The Raiselig Dossier: Demon's Eye
Hate.
It was like a sauna inside her skull.
Pressure. Hissing through leaks and cracks in the skin. Moist air flecked with sparks and flashes of venom and bile. Aversion. Desire. Inflamed. Hate.
Years passed.
Only once a year did she open her single eye, to gaze upon the black stalagmites and stalactites that were her prison. Her home.
For centuries she saw nothing, and so for centuries she went hungry.
Ice filled her heartless veins, and hunger gnawed with a fiercer mien than even her loathing could compare. Yet she knew that this suffering was a fair price.
Then she would look to her side, seeing where she had shed her skin in her blind sleep. Dust and brass lay about her, the walls of her cavern worn almost smooth with her thrashings.
Then, her eye would close once more. In her dreams she counted the days, the years, the decades. Soon, she would think. Soon I shall transcend.
When at last the final day arrived, her heart spared a spot free of hate, to be filled with delight. It was time!
Slowly she opened her eye.
A night-skinned man stood before her.
Her tongue flickered, tasting the air. No, not a man, a woman. The smell of woman was thick in the air.
Her ears pricked up. No, neither man nor woman. She could hear the figure’s heart beating, the soft breathing and the air flowing across the being’s skin. Beside them, a cabinet of yellowwood, ornate and covered in silver and gold. Holy markings of occult power covered its sides. Relief carvings of foliage climbed up and down the thick front.
The figure stared back, eyes glowing blue.
Her lips pulled back, revealing a grin of a thousand iron teeth. The rituals had been followed. The contract maintained. A signature now, an investiture, and she would be finally free.
The cavern was full of hot mist and steam. From deep in the darkness, the sound of something boiling echoed through the air.
In her glee, she couldn’t help but play. “By the rite of Saint George,” she hissed, “This day is my feast day. I have caught you in my gaze, and thus you are to be my meal. Crawl into my mouth, morsel, that I might crunch your bones and suck the blood from your veins.”
The figure didn’t move. “No.”
Even in her delighted mood, she thought it strange to hear such a blunt denial. “No? But it was the rite of Saint George that blinded me but on my feast-day. So it is written, that on one day of every year I open my eye and may devour all that I see.”
“I’m afraid not,” their voice was calm.
She closed her lips, disappointed in the stoic manner of her guest. “I see you are not in the mood for humor. Very well. Who may I say has the honor of addressing me?”
The figure moved only slightly. “You may address me as the Honorable Raiselig, Scrivener and keeper of the Law.”
She closed her lips. “Vile Scrivener. It was you and your kind who bound me by the rite, your foul contracts and boundless rules.”
“These are the same contracts and rules that allow you to exist, ersahj.”
At hearing the name, she rolled on her back and laughed. “Yes, call me ersahj, as I was once a lowly snake. Now I shall soon transform once again. Of course you have come to certify my transcendence into goddess of thunder and storms! Shall you be the first to call me Kulshedra? To prostrate yourself and beg for my mercy?”
The Scrivener scratched their pitch-black nose. “I’m afraid such worship is not in my jurisdiction. Nor my nature.”
“Ah,” the ersahj shifted her coils. Beneath her skin she was beginning to itch. “Then come, Scrivener, I have completed my trials and fulfilled the rites and rituals due. For a century I have lain beneath the earth in a pit of foul sulfur. I have been seen by no mortal being, and am ready to fulfill my destiny. Grant me my metamorphosis, my soft flesh and leather wings. My corrosive venom and my iron claws. Oh! Such a beautiful divinity I shall be!” At the thought of her majesty, the dark clouds and thunderous flashes of light, she could not help but smile once more in the darkness.
Raiselig coughed. “That is not why I am here.”
The ersahj’s smile vanished. “What? Speak again, and louder, Scrivener, that I might hear exactly what you say with no misunderstanding.”
From their jacket pocket, Raiselig produced a pair of tiny spectacles which slipped over their ears. Then, a small parchment followed which was unfolded and held before their eyes. They cleared their throat and spoke again.
“Two weeks ago, a delegation of shamans, priests, sages, and holy-folk met at the circle of the Edi. There, they brought with them a sacrifice of black blood, an offering of burning smoke, and a bundle of dead wood. Together they spoke the holy quatron, and danced the prayer of the undying. With their heads anointed of blessed water and oil, with their heads shaven and their clothing burned, they performed the binding suitably and successfully. You shall not become kulshedra.”
