The Shadow in the Water

"I can't believe I ruined my clothes!"

It was the dawn of the next day, and certain predictions were coming to fruition.

"Well, I did tell you." Lilly yawned. She stretched and the sheets of the bed fell down her chest. For a moment, she lay curled with her legs under her as she had been when she awoke. Then she regretfully decided it was probably time to get up. "It was kind of stupid."

"It was a romantic gesture!"

"A stupid one."

"I wanted to show you how much I cared!"

"You were horny and wanted to fuck."

"Well, yes but I didn't exactly see you refusing!"

"Hey I didn't say I wasn't the same way!" She held up her hands with a small smile. "So what are you going to do? Show up naked?"

"I think not." Dusklord said. "That is your place my dear."

He shook his head. "I can't believe I got so carried away... Ugh, I'm going to have to use some of my old clothes. I do so hate the fashions here. It's all very medieval. Tunics and jerkins and suchlike. Family crests all over the place. And swords!"

"What's wrong with swords?"

"Pointless things! I don't need them!" He had already moved over to a large wardrobe and was sorting through some rather old looking clothes. "Swords are for other people!"

"Well," she said mildly, "there was one sword you certainly had a lot of fun with last night."

Was it her imagination or was he trying not to blush?

"Not as much as you my dear." He said, holding up a set of clothes with obvious distaste. They looked something similar to what Alister had worn when they had first met him.

"Eh, I'd say it was about even." She winked at him. "Not bad for a **** and her master, eh?"

"No, I suppose not." Dusklord shook his head. "You know I still can't quite believe how far we've come since all of this started. Before this, I never would have imagined it. We were enemies and rivals. Maybe civilised ones, but the closest we might get was working together against some greater threat. Now we've seen one another naked, and had sex. And even sort of want to keep going after this week... It's insane."

"Are you not ready for it?" She asked, tilting her head. "I mean, if you don't want to I suppose we can leave it at the end of the week, but..."

"No, no of course not. If you want to actually make something of it I'm more than happy to try and do the same. Though, I sort of feel like we've advanced beyond just ''dating'' at this point."

She giggled. She couldn't help it.

"People can date and fuck like rabbits too." She said. "I don't know about you, but I'm enjoying our little arrangement. Assuming you're serious about throwing in the towel and not being a villain anymore?"

"Well." Dusklord said. "On one hand I have money, fame and power. The respect and fear of my enemies, a reputation so awesome that most villains in the city would rather charge the League of Heroes than go against me. On the other, a girlfriend and sex. It's really not a very hard choice is it?"

She laughed again, shaking her head.

"Put that way, it is a bit one sided." Lilly admitted. "But if you kept being a villain, we'd have to fight, so..."

"Oh don't worry. I don't intend to go back on my word. But I am keeping the tiger."

"Dusklord..."

"It's happier the way it is! It's content now! It needs to be a loving family!"

"Alexi..."

"It can be your tiger too!"

Later that day the two of them met with Alister once more. This time, it was not in front of the court. In fact it was a private affair within Alister's workshop. Lilly had expected that Alister had one of those as soon as she learned he was a magic user. It seemed to be that the very moment you started to learn magic you came down with a horrible and utterly incurable desire to stake out a piece of land and then fill it with the most random of things. Old books and scrolls, dioramas, various symbols and items of highly vague and yet extremely mystical importance. Lilly knew of two magic users personally and they both shared this trait. Now Alister was added to the list.

He had a thing for stuffed animals. Not toys, but actually stuffed animals. There was a disturbing number of them in the workshop. Monkeys hung from wires that suspended them from the ceiling, a crocodile was wedged against an old cupboard door, a very old and very surprised looking bear was sitting beside a throne at the back. Other than this there was the usual mystical detritus that a mage always seemed to accumulate. Books and scrolls were in clear evidence, and there were swords and shields and other weapons too. Here and there, she could see larger things like alters which always looked rather barren and unused.

Lilly was in her chains again, but Dusklord had loosened them to allow her more freedom of movement. After last night, she wasn't particularly horny and was rather more in the mood to relax a little.

In the centre of the room there was what seemed to be a stone well full of water. A rather odd sight inside of a castle, not to mention on the upper levels of it too. Beside the well, Allister waited. Once more Lilly was struck by the similarity between the brothers. They were clearly from the same mould with proud and high cheekbones, aristocratic faces and slim but powerful bodies. However that was where the differences ended. Alister's hair was pale blond, almost white. He had deep set blue eyes which chilled you to the bone when they pinned you with their gaze. His face was cruel and his smile was unsettling.

Today he was dressed in a more simple tunic than the one they had seen yesterday. It was plain and unadorned. He had brought no servants, no guards. Like Dusklord, Alister was more than capable of defending himself.

