Cassandra

X. Rise Of the Second Rebellion

    "Get your sword." His words echoed in my head, hissing in my ear like a frigid wind. "The wonder is, after all the trouble you've been, you still might actually turn out to be useful for something at last...You've got that little toothpick of yours tucked away somewhere, don't you? I want you to get it, and come back to me. Quickly you hear?"
    I dropped to my knees at the edge of my bed, throwing the covers back, and lithely slid underneath. The stone of the floor felt cool, refreshingly so. It's smooth surface pressed against the soft skin of my hands, as I slid through the cool blackness that lurked beneath my bed. No dust had gathered on the stones of floor, for I often crawled underneath my bed, and none had been able to settle.
    Pushed into the far back corner, away from easy reach, where the shadows congregated most thickly, was a tangled bundle of velvet. It was cut out of one of my old dresses that was now too small to fit me, a dark burgundy color that almost seemed to melt into the surrounding shadows. But as I reached out and pulled it toward me it was heavier than a bundle of fabric, and more than just fabric bumped together inside.
    Quickly I slithered backwards, emerging from under the bed with the bundle I had retrieved. Carefully wrapped inside were several of my most precious objects, who's location I desired to conceal, and I handled them reverently as I laid them out on the bed one by one. The longest and most unwieldy object was Traitor, lying cold and unused in it's sheath, with it's sturdy leather belt wrapped close around it. This I laid aside, not bothering to check the sharpness of the blade, for I knew it would be sharp enough.
    Lying under Traitor was a small bundle of plain clothes, easy to wear with comfort. High waisted trousers, one of my old fencing shirts, and a pair soft soled knee high leather boots, good for when you wanted to walk a little gingerly. Wrapped up in the baggy shirt was the small (almost dainty) dagger that Ivan had given me in it's own sheath, and I carefully laid it beside Traitor on the bed.
    But most treasured possession of all, carefully tucked and folded at the bottom of the bag, smelling faintly of dust: a worn set of simple leather armor. The armor my mother had trained in, when she was young. For months I hadn't dared to take it, afraid that someone would notice it's absence, but now I had it hidden safe under my bed, exactly where it should be. It was worn but hardened, well used, and well maintained. The spicy odor of old leather clung to it, and it smelled like Mother would smell: sharp and biting.
    It was the smell of war. The smell of war was in everything today. The air had been thick with it all morning; when I rose from sleep, when I dressed, when I went down to breakfast. It hung like a heavy veil over the dinning room table, lurking like a low mist among the plates and dishes, and shrouding the dimly guttering candles.
    We had risen in the black hour before dawn, and the candles were the only source of light. Everyone was awake, and present at the table, even though it was a much earlier hour than everyone's usual time for rising. I had been placed next to Lady Briarwood, who sat toying with her meal, lost in thought. Silas had also risen to eat with us, though he usually didn't rise until after the sun had gone down, Anders was sitting at a distance looking sullen, and Anna contentedly ate as if there was absolutely nothing different about this particular meal. But none of us felt much like talking, and the morning meal was eaten in deep silence.
    "Perhaps you should begin your preparation my dear." Silas said to his wife, shattering the fragile stillness, and pulling her from her reverie. "You have quite a bit to do, and it will take some hours to complete..."
    "Yes." Lady Briarwood said, as if she had just been shaken from sleep. "Yes of course darling."
    Quietly she rose, still lost in abstraction, and left the room, followed by several of the undead attendants. We watched her go, eyes following her until she closed the door behind her, all except Anna who still daintily managed her knife and fork, and didn't seem to mark her exit. As soon as she was gone Professor Anders looked expectantly at Lord Briarwood.
    "Shall I take Cassandra back to her room for you sire?"
    "No, no." Silas said, speaking of me as openly as if I wasn't in the room. "I'll be wanting her in a moment. Anna?"
    "Yes?" Ripley said, looking up from her plate, and either forgetting, or intentionally leaving out the 'my lord.'