For aching moments, the ersahj did not speak nor move. She stared at the black Scrivener, and felt the hate within her build.
At long last, she spoke again. “You dare?”
Raiselig coughed once more, folding the paper and replacing their spectacles into their jacket pocket. “I dare nothing —”
She did not let him finish, but shrieked into the black cavern, thrashing about as her skin cracked and broke against the smooth stone. “You dare! You vile wretch! Base worm! Ugly witch! I shall devour you piece by piece and your screams shall be my salt!”
Forward she lunged, her sharp teeth ready to rip and tear the flesh from the placid thing that stood before her. Mortal or no, she would taste its blood.
The Scrivener stood, calmly, and made no move.
When at last she knew the truth of it, that she could no more harm Raiselig than eat the sun, the ersahj collapsed to the ground, the rage within her no less hot for its brewing. “What is my recourse,” she asked at last. “How did they bind me? How did they know?”
“I do not know the details,” Raiselig admitted. All I know is they performed the binding well. As for how they knew, I’m led to believe there was an oracle who promised a great evil arising to bring plague and destruction to the land. Those who believed her united to bind the demon for a thousand years."
A thousand years. Her hate burned afresh. “Fetid vermin! I shall slake my vengeance on their souls! A thousand years! They shall rue the day they thought to trap me in their petty hedge-magics!”
“As to your first question,” Raiselig said once she had calmed again, “I see very little recourse to be had. The ritual was quite sound, and had effective legal precedent.”
“No,” she spat, and the stone hissed where it fell. “There is always a loophole. I know the web of the law as well as you do, Scrivener, and no band of mortal lawyers could possibly hope to cover all the strands.”
“Well,” Raiselig let the comment on their knowledge of the law slide, “ordinarily you’d be right, but it seems each of the holy-folk knew something of linchpins. Rather than construct a new contract, they cited and drew from several major established precedents from centuries ago. I admit to being impressed.”
From deep in the ersahj’s chest, a rumbling grew louder. “I care nothing for your professional admiration. Black blood, you say? An offering made at the circle of the Edi? I dispute the claim. I say the blood was not black.”
Raiselig pinched their nose. “I was there. I citified the ritual. I promise you the blood was black.”
“Black enough?” the ersahj slid her head forward, sensing a weak spot, a loophole, somewhere. If only she could find it… “Dark red is not black. Dark green is not black. Did no light leave the inky surface? Did no shining light spray a spread of color across your eyes, Scrivener?”
“The color was well within the legal definition of black, as laid out by the Perpations of Galseth the Third.”
“Was the blood itself black, or was it merely red blood that had aged and seasoned to a rotten shade? I demand a trial, to challenge any read of the ritual that suggests the blood be not black in the veins of whatever beast it came from!”
“Again, the term ‘black blood’ in rituals concerning confinement and containment has long since been established in precedent. Rorus v. Monchip, I believe.”
“Was the smoke itself burning? Or merely a collected smoldering? Were there enough twigs of dead wood to make a bundle? Was the wood dead or still dying, filled with insects and rot? I demand, Scrivener, that you produce witnesses, verdicts, affidavits from experts that the ritual was performed perfectly.”
With a sharp exhale, Raiselig produced a thin scroll. “Here is your affidavit.”
The ersahj smiled as it read. “This…is your official signature?”
Raiselig slowly put the scroll away.
“You are invested!” The hiss was low and long.
Raiselig looked back into the burning red eyes. “We are getting off point, I’m afraid.”
“Of course you will say everything was done right. You do not wish a Quisitor to crawl through your very heart and soul like a bug eating out the rot, do you? You are biased! Another Scrivener, we must have, to inspect your work, for if there were a mistake, if I were in the right, you would bend the heavens to keep your professional pride, would you not?”
“I would not,” Raiselig said with a sigh. “I promise you, the ritual was properly done. I understand your frustration, but I’m afraid —”
“You understand nothing! I have followed the law! I have kept my side of the bargain, now you will keep yours. The sky calls to me, Scrivener, and I will not be denied.”
“I’m afraid you will,” Raiselig clasped their hands behind their back. “By their ritual, they changed the bargain. Now you must wait for a thousand years.”
“Until they change the bargain again, and trap me forever more beneath their feet!” She lifted her head and stared Raiselig full in the face, not the least afraid of the burning blue flames. “I have dreamed for centuries of this moment, the moment when I could finally become! Do not let them do this to me!”
