Stone of Tears

As she turned away, Richard felt an apprehensive, tingling sensation all the way down to his toes. She wasn’t trying to entice him, as the other visions had.

His hair tried to stand on end.

“Sister Verna?”

Could it be true? Could she be alive? Maybe he hadn’t really killed her. Maybe it had all been a vision. “sister Verna, if it really is you, talk to me.”

She regarded him with a puzzled frown. “Richard?”

“Of course Richard.”

“Go,” she whispered as her eyes turned up once more. “I am with Him.”

“Him? Him who?”

“Please, Richard, you are tainted. Go away.”

“If you’re a vision, then you go away.”

She regarded him with pleading. “Please, Richard. You’re disturbing Him. Don’t ruin what I’ve found.”

“What have you found? Is it Jedidiah?”

“The Creator,” she said in a hallowed tone.

Richard peered skyward. “I don’t see anyone.”

She turned her back to him and strolled away. “Leave me to Him.”

Richard didn’t know if this was the real Sister Verna, or an illusion. Or maybe the dead Sister’s spirit. Which was true? How could he tell?

He had promised the real Sister that she would make it through, that he would help her. He followed after her before she could disappear into the dark fog.

“What does the Creator look like, Sister Verna? Is he young? Old? Does he have long hair? Short? Does he have all his teeth?”

She turned in a rage. “Leave me!”

The menace in her expression froze him in his tracks.

“No. Listen to me, Sister Verna. You’re coming with me. I’m not leaving you trapped in this spell. That’s all you see: an enchantment spell.”

He reasoned that if she was a specter, and he took her with him, she would vanish when they left the magic of the valley. If she was real, well then he would be saving her. She would be alive. Though he wished to be free of her, he wished more that she was alive, and that she wouldn’t really do to him what she had done back in the tower. He didn’t want that to be the true Sister Verna. He started toward her again.

Her hand came up, as if to push him, even though he was a good ten paces away. The force of the impact threw him to the ground. He rolled over, clutching his chest, clutching at the receding agony. It felt like what had been done to him in the tower—hard, burning pain—but it faded faster.

Wincing, he sat up, quickly gathering his wits as he gasped for breath. He looked up to check where the Sister was in case she was about to hurt him again. What he saw halted his breath only half out of his lungs.

As the Sister once again stared skyward, the dark fog around them swirled and coalesced into forms, the forms of wraiths: insubstantial figures, seething, simmering with death. Their faces churned with steaming, shifting shadows that conjoined into glowing red eyes set in inky faces—hot tongues of flame alive with hate, glowering out from eternal night.

Bumps rippled and tingled across the backs of his shoulders. When he had been in the spirit house and felt the screeling on the other side of the door, when he had sensed the man about to kill Chandalen, and when he had first encountered the Sisters, he had felt an overwhelming, inexplicable sense of danger. He felt that danger now.

There wasn’t the slightest doubt in his mind that these things were part of the magic of this valley, and that that magic had at last found an intruder. Him.

“Verna!” he screamed.

She scowled down at him. “I told you, Richard, I am to be addressed as Sister Verna.

“Is that what you do to your charges? Hurt them with your power?”

She looked startled. “But I…”

“Is this your eternal Paradise? Quarreling with people? Hurting them?” He rushed to his knees, eyeing the drifting forms about them. “sister, we have to get out of here.”

“I wish to stay with Him. I have found my bliss.”

“This is your idea of Paradise? Giving pain? Answer me, Sister Verna! Is that what your Creator wishes of you? To hurt the people you are responsible for?”

She gaped at him, quickness suddenly coming to her movements as she rushed to him. “did I hurt you?” She gripped his shoulders. “Oh, child, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to.”

He came the rest of the way to his feet and shook her.

“Sister, we have to get out of here! I don’t know how! Tell me how to get out of here before it’s too late!”

“But… I wish to stay.”

“Look around, Sister Verna! What do you see?”

She jerked her head woodenly about, from one dark form to another, then to him. “Richard…”

Richard angrily pointed skyward. “Look, Sister! That’s not the Creator! It’s the Keeper.”

She peered where he directed. With a gasp, her fingers flew to her mouth.

The red glow in the eyes of one of the dark, shifting forms intensified into burning embers. The sense of danger flamed through Richard’s very soul. The sword was out in a blink. The vaporous wraith solidified into solid bone and muscle, claws and fangs, into a frightening beast covered with a dark, cracked, leathery hide dappled with hideous, suppurating sores. It descended upon him in a terrifying rush.