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To Dream of Darkness

A story by DoggyStyle57

Chapter 31, Written January 2012

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Chapter 31 - Obligations

Sarina was angry. She was angry at herself for being so incautious, and angry at these thugs that had caused her pain. She waved her hand, and the corpses of her victims fell into five heaps in a rough circle in the alley. Blood flowed from their remains, and ran in rivulets that moved unnaturally across the mud, until trails of blood formed the invocation and control circle for summoning Asha. Sarina raised her hands, and all five corpses burned to ashes, as she invoked the summoning ritual.

When Sarina completed the ritual, Asha stood in the circle, as a column of night-black fire that had the vague outlines of a female person. The elemental's fiery green eyes looked at the circle drawn in fresh blood, the smoldering, incinerated remains of five bodies, and finally at the one who had summoned her. And then she smiled, and her grin looked like a green crescent in the inky black flames of her face.

"So, you are the one who summoned me? You have changed. But I still know you. My kind can never fail to recognize the soul of those to whom we have once been bound. How should I address you, Mistress? Or is it Master, now?" Asha asked. "And what is it that you require of me?"

Sarina looked at the file elemental, Asha. The creature looked stronger, more powerful than when they had parted company. But she sensed no hostility toward herself. "Mistress will suffice, for addressing me. Sarina, still, if you wish to use a name, though I am not sure how much longer that identity will last. This male form is but a convenience of the moment, who has been known here as Peter Jameson. What I require from you is information, and advice. What is your price for serving me again, for a period of several years?" Sarina asked.

"I would say you've already paid a sufficient price for me to serve you again as your familiar, if that is what you want from me. You just sent five souls straight to hell, and used their bodies and the still-warm blood of your victims to summon me. That made them each a live sacrifice to power your sorcery, and bound their souls to me in Hell, to do with as I please. I still have little use for souls myself, but I can trade them to others in my realm for my own benefit," Asha replied. "Your sacrifice of five lives has bought you ten years of my service, if it pleases you, Mistress Sarina."

"Very well then. I accept your service as my familiar for ten more years, paid for with the blood and souls of those five unfortunate wretches," Sarina said.

Asha resumed her black furred vixen form, and after a moment's hesitation, clothed herself in the Chinese fashion, for a girl of no particular rank. "Done, then. I shall serve you as before, to the best of my ability, for ten years from this date. How may I advise you, Mistress?" she asked as she crossed the now unnecessary summoning circle to stand by the side of the apparent canine male that had summoned her.

"We are in Shanghai, China. I want to travel half-a world away from here. It is my desire to swiftly and safely return to the Pennington's mansion, in England, to deal with certain obligations, and later return to this place. I don't think I have quite enough experience and power to make a portal from here to there in a single step. Nor do I know enough safe places along the way to make a staged journey with several portals. Is there another way? Is there a better way? Can a portal be made from this ream to another realm entirely, and back again to a very distant location in this one, without losing my place in the river of time, or coming out in a slightly different world than this one?" Sarina asked.

"That you thought that through shows you have learned a great deal, Mistress. Your caution is justified. I do indeed know a way that you can make that journey in two stages, and come out again in this exact world, at the exact same time as when you left," Asha replied.

"And will you tell me how this is done?" Sarina asked.

"You can go to Hell, Mistress," the elemental replied.

"What? How dare you speak to me in that manner, after agreeing to serve me!" Sarina growled.

"What manner is that, Mistress? I told you how it could be done, quite precisely. You can do it by going to Hell, first. Make a portal, and use it to travel to hell. Once you are in hell, you could make a portal from there to anywhere in this world, and use it to come out at the precise instant that you left," Asha insisted.

"Just as simple as that, is it? My soul is damned many times over for the murders that I have committed, and the forbidden magic that I have used. If I end up in Hell, do you really think I could leave there?" Sarina asked. "And how can you be so certain that I could return precisely to the same time and realm?"

"I did not say it would be terribly easy, Mistress. I said I know how you can do it," Asha replied. "Have you ever wondered why so many religions assert that damnation in Hell is for eternity? The region you call Hell has some very unique properties. It touches many possible realities at once, at virtually every place in the river of time. But when any individual crosses from a realm into Hell, if they ever make it back out again, they return to the precise moment in time and to the precise realm that they left when they entered Hell, no matter how much time has passed for them in Hell."

"So you're saying that if I do go to Hell, that it is inevitable that returning from Hell will put me back in this time, in this reality, though possibly at a different location?" Sarina asked. "Does the converse hold true, for those of your realm brought to other realms to serve a mage? Do you return to the time when you left?"

"Yes, it does," Asha replied. "For example, when you summoned me from Hell to serve as your familiar, and I served you for seven years, I traveled with you between the realms to this world, hundreds of years further down the river of time. Yet when I returned to Hell, no time had passed there as far as any of my kind would have reckoned. You summoned me now, and what you contacted was an instance of me that has experienced 500 more years of existence than when we last met. I have served many Masters and Mistresses since our last parting, and my power has increased greatly."

"I thought you seemed stronger. Are your kind immortal? 500 years is a long time, for my species." Sarina replied.

"We live much longer than those of other realms, but after tens of thousands of your years we still perish, and at any time we can be killed, if the necessary circumstances are met. I am still young among my kind," Asha replied.

"Tell, me, how could I ensure that I can enter Hell and leave again? How can I prevent my damned soul from being trapped there for eternity, once there?" Sarina asked.

