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DARK VERSUS DARK
A full moon hung above the forest, its bright, silvery glare penetrating parts of the canopy to shine onto the damp ground. All was quiet among the trees, as if everything was holding their breath, anticipating the arrival of something awesome.
A gentle breeze blew passed, making the leaves dance and move, creating a comforting rustle. A lone woman was walking through the forest, a bundle of something in her hands. She didn’t seem to mind the quietness of the forest, or the shadows around her. After walking for quite some time, the woman stopped moving and glanced around, her sharp eyes piercing the shadows before she nodded, apparently satisfied. Then she started walking again and soon, she walked into a clearing.
The moonlight was bathing everything in its mesmerizing light, making even the dead leaves and loose rocks looked magical. The woman walked to the centre of the clearing and put down the bundle she was holding, before untying the knot. Then she took out a beautifully-crafted athame and drew an almost-perfect circle around her. Next, she took out four crystal bowls, a tall red candle, a bottled water, an incense and a box of matches. Then, she put the four bowls at the four points of the compass – north, south, east and west. Scooping up two handfuls of dirt, she discarded them deftly into the bowls situated at east and west, poured the content of the bottled water into the bowl at south, lit a candle at north and lastly, stuck a lighted incense into the earth of the east bowl.
When she was done, she pulled out another candle, a taller and fatter one compared to the previous candle and black in colour, which she put directly in front of herself before she sat down, cross-legged. This time, she didn’t use a match to light the wick of the candle, but stared intently at the white string, drawing energy from around it and shaping it into a spark. The wick caught fire.
The woman was Leah, a witch specialised in herbs and gemstones, but tonight, she had to dabble in the darker side of magic. Her green eyes glittered with resoluteness as she held her left hand over the flame, while her right gripped the hilt of the athame tightly. Then, with a swift movement, she slashed open her palm. Leah bit back a cry of pain as she clenched her fist tightly, squeezing out droplets after droplets of crimson blood into the flame, which hissed and flickered weakly.
Reaching into the bundle again, Leah took out a black crystal the size of her palm and clutched it tightly in her hands – not caring about the open wound on her palm nor the sharp pain it caused her – before she began to chant in Gaelic. The alien words poured out of her mouth and into the night sky where they seemed to hang ominously in the air. Then she raised her right hand again and drew sigils after sigils in front of her, every single one of them was to capture and bring a dark spirit from the Underworld.
When Leah was done, she looked up hopefully, expecting to see the spirit she had summoned standing in front of her, but there was nothing there. She sprung to her feet and wheeled around frantically, completely forgetting about the burning candle at her feet.
No, this has to work! Please! I can’t let Laken fall in love with a demon! Goddess please, let this work! Leah thought as she looked around, her heart still beating at her throat.
Then suddenly, it happened. Leah was instantly filled with so much magic that she thought she would burst. Now she truly understood what it meant to be a goddess, Everything she did was full of magic. The breath she exhaled was a silver mist, pouring out of her mouth and dissipated almost immediately. Leah felt that she could raise the dead without even blinking, rip apart the veil that separated this world from the next, and kill all demons just by looking at them. The demon Jezebel would never stand a chance against Leah. She would feel the wrath of Leah the Goddess, and suffer for making Laken love her! Leah finally realised why black magic was so addictive. It made white magic seemed so puny and silly!
As suddenly as it had arrived, it was gone, drained out of Leah’s soul. She threw back her head and screamed with anguish for the loss of glory and the intoxicating power, her long brown hair fanning out behind her. She was dimly aware of the black crystal in her hand growing unbearably hot and disintegrated into fine grey dust, the powder trickling through her fingers, and then everything was over.
Leah fell to her knees and threw up again and again, until she felt like she had turned her stomach inside out – she had never thought that the aftermath of performing such powerful black magic would be this serious. She had failed. Failed to summon a spirit, failed to stop Laken from loving the demon, and she had almost succumbed to the unbelievably powerful magic she felt just now. Leah wiped her mouth with the back of her hand and stood up shakily. Something moved behind her and she wheeled around, her bitter heart beating fast and furious, her arm raised as if ready to blast the unknown intruder into oblivion, and forgetting that she had drained herself of all her magic when she did the failed ritual.
What she saw nearly made her scream. Leah had prepared herself to see hordes of demons, a group of white witches, the whore Jezebel or even worse, Laken, to stand there, accusation in his eyes, but ironically, nothing had prepared her for the dark spirit in front of her. Witch and spirit regarded each other, grim acceptance was the spirit’s expression, while Leah just looked mad with terror.
