| abstract | - By Alisza Five months ago… The chamber was dark. The scent of must, mold and death filled the air. A large skull rested on a pile of bones in the corner, the dead, empty eyes dark and soulless. Cobwebs hung from the dirt and rock walls, swaying in the heat rising from the blood candles. The purple glint of soulshards glowed in the candles’ light from a shelf where a snake lifted it’s scaled head. The souls inside the gems darted about their crystal prisons, their brilliance waning and intensifying as they tried to escape. The nearly silent sound of their screams joined the slither of the snake’s scales as the only sounds in the room. A hooded and cloaked figure sat at a bench, it’s posture tense, as if waiting. Long, pale fingers moved over a silver-bladed dagger. A ruby adorned its hilt and the fingers traced the channels along the blade. Her husband had once told her they were meant to channel blood away from the hilt of the blade to keep it from getting slick after use. She had reason to know it worked. She smiled and caressed the blade that the idiot Scarlet Crusader had given her so long ago. This was the blade that had killed her sister. This was the blade with which she had stolen Sannia’s future. This was the blade that, only months ago, took the life of her Fel bedamned husband. He’d discovered her little secret, had come into her chambers while she’d been berating the imp. He’d threatened to expose her. She could remember his face, how it purpled with rage as he’d threatened divorce, how he’d threatened to toss her on the street, calling her Sannia all the while. She would have enjoyed it, if he had been yelling at her bitch of a sister. Sannia had never deserved the attention she’d gotten, not as a child, not as a woman. Her parents had doted on Sannia – had given her everything that Alizsa deserved. She was prettier, more powerful. She had deserved their love! She had been the one that needed them, not Sannia! Alizsa cursed. She’d succeeded in stealing her sister’s husband, her riches and power – her entire future, but even from the grave, Sannia tormented her. There was a blast of sulphur and her imp, Begnar appeared before her, scraping and bowing. The imp’s voice cackled madly, it’s rhyming a symptom of the torture Alizsa had subjected it to when first she summoned it. At least the voice was obsequious, as she required. It moved to kiss the hem of her robe and she kicked it, sending it slamming into the pile of bones in the corner. They clattered to the floor, the stale pieces of a childhood friend of Sannia’s sounding hollow in the dead air of the room. “That bitch! Even now she wins! How?” The imp picked itself up, neatly avoiding another kick by it’s Mistress’s slippered foot. The imp laughed, the madness in its voice sending the wretched tones ringing through the bare rafters of the ceiling and shaking a spider from its web. “Tell me, you wretched clown! Or I shall give you to the Felguard!” Alizsa’s voice snapped and there was immediate silence. This time, she allowed the imp to kiss her hem. Alizsa’s eyes widen, and she laughs with triumph. “She is Forsaken!” Her eyes narrow. “But what is this harbor beneath the shark’s sail you speak of?” She holds her hand up, forestalling words from the imp. “No, don’t speak, little filth. I tire of your rhyming.” “Tiger’s claw… and tail… and a harbor. You little beast, I should not have broken you so quickly!” She tapped her lips with a long, sharp nail, ignoring the whimpering mass at her feet. “There is a large shark on display in Booty Bay… do you mean there, Begnar?” She grabbed the imp, ignoring the green flames that licked up her arms, and shook him. “No, don’t open your mouth. Nod. Yes or no.” The imp nodded frantically and Alizsa smiled. She would go to Booty Bay and see what there was to see. She dropped Begnar and strode from the room, plans already forming in her mind.
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