"Brother." Alister said with a nod. "I have been waiting for you. You said that you wished for my help as a magicker. After coming so far for my services I could hardly refuse you. Especially after you praised me so. You said there was information you needed to be confirmed? Beyond any doubt?"

"Yes." Dusklord said tightly."Beyond any doubt. There is a man in the world I come from. A man who should be worse than dead. I never thought to see him again and yet he walks my streets and befouls my city."

"Is that so?" Alister said. "Perhaps you should deal with him then."

"That is what I intend, my dear brother. But I am not a fool who leaps into situations without knowing how they came about. That is how you end up dead or worse. I need you to confirm for me that it is the same man and if it is, discover how he returned."

"And if I do this," Alister said, "You will have no reason to stick around here?"

"What, are you not enjoying my presence?"

"Your presence is welcome, Alexi. The threat you represent is not. My people do not need to be torn between two leaders."

"You fear they would pick me over you?"

Alister shifted.

"I am not as...charismatic... as you are, brother. We both know that you would be able to sway them if I allowed you the chance. You are a threat to me, your coming back here was a threat to me. Presenting yourself at my court was a risk. The smart thing for me to do would have been to kill you there and then."

"That is true," Dusklord conceded. "But you don't know if you could have. The two of us have always been mostly even. I was slightly stronger, but the operative word is ''slightly''. Even if you could beat me now it would be a long, hard fight and far too risky for either of us to choose unless we had no other options."

"And yet, considering you would be able to sway my people against me given the chance, it might still be smarter to take that risk." Aleister said. "I am sure I could defeat you if we fought. It would be hard and bloody, but you would die. On the other hand, I am sure you could raise an army against me if I gave you time and then I'd have to fight you anyway and deal with your army. Surely if both are a given then it is best to just accept that a battle is inevitable and have it as soon as possible?"

"But you did not." Dusklord noted.

"No. Perhaps it was foolish of me but I dared to hope you did not have plans to stir up trouble here. You left willingly before and said that you had no desire to rule. I clung to the hope that this had not changed."

"I am glad for your forbearance then." Dusklord said. "Indeed, my intent has not changed. I came here only to seek your help and once I have it I will leave you as I did before. I have no wish to rule this kingdom nor sit in your throne."

Alister nodded. Lilly felt again like there was a part of the conversation she wasn't quite getting. As if the words were flying over her head, their meanings clear only to Dusklord and to Alister.

"Very well then." Alister said. "Since I have no reason not to believe you and you have always been a man of your word, I'll help you. Come and stand around the well. I'll be using the water there as a medium for my work."

Dusklord gestured and Lilly followed, the two of them moving towards the old stone well. She could see now that it had been filled almost to the brim, the water inside of it was crystal clear and looked fresh.

"What do you know of the man?" Alister said. "I'll need something to try and track him."

"The name he goes by." Dusklord said. "Dogma. I need to know if he's really that person or just someone new who has started to use the name."

Dogma? Lilly blinked and her eyes widened, she turned to look at Dusklord, a sense of sickness spreading through her. Dogma was an absolute monster, a maniac of the worst sort who was right up there with Gorehound when it came to villains you didn't ever want to see again. If he was really back then she had no time to play these games. He was planning something and she had to warn the others.

Lily started to move but Dusklord's hand closed around her shoulder. It wasn't a firm hold or a command, but a simple point of contact and a wordless request to wait. She hesitated, but her logical mind pointed out that she couldn't actually get back on her own anyway and that maybe she might learn something important here if she stayed.

"Dogma..." Alister repeated the name. He started to speak, but the words that tumbled from his mouth were not words as Lilly understood them. They made her shiver, and her skin crawl. A sense of tension filled the room, and she could just about feel the invisible flow of power which was being harnessed by monarch.

Lilly had known magic users before. She was on speaking terms with Mystic and Magicman. Both of whom were pretty powerful as sorcerers went. She'd fought with them and felt their use of magic, and it always felt like a static charge through the skin. Like a greasy feel to the air. It felt like something was moving behind you that you couldn't see. Lilly didn't like magic. She had nothing against people who used it, but she herself could never have become one of them. It felt strange and wrong to her. Confusing and twisted. It didn't obey the usual rules, it laughed at them and twisted them up into pretzels. There was no telling what it would do next, or if you could truly control it. It was almost like a living thing in and of itself. You could call it and command it, but who knew when it would shatter its chains or choose to interpret your request in a way you hadn't imagined?

Time passed. Alister continued to chant, building more and more power. Lilly felt her teeth ache at he build up of energy in the room. The air grew heavier, and the shadows seemed to lengthen, taking on strange and unworldly behaviours and shapes. The dead animals which dotted the room seemed to stir, regaining a tiny sliver of horrible life. They didn't move or act, but one might just believe their expressions changed, or they shifted just so. Were they breathing or was it just your imagination? Was it all just a trick of the mind or was there a terrible sort of life behind those rictus grins?