    "I have a busy day ahead of me, there is some interesting business to attend to outside the castle wall, and I think you might be particularly suited to it..." Silas said. "If you have anything in your room of an explosive nature, would you be so kind as to fetch it, and meet me out in the garden?"
    "Of course..." Anna said, almost reluctantly, clearly signifying that she would have liked to finish her meal undisturbed. But she left her plate, and exited the room.
    "Quite finished?" Silas said, looking at me sternly.
    As his tone heavily implied that I should be, I nodded, pushing my plate away, and wiping my lips on my napkin.
    "Then come with me."
    Lord Briarwood shoved back his chair, striding quickly from the room, and I leapt to my feet to follow him. He moved quite purposefully, forcing me to almost run in an effort to keep up with him, but he paid me no attention as we walked. Flung back over one broad shoulder was a fine dark green cloak, and it billowed behind him as he moved, giving him a regal, almost kingly, appearance.
    Footsteps echoing in the silence, we crossed the wide foyer. Silas planted both his hands against the castle's double doors, and with hardly any effort, flung them both wide open, as if the aged wood weighed nothing. Skipping down the flagged stone steps, I quickly followed him as he strode out into the castle courtyard.
    The sun had not yet lifted over the Alabaster Sierra's towering white peaks, but light filtered over them into the valley. Clearly the sun was just rising over the earth's horizon, even though it was not yet visible over the mountains. It was not much light, only enough to provide an early morning gray, but I saw Silas hunch his shoulders against it. He did it very subtly, but I still noticed the slight change.
    At the the foot of the castle wall on the eastern side Lord Briarwood stopped, and turned to face me. Towering directly overhead, gleaming pale in the gray light, was the east tower, one of Castle Whitestone's small watchtowers. Apprehensively I looked up at it's crown where, like so many places in this castle, I had loved to play so long ago...
    "I want you to go up to the top of the tower, and wait upon my wife." Silas said, then his face became stern as he added, "You must not, under any circumstances, allow someone to disturb her. Understand?"
    "Yes sir."
    "Good." And he unceremoniously shoved me up the wall's steps. I stumbled over the bottom step, falling to my knees on the stairs, but Lord Briarwood had already turned away, walking swiftly back towards the castle.
    Recovering myself, I mounted the steps, catching up my skirt and scaling them two at a time, as was my habit. Moving along the top of the wall, running my hand absentmindedly along the top of the rampart, I reached the base of the east tower. The entrance stood at the wall's very corner, a small wooden door leading into the tower's round interior, and I pushed through it.
    I had always loved climbing up and down the steps of this tower. It was the skinniest of the castle's watchtowers, and mounting to its top always felt climbing the slope of a giant corkscrew. Still climbing two at a time, I skipped up the tower steps, at last pushing up a trapdoor that led to the tower's top.
    Up here the wind, which had only been a gentle breeze down in the courtyard, was much stronger, flowing down from the Sierra's peaks like a wave. I shivered slightly against the chill, settling my resolve to the cold. It was unpleasant, but there was nothing I could do but accept it, something that long years in this chilly landscape had taught me.
    Silent in the center of the tower's round top, lost in deep concentration, was Lady Briarwood; sitting crouched on her knees, shoulders stiff, hands splayed out on the flat stones, hair hanging loose about her face. In front of her was a dark black crystal, its round surface dark and featureless, un-illuminated by the growing light of day, and as she sat her eyes stared blindly into its depths. Lying across her lap, half hidden by her loose dark hair, was a jagged dagger, crafted from dark green crystal.
    I paused with the trapdoor in my hand, afraid that if I moved I would disturb her, but she made no move, and I wasn't sure she had even noticed my presence. Quietly I dropped the trapdoor, and Delilah sat inert, so still she might have been carved out of the castle's stones herself. Reassured, I crossed the tower's top, turning my back to Lady Briarwood, and leaning on the battlement.
