Hi folks, it's been quite a while. I feel like I was stuck on this one for a very long time, but I think I finally got it to a draft that I'm (mostly) happy with. I've done a lot of tweaking all over the place, and the piece still needs an editors look, but I think I'm done with making big changes for now, so rather than keep reposing the altered versions over and over again, I think I'll just share the last part as it currently stands, and post a link to the final version when it's ready. I'm also working on a companion piece with some thoughts and my own analyses, that I could post here is anyone's interested. Before we get into the story proper I will also give a slight content warning, the story get's a little dark near the end, and there is mention of blood, though nothing is graphical or note worthy in that instance I think. I also wanted to thank everyone fro reading and in particular Jubal for their helpful comments and encouragement. I hope you all enjoy!
====
They continued as they had before, in formation. The tension induced by the necromancer's aura was still present but somehow knowing what was causing it made it somewhat easier to deal with for Lilith. The air had become noticeably dryer, and the sound of dripping water no longer accompanied them. After walking for some time, she noticed that the ground had become more level and the walls of rock started to form the frame of a corridor.
As the corridor they were walking down took a shallow bend, a faint glow could be seen at the end, and the smell of a wood fire reached Lilith's nose. Normally this would have comforted her, but this time, knowing what they might find there, it was hard to enjoy. The light danced, raising and swaying, lowering and flowing by the whims of the fire laying at its source, luring them closer with false promises of succour.
With every step they took, Lilith became more aware of a slow and ominous sound, crawling past her through the tunnel. After a few moments, the sound revealed itself to be some kind of chanting that she didn't recognise.
"Ready yourself, squire," her Direct whispered in her ear, "I think we found our necromancer."
Something felt off to Liliith. Even though she had never heard this kind of chanting before, it still sounded familiar to her in a way should couldn't quite articulate.
When they entered the room through a doorless gateway, Lilith realized it was much larger than she had expected. The high roof of the circular room was hard to see clearly but had the shape of natural rock, suggesting this room had merely been repurposed rather than excavated entirely. In the middle of the room stood an iron braiser from which the light had poured into the corridor. Lilith looked around the room in awe. The floor was littered with sigils she didn't even know who to read, faintly glowing, and spell diagrams of circles she'd never even heard warning her to stay back, exuding the same energy as a hissing viper. Her gaze wandered up a set of stairs that curled around the back of the room up towards a raised platform. On the platform stood a plump figure cloaked in black and purple robes, their face obscured by their hood. Seemingly unaware of them, the figure continued to chant, swaying gently.
Then Lilith realised why the sound felt so familiar to her.
"Ester?" Lilith asked in shock, "Is that you?".
Startled, the figure jerked back, and removed their hood, revealing a familiar, well-rounded face.
"Lilith?" she asked with equal bewilderment. "What are you doing here?"
"You know this necromancer, squire?" Lilith's Direct asked with a soft and wary voice.
As soon as Ester saw the two knights walking in behind Lilith, her face went from shocked confusion to expressionless horror.
"Y-you brought paladins with you?" she stammered.
"What do you mean, 'I brought paladins with me'?" Lilith replied.
She said she could feel magic starting to emanate from the paladins behind her as they prepared their battle magic.
"Venerable ones, please," she said to the paladins without turning around, "this is not a necromancer. Ester has been a close companion of mine since our basic training. Surely there has been a misunderstanding."
"Identify yourself mage," the Higher said in a loud and demanding tone.
"My lord, please," Lilith said with as much urgency in her voice as she could muster. "This is Ester of Kharlan, ward of the White Lilly and heir of the commons. She is a dear friend of mine. We studied in the same monastery before I was summoned to the spire. Please, there is no need for violence."
"Former..." Ester mumbled. Her voice sounded weary, at the brink of breaking. "Former ward."
"Former?" Lilith asked in confusion, "How is that even possible?"
"See for yourself," Ester said with a faint quiver. She threw a white bundle of cloth down from the raised dais. It landed at Lilith's feet with a soft thud.
When Lilith picked it up and tried to unroll it, she finally realised what it was. It was a banner of the White Lilly, bloodied and torn, reeking of death and desecration. Lilith stared at the piece of fabric in her hands, mouth agape. She gently rubbed the familiar soft fabric between her fingers as if to assure herself it was there, while her eyes glided over the torn intricate stitching, all sullied and soaked in blood and mud. "But how?" she stammered, "and why?".
"I'm sorry, Lillith. I managed while I had you to help me, but after you left..." she said in a quivering voice. "I was never the theological prodigy you were. There had always been confusion but after you left, the monks' unyielding expectations turned that into doubt, then rage, and eventually shame and guilt. I could do no good, I could never repent enough no matter how hard I tried. They instilled within me a disgust of my own being." Ester swallowed hard, fighting back the demons that were clawing at her innards as she spoke. "But the necromancers... They not only let me embrace myself but taught me to harness it. I can't go back now."
"Do you know the sentence for such heresy mage?" The Higher said threateningly, "Forsake this path, for that way madness lies!"
"You vilify me, sir knight," Ester replied, her voice nearly quivering with fatigue, "but am I not fed with the same food, hurt with the same weapons, subject to the same diseases, healed by the same means, warmed and cooled by the same winter and summer as you? The villainy you teach me, I will execute!"
The Direct took a step forward, hands raised as if trying to calm a dangerous animal.
