This chapter finishes out at 2,834 words between both parts.
... Now I get to cover what went on with Ven'thrith and Justin, and how he found where in time to yank her from. I both look forward to writing how the deities use their powers and dread it. It posted onto my Patreon first, then was accidentally delayed due to my son's graduation (he is now a high schooler) and a bevy of unexpected items that burbled up like... whale farts...
Interested in helping support this free version of the book and other projects? http://www.patreon.com/Amehana
Without further ado...
... Now I get to cover what went on with Ven'thrith and Justin, and how he found where in time to yank her from. I both look forward to writing how the deities use their powers and dread it. It posted onto my Patreon first, then was accidentally delayed due to my son's graduation (he is now a high schooler) and a bevy of unexpected items that burbled up like... whale farts...
Interested in helping support this free version of the book and other projects? http://www.patreon.com/Amehana
Without further ado...
Selkies' Skins 2
Temple and Skinquest
Installment 41
Chapter 16
Opening the Way (part 2)
His paws tattooed over stone and through the winding passages, seeking always the higher path in the labyrinthine twists which seemed to have come alive around them. The Temple was certainly awake, and changing now, reacting to the two warring priestesses within. Land battled with sea once more through them and Taranis dodged falling stone while Ciarán and Kirsty blocked or tried to deflect undodgeable debris out of his path. The pelt that was wrapped around and clinging to Ciarán did not bother trying to hide her head, the eyes glowing green and pupils wide, staring behind since the front was covered and keening whenever something threatened his flank in the rockfall.
As fast as he ran, as far as he ran, the great black dog never seemed to get beyond a certain point no matter how the scenery around them changed. All the while the water continued to rise behind them, and Salena’s skin roared a warning, the body the skin belonged to most likely collapsing unconscious wherever she was at the time with a cry if he remembered how some skins worked. Their heads all swiveled to look behind to see what she warned of.
The halls they had run through were no more. Behind was only a wide ragged cavern gaping as hungrily as if Cthulhu himself had awoken and risen from his dreaming slumber to claim their reality. Within this abyss swam the Kraken called Leviathan, phosphorescent green and reaching for them, screeing unearthly calls from his beak as he attempted to sing the song of all sea hags. Riding this creature was Raechel, Mara’s Spear strapped to her back since it would do nothing against Kirsten no matter how she bade it to. Taranis could only be glad it was not the actual Leviathan called Leviathan, as it would have probably found a way to batter the ground into breaking until it reached them. Sea creatures were not his forte. Especially ones that had green fire in their eyes like the Dark Priestess.
Why wasn’t the little priestess’s prior purifications taking hold as long as they should?
Raechel smirked, well seated on the kraken and tethered firmly within the energetic throne of the temple. Did every temple feel this way once the secret was activated and accessed? It laid itself more bare and trembling to her touch than Bethrise once had, eager to give her anything. She reveled in this feeling and the sensation of the Taint seeping from within her and into it. The girl clung to the back of the black beast, her human protector behind and attempting to shield her from view.
Playtime with the filthy land creatures was over.
Raechel envisioned the path they trod becoming steeper, rising beneath them. It became so. The granite and basalt gave way and smoothed to obsidian. Dark, cool, smooth as the mirrors that she could feel one by one turning their views toward her as she controlled this piece of reality. She ignored all of the eyes whether of deity or mortal. Let them witness her new birth. Crystal would have been another excellent choice, but too pure and far too open in both time and number of magical implements linked to it. It wouldn’t do to have too many openings to divert the force she wielded, not yet. Ice would have given the little child too much room to possibly worm out of her grasp. No, she herself was the most like Mara and it would be she, Raechel of the Tolltachonn lineage that claimed this place. Not some human-blooded filth. Especially from a branch of the Marainion that would have been in her own family tree had Marsali’s marriage to her ancestor happened. The idea of being a cousin to the brat twisted her lips, pointed her teeth.
The ripples completely melted, and it was smooth as artificial glass now. The erstwhile companions slid closer to her new pet’s reach. To facilitate this she steadily continued to tilt the path. Her pet would feed, even if he refused to eat his former master. There were other things she could do with him for interfering.
Kirsty clung and watched as they continued to slide, trembling. She wracked her brain for something that would save them. Striking at the kraken would only enrage it. This was so unlike the fears that Aunt Belara had trained her to face back in school, and this certainly was no ship. If only there was some way to stop their sliding and possibly buy a little time to come up with a plan.
David’s firesnake would be fabulous right now, though she was also glad she wasn’t having to protect his body while sliding down obsidian. That thought triggered other thoughts in her brain, and unearthed the memory of a prank someone had pulled in her common room that had been connected with a snake and sent a few students quite literally up a wall. Kirsty grasped for the charm out of the hazy memory, hoping that she remembered the word right and focusing more intently on the intent itself to make sure it was more likely to work.