    Empty void gaped beneath me, and I felt my stomach heave just looking down. The ridge top on this side of the castle was sheer, the castle's wall constructed on the cliffside's very edge, so that even from the top of the wall it was a very deep drop. With the tower's additional hight, it was dizzying. I pulled back from the edge, and turned around, sliding down to a sitting position with my back against the battlement. For a moment I struggled with my cloak, pulling it closer around me, then I became lost in staring at Delilah, as absorbed in watching her as she was in watching the dark crystal.
    Time was lost on me, and we could have sat like that for hours or mere moments, and it would have felt the same to me. But at last my concentration was broken by the sound of the trapdoor being lifted. Remembering Lord Briarwood's order to keep his wife undisturbed, I hastily rose to my feet, crossing the tower top at a half run.
    Professor Anders was just pushing the trapdoor back when I reached him, and I seized its edge, preventing him from lifting it farther. Cautioning him with a finger, I slipped through the narrow gap, and gently lowered the door back down. Anders watched all this with a scowl, and his face darkened as I turned to look at him.
    "What do you think you're doing?" He demanded angrily.
    "I can't let you see her." I said, bowing my head slightly, and speaking submissively. "Lord Briarwood instructed me to keep her completely undisturbed."
    "Get out of my way." Anders said, trying to brush me aside and push up the stairs.
    I felt a flash of anger run through me at the gesture. Silas himself had told me to guard Lady Briarwood, and I was determined to obey him. I flung the Professor backwards with all my might, shoving him back down the stairs, and crouching protectively between him and the door. For a moment we both crouched angrily, sizing each other up, caught in a tense stalemate.
    "No matter...I only wanted to give her this, but you can do that for me, I suppose." The Professor said at last, straitening and brushing himself off. With a swift movement of his arm, he threw a canvas bag at me. It was such a savage throw, I only just managed to catch it, seizing it with both hands. Something inside the bag squirmed, startling me. Before I could fully recover my balance, Anders gripped a jagged handful of my hair, pulling me so close to him I could feel his breath across my face as he spoke.
    "I won't forget this little girl."
    "I won't either." I growled, shoving the bag into his face, and forcing myself free.
    For a moment I could see deep hatred flash in his eyes, and I prepared myself to receive his retaliation, but he made no move. And at last, after a long moment, he silently turned and retreated down the stairs, leaving me alone. Half afraid he was going to come back, I waited for a moment, catching my breath. But he didn't return, and I looked back down at the bag in my hand. Hesitantly I opened it, peering down inside.
    Sitting hunched at the bottom of the bag, sides heaving, with its ears laid back, was a small fat rabbit. The poor thing looked very frightened, and I knew better than to touch it, or it would probably bite me. Instead I closed the bag again, trying to move it as little as possible. Moving slowly I retreated back up the stairs, quietly lifting the trapdoor, and slipping back through the gap.
    Lady Briarwood was still sitting in the exact same position she had been before, still staring blindly at the black crystal in front of her. The wind rushed over the stones, blowing in her hair, and though she was completely oblivious to it, I could see that she was shivering slightly. It was cold even for me, and I had lived here all my life.
    "My Lady..." I said softly, hesitantly approaching her, and holding out the canvas bag. She made no move when I spoke, and after a moment I circled in front of her, kneeling down and speaking to her face.
    "My Lady?"
    At last she stirred, as if she had been asleep, and her eyes unwillingly broke away from the stone to look up at me. For a moment she stared at me blankly, without the slightest sign of recognition, and I could see in her eyes that for a brief moment she had no idea who I was. Then realization glimmered in her eyes, and the faintest traces of a smile crossed her face.
    "Cassandra..."
    "Professor Anders wanted to speak to you, but I wouldn't let him up, and he told me to give you this. It's a rabbit." I held up the canvas bag for her to see, and her eyes drifted down to look at it. Slowly she took the bag from my hands, opening it, and looking down at its contents as I had done.
    A strange smile lit up her face, so dark that it was almost fierce, very different than the one that she had given me, and she murmured exultantly under her breath. I didn't recognize the tongue she used, but it sounded foul. The words had a lilting resonance, that warped her voice with their elegant darkness, and I shivered at the hideous change.
