***
The next day, the rain had stopped but purple storm clouds hung in sky. The sun's rays poked through, and a huge rainbow stretched over the land. The hills around Elleese were bathed in a golden glow. She stood before the well, gazing into its depths, wondering if the serpent would show itself.
At last she saw a pair of sapphire blue eyes peering up at her. "So, Elleese," the serpent said. "Have you killed your husband and brought me his heart?"
"No," Elleese said, hanging her head in defeat. "I've come to return your tooth."
With a hiss of rage, the serpent rose from the well and glowered down at her, its jaws splitting open. "So you've failed me?"
She nodded. "I am no murderer."
"Then prepare yourself," the serpent said. "You shall now see me as I truly am."
The creature disappeared back down into the well.
Elleese waited, her body shaking. She could scarcely imagine what dastardly fate awaited her. Was her honor worth this? But that question had already been answered when she made the decision to spare her husband's life.
Moments later, the serpent rose again, but it had changed. Instead of a warty grey covering, its scales were now like the finest silver and shimmered with a touch of crimson. Its head had become proud, stately, and dragon-like, with three magnificent gleaming horns jutting forth. The creature had transformed from the ugliest monster imaginable to a beast of breathtaking beauty. From its jaws, it dropped a golden chest into the grass.
"Look upon me as I truly am," the serpent said. "I've removed the magic that concealed my true appearance. I was the defender of this land, and the woman who once rode on my back brought justice and peace to all. But she departed from this world, and since the day she left, I've waited centuries for a new master. I knew that one day a woman with a noble heart would come to me, led by the hand of fate. At last, it has happened."
Elleese gazed up at the serpent in shock, unsure of what to do. Was this really happening? "But you wanted me to murder for you," she said.
"No, I didn't," said the serpent. "It was a test. I wanted to see if you were truly worthy to command me. Had you murdered your husband, you would have come to this well and found only the dark water below. I would never have appeared to you again."
"Worthy to command you?" Elleese said, her disbelief growing.
"Look in that chest," the serpent said.
With trembling hands, Elleese pressed a button and the chest popped open. Inside was a golden breastplate, a winged helm, and a silver bow and quiver of arrows. All were covered in elegant runes and shone with a magical glow, beautiful beyond anything she'd ever seen.
"Put on your armor," said the serpent. "It will fit."
Elleese did, and it fit perfectly. She slung the quiver of arrows over her shoulder and grabbed her bow, a deep change settling over her. Her eyes became sapphire blue, her will strong with purpose. The woman she'd always been deep inside had awakened at last.
The serpent lowered its head. She caressed the serpent's neck, feeling a deep bond with the creature. At last she climbed onto its back.
"Where shall we go first, my lady?" the serpent asked. "You are the Dealer of Justice, charged by an ancient goddess to purify the world in the way you see fit. By divine right, your arrows shall cleanse the land of evil. So again, where shall we start?"
Elleese smiled. "I have an idea or two."
End.
The Burning Strands of Daylight
(Originally published in Bards and Sages Quarterly magazine.
Revised for this collection.)
The world was sticky like my face.
I tried to sleep, but the darkness had settled over my face like glue. I pulled the gray and black webbing off and flung it aside, but the stickiness remained. Then the closet door popped open and I could see Monster gazing out me with his three eyes.
Poor old thing, a spawn of the darkness. He was kind of dumb and undoubtedly didn't know why he spent time in closets.
I wasn't in the mood for Monster, and I tried to shut the closet door; but he reached around it and clutched my wrist with a tentacle, awakening the singing voices. Anytime Monster touched me, the voices began their song, and it seemed as if my insides were being pulled down a tunnel to the sea.
The sea was the only good place left beneath the stars. The land was webbed over and foul, but the sea was harder to tame in its depth and anger.
I could smell salt carried on the breeze, and I smiled. Monster cocked his head to one side, his nostrils flaring. Perhaps he could smell it too.
I yanked my hand away from Monster. I could see a tunnel stretching out before me, with hazy, transparent green and blue colors forming the walls. Something within me wanted to break free and walk that tunnel, but I refused to allow it.
I belonged on star-bleached land. The earth was laced with the bones of people I'd known and loved, and I couldn't abandon them.
The singing grew louder, insistent, and the strands of darkness that hung about my room snapped and rolled up into little balls.
I gazed out the window at the stars. Why did they have to be so far away, their light too feeble to break the shadow that smothered the land? The moon was dead.
It had died when the sun turned black.
But I had hope in a jar beneath my pillow--the last speck of daylight. I'd captured it the day the shadow fell, and the voices had sung it into a frozen relic. I held the jar to the window, hoping it would call to the stars and bring them near.
Monster came out for a closer look. I showed him the jar, with the petrified daylight, and he sniffed at it. He always sniffed at it like he wanted to eat it, in spite of the fact that he didn't seem to have a mouth.
Monster had come with the shadow, countless years before, and he'd been with me ever since. I was no longer afraid of him. He was my only companion.
I never grew up and Monster never changed, which probably made the darkness happy. It liked everything nice and calm. It didn't like movement and growth.
The stars didn't respond. They never did.
I shut the window and went downstairs. Monster followed.
An old couple had owned this house. They lay in the living room like flies a spider had just finished with. The strands webbed their eyes and mouths to keep them in blind silence. That's how the darkness liked things. They weren't dead, but they couldn't be freed. No one could. So I left them that way and wandered into the city.
I walked the span of the great bridge, with all the cars and skeletons. No one was alive here, no one preserved.
Monster sniffed at the dead. Perhaps he didn't understand ordinary death. I didn't, either, but I thought it was better than being silenced.
I was tired of waiting. I wanted something to happen tonight.
The water below was black like the sun, and I never drank it or bathed in it. I hadn't eaten since people were alive and things were normal. Nor had I slept.
Monster didn't sleep, either. We were two of a kind, wandering stupidly from one place to another. We didn't even know what we were looking for.
How long had we been doing this? What had our lives been like before? I tried to remember, but everything was hazy. Maybe Monster remembered.
My shoes crunched in the ash that covered the bridge. All these people had died in an instant, when the glowing orb from the sky had crashed down. After that, the shadow had appeared, binding everything to suit its needs.
I walked in new places and had to tear through gooey webbing. I tossed some strands at Monster and he batted them aside. I wished he could speak. But he was just a mass of tentacles, those three shining eyes, and his constantly sniffing nostrils.
"Hey Monster," I said. "Let's go visit the power plant." I headed there, already knowing he'd follow.
If there was one place in the world where something could happen that was out of the ordinary, it was the power plant. The darkness formed a spinning wheel there that generated the strands. I had been there once be
fore but had gotten scared off. I wouldn't scare easily on this night, when I was so determined to change things.
I wondered if Monster wanted to change things too. He was a spawn of the dark, but did he like things as they were? It was hard to tell because he never spoke.
The city was a baked husk, dripping with shadow webs, occupied only with the dead and the living dead all bound up snug and quiet. Nothing moved beneath the endless stars except me and Monster.
I pressed my jar to my cheek. It was always cool, as if the daylight within really was frozen. I was frozen, and Monster too. We were frozen in history, a whole lot of nothing. I knew now that the world never ended, it just hardened into a quiet shell.
I picked up a deflated basketball and tossed it to Monster. He caught it with a tentacle and sniffed at it. Why did he always sniff at stuff?
"Throw it back!" I said.
He hesitated, then dropped it.
"Stupid Monster!" I cried, kicking at him.
He gazed at me like he was a statue.