This is the hardest chapter I have ever written! I have to pull all my knowledge of Myths into this one chapter. Not an easy task. I'll have to take my time with this chapter. I'll probably start work on Twenty-one and Twenty-two before I complete Twenty.
I've expanded the time I have to work on my novel. I recently figured out that it would take more chapter than I had originally planned to complete the book. I think we are looking at Thirty odd chapters instead of Twenty-six.
I have commissioned an anime artist to render the cover of my book and possibly do some interior work. I'll post the art here when it is completed. The artist is very talented. She goes by Lady Shireu on deviantArt.
One day, Heather woke up and slowly realized she was facing the ceiling. She was lying naked on the wooden table while held spread eagle by four-point restraints. As she raised her head, she heard the woman standing before her chanting something unintelligible but fervent.
Suddenly, in her mind’s eye, she perceived a cyclone of energy filling the chamber in front of her. Within its wicked greenness, swirled ancient letters and symbols not meant to be comprehended. By some other form of ken, she could see the glyphs in the spinning mess were the same as those carved in the pattern on her body. The woman’s chanting increased in tone and rhythm and the fierce spinning of the eldritch tornado increased in time with it.
Her bonds released with a ripping sound and she was lifted off the wooden slab to an upright position by an unknown force. She was floating vertically above the table.
Heather watched helplessly as the spectral enchantment, ordered forth by Death’s Sorceress, crept forward and suddenly coiled itself around her naked form. Each symbol of the swirling lexical cacophony emblazoned itself on the poor girl’s thin body as it rushed by to find its place-- whether it was carved in her breast, her thigh, or her foot—- and implanted itself. Each mark touched her skin with a pain that seared her soul and froze her mind. Numb. The awful spell was devouring her from the inside. Every word of the spell seemed to delete a part of her and rewrite itself in its place.
The girl’s back arched as the pain intensified. Her dumb mouth opened wide in a noiseless scream to release the fear and horror which she was enduring. It didn’t help. The particles of the etched spell fell into place more quickly. As the elements formed their blasphemy, a fresh agony of burning swirled along the curved lines that scarred her body. The feeling raced down her arms and her torso following the gory tracery that spiraled her. It whipped down her body like pinpricks and then turned to daggers. It circled between her legs sending her into terrible spasms as in twisted its way to her feet.
And, then it was over. Each mark had buried itself in her core, her soul, and vanished from the surface in the process. Her flesh was made whole and her body remade as fresh and new as if the past months had never happened. Her strength, as little as it was, was restored. The pain was gone. The pain was gone.