Story time
Chaznarii “Shadowspinner” the enchantress in her full power and glory, mistress of her own heart and able to dance with the full might of the shadow.
“Everyone carries a shadow, and the less it is embodied in the individual’s conscious life, the blacker and denser it is”.
Carl Jung
Chaznarrii wiped the tears from her eyes and hugged her boy one last time.
“Go swiftly, my dark prince, to the ruins of the great gate, with Dr Namkuzu. He knows what must be done.”
“Mum, I can’t do it, I can’t leave you, leave Furiosa, leave my friends.”
“Mummy needs you, needs your understanding of the shadow. I cannot do it alone, young master of the night.”
“Let me come with you.”
“No, my son. Black Annis is my foe, and no other can face her, to face her is to face all your greatest fears, every word whispered to yourself in the darkness, every long shadow cast across a doorway at night, every failing of your own tell-tale heart. I must face my demons alone, everyone else will be her playthings, her tools. I would never bring you there. I love you, my brave and brilliant one. Know that, know it truly, in your very soul. Whatever darkness you see within you is not you, should you ever falter, should you ever fail, Mummy will always love you, no matter what. Because your mother is not afraid of any darkness, I laugh and dance with it.”
“I love you too Mum.”
And so with a great whoosh of air, a huge thrust of her leathery black wings Shadowspinner was aloft and away.
Away from the swamp, her place of power, through the darkening sky, the closing of the light.
Towards the hollow mountain, the rock drained of its heart and soul.
To the lair of the great swollen spider.
The dark witch, the witch of the wasted heart.
The few creatures left here ignored her, stumbling about with vacant eyes, the darkness covering everything, flickering and grasping. Yet these creatures could not touch Chaznarii, she threw them back as she roared.
“Annis! Come forth cowardly witch! Face me in my power. I alone do not fear the great enemy.”
The valleys around the mountains, with their stones carved in strange and twisted shapes echoed the call. Then a laugh, a maddening cackling laugh that came from everywhere all at once.
The darkness pulled back from a great stone that blocked the entrance to the rotten mountain. A stone that then faded, greyed out and slowly seemed to almost fizz and ripple away, as if it was never even there.
Chaznarii walked boldly forward, head held high, unafraid.
Darkness filled the caverns under the mountains, a rich and deep gloom that drank the light, thick and twisted and clawing. There was no light or hope or kindness here.
The voice came not quietly now, but firmly, from echoing from every strand of shadow, like a chorus of 10,000 spiders, mouthparts clacking and hissing.
“So you have finally come… failed daughter of a lost line, nothing but an actor, a mistress of none…”
The great and hidden shadowy spider-like form of the hag filled every space with shadows, webs of darkness trailing off to every part of the kingdom. Her words probing and twisting, like a great web, trying to find a strand that would stick.
Chaznarii had no patience for fools or poisoned words and cut her short. With a flick of her head, a blaze of black and purple fire erupted like a crown, her own shadow magic. She burnt back the shadowy webs and encroaching tendrils of the hag.
“Enough! Enough lies! Enough hate! Enough of you pitiful spider, you parasite ridden and swollen thing. A host of poison, nothing more!”
She sprung forward and slashed with her claws and lashed with her tail, everywhere slicing shadowy webs. Tapestries of pure shadow falling to the floor and fading. Hearts and souls lost to the shadow being freed with her fury. She continued her speech.
“Am I the only adult left in this kingdom?! The only one who had the vision and foresight to look beyond her own heart and see the gloom of souls that has fallen upon my hearth and home.”
The great spider hissed and spat, great bladelike limbs, cracking and snapping as they lashed out against the dark dragon. She turned them aside easily with scale and claw.
“I am no weak willed woman to be cowed and broken!”
More limbs came, more strands, webs twisting and binding her, clawed limbs scratching her through her dark armour.
“I am the mistress of shadows, I am the only true queen of the night!”
It was too much, too many strands, too vast a foe, the dragon started to be held in her place. But her words remained strong, her purpose true.
“My heart does not fear darkness, it was born to rule it!”
And with a mighty blast, a howl of winds from the shadow realm itself Chaznarii, no, “Shadowspinner” was free. Twisting and spiralling in place, a tornado of darkness, the eye of the night storm.
And so she started to dance and sing. And as she danced, she wove and drained the shadows of her foe, weaving their mass into veils of shadow that twisted and surrounded her, seven black veils of darkness. Her words echoed and were accompanied by a dark chorus of the night, not one voice but a choir of 100 supporting every word.
“I am the voice from distant lands!
The innocence that feeds from every man!”
With each strand taken Black Annis howled in frustration and rage. She lashed out viciously, manically, the force of the great winds turning her poisoned blows aside.
“Every memory that they hold dear!
I am the journey.
I am the destination.
A way to taste the night.
The blackened heath immune to blight!”
Then the witch snarled and changed her tactics.
Shadow creatures of every type and form, lost friends, discarded lovers.
All her failures, all her lost hopes and dashed dreams came back to haunt and attack the dragon.
None could even touch her!
“I am the elusive high.
The beauty that is beyond sight,
The one true mistress of the night!
I am the song on every trembling lip
I am the story that will read your truth.”
Then the shadows of the witch grew together and formed into a great shape of her lost husband.
The once loyal black dragon, now lost to the shadow.
Her greatest loss, her darkest fear.
He pushed through the tempest and seized her.
And in that instance, at that moment, she yielded to the hold, then twisted span and went with the flow.
She led the dance of shadows, tears running down her cheeks, the two drakes spinning together in the cavern, their final dance.
He dipped his head low in submission one last time and she lightly kissed him upon the brow.
And with that she danced with her darkest shadow.
Then turned to the shrinking witch.
Voice louder than before, tears streaming down and falling to the floor of the cavern, passion filling her words.
“I am every memory that you hold dear!
I am beyond any waking mortal fear!
BEHOLD!
YOU HAVE NO POWER HERE!”
And with that Shadowspinner glowed with radiating purple flames, her dark light filling the cavern, there were no shadows here she did not command.
Black Annis scuttled away, back into the corner of the chamber, of course the creature of the shadow knew fear, she was nothing but fear and lies.
Chaznarii pounced and tore into the flesh of the hag, ebon claws flashing, ripping off limbs and rending her foes body, inky blackness pouring from every wound.
Yet the hag’s power could not be undone, every drop of darkness and broken limb returned to the whole, the violence feeding and rebuilding the creature.
The Hag’s eyes glowed yet with unholy light and she spat out the words and laughed again. Body reforming and attack renewing.
“The Shadow only takes!”
Chaznarii stopped her assault, sat back tall and proud and wove her claws in spirals and arcane forms. Purple draconic runes and circles spinning about them both.
“Then take you hence!”
With a crack like splitting ice a shadow portal opened behind the witch, who fell back towards it, limbs snapping with strain to prevent the vile creature from being pulled inside.
Shadowspinner didn’t pause and pounced again, pulling them both into the dark gate.
They tumbled through the shadow realm together both tearing and rending at the other. Each one mighty and powerful in this place of darkness, both howling, hissing and roaring.
Their battle was far from over.
Black Annis, the last night hag, oldest and cruellest servant of the shadow, grown bloated and powerful on the suffering of a kingdom.