“Triptogradore,” she growled, pressing her hands more firmly against the giant black dog between her legs. Her trembling increased. What if she got it wrong and merely rooted them to the spot? She herself had never done this spell before.
Her stomach twisted. The steady slide ceased. Her stomach tried to heave and she swallowed it down. The Hound’s ears flicked forward as his mouth dropped open. Half a heartbeat passed and the Hound’s feet began stepping up the near vertical incline as quickly as their combined weight would allow soon huffing deep in his chest. It wasn’t fast as they all would have liked, but it was progress.
Raechel roared, a call more fitting coming from the vocal cords of an enraged bull selkie than of a cow like herself, but she didn’t care. The kraken picked up a large rock then flung it toward them in the same moment. Raechel’s call should have knocked them off of the wall, but whatever spell the brat had used kept them stuck fast and they continued upward.
Kirsty saw the rock coming. Larger than others they had deflected before she did not think that even combined she and Lilitu would have enough strength left to deflect it far enough. If she estimated her maths correctly though, perhaps she could have a chance to let the others get away if she landed and sent a bolt downward? What would happen if she failed though? Yet, if she didn’t they were all going to get flattened.
Her eyes narrowed. She’d think about what came after if she had an after to think from. She shoved the Black Gate into Lilitu’s hands. If she ended up in the water instead this was an item she did NOT want Raechel to have access to. “Keep this safe. I need it later.” Kirsty was only aware of the first sentence she said, flinging herself out to the rock and willing herself to fly that shortening distance to the rock without the help of a broom. “I’m sorry. I love you,” she inwardly apologized to her parents, to David, Thomas, and Ally. Vibrations shook the invisible tethers between them all, she either a fly caught in life’s web or a spider scurrying along the threads.
Her spine flailed as she snaked through the air. Fur sprouted and stood on end, some of it projectile shedding and miraculously ending up in the kraken’s eyes and inhaled by the crazed fallen priestess. Legs sprawled and tried to swim, claws extended in her terror. Kirsty yowled her challenge and her fear-fueled battle cry right back at Raechel, even though the tiny cat form did not hold the same magic that she knew her selkie form did and would.
Unknown by the participants in the tapestry, hands beyond their layer of reality worked warp and weft. Intent on setting this pattern before their mirrors returned to unravel it they followed the warring destinies and zoomed shuttles after the lines of silver they saw. Pleasure thrilled through the owners of the hands as the monotony was broken for them by this little play of mortal life. Other eyes watched through time and space, and other hands began to reach out. The Weavers took into account the reaching of their old friend. They hand an Understanding with hir. Shi too had hir entertainments, and they always made the pattern more interesting, even if a bit more chaotic than first Seen.
Kirsty did not feel as her determination bore her further than it ordinarily would have. Her paws contacted the rock and she channeled every bit of energy she had left in her to send the rock downward, to fall short of the target. The rock rolled and her world rolled with it. She yowled again and cast her gaze about, looking for some ledge to attempt. Not for the first time she wished her land transformation could have been an owl.
“There!” and she leapt as best as she could for the spotted ledge. It was narrow, but the closest thing she could see. Maybe should would be able to find another ledge before it got smoothed out, unless she could manage to pull in enough to work the sticking spell on herself too.
Her feet landed and she immediately crouched, looking for another ledge. The ledge moved faster than she was ready for, sending her head into the wall as something struck her from behind. Her world reeled as something else grabbed her, and she found herself falling through the wall. What little was in her stomach still emptied itself as she transited, getting lost in Between.
A large hand. Being slammed roughly onto her back and forced back to her other form. Galaxies blazing into her eyes and taking her to the edge of madness, but only teetering at the edge, as if it was time to dance beneath the moon and shi would no longer be escaped to keep watch over a ball of fur. Screeches and bellows that were not her own and a sickening crack in another part of the in Between. The voices of the sea and moon. Then silence.
With a jolt she sat up, caught sight of several people and a chamber. Her eyes locked with those of Ven’thrith and she felt the squeeze of his hand on her shoulder lessen. The galaxies stopped their insane whirl and gentled into full moons.
Kirsty heaved a sigh of relief. She wasn’t dead. Guilt immediately consumed her. “Raechel? Where is she? Lilitu? That black Hound?”
“She will be dealt with.” A cool voice touched her ears.
Ven’thrith swelled like a storm over Mara’s waters. Kirsty could only nod as he sent her back under a cloud of real sleep.
As fast as he ran, as far as he ran, the great black dog never seemed to get beyond a certain point no matter how the scenery around them changed. All the while the water continued to rise behind them, and Salena’s skin roared a warning, the body the skin belonged to most likely collapsing unconscious wherever she was at the time with a cry if he remembered how some skins worked. Their heads all swiveled to look behind to see what she warned of.