"Come little dove," he said gently, "fly, ere evil intercept your flight. Seek pardon while it may yet be found." He went to take another step but had to duck swiftly as a ball of purple flame hit the wall where his head had been a second ago.
"Stay back dawnmonger!" Ester exclaimed, barely managing to keep the panic from her voice.
"Surrender yourself mage!" The Higher barked from behind, "This doesn't have to end in blood."
"Which way would you have me go then? Towards the infinite scorn which you call penitence? Or inward, seeking a serenity which you will never grant, pining for a space within me that does not reek of your judgment? Whichever way I go is Hell, for I have become Hell myself. "
"Just think this through," said the Direct in an urgent tone, "Don't let your emotions control you!"
"Must you always seek to divorce me from my humanity? Why is it not enough to have me defeated, but must you also dominate my very being? It is said that hell is other people, but the black tar of hell can so easily seep through the cracks of the heart and suffuse the soul. I came here to hide. Hide from myself, yet here you are, to remind me of what I must be: a failed and malevolent child, ashamed of all her being. All your eyes, once again, intent on me. Devouring me. What? Only three of you? There were more; many more, all hell-bent on my downfall so that they might postpone their own. If you have any grace left you will leave me to my grief, for it is all that is left within me that is still mine."
"Enough of this!" The Higher exclaimed. "If you won't stop this madness, I will heretic!"
The same white light that had poured from his eyes and mouth when he confronted the wraith started glowing once more. Finally, he raised his hand and prepared to cast his spell. But before he could unleash it, something in Lilith snapped. She'd had enough of this man and his snide comments, his ridicule and his belittling. He'd done enough to put her down, and she wasn't going to let him hurt her friend as well.
In one swift motion, she turned around and struck the inside of his elbow, causing his arm to bend and the spell struck the roof of the ceiling off to the side.
Ester's gaze turned from despair to rage. She threw something into the brazier in the middle of the room, turning it into a deep indigo, and spread her arms. "Awake, my kin, arise, or be forever torn from your sorrow!" She boomed.
After a second, which to Lilith seemed to last an eternity, there came a deep rumble from the fire. Something stirred from its core. First, a hand emerged from the flame, followed by an arm, and before long wraiths were crawling out of the beckoning flames by the dozen. Screaming with the same voices the wraith in the cave had, they swarmed around the room and eventually set their sights on the trio.
The Higher tried to advance but stumbled and fell as his limbs were grabbed by ghostly hands and dragged to the ground. So too did a legion of grasping hands and arms reach for Lilith and her direct. Try as they might, they could neither move nor twist.
Ester regarded the trio with a solemn look. "May these words eternally echo through your bones as yours have through mine. The rest is silence."
"What are you going to do to us, Ester?", Lilith asked, not even trying to keep the desperation from her voice, " Please don't hurt us, the Ester I knew would never do that!"
But Ester wasn't paying her any attention anymore. She just stared into the fire and started to chant.
"_ʋɐfɛl rɐikrɐ ħɛsħɛt eik ɔrväχnä. Aräkɛθ vɪl nɛθɪr ʊ vɛlɪn θɒl._"
"ESTER, PLEASE!", Lilith screamed to no avail.
"_näkɛʑ ħɐvɛs lok nɪr ɪmkɛleθ_" Ester continued.
The dagger floated out of the belt of the Higher into Ester's outstretched hand. She gripped the hilt in one hand, then closed her other hand around the blade and drew. Lilith could barely see the crimson droplets fall from Ester's hand onto the floor, but it felt like they hit the rock with the weight of all the world.
"_monʋʉätʼ_" she whispered with the gravitas of a priest reading someone their last rights.
There was a long moment of silence. The air in the room felt like tension made solid. Slowly a formless cloud of smoke, thin but black as the void itself rose up from the fire in the middle of the room. It wafted over to Ester, who regarded it with genuine fear in her eyes. As the smoke started to envelop her, she tried to scream but no voice came. Suddenly she gasped for air and clutched at her chest. Eventually, Ester completely disappeared beneath the miasma and fell to the floor.
Lilith's mind was racing faster than she could keep up with. What was happening? Was Ester okay? Had the ritual worked? Or had she bitten off more than she could chew, and had it backfired?
Suddenly she heard a sharp inhale reverberate through the room, as if someone reached the surface after an eternity underwater, followed by a deep guttural cough.
Still held by the ghostly hands, Lilith couldn't see what was happening, but eventually, she heard Ester move. Thank the Light she was okay. But Lilith didn't recognise the woman that rose from the ground. A far cry from the full and friendly face she knew and loved. This woman had flawless skin with dark brown long hair draped over her shoulders. Lilith gaped at the full red lips and voluptuous chest, the radiant green eyes, and teeth white as polished marble and sharp as fangs.
"E-Ester?" Lilith croaked. A strix... Ester had turned herself into a strix.
"W-what is happening?" the higher groaned, his face still held against the stone floor. Lilith tried to speak, but no sound emerged from her lips.
Ester looked at Lilith again. That new face looked so unfamiliar to Lilith, yet there was still a hint of the woman she had known in it. "Was this really a monster now?" she wondered. But before she could wonder if Ester meant them harm Lilith could feel the grip of the wraiths loosening as Ester turned around, and simply faded into nothingness, leaving behind two disgruntled paladins and a now crying squire.