Alister fell silent. The water rippled. Tiny little waves danced outwards from the centre of the well. An image formed. The scene of a man standing in a place she did not know. Lilly felt like she'd been stabbed through the gut.

It was him.

"You were right to come to me..." Alister grunted. "There is something guarding him... a powerful being has warded his presence. I can only just pierce it. Anyone else would have failed."

Dusklord peered down at the image. His face was pale beyond his usual complexion. For a long moment he said nothing.

"I didn't want it to be true," he admitted. "I had hoped that it was someone else. Some trickster who just wanted to use the name, but.."

"It's him." Lilly said, not even caring for her role anymore. "Dogma. That bastard. Somehow he managed to come back. I don't understand. Last time we met, I threw him through a portal in time. The other end had been destroyed. He shouldn't have ever re-appeared!"

"He should have been lost for all time." Dusklord nodded. "Alister can you tell us why he isn't?"

Alister said nothing about Lilly's outspoken behaviour. His focus was totally on the spell he was trying to weave. Lilly watched as sweat started to bead his forehead. His hands were clutched into fists, his eyes pressed tightly closed.

"I can see...." Alister grunted. "Images. Scenes. he was thrown through a doorway to nothing. There was no time to exist in, but he existed anyway. Like a sliver of reality caught in a void. Trapped and screaming. Unable to die. Unable to escape. Eternity ran past him and he floated on. There was no start and no end, an infinite and constant loop. Outside of time but not divorced from it. A punishment beyond any other."

"I won't say he deserved it." Lilly said, "But he gave me **** and I wasn't going to treat his life as equal to the people he threatened. He'd managed to kill three heroes in that fight already, dropped half a dozen more. Three of them are still crippled to this day! So when I saw the chance to bring him down I took it. I wouldn't have chosen for him to suffer for all eternity, but I'm not shedding tears that his own actions **** him into that situation to begin with."

"You said he was trapped forever." Dusklord noted. "So why is he here now? What changed?"

"He was trapped for so long." Alister said. "The blink of an eye and yet the lifetime of a cosmos. With no start and no end, Dogma had no hope of salvation or release. Until that is his desperation attracted the attention of another being who was also trapped."

"Another being?" Dusklord said. "I hope this isn't going where I think it's going Alister. There's only one other being I know of in that sort of situation."

"The two were drawn to each other..." Alister said. "Her power wasn't great enough to save herself, she was bound too tightly. But she could save him. Send him back to where he had come from. The two struck deal, a contract. Dogma would be returned to the living world of his own birth and she would come along too, using him as an anchor. With this sealed, she drew forth her power and split the timeline, casting him like a stone back to where he had come from!"

Aleister grunted and fell back. He hit the ground and rose into a sitting position. His hands cradled his forehead for a moment.

"Ugh." He moaned, "That was painful. "

Suddenly he looked up. The water was still rippling but now the image had become dark. A great blackness which had spread across the surface of the well. He reached up for it and spoke a word but a blast of **** slammed into him and smashed him into the far wall!

A thick black cloud began to issue forth from the well. It curled and coiled like a living thing, doubling back on itself again and again. It was cold and terrible, Lilly took a step back. Dusklord made a sound in the back of his throat. A sound of anger she'd never heard from him before. His own living shadow surrounded him in an instant, a black outline which spread around him. Lilly had always thought that shadow was shadow. After all, you couldn't get darker than black could you? But it seemed that you could. The darkness pouring from the well was darker than any black she'd ever seen. Darker than night or ****, blacker than betrayal or ****. She felt the presence rising around her, a cold malice that seemed to come from everywhere at once.

"She's coming through," Alister said as he pushed himself to his feet. "I'm sorry Alexi, I wasn't able to stop her in time. She's as powerful as ever."

Suddenly the shadow seemed to compress into itself, becoming denser and denser. Living tendrils began to probe the room, billowing clouds of darkness blocked out the lights. Alexi and Alister both were able to see in the darkness due to their heritage, and Lilly was able to make her own light. Calling on the smallest portion of her power she cast a red glow from her body which threw back the darkness.

Floating above the well there was a person. She was surrounded by the shadow. in fact, it was part of her. Her body was made of it, woven out of it. It seemed to meld into her. Her skin was pale, and her body shrunken and corpse-like. She was naked, but not the fun sort of naked that Lilly had come to enjoy so much in the last few days. Her eyes were yellowed and her body was emaciated, like someone who had starved to ****.

She opened her eyes suddenly, a shockwave of darkness rippled across the room.

"Ah." Dusklord said. "Hello mother. It's been a while."