What do you want me to do? the cold, shrill voice floated inside Leah’s mind. This scared Leah even more and tears spilled down her cheeks instantly.
The spirit repeated his question again, this time more impatiently. The spirit didn’t want to be brought here in this manner, and he was in a foul mood.
Brushing her tears aside brusquely, Leah pulled herself together.
“I want you to get me a witch’s blood,” said Leah. Despite Leah’s best effort to put on a brave front, her voice still shook as much as her hands. She didn’t want the spirit to think of her as a weak witch who scared easily, but the mocking laughter from the spectre was enough of an answer to confirm Leah’s fear.
Witch’s blood? That’s easy enough! Whose? demanded the dark spirit with glee in his voice. His icy voice in Leah’s head was starting to give her a headache.
“Not just any witch’s. I want Laken O’Darchaidhe’s blood. He’s a very powerful – ” Leah was cut off by the dark spirit’s abrupt retort.
So am I! and then he was gone.
Leah sank down onto the ground and took in a deep shuddering breath. Have I done the right thing by bringing up the spirit to go after Laken’s blood? Leah thought, but she knew it was too late to regret her decision now. She was powerless to stop him even if she wanted to. At least, for now…
The spirit whoosed into Laken’s dark bedroom, bringing cold air and the acrid smell of death and destruction. He spotted Laken’s prone form instantly and floated around him, awaiting for the right moment to deliver the blow that would snuff out the man’s life. But then, the spirit remembered Leah’s order. Even though he didn’t want to obey the woman, he didn’t have a choice as he had been bound by the witch’s magic.
Laken felt a sharp pain pierced through his utopia and he struggled to regain consciousness. The first thing he noticed was the insubstantial grip grasping his throat. He opened his mouth to blast the intruder with a spell of pain and death but he was flung into the wall instead. Laken heard the plaster of the wall crack as he slid onto the floor.
The witch told me you are very powerful, but to me, you are nothing but a little boy! the high, icy voice stabbed through Laken’s mind and he winced in pain.
“Tuoni e fulmini!” gasped Laken as he flung out his hand. A thin bolt of blue lightning flew out but the spirit was gone, leaving nothing but the smell of death and its shrill laughter behind.
The dark spirit saw Leah’s weakness and smiled with satisfaction. Once the candle that was part of Leah’s protection had snuffed out, the drained witch would be left with nothing to shield her.
“Have you got the blood? I need it for the next spell,” gasped Leah. She knew she didn’t have enough magic to cast the next spell now but she didn’t want the sprit to know that. The flame of the red candle was dying now, the wick nearly submerged in its pool of molten wax.
Yessssssssss, the cold voice floated towards Leah. She couldn’t understand the glee in his voice.
A soft hissing sound was heard before the flame disappeared. Leah felt the shield struggled to rebuild itself with the remaining three elements, but its power was melting faster than ice in a fire. The protective shield collapsed around her and the shriek of the dark spirit was heard as he flew towards her. It was like being ripped apart by a thousand hands but at the same time, she was being stabbed by a gust of Arctic wind shaped into countless daggers. Leah screamed out in pain but her voice was carried away by the spirit instantly. She gasped out spells, but nothing seemed to work.
Then, everything stopped.
Leah found herself lying face down on the forest floor with not recollection whatsoever of how she got there. She sat up tentatively and grimaced in pain as she saw the blood all over her body. Leah felt nauseous watching her own blood gushing out of her body. A rustle was heard behind her and she wheeled around, expecting to see the spirit ready to attack her once more but he was not there. But someone else was.
Laken had arrived just in time to see the dark spirit killing a powerless Leah and instantly, Laken understood everything. It was Leah who brought the dark spirit to this world, it was Leah who sent it after Laken, it was Leah who lost control over the dark spirit, and it was Leah being killed right now.
Without thinking about anything else, he ripped the spirit away from his best friend using his magic and bound him with the strongest spell he knew, but he also knew that his effort was useless. The only way to stop a spirit was by destroying him completely, but Laken was not strong enough to annihilate such a powerful and dangerous spirit.
There is only one way, he thought to himself as he stepped into the clearing. Leah jerked up her head and looked at him sharply but relaxed once she recognized Laken.