The halls they had run through were no more. Behind was only a wide ragged cavern gaping as hungrily as if Cthulhu himself had awoken and risen from his dreaming slumber to claim their reality. Within this abyss swam the Kraken called Leviathan, phosphorescent green and reaching for them, screeing unearthly calls from his beak as he attempted to sing the song of all sea hags. Riding this creature was Raechel, Mara’s Spear strapped to her back since it would do nothing against Kirsten no matter how she bade it to. Taranis could only be glad it was not the actual Leviathan called Leviathan, as it would have probably found a way to batter the ground into breaking until it reached them. Sea creatures were not his forte. Especially ones that had green fire in their eyes like the Dark Priestess.
Why wasn’t the little priestess’s prior purifications taking hold as long as they should?
Raechel smirked, well seated on the kraken and tethered firmly within the energetic throne of the temple. Did every temple feel this way once the secret was activated and accessed? It laid itself more bare and trembling to her touch than Bethrise once had, eager to give her anything. She reveled in this feeling and the sensation of the Taint seeping from within her and into it. The girl clung to the back of the black beast, her human protector behind and attempting to shield her from view.
Playtime with the filthy land creatures was over.
Raechel envisioned the path they trod becoming steeper, rising beneath them. It became so. The granite and basalt gave way and smoothed to obsidian. Dark, cool, smooth as the mirrors that she could feel one by one turning their views toward her as she controlled this piece of reality. She ignored all of the eyes whether of deity or mortal. Let them witness her new birth. Crystal would have been another excellent choice, but too pure and far too open in both time and number of magical implements linked to it. It wouldn’t do to have too many openings to divert the force she wielded, not yet. Ice would have given the little child too much room to possibly worm out of her grasp. No, she herself was the most like Mara and it would be she, Raechel of the Tolltachonn lineage that claimed this place. Not some human-blooded filth. Especially from a branch of the Marainion that would have been in her own family tree had Marsali’s marriage to her ancestor happened. The idea of being a cousin to the brat twisted her lips, pointed her teeth.
The ripples completely melted, and it was smooth as artificial glass now. The erstwhile companions slid closer to her new pet’s reach. To facilitate this she steadily continued to tilt the path. Her pet would feed, even if he refused to eat his former master. There were other things she could do with him for interfering.
Kirsty clung and watched as they continued to slide, trembling. She wracked her brain for something that would save them. Striking at the kraken would only enrage it. This was so unlike the fears that Aunt Belara had trained her to face back in school, and this certainly was no ship. If only there was some way to stop their sliding and possibly buy a little time to come up with a plan.
David’s firesnake would be fabulous right now, though she was also glad she wasn’t having to protect his body while sliding down obsidian. That thought triggered other thoughts in her brain, and unearthed the memory of a prank someone had pulled in her common room that had been connected with a snake and sent a few students quite literally up a wall. Kirsty grasped for the charm out of the hazy memory, hoping that she remembered the word right and focusing more intently on the intent itself to make sure it was more likely to work.
“Triptogradore,” she growled, pressing her hands more firmly against the giant black dog between her legs. Her trembling increased. What if she got it wrong and merely rooted them to the spot? She herself had never done this spell before.
Her stomach twisted. The steady slide ceased. Her stomach tried to heave and she swallowed it down. The Hound’s ears flicked forward as his mouth dropped open. Half a heartbeat passed and the Hound’s feet began stepping up the near vertical incline as quickly as their combined weight would allow soon huffing deep in his chest. It wasn’t fast as they all would have liked, but it was progress.
Raechel roared, a call more fitting coming from the vocal cords of an enraged bull selkie than of a cow like herself, but she didn’t care. The kraken picked up a large rock then flung it toward them in the same moment. Raechel’s call should have knocked them off of the wall, but whatever spell the brat had used kept them stuck fast and they continued upward.
Kirsty saw the rock coming. Larger than others they had deflected before she did not think that even combined she and Lilitu would have enough strength left to deflect it far enough. If she estimated her maths correctly though, perhaps she could have a chance to let the others get away if she landed and sent a bolt downward? What would happen if she failed though? Yet, if she didn’t they were all going to get flattened.
Her eyes narrowed. She’d think about what came after if she had an after to think from. She shoved the Black Gate into Lilitu’s hands. If she ended up in the water instead this was an item she did NOT want Raechel to have access to. “Keep this safe. I need it later.” Kirsty was only aware of the first sentence she said, flinging herself out to the rock and willing herself to fly that shortening distance to the rock without the help of a broom. “I’m sorry. I love you,” she inwardly apologized to her parents, to David, Thomas, and Ally. Vibrations shook the invisible tethers between them all, she either a fly caught in life’s web or a spider scurrying along the threads.