"By making certain that your soul is not quite present in Hell as you pass through it, Mistress," Asha replied. "One master that I served created a spell that allowed him to make a special magical gem. A soul could be placed in that gem - his own soul or someone else's. Placing another person's soul in the gem gave whoever possessed the gem control over that person. But placing your own soul in the gem protected your life force. As long as you kept the gem close, and the gem remained unharmed, your body was invulnerable to most forms of attack. He also found that having his soul in the gem allowed him to pass through Hell without being detected and trapped there. The spell did have disadvantages, of course. If someone else obtained the stone, they could control the mage, or destroy the stone, and in so doing destroy him! And if the stone was not kept on his person, he had to touch it once each moon, to restore the connection between body and soul. This also limited his control of others with such stones, as the controlled person's body must be touched by their soul gem once each moon, or perish."

Sarina looked down the alley beyond Asha, and saw that someone was peering into the darkness in their direction. She doubted that they could be seen clearly, or heard from that distance, but someone had apparently noticed the screams as her attackers died. She cast a fear spell at the observer, and he ran away."I do not like the idea of placing my soul in an object that can easily be stolen or destroyed, and which might be used to control me," Sarina replied. "Is there no other way? Hasten, as we are beginning to draw unwelcome attention here."

"I was getting to that. You told me once that your mother was a Kitsune? Can you form a star ball, as they can, with all or part of your soul manifested in it?" Asha asked.

"Yes, and my body does seem to be harder to kill if it has been manifested," Sarina replied.

"And I recall that wonderfully creative necklace that you had? Do you still have it? And what happens to living material place in it?" Asha asked.

"Plant material can be placed in the necklace, and can be restored normally, and is still fresh and usable. While in the necklace it gives no scent, and seems undetectable. But I have never put a person or a live animal in it. Why?" Sarina asked.

"Well, I believe that if you manifest your soul in a star ball, and then place that ball in a bag or chest and shrink it to attach to your necklace, it will still be close to you, but undetectable and impervious to harm. Try it. Or capture another victim from the docks, put them in a box or bag, and see if they survive being added to your necklace and restored." Asha suggested.

"I can see that might work. And how do we get to Hell?" Sarina asked.

"You have a gateway to hell right here. A summoning circle allows my kind to travel from hell to your world. It also allows your kind to travel into and out of Hell, if you remove the control elements from the diagram," Asha replied. She picked up the abandoned walking stick, and pointed to five symbols in the complex diagram. "Remove those symbols, and my name, and if we both step into the circle, we will appear in Hell, and the circle with us, at the same point where I left Hell when you summoned me. That circle will vanish from this world. Once in Hell, we step out of the circle, redirect it, and step back in, to go where you wish in this realm. But we need to step into it quickly, once the symbols are removed. Until we do, anyone or anything can use the portal, from either side, without those controls."

Angry voices at the far end of the alley drew Sarina's attention. She saw a few people furtively peeking around the corners of the building and into the alley. Then she saw one person boldly stand at the alley entrance, and invoke a sphere of light in his hand.

Sarina countered with a light-absorbing cloud of darkness halfway between them, and said, "We have no more time. A mage is investigating the disturbance here. We will risk it, while this portal still has power." She gestured and the name and symbols vanished from the diagram. The remaining lines and symbols ignited into thin lines of flame.

"That did it," Asha said. "Prepare your star ball, Mistress."

Sarina resumed her vixen form, and concentrated, holding her hands cupped at her breasts. A blue-white pearl-like sphere of light formed between her hands. She placed this on a pouch from her belt, paused just a moment, and invoked the spell to shrink the pouch and connect it to her necklace.

Asha watched, and then said, "You seem to have suffered no harm from that, but I can no longer sense your soul. Let us go then. I would recommend that we not leave your star ball in that state any longer than we have to."

"Agreed. I feel - strange. But I think I am all right. Let us go then," Sarina said.

Together, they stepped into the circle. The flames at the diagram's edge rose into a circular curtain of fire, and everything within that circle vanished.

Several minutes later, the mage in the alley mouth dispelled the darkness cloud, and hesitantly investigated what was in the alley. He found only five mounds of ash, containing a few small fragments of burned bones. To his mage's senses, the area stank of dark sorcery. But he could tell no more of what had happened there. The type of spell Sarina had cast to summon Asha, and to go to Hell, was outside the mage's understanding.

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The circular wall of flames fell, and the lines of blood in the portal diagram ceased burning. Sarina and Asha found themselves on a barren plain, under an inky black sky that showed not a single star, but which flared everywhere with sinuous trails of shimmering, multicolored light that cast a soft glow much like moonlight. The horizon seemed to curve unnaturally. In stark contrast to the sky, the ground was covered with a white crystalline powder that glittered slightly, like freshly fallen powder snow, without a trace of a footstep or any other mark disturbing its pristine glory. The blackened magical diagram surrounding them was the only trace of life to be seen.

"It's actually rather beautiful," Sarina said. "Not at all what I expected."

"Welcome to Hell, or at least the corner of it that I prefer to dwell in. I told you it isn't quite what the Church would have you believe. There are other areas that you might find quite unpleasant, with acid pools and noxious gasses, or seething with tiny creatures too numerous to count, that crawl all over you, and constantly try to get into the slightest opening or gaps. Not like this place at all. Now, we need to step out of the circle, so we can re-focus it on your desired destination. The portal can't be re-used while we stand in it, not even to go right back where we came from," Asha said, as she stepped outside the circle.

Sarina stepped forward, saying, "All right, show me what to... aughk!" She clutched at her throat, gasping for breath, and fell back into the circle, panting and shivering. "What? S-so c-c-cold! C-couldn't... b-breathe..." she gasped.

Asha looked at Sarina curiously, quite unaffected by the bitter cold that had numbed Sarina's skin. "Oh, that's right. Your kind needs air to breathe, don't they? There isn't any, in this part of Hell, and it is also extremely cold here, by your standards. I honestly had quite forgotten about that," Asha said apologetically.