Bwa: Chapter 11 - The Oasis

 The Great City of Xandria was the vanisakara stronghold. It took the largest army Saint Thomas had ever commissioned to destroy it. For Feyd, the god of Man, it was the greatest victory he'd ever known upon the plague known as vampires. It was not always a city of vampires, but once a city of demons. – From a History of the Great City of Xandria written by Iardwei de Moor.

Xandria stood on the cliff that overlooked her oasis and sucked in her breath sharply. The oasis was more than quadrupled in size when she'd lived there forty years ago. A massive fountain stood where the poisoned well had been. The fountain was a winged woman holding a scepter rather than a sword. Across from the fountain was a building that could easily have worn the title 'palace.' The palace was under construction and slaves were on scaffolding being whipped to work harder. The palace was perhaps the most complete and normal looking building in the oasis even though more than a third of it was surrounded by scaffolding. The other buildings were no more than hovels and huts, shacks to keep slaves in. Men and women moved about the oasis but Xandria could see no crops, only massive herds of livestock. The oasis smelled of death and decay. Even though the desert sun blazed overhead the entire oasis seemed cloaked in darkness.

"This is Zandria?" Xandria asked.

"It's full of thieves, cutthroats, murderers, rapists, every evil of mankind, and built entirely upon the back of slavery," said Zazael from behind her. There was no glow and with a glance, Xandria could see he covered his armor once more with cloth.

"My oasis, who could do this?" Xandria asked, stunned.

"Your betrayer."

"He's in there?" Zazael didn't answer. Xandria began to walk down the gentle slope of the cliff. As she neared an incredible sensation flowed over her. She wanted to flee as if the oasis was a great evil. That is something terrifying. Xandria could see her feelings on Severah's sweating brow and trembling hands. Zazael seemed unphased.

"You're under arrest." Xandria was surprised to see a gate, and guards. Only the guards seemed odd, like they were puppets worked by someone who had no clue how the strings worked.

"So I am," she answered the guard who had spoken and raised her arms. The other guard reached out to take the sword from her hip. When his hand curled around the hilt there was a searing sound of sizzling meat and he suddenly jerked his hand back. It was charred.

"We'll take you to see Zandria, she'll decide your fate," said the guard holding his smouldering hand.

"I'm dying to meet her." They were escorted through the streets, past the massive fountain. Xandria humphed, it was an uncanny resemblance to Penelope. The gates of the palace were opened and they were led to a grand throne room. It looked like a room from Heaven itself, except for the throne. It was from bones bleached so white they could've been carved marble. Xandria, Severah and Zazael were forced to kneel as a door opened and in a gown dripping with jewels, Zandria carrying a scepter looked like a jeweled femur walked in.

"Penelope?" Xandria knew her sister's face, her gait when she walked. Only like Xandria, she held the face and body of a twenty something year old.

"Xandria the Merciless, I thought you would be rotting in an unmarked grave by now," Penelope's voice was cold. She sat on the throne, placing one perfectly toned leg over the other.

"You? You're the one who betrayed me? My own sister?" Xandria tried to stand but was shoved back to her knees by the guard.

"It is true, I poisoned the well and told the Holy Order to come get you."

"Why sister? I gave you everything you ever asked for!"

"I did what you could not, I made an empire."

"You made it in my name. I'd hardly call this an empire, it's more like a little girl playing fantasy." Penelope seemed to get angry and she waved her scepter. Tendrils of black looking like smoke curled up from the floor. They wrapped around Xandria's, Severah's and Zazael's arms, legs and neck, pulling them to the floor.

"I command the forces of Darkness now. For someone who has hated the Light for so long, I'm surprised you've never joined the other side."

"I hated Heaven and the angels for taking Ralael and Sherin from me, that did not mean I had to be evil," Xandria said, struggling against the ropes of darkness.

"Time to die, dear sister," Penelope said and the tendril around Xandria's throat tightened, cutting off her air. She clawed at it, her face turning red, then purple. "Burn her body when she is dead, send those two to be slaves."

"No!" Zazael shouted and burst free from his bonds, wings ripping free of the cloth that covered his armor.

"An angel!" Penelope exclaimed. Xandria was weakening, her vision growing dim. As soon as Zazael touched her and Severah, they were gone. The tendrils wafted to nothing. "You won't get away that easily!" Penelope walked to where the three had disappeared. Scepter in one hand, she suddenly reached forward, reality warbled like a still pond with a stone plunked into it.

Xandria tried to suck in gasps of air, but there was none. Zazael had her by the arm and Severah's arm in his other hand. The world was speeding past them. From nothing, a hand reached and grabbed Zazael by his armor. He was suddenly jerked away from them, through whatever portal the hand had come from.

The women tumbled to the ground, rolling. Xandria was wheezing, her neck bruised from the choking shadow. Severah tried to help her up.

"Zazael," she managed to gasp while looking around.

"I think your sister took him," Severah said quietly.

"That. Bitch. She'll. Pay," Xandria stood up and saw a sprawling city before them. "Shit." A sign simply read, "CLAYAIRE."