Her spine flailed as she snaked through the air. Fur sprouted and stood on end, some of it projectile shedding and miraculously ending up in the kraken’s eyes and inhaled by the crazed fallen priestess. Legs sprawled and tried to swim, claws extended in her terror. Kirsty yowled her challenge and her fear-fueled battle cry right back at Raechel, even though the tiny cat form did not hold the same magic that she knew her selkie form did and would.
Unknown by the participants in the tapestry, hands beyond their layer of reality worked warp and weft. Intent on setting this pattern before their mirrors returned to unravel it they followed the warring destinies and zoomed shuttles after the lines of silver they saw. Pleasure thrilled through the owners of the hands as the monotony was broken for them by this little play of mortal life. Other eyes watched through time and space, and other hands began to reach out. The Weavers took into account the reaching of their old friend. They hand an Understanding with hir. Shi too had hir entertainments, and they always made the pattern more interesting, even if a bit more chaotic than first Seen.
Kirsty did not feel as her determination bore her further than it ordinarily would have. Her paws contacted the rock and she channeled every bit of energy she had left in her to send the rock downward, to fall short of the target. The rock rolled and her world rolled with it. She yowled again and cast her gaze about, looking for some ledge to attempt. Not for the first time she wished her land transformation could have been an owl.
“There!” and she leapt as best as she could for the spotted ledge. It was narrow, but the closest thing she could see. Maybe should would be able to find another ledge before it got smoothed out, unless she could manage to pull in enough to work the sticking spell on herself too.
Her feet landed and she immediately crouched, looking for another ledge. The ledge moved faster than she was ready for, sending her head into the wall as something struck her from behind. Her world reeled as something else grabbed her, and she found herself falling through the wall. What little was in her stomach still emptied itself as she transited, getting lost in Between.
A large hand. Being slammed roughly onto her back and forced back to her other form. Galaxies blazing into her eyes and taking her to the edge of madness, but only teetering at the edge, as if it was time to dance beneath the moon and shi would no longer be escaped to keep watch over a ball of fur. Screeches and bellows that were not her own and a sickening crack in another part of the in Between. The voices of the sea and moon. Then silence.
With a jolt she sat up, caught sight of several people and a chamber. Her eyes locked with those of Ven’thrith and she felt the squeeze of his hand on her shoulder lessen. The galaxies stopped their insane whirl and gentled into full moons.
Kirsty heaved a sigh of relief. She wasn’t dead. Guilt immediately consumed her. “Raechel? Where is she? Lilitu? That black Hound?”
“She will be dealt with.” A cool voice touched her ears.
Ven’thrith swelled like a storm over Mara’s waters. Kirsty could only nod as he sent her back under a cloud of real sleep.
Previous Contents Next
Live Journal
Dreamwidth
Copyright 2012-2015 and onward by Teresa Garcia
The ebook's official release for Book One (Castle and Well) was March 16th on Smashwords, and is currently also on Amazon and Barnes & Noble. The print edition is available in paperback on Amazon, and hardback on Lulu with Samantha Buckley's stunning cover depicting Kirsty and the storm. An audio edition of the first book in the series narrated by Illya Leonov and now available on Amazon, iTunes, and Audible, with other venues pending. (click to hear what he sounds like in past recordings of other projects)
Got a question? Ask it and maybe the answer will be revealed in the story, or in a comment on the extras page if not part of the story itself. Spy a typo? Website code broken? Would you like the episodes to be longer or shorter? Please let me know!
Installment Uploaded here: July 26, 2017
Uploaded to Dreamwidth: July 26, 2017
Patreon: July 15, 2017
Book Two's Landing
(manuscript in progress, be watching for installments)
Live Journal
Dreamwidth
Copyright 2012-2015 and onward by Teresa Garcia
The ebook's official release for Book One (Castle and Well) was March 16th on Smashwords, and is currently also on Amazon and Barnes & Noble. The print edition is available in paperback on Amazon, and hardback on Lulu with Samantha Buckley's stunning cover depicting Kirsty and the storm. An audio edition of the first book in the series narrated by Illya Leonov and now available on Amazon, iTunes, and Audible, with other venues pending. (click to hear what he sounds like in past recordings of other projects)
Got a question? Ask it and maybe the answer will be revealed in the story, or in a comment on the extras page if not part of the story itself. Spy a typo? Website code broken? Would you like the episodes to be longer or shorter? Please let me know!
Installment Uploaded here: July 26, 2017
Uploaded to Dreamwidth: July 26, 2017
Patreon: July 15, 2017
Book Two's Landing
(manuscript in progress, be watching for installments)
If you'd like to have another episode in the update schedule, feel free to use the Paypal button below or the Patreon button. Alternatively you can buy an ebook, print book, or audiobook from me through Amazon, B&N, or Smashwords. Basic schedule will be biweekly release.
As of this writing I am working on Chapter 8 for Book Two.
As of this writing I am working on Chapter 8 for Book Two.
