Free Ghost Dagger by Jonathan Moeller Page B

crumbling wreckage of Malarae like a bird of prey, the fiery axe in her hand. Her eyes widened as Caina approached.
    They hovered over the collapsing city, facing each other.
    “How is it,” snarled Helena, “that you are still alive?”
    “I had a dream that a fool hit me with an axe,” said Caina. “But it turns out that dreams can’t kill you.”
    “I understand this place better than you, Ghost,” said Helena. “Thoughts are real here. Memories are real here.” She smiled. “Maybe I can’t kill you. But I can shatter your mind so you wake up as a drooling idiot.” 
    “Harder men than you,” said Caina, “have tried to break me. Yet I am still alive.” 
    Helena bellowed and flew at Caina, the fiery axe raised for a killing blow. 
    Caina moved just as fast. A shield of crystalline ice appeared over her forearm, called into existence by her thoughts. The axe slammed into the shield, and both vanished with a billow of hissing steam. Helena tumbled to the side, overbalanced, and Caina’s boot lashed out. Her foot slammed into the center of Helena’s cuirass with a clang, and the noblewoman went spinning out of control.
    But mere kicks could not overcome Helena, not here.
    Caina risked a quick look around. Most of Malarae had crumbled into the black abyss, and the silver door hovered over nothingness, shining with fiery light. Caina had to get Helena through that door. But how? Helena was just as quick as Caina – in this strange dream realm, Helena was as quick as she wanted. 
    But thoughts were real here.
    And memories…
    Helena whirled to face her, and Caina drew upon her memories. 
    She remembered lying chained in Maglarion’s lair, screaming as the necromancer’s knife cut into her flesh. A strange dagger appeared in Caina’s right hand, seemingly made of mirrored glass. In its mirrored surface she saw the painful images from her past, saw Maglarion’s lair, saw her younger self screaming in horror.
    Helena flew at her, a sword of shadows flickering in her right fist.
    Caina slipped under the blow and hammered the dagger of her memories into Helena’s chest. 
    Helena’s eyes bulged and she screamed in horrified agony. She ripped away from the dagger, hands clutching her temples, still screaming. 
    “Gods!” she wailed. “Make it stop! Make it stop!”
    Caina poured another memory into the dagger, the memory of that terrible night she had entered her father’s library and found him slumped in his chair, his mind destroyed by her mother’s inept sorcery. The images of the library, her mother’s gloating, and Caina’s desperate weeping flashed across the dagger’s blade. Helena fled from her, still wailing, and Caina pursued her. 
    She flew into Helena and buried the dagger in her side. 
    Helena’s agonized wail filled Caina’s ears. 
    “Father!” Helena shouted. “No, gods, no!”
    Caina grabbed Helena’s shoulders, whirled her around.
    “You want to look through my memories?” Caina shouted, pouring more of her pain into the dagger. Her father’s death, Maglarion’s torture, Alastair’s deformed corpse, Ark’s sorrow over his wife, she plunged all of it and more into the dagger. “Then have them! Have them all!” 
    She drove the flickering dagger home.
    Helena screamed and began to thrash like a dying animal. She plummeted, the dagger of memories still buried in her, and Caina pursued. She seized the other woman as she flew, dragged her across the crumbling void, and rammed into the silver door with all the speed she would muster.
    The door swung open, and beyond was nothing but an endless inferno of raging flames.
     
    ###
     
    Caina blinked awake, Helena’s screams ringing in her ears. 
    She sat up, her wrists and ankles still bound. Helena stood a short distance away, the silvery dagger clutched in her hands. The blade’s runes now shone with flames, and the horrible keening sound of overstressed metal came from the dagger.
    “No!” shrieked Helena. “No!