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To Dream of Darkness

A story by DoggyStyle57

Chapter 7, Written December 2011

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Chapter 7 - A brush with death

For the next year, Dark Wind studied the contents of the third chest, learning many new, advanced spells. Her improved understanding of the spells and her growing experience allowed her, by the end of the year, to teleport herself a mile or more to a location she was familiar with, or to teleport a small group of others a similar distance. She found she could send as many as four people or animals away at once, without excessively tiring herself. One of her more effective attacks now was to teleport her victim to a position half a mile or more high in the air, so they would fall and be injured. Not only was the sudden fall from so great a height often fatal, but it was very demoralizing to her attackers when they saw their comrades vanish into thin air! The only problem was that she needed to be stationary to cast the teleport spell. It couldn't be cast while the caster was moving about.

For the entire year, she avoided intentionally confronting the villagers or the mercenaries. If they hunted her, which they did every month or two, she would fight back, killing them if necessary. But she tried to plant the idea in their dreams that if they did nothing to anger the forest demon, if they tried to appease it, that it would leave them alone. She had still not forgiven them. But she was not ready to fight her final battle with them.

===

As winter came again, she began to worry about coming into heat again. Thankfully, her wolf form only came into heat once per year, in December or January, and lasted only a week or two. She was nearly thirteen now, as best she could mark the passing of time. She had given up on keeping a calendar, and instead merely marked the passing of each year by the coming of the winter snows, and counted herself a year older when the first snows fell.

The pack alpha wolf, Grey Shadow, came to her one night outside her cave, saying, "Perhaps it would not be a bad thing for you to mate this year, Dark Wind. You hardly seem to age at all, young pup. You have your father's long life, as well as magic that none of us have. You will most certainly outlive every member of our pack. If you had a strong mate, you could take the alpha role, and lead this pack, for generations to come. My mate, Moonlight, is getting weaker. She may not survive this winter. I may live a few seasons more, but then I too shall pass. If you were to accept me as your mate after Moonlight passes, you could take the alpha bitch role without a fight, and then have your pick of mates when I am gone. The pack knows how special you are. They would accept you... were it not for one thing."

"I am honored, my old friend. But my answer, even to you, is still that I want no mate. Among my mother's and father's people, a female would not seek to have babies until she was at least four or five seasons older than I am now. And besides that, I know why the pack would hesitate to accept me as alpha. You, and the rest of the pack, do not approve of my battle with the men of the village, do you?" Dark Wind replied.

"It is that, yes. We do not kill what we do not need to survive. We do not need to attack man, or their penned animals, when game is plentiful in these forests. Your father taught us the wisdom of avoiding man's farms. When man does not see us attacking his animals or his people, he does not attack us," Grey Shadow said. "But you... you taunt them, and steal from them, and kill their men. Do you not see? They killed your parents, and a number of your dogs. But they lost more lives just by attacking you and your parents than your family lost that night. How many of them have you killed since then? How many will be enough for you?"

"I do not count the dead. But many still live who agreed with killing my family, and who wanted to kill me. Roughly thirty of them still live - more than all the wolves in our pack. And worst of those is the priest that ordered our deaths. I can not rest until that priest is dead, and the others who supported his order that my family must die," Dark Wind said. "I am sorry, Grey Shadow, but I cannot cease my war with men. I do not want to lead your pack. I want to see the deaths of those who killed my family, or who ordered their deaths. Nothing else matters to me."

"That saddens me. I will not order you to cease, for I know that I cannot force you to do it, and if I give that order, and you defy me, then we will have to fight for dominance. I will suggest to the younger males that they wait before asking you to mate again. A few may still make the claim, but you should have no trouble defying them, as you did last season. I just hope that your tenacity does not bring the men to hunt the whole pack," the lead wolf said, as he turned and walked away from her.

===

Dark Wind returned to her studies. She had found a particularly promising oneromantic spell in the third chest, one that affected many people at once. But it required the caster to be in the midst of the nightmare-inducing fog, and actively touching the minds of those they attacked. To prevent the caster from going mad themselves, a potion was required to render the caster immune to the spell's effects.

She checked her supplies, and it appeared that only one ingredient was missing from what she would need for the protective potion. Her father's herbals identified it as an herb that commonly was used in medicines, but it was not something that grew at this time of year. The only place she could think of where that herb might be found was in the apothecary supplies of the village priest, who served as their healer. She thought it was ironic that the one thing she needed to destroy her enemies was something she could steal from the priest.