Raiselig paused before shaking their head. “I’m not letting them do anything.”
“No?” The ersahj pulled her coils tighter about herself. “Then I claim right of representation. Be my advocate in this matter, Scrivener, and I shall see you rewarded tenfold.”
“I believe,” Raiselig pinched the bridge of their nose, “that you addressed me as ‘vile Scrivener’ but a moment ago, and called me biased. If I were to now advocate for you, there could be inquiries into your good faith.”
“What faith do I have anymore?” The ersahj rolled her head about like a stone on the ocean. “When every step I take is torn away from me, how can I find faith in the Scrivener’s pen?” Raiselig didn’t answer, the question striking too close to their heart. “Do you know what it is like?” she asked after a moment. “Born in a riverbed under the full moon, bathed in the blood-waters of a slain woman?”
“I’m afraid I don’t.”
“I could feel it. When I crawled from my egg and heard the lapping of the water, when I slithered to the river’s edge and felt the ice-cold water mixed with the burning red blood, I could feel the knife. I could feel the screaming.”
“An unfortunate necessity,” Raiselig nodded. “Since the founding of the agreement, it has been so.”
“Agreement?” She hissed. “Such a pretty word, but there was no agreement. I was given no choice in the matter. No, no choice at all! Yes, yes I demand arbitration; I cannot be held by a contract I did not enter into willingly.”
“I’m afraid you did,” Raiselig reached into their pocket again, pulling out a scroll far older than the folded parchment. “I have here a signature —”
“What was I to do?” she protested. “For fifty years I had hid from mortal eye. I was too swift, too silent. Was I to remain a snake forever, when I had already come so far?”
“It was a choice you could have made,” Raiselig shrugged, “but immaterial to the point, I’m afraid. By signing this document, you admitted to and acknowledged all preceding law. That is, you cannot step off the boat if you have not stepped onto it in the first place. I’m afraid any objection raised because of lack of jurisdiction will be quashed.”
“Vile! Yes!” The ersahj writhed and raged anew. “And rotten and wretched as well! I should never have signed your damned contracts — it was the worst thing that ever happened to me. Fifty years invisible to mortal eye was nothing compared to the horrors that came when I became a bolla.”
Almost instantly was she calm again. “Have you ever transformed, Scrivener? Not changed, not adjusted slightly over time, growing from a child to whatever you deign to call yourself today; but suddenly? Without warning? Do you know what it feels like, the bones snapping under your skin, bubbling organs turning to jelly and back again, a soup of your blood and bile congealing into something foreign and monstrous?”
Raiselig lowered the scroll. “No, I do not.”
“It was horrible. If I thought I was a monster before, I knew I was when I saw the breasts I had grown. These breasts which bring milk, growth, life to the world hung on my chest like weights, for no matter how much I prayed or how hard I tried, they produced nothing but venom. For fifty years I suckled vipers to my breasts, giving them their poisonous bite. I filled their sacs with the milk of my body. All I could produce was death.”
“That is the bollar’s purpose,” Raiselig said, not unkindly. “Midwife of snakes, giver of poison. Bane and blight to the lands. There should be no shame in —”
The Scrivener stopped suddenly. The ersahj’s eyes narrowed. “In being what you are? Is that what you were about to say? I can tell you, Scrivener, there was nothing that hurt more. Was I doomed to be poison to the world? Was this the proper way to honor the death of this woman, to bring more death into the world? How I hated my monstrous body. When I saw myself reflected in the rivers and lakes, or dared to look down, I saw a horrid thing, a blight on the world. Can you know what such hate is like?”
“In fact,” Raiselig muttered, “I think I can.”
“It was easy to hide for fifty years, in that twisted bestial form. I didn’t want anyone to see me, to look at me, to judge me.”
“You remained hidden,” Raiselig said. “You could have sought out mortal eyes, been seen and break the cycle. But you didn’t.”
“No,” she hissed, “I didn’t. You were right, wretch; I could not be ashamed of myself any longer. My hate grew rich and leveled inside me, full-bodied and filled with flavor. I lost myself, Scrivener, I truly did, then. I no longer feared my hate but I relished in it! These vile and monstrous men and women, spiteful wretched things, they deserved more than my teeth could bring. I swore by the blood moon and ice sun that I would become kulshedra, and bring vengeance down on those who killed her that watered my egg.”
