The Red Scourge

Rinessa stared at the woman in stunned silence. The Woman gave her a gorgeous half-smile and walked around her, eying every inch of Rinessa from head to heels. Normally Rinessa might have lashed out but this place seemed to moving at a disconcertingly slow speed. Instead she merely said, "Where are we?"

The Woman paused in front of Rinessa. "That's a good question." Her voice was unlike any she had ever heard, falling somewhere in between a songbird and the sharp sound of a cracking whip. A mix of beauty and pain. "Your mind? My world? A limbo? Who knows? It does not matter."

The Woman got closer, gently putting her hand on Rinessa's shoulder. The odd fragrance of burning roses and filled Rinessa nostrils. "What does matter is that you're here at long last." She pressed her body against Rinessa's own. Her hands rested on Rinessa's hips.

Rinessa felt her heart beat faster, whether due to fear or lust she didn't know. The scourge. It had to be. "Who are you? What's your name?" she snarled. "Whoever you are, you've possessed the scourge I can guess that much."

The Woman looked at Rinessa lustfully as her hands traveled down past the rukuvu and began to gently caress Rinessa's bare legs. "Why I am the scourge, my love. As to my name? Well, I've had many over the years but you can call me the Crimson Lady. That's a good name for any century wouldn't you say? " she said. "I'm an instrument of fate, just like you, my love."

She moved her face to Rinessa's until their lips were inches apart. "We were meant to find each other! Meant to cut a swath of destruction so grand that the gods themselves will marvel at the sight!"

Before Rinessa could respond the Crimson Lady grabbed her in an iron grip and kissed her deeply. At first Rinessa was filled with revulsion as the taste of coal, ash, and burning flesh consumed her mouth. A river of molten fire flowed through her body until she felt she would burst. Then the foul taste turned to cinnamon and sugar, baked bread, and warm cream. The fire turned to a snug warmth that enveloped her in its safe embrace. Only then was she aware that the Crimson Lady's tongue was pushed deeply into her mouth and that her hands gripped Rinessa's ass tightly.

Rinessa felt herself pushing her own tongue back at the Crimson Lady, clutching at the perfect bosom barely contained by the vermillion velvet. Finally the Crimson Lady broke their embrace and threw her head back and laughed. It was like the sound of an inferno's angry crackling through the inky darkness of a moonlesss night.

The instant her laughter faded, the Crimson Lady took Rinessa's hand and began to dance with her in the light. Their dance together was a dervish of pandemonium and madness. Rinessa saw the faces of so many people she had known as she was spun around. The face of her nanny, of the handsome merchant's son who had been her first, of her master-at-arms, the only person at her father's castle that ever showed her kindness, of slaves she had tormented, of slaves she had been merciful to, of Umbroze, of Seva, of her mother with her delicate and sad beauty, and of her father. Her father most of all.

They danced for what seemed like forever, with the Crimson Lady pausing three times to kiss her deeply before continuing their chaotic promenade. In years to come, Rinessa would remember that dance like an addict remembering the first time they lost themselves in the high of their favorite drug. When they ceased, Rinessa wasn't sure whether to strike the Crimson Lady to be free of this feeling or throw herself at the Crimson Lady's feet and beg to be hers forever, so she would never have to be free of this feeling.

She pushed the Crimson Lady away from her as she felt tears come to her eyes. "What have you done to me? I..." The strange red world began to spin unpleasantly. All of a sudden, the very real feelings of dizziness and nausea threatened to overtake her previous whimsy. She held her stomach and swayed side to side as she struggled to stay on her feet.

The Crimson Lady gave Rinessa a wicked smile. "I've connected us Rinessa. Just like She meant for us to be." Rinessa groaned and went to her knees, struggling not to vomit. She felt the Crimson Lady's hand scratch the back of her head almost tenderly. "As I said, you cannot seize your destiny without me and I cannot fulfill my purpose without a wielder."

Rinessa collapsed onto her back staring at the light. Fear, hate, lust, and sickness swirled in her as she struggled to stay conscious. But one emotion overwhelmed the others: a desire for more. More fire, more chaos, more of that insane dance, and more of the Crimson Lady's embrace.