Dark Wind wasted no time. She crept into the village, and disguised herself as one of the orphan children that tended the church gardens, in return for charity and shelter at the church. That got her through the village and the outer grounds of the church. Slipping into the church offices, she altered her appearance to look like the priest, and slipped on one of his spare robes. She hoped to get the priest's assistant to unlock the apothecary room, as she had fooled him once before to steal money and documents. But the priest had posed an armed mercenary at the door, and there was no sign of the assistant. Dark Wind turned to go, and bumped face-first into the real priest!

"Oh, excuse me, I... Wait, WHAT? What trickery is this? Guards! Imposter! Guards!" declared the priest, as he shouted for his mercenaries.

Dark Wind knew her false appearance wouldn't be good enough to be believed while standing beside the real priest. She turned and ran, as she heard the guard ratcheting back the string on his crossbow. She needed to get out of the mercenary's line of fire before she could stop moving and teleport. She threw off the robe and threw it back at the mercenary, blocking his vision for a moment as she dove through an unglazed window, changing shape in mid leap.

She landed in her 'werewolf demon' form, hoping the much-feared look would cause others to run out of her path, as she bounded for the gates in the church walls. She leaped over a startled child in the gardens and felt an intense pain rip through the right side of her neck. A crossbow bolt had struck her right at the base of the neck, where the muscles of the shoulder met the neck. A fraction of an inch further left would have been fatal.

Screaming with pain, she raced through the gates, and stopped as soon as she was out of sight, then half a second later she teleported to safety, leaving the stunned priest and his followers to wonder if the huge demon had been destroyed at last be being pierced with the silver-tipped bolts from the mercenary's crossbow.

She landed with a hard thump in a clearing not far from her cave, and limped back to the safety of her refuge. The silver on the crossbow bolt's conical tip meant nothing to her, but the wound was bleeding badly, and the pain was unbelievable. She gathered strips of cloth and did what she could to be ready to deal with the bleeding, and then screamed as she yanked the short arrow out of the wound, thankful that the bolt had not been bladed or barbed. She tried to stop the bleeding, but she was unskilled at medicine. Too much was still seeping through the bandages.

"No. Damn it NO! It can't end like this! I must survive. I must..." Dark Wind gasped.

Using her own blood, she drew a pattern on the floor around her brazier, and the symbols needed to summon Asha, the file elemental. She had the necessary powders already prepared, though until now she had refrained from summoning the unearthly creature a second time. She performed the summoning ritual as fast as she dared, and soon Asha stood before her again.

The black fire elemental was almost four feet tall this time, and she regarded the circle around her and the state of her summoner. She smiled and said, "Well, little Mistress Dark Wind summons me again, and with her own blood this time? Going for a more frightful appearance these days, are you? You look rather the worse for wear, Mistress. What do you require of me?"

"I... demand your service. I am injured, and I can't... stop the bleeding. Can you heal me? Or teach me how... to heal myself quickly?" Dark Wind asked.

"Well, I could just sit here and watch you die, and then take your soul to hell, when your death releases me. But I think you're much more amusing alive, Mistress. And using your own blood as a sacrifice has gained you some measure of command over me," Asha replied. "May I ask how you were injured?"

"Crossbow bolt. A church mercenary shot me, when I... was stealing from the priest," Dark Wind admitted.

"Oh really? Oh, you are entertaining, Mistress. Stealing from a priest? Can't say I object to that at all. Well, I must admit that no, I can't heal you. But I am rather certain that I can find a spell in the many books and scrolls in this cave that will keep you alive, if you'll pay the price I require," Asha said.

"Price? What price?" Dark Wind asked. "And how can I trust you?"

"It doesn't look to me like you have much choice, Mistress," Asha replied. "You look like you could easily bleed to death before you can find anyone else to aid you. Here is my offer. You intrigue me. I will offer you my service, to advise you, teach you magic, run errands for you. The usual sorts of things most mages demand of a familiar. I have served and observed some truly great mages over the centuries, and I know quite a bit about the reading and casting of spells. In exchange for my price, I will serve you faithfully for, let us say, seven years. Whatever you require, I will endeavor to do, exactly as you command it of me. If I even once fail to obey you, then you will have restored to you the price I will ask, and I will be banished back to Hell for 100 years. I will never be able to harm you, in any meaningful way. Do we have a deal?"