    She pushed the bag back into my hands, still chanting under her breath. Lying concealed in her lap, next to the knife, was a small leather pouch, and she opened it, emptying its contents into her lap. Inside were two pieces of hardened charcoal, and as she drew them out she tossed aside the bag, rising to her feet. Her whole body seemed to have come alive, and she moved with a lithe, almost unnatural grace, tracing a giant circle across the tower top.
    As if she were following the intricate steps of a ritualistic dance, she glided across the stones, her fingers tracing out shapes with the charcoal. She was still chanting, her voice much more forceful now. There was a strange harmony to the words, a veiled power behind her voice, and some primal part of me knew, without being able to explain how I knew it, that these were not her words. There was a dark Other to this voice.
    The rabbit suddenly began violently kicking inside the bag, struggling with desperate fierceness to escape my grip, and I clutched it to my chest. Trying to be firm but gentle, I squeezed it until it was forced to lie still. I could feel the warmth of its body through the material of the bag, its sides still heaving under my firm grip, clearly terrified.
    Clutching the rabbit protectively, I pulled back from Delilah, retreating outside the circle she had drawn. I sank into a ball at the base of the tower battlement, shushing the rabbit, trying in vain to comfort the poor thing. The ceaseless rhythm of Lady Briarwood's chanting was spellbinding, and both the rabbit and I sat frozen under her words.
    Suddenly the endless chanting came to an end, leaving ringing silence in its wake, and slowly Delilah straightened, flinging the charcoal away with a convulsive movement of her arm. She was breathing heavily, standing half bowed, hands shaking, her windblown hair hiding her face. I shivered under the weight of the silence, looking from Lady Briarwood's shrunken form to the circle she had been drawing.
    It was savagely drawn by a heavy hand: a giant outer circle, encompassing several smaller ritual circles. Each of the smaller circles were lined on the inside with text in some language I couldn't read, and there were four larger glyphs that I could recognize as being drawn from arcane ritual magic. Though I could not, based on my very slight understanding of the magical arts, place what they were used for. And sitting in the perfect center of it all, the focus point of the entire ritual, still dark and totally featureless, was the crystal orb.
    "Cassandra." Delilah said quietly, her voice like cold frosted steel. "Bring me the rabbit, if you would please."
    Hesitantly I rose to my feet, approaching her with the rabbit clutched tightly against my chest. The creature began to shift nervously as soon as I moved, growing more agitated the closer I drew to Lady Briarwood. As soon as I crossed the edge of the ritual circle the rabbit began to struggle fiercely, and I had to hold it almost cruelly, to keep it from worming its way out of my arms. I paused, hesitating, feeling almost protective of the small frightened bundle.
    "Give me the rabbit, my dear." Lady Briarwood commanded, and though her voice was still gentle, there was a silent force to it that made me shudder.
    Still hesitant, but too frightened to disobey, I relaxed my hold. I couldn't bring myself to let go of it, but the slight release was all Lady Briarwood needed. Her hand reached out, firmly seizing the rabbit, and she pulled it away from me. The creature squealed as soon as she touched it, thrashing desperately as she wrenched it out of the bag, and I flinched at the horrible sound, shrinking back.
    Moving slowly, rhythmically chanting again in that Other voice, Delilah knelt down in front of the dark crystal, within one of the small ritual circles, still holding the struggling rabbit. Forcing the rabbit onto its back on the ground, she seized the jagged green knife that had been lying in her lap, and was now resting cold on the stones. With one swift savage movement she drove the point of the blade into the rabbit's chest, dragging the knife down with one white knuckled hand, cutting its chest open.
    The rabbit let out a thin tearing scream, kicking it's feet, and I let out a gasp of pain, feeling hot tears blur my vision. I dropped to my knees, my chest throbbing with pity for the poor thing. Pain stabbed through my ribcage where those three arrows had pierced me, that miserable night when Cassandra had bled to death in the snow, and I could almost feel the rabbit's pain, intertwined with my own. After a moment the poor thing stopped struggling, going limp and lifeless in Lady Briarwood's grip, and aching silence fell.
