is no longer favored; the sacrifice was not made, or was not acceptable. I know not which. You didn’t save my life—you destroyed it. So I’ll take back this part of me. Be grateful I leave you alive.”

I could already feel my mind strengthening, the presence of my other self anchoring fleeting bits of memory and a focus that had eluded me these months. When Melinda held out her hand, I took it.

We didn’t need to speak. Proximity completed us. I could feel her strength and how she’d grown these past months, living in the desert and learning to survive. I realized that I, too, had learned things—all I had observed of Ursine’s witch practices I could now remember.

As we left the Culdees and Renaissance came into view, I gasped. Drought, perhaps, or fire, or simply abject poverty had struck it, and the town looked a wasteland.

Prompt used: Someone is killed or almost killed.
WC 588

Rule of Three Part 1/4: "Sacrifice 1/3"

Part I for the Rule of Three Blogfest

Prompt: There is a fear of impending misfortune.

On my sixteenth birthday, I learned that a great honor was to be bestowed upon me.

I knew what that honor was, and I did not celebrate. I went outside. I should enjoy each of these breaths for the next two moons, I thought, but the air made me choke as if my lungs were already being punctured by invisible teeth, dissolving in the black acid of the demon Lagonha’s belly.

It was my duty to be sacrificed in order to save Renaissance. We prospered only on account of the goodwill of Lagonha, who had saved Renaissance from dust and despair and allowed the fortunes of its new settlers to grow. Lagonha asked very little in return—the life of one young female every twelve moons, given willingly, would ensure that no one in the town ever suffered lack.

I wanted to live. I could run away, but for certain one of my younger sisters would take my place.

There was someone I could ask for help, I thought.

Ursine was a witch who lived in the Culdees, the forest on the border of which we lived. I gathered supplies for a day’s walk and I went to her; she was at the door of her cottage, apparently waiting for me.

“I can help you,” she said. “I will make two copies of you, and you will give each copy just enough of you to animate them. There will be three of you. One for you, one for the demon, and one for me.”

“Why one for you?”

“When has anyone ever appreciated anything that’s free?”

I couldn’t answer that. What choice did I have? So I agreed.

Ursine bled me, and she mixed the blood with clay and herbs and molded two Melinda-shaped forms. I flickered in and out of consciousness during the ritual; it seemed I was in a nightmare where the demon was already eating me, and then I was climbing a tree in the forest, and then I was walking through the desert, parched and brown.

I awoke a little before dawn. Turning, I gasped. I could see two other Melindas asleep on the beds beside me, each like to me to the last eyelash.

What had she taken from me? I could feel nothing different—was this hollowness in my heart indicating something another Melinda now owned? Did I have memories missing—would I even know?

“You can’t go home, you know,” Ursine said from the doorway. She was holding a sack. “I recommend you go through the desert—there’s an outpost a few days’ walk through it, and perhaps you could get a ride from a caravan going to a larger city. I’ve prepared a few provisions for you.”

I hadn’t contemplated that upon leaving my home yesterday, I’d never go back. But as I saw the other Melindas stirring and beginning to wake, I suddenly did not want to meet them or face what I might have lost. I took the sack and departed, trying to hold back tears.

WC 506

Bloody Mary

Bloody hell! It's 2:18 am and my toddler is still awake. He won't go to sleep and so I can't write.

However, "Bloody Mary" has gone up at State of Imagination. Hooray!