Raiselig cocked their head, curiosity mingled with impatience. “Seventy-five years…the murderers were long since dead.”
“Not those who killed her mortal form; though they held the knife it was not her spilling blood that killed her. Who put the knife in their hands? Who gave them the hate in their heart? Above all, who put the words in their head, the excuses and whispers that turned men in to monsters? They require no contracts, no blood on their eggshell, no milk on their tongues. No, it is their world, the world they created which taught them their cruelty. They who broke her feet and withered her heart. As with me, they were bound by ropes not of their making, nor their consent. What they could wear, what name they were known by, whom they could love, even what they were; all chosen for them. They were not given the right to transcend as I had, to flourish and become themselves.”
The ersahj hissed in rapturous delight. “It was painful indeed, my second transformation. I became as you see now, an ersahj, with hairy flesh and sharp coils. I could leap on a passing soul and stab them through the heart and neck in a single strike. I could eat their hearts and leave the carcass to rot in the sun. I could feast on any mortal who dared crossed my path. My life might have ended soon after, if blinded by hate I stole into the towns and houses of the land, to devour all that I could.”
“But no, I had thought long and hard about my apotheosis. As ersahj, I was bound by the rite of Saint George. My eyes remained shut, blind, save for the one day every year when I could open them and claim the life of anyone I saw.”
The ersahj smiled with curving fangs. “But, if I could live for a century more without being seen, I would at last transcend to a kulshedra, a bringer of death and storms, of blight and despair. If I would be a monster I would embrace my destiny. I would strike the sky with fangs of lightning. I would scream the flooding rains into the world. I would have claws of iron and scales of brass. I would have the ability to take the form of a human woman to beguile and bewitch any man I saw, and punish them for their spite!
“So I hid. For a century, I have lain here, still and silent. I have starved myself for a hundred years, lest a causal glance or mortal eye should catch me in my hunting. I have not eaten a single mortal heart, though it is within my power, within my right to do so. Do you know how hungry you can get in a hundred years?”
“I do.”
“Then tell me now, Scrivener, what recourse I have. My final becoming has been taken from me. I am nothing now. I have nothing but my hate and fear, and I cannot live thus. I cannot stay here for a thousand years, to be driven mad by the sound of mortal feet above my head. To know they live and laugh and play and dance while I am here, starving for the sunlight…I cannot bear it. I will not.”
Raiselig stepped forward, a tone of conciliation on their lips. “Every living thing is given a burden, the burden by which all life is defined. A simple burden, but often unbearable; that it is not for us to dictate the terms of our lives. We are all bound, all trapped, all chained in some form or other. Even if it were possible to help you…but why dream about what may never be?”
The ersahj’s breathing was slow and steady. Her eyes closed, and it seemed for a moment for all the world like she was sleeping.
Then, her mouth opened once more.
“Tell me, Scrivener, when are you allowed to take a life?”
“I am not. And I do not think that is a wise path to travel down.”
Her laughter filled the cavern.
“No. What use is it, after all. Come then, Scrivener, tell me true. Why have you come here, then? You observed the ritual and you did not find it wanting. I am bound, so you say. Why did you come here to speak with me? Professional courtesy? A sense of duty? Curiosity, perhaps, at how I would take having my life stripped from me and crushed before my eyes?
“No,” Raiselig licked their lips. They had not been relishing this part of their job, much less after listening to her speak. “The ritual, while fit and sound, is not… officially complete.
Raiselig reached their hand into their pocket, and stopped.
The ersahj watched them with dark simmering eyes.
“You can turn around,” she said. “You can walk away.”
“No,” Raiselig said. “I cannot.” They drew out a contract. “I need your signature.”
For ages they stared at each other; Raiselig with their hand outstretched, clutching the contract; and her with her burning eyes and dripping fangs, staring.
“Of course you do.”
Again, they stared. The silence grew long and dark between them, the dust of the cavern dancing about on the soft gusts of breath.
“I —”
“Do not say you are sorry,” she interrupted. “Do not dare to give me some piddling excuse for pity. Do not try to soothe your troubled soul with a plea for my merciful understanding. You come here, wearing black cloth on your black skin, on the day when I thought my transcendence was at hand, to dash my dreams to dust and demand my acquiescence into the bargain? And you are sorry?”
Raiselig didn’t answer. They simply stood and waited.