Everything of nature had magic. This was what kept them alive and let them grow. As Laken closed his eyes, he felt the magic all around him – from the tall fir trees to the large rocks around the clearing, from the damp earth of the forest to the birds resting in their nests – vibrating and shimmering in their own colour. Laken let his own magic flowed out and wrapped around everything in the clearing, except for the stunned Leah and the struggling spirit, and then he stripped everything of their essence. Countless of loud, inhuman screams reverberated around Laken’s head and he gasped. Everything was dying all around Laken. The rocks crumbled into grey dust, tree leaves withered and drifted to the ground while barks became old and peeling off the trunks. The dead bodies of birds fell to the ground like beautiful flowers. One fell into Leah’s laps and she was repulsed by what she saw. The eyes of the dead birds were red and a little droplet of blood was seen next to the beak. The bird was a handsome bird once, blue in colour with streaks of black on its tail and a white crown but now, it was dead, its essence taken away forcefully.
Leah couldn’t believe that Laken was capable of doing such dark magic. He had always seemed like any other good witches but now, he was murdering everything else!
She saw Laken gathering the stolen magic and let it absorb into his body. The moment the magic touched Laken, he blazed with power. The cold light emitting from him was so bright that it rivaled even the moon’s soft glow.
This alien magic filled up Laken’s every pore and every cell until the very air he breathed out contained magic that could create- or annihilate – anything. He felt much more powerful than ever, the countless of gods and goddesses who governed this universe were nothing but beings who had feeble power and limited abilities. Laken was everything. He was the air, the earth, the rock, the water flowing deep underground. He was the fire and light of the sun and the stars, he was Leah, feeling her awe and fear. Laken was everywhere and everything, everything other than the spirit he sought to vanquish.
The witch raised his arms and instantly, the clearing was contained inside a circle made of a black strip of pure magic, with flecks of white showing through. This circle was to keep anything from coming in, and to stop anything from getting out. Laken glanced at the bound form of the spirit and the binding spell evaporated in the blink of an eye.
The shapeless being was angry. He had never expected himself to be humiliated in such a manner, and he was already planning on how to make the male witch pay. But the spirit had seen how Laken had snuffed out the lives of countless beings and ripped their essence from their souls. He knew he wasn’t dealing with a lesser witch, but a practitioner of magic who knew and understood the ways of the darkest forces in the universe. The spirit was instantly afraid. Even though he was a being made of dark magic, he knew that he didn’t stand a chance against someone who had the power to defeat even the greatest of gods.
A huge fire burst into being in the centre of the clearing, hovering a foot above the ground. There was nothing to fuel the towering inferno, nothing but pure magic. Even though the fire was burning near Leah, she couldn’t feel its scorching heat. This was a branch of magic she had never knew existed, much less understood. All Leah knew was what Laken was doing right now was wrong – he was bending the laws of nature with magic!
The fire turned black with a whoosh.
Leah felt sick. The dark power radiating from Laken’s exhilarated face made her want to run back into her room and cower underneath the duvet. What Leah did earlier this night was wrong, but this one was much more worse. She watched as the dark spirit struggled against more invisible bonds, heard his pleas as he was dragged towards the black, heatless flame, and grimaced as he was torn apart, his essence burnt away by the greedy flame until there was nothing left. Everything was over. Much to Leah’s peace of mind, she finally felt the dark magic trickling away from her friend, back into the naked trees, the dead animals, and the grey dusts of boulders. She expected life to bloom inside these things, but nothing moved. They were truly dead. The black fire was nothing but a little black, flickering orb hovering in the air but that too, winked out when Laken took in a deep shuddering breath. The black circle of magic faded away, leaving nothing but a smell of rotting things.
Leah turned her head and tried not to retch. As soon as she had herself under complete control, she turned and fastened an accusatory stare at the male witch.
“Why did you do it? You could get yourself killed!” Leah’s voice was shaking with fatigue and anger. “The witches of our own coven could be hunting you right now! Where did you learn this kind of magic anyway?!”
“I had to save my best friend who sent a freakin’ dark spirit into my bedroom in the middle of the night! You summoned a spirito malefico – the most powerful of all dark spirits – and yet you haven’t got the faintest idea of how to deal with it! Vanquishing the wraith needed a tremendous amount of pure magic and resorting to black magic was the best and quickest way! I had to fight dark magic with dark magic!” Despite looking a little pale, Laken’s strong and clear voice rang out loudly into the night. It was only then Leah realized that she had lost Laken to Jezebel, to dark magic. Using the forbidden magic made the witch weak after he had done his deeds, but the aftermath soon wore off once the witch had used it time and again, let his body and soul grew accustomed to the feel of the darkness. She also realised that Laken only did that to undo the disastrous mistake she had committed, but even that wasn’t enough to fight back her unstoppable fury.
