hand as if to shield himself.
ॐ
The light was upon him. He tried to fend it off, not yet ready to accept his fate, when it reached down to him and spoke in a familiar voice.
“Pray, do not surrender just yet.”
He squinted, fearing a deceit, and stretched his arm out to her. She held her hand to his, and began to pull on him. “You must rise, and finish this.”
“I cannot. I have not the strength left. Why did you come? You will surely die as well.” Grief swelled and threatened to overtake him.
“Then we shall die together. I think we shall not, though.” He clambered to his feet as she continued to pull on him. He felt weak and spent, swaying unsteadily as he tried to stand.
Isabel reached up and took his face in her hands. Her eyes were lit with those fires he had been imagining for weeks, but this time, it was for him. His breath caught in his chest.
“I bring my strength to yours.” She stood on her toes, and kissed him, gently.
He could feel an immediate rush of new vitality, though he was not certain whether it was from Isabel, or something else. His sisters? He did not know, except that the theory could be tested.
He put his arms around her, lifting her up. It was enough; a fire began to embrace them both, a living fire that raced away from them, lashing back at the entity.
They heard it howl in fury, and felt a shuddering as it began to splinter. Isabel held to him more tightly, staring into his eyes, as he watched her with tentative hope.
“I have been unkind to you as I warred against myself. I know now that I love you, and that you must not yield.” The tears that she had tried to hold back ran freely again.
Macconnach touched them in wonderment. It hardly seemed possible that this was the same woman with whom he had only recently been sparring.
“I shan’t. Would it be ungentlemanly to admit that I feel the same?”
“Probably. I rather think that nobody will have overheard you, however.”
“How did you know that this would have any effect? What a mad gamble….” They looked up together, the night sky was visible in tiny slivers.
“I had some help in sorting it out. After that, I could only trust in myself to find you.” He nodded, and set her down.
ॐ
One last kiss. They then held one another’s hand to face the final confrontation with the entity.
ॐ
“It is a creature of annihilation, destruction, death. A Bhairava. That is why I came. I had the only alternative to it.” She smiled, still feeling the powerful sensation of that animate blaze issuing forth from them.
“We shall defeat it together.” He felt her hand in his, her body close by, as he closed his eyes one final time. “Push back at it: focus your thoughts, and push as hard as you can. I shall do the same.”
“I shall.”
A brief silence fell once more. Then she could see the fire still burning around them as it grew ever larger. The Bhairava intensified its shrieking. It began to writhe and crumble.
It reached in to try to strike at them, but Isabel paid no heed to her fear. She held onto Macconnach more tightly. It took all her strength to press back, and she felt faintly ridiculous as she realized she had no idea what she was really doing.
“It does not matter. Allow your instincts to guide you, as they brought you to me.”
She hadn’t said a word, but there he was, answering her thoughts. Had he always been able to do that? His strength returning, he grinned at her.
“Not precisely. It’s much clearer now that I am touching you. Now focus!” She obeyed, and they felt a ripple of energy pass through them. An instant later, the fabric of the Bhairava began to shred completely in a powerful explosion.
ॐ
They were thrown apart, the flames died away, all was dark once more. Isabel felt dirt and stone beneath her, and began to cry and laugh with relief.
“Miss Alderton? Major? Are you there?” It was raining. The thunder and lightning had subsided, but the winds were still wild, buffeting against her as she tried to stand.
“I am here.” She spoke, hearing Macconnach’s voice at the same time as her own, saying much the same thing. Ranajit was immediately at her side, laughing as well, even though he was soaked to the bone.
“You have done it, Miss Isabel. You followed your heart, to the end of the world and back.”
“I had better think we were in the end of all things. I’ve never imagined anything quite like that, Ranajit, even after all your tales.”
He helped her to her feet, that same cheerfully smug expression on his face all the while.
“What was there?”
“Only the road to oblivion. It was paved with death, with all the souls that had been consumed through the years.”
Ranajit nodded in satisfaction.