"Addiction," she finally said as her mind began to put together this bizarre event. "You have given me an addiction." Rinessa would have laughed but she didn't want the Crimson Lady to know she understood the joke.

As she towered over her, the Crimson Lady laughed anyway. "Yes but fear not, my love. You're hardly the first to be addicted to power. And make no mistake about it," she bent over Rinessa, filling her entire vision with that radiant and terrible beauty. "I will give you power. The power to destroy your father, avenge your mother, to take this world and make it your own. All you need to do is to love me Rinessa. Love me like I love you."

Rinessa struggled to come up with a response but then she saw the Crimson Lady's hand come into her vision. It covered Rinessa's eyes and her world turned to blackness once more.

* * *

Rinessa's eyes flew open. Her hand and arms were drenched with a wet and somewhat sticky substance. She looked around. The storage room looked clear as day but it did not seem to be lit by any source she could see. Before Rinessa could even conceive of how that could be she noticed that she was standing over the body of an unterdöt. She noticed that his torso had been torn apart as if attacked by some monster's enormous claws. She glanced up and noticed the bodies of three unterdötten, similarly eviscerated beyond recognition, their bowels spilled upon the floor. The salty metal taste of blood, sweat, and bile assaulted Rinessa's senses.

Rinessa saw Seva looking back at her with her jaw open, looking at her in complete terror. Unsure of what else to say, she shook the blood off of her limbs and asked, "Seva...what did I do?"

Seva looked back at Rinessa as if she were mad. "Mistress...you killed them. All of them. I...This one has never seen anyone move like that. And..." She seemed reluctant to continue but she squeaked out, "You were laughing. The whole time you were laughing in a way I...This one...does not..." She seemed at a loss of words as she looked in wide eyed horror at the ghastly scene before them. "How do you not remember Mistress?"

Rinessa turned the scourge over and examined it, now being able to see it perfectly well. It was finely made, with supple red leather. Its long leather thongs were studded with tiny razor sharp bits of metal made to cut through armor, skin, and bone. But it was the symbol at the bottom of the handle that got Rinessa's attention. The outline of a woman holding a pair of shackles and a cat-o-nines. It was the symbol of Tehasha, the Goddess of domination, oppression, and slavery and the unofficial patron goddess of the Free Kingdoms.

The dance. The kisses. The Crimson Lady's references to a mysterious "She." The dream with the shackles, that she had since she was a child. Was this Crimson Lady, Tehasha herself? Some sort of demoness? Had She really been manipulating Rinessa for this long?

"The scourge," she said simply, pushing aside the questions for later. She hooked the thing to her belt. "It is...powerful." She left it at that as she stepped over one of the bodies towards Seva.

The slave girl looked as frightened of Rinessa as she had been of Umbroze or even the malformed unterdötten while she cringed in a corner. Despite the nagging sensation that she needed to sort out her relationship, such as it was, with the slave girl, she knew this was not the time. "We have to go now Seva. Do you want to fight more of these things?" she asked, pointedly.

Seva shook her head dumbly. She said nothing as the two left the academy or during the next several hours through the Underground. It was only until they finally found the exit that Rinessa finally told the girl to make sure she did not call Rinessa by name. The Ironwood had told her they would not be very far from the city when they emerged and it was doubtless that the authorities were still looking for them.

When they finally arrived back to the surface they discovered they were near a half mile outside the city, a short distance from the Lion's Road that went east from the city. It happened to be dawn when they emerged. The red light from the morning sun had turned the entire sky into a soft and gentle crimson.

Although she had spent the last many hours pondering what the Crimson Lady had told her in that dream, Rinessa could only think of one thing the woman had said as she looked down the empty road leading away from the city. "The power to destroy your father, avenge your mother, to take this world and make it your own."

"Mistress?" Seva's voice made Rinessa realize that she had been lovingly stroking the Red Scourge without realizing it. She stopped, almost disturbed by her own actions, as Seva asked, "What...What do we do now?"

Rinessa turned to the girl and smiled a little, "Whatever we like Seva. The world is ours now."