Suddenly, robed figures flowed out swiftly and silently from among the trees and form a half circle around Leah and Laken. One of them strode forward and threw back his hood, revealing the pale face of Evan Descourdes, the leader of their coven. Laken suddenly felt very cold. His heart thundered in his ribcage and he was sure it was going to burst out soon. He wanted to kick himself for not sensing them sooner but he refrained himself from doing so. Laken knew he was more than a match for them but should they try to apprehend him together, he stood no chance of escaping at all. Laken couldn’t draw magic from other living beings as well as that would waste precious time, time he didn’t have and couldn’t afford. Furthermore, all living beings – other than Leah and the coven members – within his range were dead. There was nothing he could draw magic from. With his mind made up, Laken waited for the right moment to escape.
“All of us have been wakened up by the humongous surge of dark power in this area and now we found the two of you,” Evan’s voice was tight with disappointment and suppressed anger, but he brushed these feelings aside, “Who did it?”
Laken knew he couldn’t stay for much longer and his heart bled at that thought. He had came to love the coven and even its members, especially Leah, whom he had known since childhood. He couldn’t bear the thought of leaving her like this, but survival was more important. After casting a cleverly assembled spell, Laken ran into the woods. The spell should give him a nice head start and hopefully, that was all he needed.
From the loud sound of human’s feet crunching on the dried leaves a few moments later, the spell had not worked as well as Laken had hoped. The coven members were hunting him now. The chase is on, thought Laken wryly.
He cast a spell on himself and blend in with the lifeless surrounding, waiting for the right moment to lash out with his power. Three witches came crashing towards his direction and Laken threw a brilliant white Witchfire at one of them. The force of the magic knocked one of the witches onto the ground. A thin streak of silver flew out of the night and wound itself around Laken’s wrists, binding them together. The moment the thin metal touched his skin, a blinding pain flared and blisters started to form. The smell of burnt skin hit Laken’s nostrils as he struggled against this binding. The pain was so intense that he bit his lips to stop himself from crying out. Laken tasted the coppery taste of blood as his lower lip broke and bled. Realising his futile attempt, Laken started to recite the darkest destroying spell he knew, the guttural words pouring out of his mouth. The chain dissolved into black dust.
A witch threw a curse at him, which Laken merely brushed aside. He twisted his hand in the air as if he was grabbing something and threw it at the witch. He collapsed onto the ground, dead. Laken’s wrists looked half-cooked and he could see the grotesque sight of his scorched flesh. The pain was nearly unbearable but he pushed it away hastily, not willing to deal with it right now when his life was at stake. Laken continued to run forward, defending himself and killing others along the way. A fallen log flew towards his head but he blasted it to smithereens and in one fluid motion, he threw a column of thick, dark smoke from his hand and it flowed swiftly into the attacking witch’s mouth, nose and ears, suffocating her to death.
Laken didn’t know how long he ran with the other witches hot on his trails, but he had reached the end of the cliff now and he looked down fearfully to see what lay beneath. His heart lurched as he recognized the hopelessness of this situation. A treacherous river lay at the bottom of the valley, and Laken knew he would never survive if he dropped.
He turned back to face his pursuers to surrender, only to be greeted by a silver athame flying straight at him. The lethal weapon passed smoothly through Laken’s raised shield and buried hilt-deep in his shoulder. He barely had the time to grunt in pain before the force of the impact knocked him off his feet, and off the cliff. Laken refused to give his pursuers the satisfaction of hearing him shout out in fear, so he bit his lips hard, not even caring that blood flowed down his lips and into his mouth. The last thing he saw before he hit the glacial water was the full moon hanging in the sky.
Leah sometimes would think that things would end differently if they had negotiated with the members, but she knew it was useless to think of those thoughts now. Once or twice she thought she saw Laken watching her in the crowd or among the trees, but every time she looked back again, she would see nothing. She kept on believing that Laken was still alive and well somewhere, watching over her like a guardian angel. Leah had also dreamt of seeing the man again, feeling his strong arms around her and the rise and fall of his chest as he breathed. After all, can a witch capable of performing such powerful magic drown in a river?
DARKLIGHT SHADOW