“Then I think you have truly freed them. Their remains were freed from slavery, their souls from eternal torment.”
“Yes, I suppose so.”
He smiled at her as if he had always expected this outcome. Arpan and Ranajit’s son walked over, allowing Macconnach to lean on them. He looked even weaker than he had before.
Isabel thought of the two days’ ride back to the fort, wincing when she thought of the horses’ having run away. They would have to make their way to a plantation somewhere nearby, and try to purchase at least one animal for Macconnach to ride.
“And to think you thought me a charlatan only a few days ago.” He chuckled, holding his side painfully.
“Are you wounded?” She rushed to his side, lifting his hand away from his ribs. Blood seeped through at frightening rate. “Oh, God.”
“Do not worry yourself. My kin never had a chance to intervene earlier. They must have known your intent and allowed it to proceed.” He lifted his hand up. Lightning flashed, a single streak across the sky to Macconnach.
A current of glowing electrical energy trailed down his arm. At the same time, Isabel saw a movement off to her side, and looked quickly to it. A spectral woman stood some short distance away, beckoning to Isabel.
She walked over. This must be one of the sisters to which Macconnach had referred. For all the stories of banshees she’d ever heard, this creature was no more than a girl, an innocent given over to the heraldry of death.
“You brought him back.” It was a statement, rather than a question. The girl’s face was wreathed with something between gratitude and grief. “He will not be an easy companion, we warn you of this.”
“I am not afraid.”
“Return to thy home, then, and be with him. Our ward of protection will only extend so far. Your strength will be needed again.” The banshee pointed to the east. “Take thee thy horses. See to thy father.”
She faded; a faint trail leading up to the sky marked her retreat. Isabel looked to the east as the storm began to fade. The horses and ponies walked up a rise, their heads bobbing as they moved. She finally smiled, water streaming down her face, and the heat pressed back in. The battle was ended.
ॐ
Three days later, a bedraggled party rode into the slowly growing fortress. In their absence, bulwarks had been set, cut from some unfortunate aged timber. Isabel looked up at their riblike presence as she trotted by on
Lizzie, feeling a sense of grief at the loss of such longevity.
Perhaps these trees had been alive when the raja and his family had first been taken by the Bhairava. Now these trees would forever be a part of the structure of this place.
She declined to hide her identity as they arrived, determining that everyone within these walls would know soon enough where she had been. Possibly they would be swayed by a tale of the major having rescued her on her way to Calcutta.
She did not particularly care at present. Her father would have to see to the details. They had ridden through exhaustion, allowing their animals to take sustenance as often as wanted.
They were all filthy, and in need of a wee
k’s worth of sleep. The palace was in sight, and though she now knew its unhappy history, thanks to Colonel Arpan, she felt that her only desire was to find her bed within it.
Ranajit and his son were given leave to depart to their own home. General Abington gave his old companion and servant the sort effusive thanks which his countrymen would surely have frowned upon. Isabel looked up on her father, seeing no further age or worry having settled over his features since she had been gone.
She wondered whether she still looked the same, or whether she had outwardly aged as much as she felt she had inwardly. Arpan shook her father’s hand heartily, if not with some tinge of heartache, and set back for his village with the ill news he had to impart.
“Would that I could soften the blow for him.” Abington turned to Isabel, surveying her general state of dishevelment. “At some future moment, you shall have to explain exactly what happened. I rather thought you’d arrive back here with some bedraggled children, not be one of the bedraggled.”
“The children were dead before we left to find them, but we couldn’t have known that.”
“What a terrible thing. We shall have to do our best to aid them in the face of so much loss. You say all five men vanished as well?”
Isabelle looked at her father mournfully. Would she ever be able to adequately put into words what had happened? That something of such horrifying proportions could exist right under the noses of hundreds, perhaps thousands of people?
It had robbed lives for years, invisibly, never arousing suspicions. The only reason for its defeat, perhaps, lay in its greedy desire for