"Not without knowing the price. You're from Hell? What do you want? My soul?" Dark Wind asked.

"Most creatures on this plane of reality call the realm where I dwell Hell, yes. But it's not what the church would have you believe. What would I do with your soul? I'm not powerful enough to have a use for souls. But it does need to be something of value," Asha replied. Her eyes glowed extra bright, as she reached out to touch Dark Wind's surface thoughts. "Why, that's just the thing! You don't even want it, but it is something many creatures would contract with hell to get. Your fertility. Give me that, and I will serve you for seven years, as faithfully as it is possible for me to do. All you lose is the annoying ability to have children. And you don't even want children! "

"All right. You take my fertility, and... you're bound to serve me loyally for seven years. We... have a deal," Dark Wind said. Then she felt a wrenching sensation in her stomach, like a severe menstrual cramp.

"Then it is done, Mistress. And as proof that I am now unable to harm you, I will show you that the restraining diagram on the floor can no longer hold me. I'm bound to you by stronger ties, Mistress, and as you have commanded my aid, that command from you is stronger than this binding circle. See?" Asha said, and as she stepped over the lines, and the light in the room became normal again.

Asha herself now looked like a teenaged humanoid vixen, with black and dark grey fur, and jet black, glossy hair. Her eyes were a solid glossy black, and where the pupils should have been a green flame danced merrily. She was now just a couple of inches shorter than Dark Wind. "How is this?" she asked, turning in place. "I can change to any shape that you can, Mistress. That ability comes from being bound to you. Now, this may hurt a moment, but it is necessary, to buy us some time."

The fire elemental reached out and touched the wound on either side of Dark Wind's neck. There was a moment of intense pain as the touch cauterized the wound. Dark Wind screamed, but stayed in place.

"A thousand apologies, Mistress, but that really was necessary. And it is the closest I can do to healing you myself. Now, to work!" Asha said, as she opened the fourth chest and started examining the most forbidden books and scrolls.

"Wait... Those are dangerous" Dark Wind started to say.

"They are what you need, Mistress. You can't get squeamish now. How long have you been studying the other three chests full of spells? Don't you think that if what you need was in them, you would remember something at least vaguely useful?" Asha asked, shaking her head ruefully. "Really... These tomes are harmless, if you know what traps and pitfalls to watch out for, and what double and triple meanings the spells hold. And I do know those things. Do you want to survive or not, Mistress?"

"I... want to survive. I must," Dark Wind replied. "Just teach me... what I need to get healed quickly."

"As you command, so shall I do, Mistress!" Asha replied. She very quickly examined and set aside a dozen or more volumes, and then held one up, smiling, and said, "Just the thing! I knew I sensed something like this in the area. This book has spells that affect the living body in various ways. Most are attacks, but there's bound to be some that aid the caster." She flipped through it, speaking to herself as she went. "Let's see what we have here... 'Spell to make the victim's wounds rot'... 'Spell to steal life force and reverse aging for the caster'... Useful, but not what you need right now... Ah! Here it is... 'Spell to remove wounds from the caster'. This spell will completely remove a chosen wound or infection. Sends it right out of the body. Works very fast, too. It was devised as a combat spell, in the days of... oh, never mind. This is what you want, Mistress, I assure you. Let's see... the fastest way is... Yes, right here. Just touch the wound, and recite the third through seventh lines of this incantation. The rest isn't absolutely necessary. It's just those lines that will actually remove the wound. The other lines are only needed in a combat situation, and only work when you can see the one who wounded you, or know their name. Say the words, Mistress. Or even just read what is there, so you say them in your mind. It need not be done aloud, as long as you get the words right."

"How is that word pronounced? And this one, there?" Dark Wind asked.

Asha said those words, and Dark Wind repeated them carefully. Then Dark Wind touched her wound and recited the lines that the elemental had indicated.

The effect was amazing. The pain vanished as if it had never been there, and the bleeding hole in her neck was completely gone! The only trace of the injury was that the fur on each wound point remained burned where the elemental had touched her, and her fur was still matted with her own blood.

"Well, not bad at all. The cauterizing wasn't part of the original injury, so the spell didn't affect that wound. But that fur should grow back soon. Or you could cast it again to remove the burns as well," Asha said.

"Later. Right now I need sleep," Dark Wind said. "I... command you to protect me."

"Of course, Mistress," Asha replied. The elemental sat down with the spell book and examined the spell they had just cast, as her Mistress slept.