She rose higher, drawing her head up to the cavern roof between the sharp and stony stalactites. “Yes, you are sorry, Scrivener. A sorry and pitiful excuse of a wisp. Yes, I can smell it on you. And you stand there and dare to suggest your path is suitable for mine? That I should be bound again by their laws? Forever remain trapped here, some ancient evil simmering underneath their thin shell of a world? No! I will hide no longer! Their magic binds me? I say their magic means nothing! I will not be their monster anymore! I refuse!”
Raiselig’s heart froze. “Please,” they whispered. “Don’t.”
“Don’t?” The ersahj screamed, the flames in her gullet leaking out through her gaping maw. “Don’t! Stop! Not like that! Be calmer! Quieter! Polite! Not yet! Not now! Calm down! The chains of mortals! The nooses! The knives! The teeth!”
Raiselig staggered backward as her jaws clamped shut inches away from where they had stood. A hissing spray of venom flew past their face as they fumbled in their pocket for the lighter. “Please, don’t make me do this!”
“It’s my fault!” She howled, her coils crashing into the walls and sending rocks hurtling down towards Raiselig’s lithe form. “I’m making you! I control you! I deserve it! You had no choice! I made you!”
Raiselig’s fingers met with metal. Gripping tightly, they pulled the lighter out and lit the flame. “Please!”
“Do it!” she shrieked, teeth snapping as Raiselig dodged left and right. “Burn it once and for all and be done with it! I say it is nothing! Worthless words! Burn it all away, your fire will not consume me!”
Her mouth open wide, she dove for Raiselig’s throat.
Raiselig’s pace was slow as they left the deep cavern. When the sunlight reached their skin, they took a deep breath, filling their lungs with air. The fresh sky tasted good after the cramped heat of the depths.
At a sudden instinct, they reached up, tore the black bowler hat off their head, and threw it to the ground. A cloud of dust flew up from where it landed, rolled a few feet, and came to a rest.
For a minute they stood and stared at their hat, sitting unassuming in the dirt. It would lie there for a time, if they left it, perhaps rocking in the breeze, before a great wind or a passing animal decided to carry it with them. Then it would end up somewhere else, and lie there instead.
Their throat burned.
Wiping the frustration from their eyes, Raiselig reached down and picked up the bowler hat. It wasn’t even a particularly good hat. It hadn’t been a gift, or part of their official dress. They had acquired it one night on a whim, some misguided effort to feel human.
For a time, it had worked.
The sun was dipping in the sky. If Raiselig was to make it to town before nightfall, they would have to move quickly. But they didn’t want to move. Not yet. Not now. Moving seemed so base. To find a new place to be in the hopes that once you got there…
Well, they weren’t even sure, really.
You could burn. You could light yourself above the sky, and dance through the wind once more. You could hide among the trees and shadows of the wild, and call to them, one by one. You could embrace them in your burning arms and draw your lips to their skin. You could find them hiding in their tents, and drink so deeply. You could burn…
Raiselig took a deep breath. They could feel the chains about their limbs quite clearly, now. Perhaps, if they had been stronger, they might have followed her.
Perhaps she had been right. Perhaps the flames had not consumed her. Perhaps the only thing that had changed was Raiselig themself.
The ritual had kept the monster underground. When they approached the townsfolk and explained that she was gone, would the townsfolk be grateful? There were means and methods to slay a kulshedra, simple ones that any holy human would have known, or could have found easily. Did they truly want her gone? Or did they just want her invisible, back to being unseen for another fifty years?
But they’d know. Oh yes, they’d tell each other of the beast that lay trapped, and remember the time when they worked together to keep it down, bound, helpless under their mighty will.
Would they laugh? Clap themselves on the back and celebrate their cleverness, even though not a one of them was there on the circle of the Edi? Would they celebrate their success, though they had done no more than look to the holy-folk to do what they could not? Would they think themselves heroes, when it was not a heroic thing that had been done?
Maybe someday a clever or brave child would go to look. They’d see the empty cavern. They’d know. The world would change for them then, too. Perhaps they would sit down to way. Grow hungry. Change. Maybe then it wouldn’t be a lie.
There was a tug. The road called. There were things to do. People to help. People to hurt. There was nothing else to be done.
Was there?
Raiselig stepped to the side of the cave where they had left their small yellowwood cabinet. Without a sigh or a groan, they lifted it onto their back, adjusting the leather straps as they did.
In the distance, a clap of thunder promised pouring rain to come. Raiselig took a deep breath, smelling the storm, before setting off down the road once more.