    Laying down the knife, Delilah smeared two of her fingers with the rabbit's blood, the red stain of it contrasting sharply with the paleness of her slender fingers. Slowly, her breathing deafening in the stillness, she drew a final circle of blood around the crystal with her smeared fingers. This final task done, she rose to her feet, still grasping the crystal dagger in one hand, and there was a flash of white light as all the blood burned away from the knife and her hands, leaving her skin spotlessly clean.
    "Come to me, my dear." She said very softly, that magnetic gentleness of her voice drawing me to her, the windblown curtain of her hair obscuring her face from me. As on the day she had taught me piano, she held out her hand to me.
    I was quicker to come this time, eager to be near her, and without hesitation I took her offered hand.
    "You are so kind, my dear...So willing, so eager, to give your kindness away..."
    She drew me closer to her as she spoke, a thoughtful smile hovering about her mouth, stroking my hand, and turning it over to run her fingers across my palm. But after the words a shadow crossed her face, and when she spoke again her eyes were almost sad. She was teaching me a hard truth, one that would hurt, yet I had to learn it anyway.
    "Every victory has its price, and all debts must be paid. Keep your heart my love, but know that for every gift of power, there will be a sacrifice, and someone, like the rabbit, will have to pay it."
    "Yes my lady." I murmured obediently.
    "There will always be a price..." She mused over my hand for a moment, then she lifted her head, her voice growing stronger. "But you will have great power should you choose to bare the pain, and the greater the sacrifice, the greater the reward. Understand?"
    "I understand."
    "Good girl." She said, smiling again, and she gave my hand a comforting pat.
    Her fingers moved up to my wrist, wrapping around my arm with a thin clinging grip, her fingers bitingly cold. Still moving slowly, without looking at me, she drew out my arm, and laid the edge of of the crystal dagger over my skin. I flinched back nervously, afraid of what she was going to do.
    "Stay still." Lady Briarwood said firmly, keeping a grip on my arm. "This will hurt a little, but it is a small sacrifice, and it will not hurt long."
    Before I had time to say anything in return, she drew the blade swiftly across my arm, slicing a thin shallow cut into my skin. I let out a gasp as the stinging pain hit me, convulsively clenching my fist. Blood welled from the wound, spilling over, and trickling down the sides of my outstretched arm.
    Lady Briarwood held my arm over the dark orb. My blood, thick and dark dark red, dripped down onto its featureless surface, looking even more vividly colored against the dull background. Delilah let out an involuntary hiss, closing her eyes, and a shudder either of intense pain, or intense pleasure, rippled through her.
    I stood still, my blood dripping down my arm, and spattering over the crystal. After a moment Lady Briarwood opened her eyes again, her face a cold mask, and she released my arm. Quietly she knelt down in front of the blood covered orb, sinking back into the same position she had been in when I had arrived.
    She began to chant again, and the sound of her voice had a new resonance to it that hadn't been there before. As soon as she began to speak I felt my stomach flip. The air was oppressively hot, or I was ice cold, and it was so heavy I could hardly breath. Every word Delilah spoke reverberated through the stones, through the air, through everything that stood within the giant circle she had drawn. This whole ritual circle was one giant focus, and anything within that perimeter was affected by its power.
    Hardly able to breathe, trying only to escape this torture, I shied away from Delilah, utterly terrified of her. Overcome by the ringing power of the ritual, I dropped to my knees, unable to stand without feeling giddy. Nothing could have forced me to move except the knowledge that escape lay beyond the perimeter of the charcoal circle Lady Briarwood had drawn.
    I blindly crawled in that direction. Weakly I dragged myself over the edge of the circle, sucking in a jagged gasp of free air, and I collapsed on the stones of the tower, glorying in the sharp chill of the air. Released from the ritual's influence I stretched out on my back, simply breathing.