Artemis and Caspian: The Spy

Chapter Twenty

 Artemis stood in an empty moor, smoke and fog nipping at her heels. Tall grass surrounded her and whipped in the cool breeze, snapping at the air with their blades. They sounded like snakes, thousands of them slithering in the grass. Artemis placed a weary hand up to her forehead and gazed into the fog. She couldn't see a damn thing but she pushed forward, letting the grass cut her cheeks as she walked. Eventually, the blades began to change color, rattling in the fog like a million rattlesnake tails warning her of danger up ahead. They danced and coiled around one another dipping down into the ground and morphing into cobras with brown and black markings that twisted themselves along her legs as she struggled to walk. Their hisses stung her ears as they got louder, but there was something in them? A name? Hers? She couldn't tell.

Hypnotized, she continued to walk despite the suffocating pain her legs felt under the pressure of a thousand snakes intent on strangling her. Something was calling out to her. But who? There was no one there except her and the snakes who continued their assassination attempt. Then as she turned her head ever so slightly to the left she appeared. Her. Up ahead a figure cloaked in a silver garment stood frozen in time, her back turned to Artemis. She slowly trudged her way towards her, feeling the earth pull her further down as she went. As she got closer and peered groggily over the woman's shoulder she saw another person. A Lord. A large man with metal spikes protruding from a plate draped threateningly across his shoulder. His black hair curled like a head of snakes perfectly framing a tattoo of the same animal on his forehead. He had a short black beard around his face.

As Artemis got closer to the pair, a small sense of dread began to pool in the pit of her stomach. There was a nagging sensation pulling at the corners of her memory. She knew this woman. What started out as concern quickly turned to terror when she got a glimpse of the woman's stark white hair that covered her face in profile. She'd only seen one person ever with hair that glistened pale white like her's did. The moon goddess. When Artemis's feet were finally able to drag the rest of her around the two, the witch saw her goddess clearly. To the untrained eye, the moon goddess looked regal and effervescent, lit with a soft white glow, but Artemis could see the fright reeking in the corners of her eyes. There was a small black blemish on the goddess's pale neck like an ink blot on clean paper, cracking the skin. Then her body stopped.

Artemis let her eyes slowly go between the two, lazily letting them roam over the frozen picture which then began to play like they were waiting for her permission to begin. The large man thrust his hand forward, a knife glistening under the goddess's glow. The black blemish on her neck started to grow like poison, snaking up her body with tendrils that sucked the glow from her.

The man with a deep voice chuckled, "You miscalculated," he laughed, smirking, "I know your weaknesses and now you're going to give me what I want."

Confidently he walked up to the moon goddess who remained frozen in place. Casually he took her hand and dragged a knife slowly across her pale palm. The moon goddess despite her situation didn't even flinch, she simply watched the man with a mix of disappointment and blind fury. The man smiled as a drop of gold blood dribbled out of the fresh wound. He took it between his two fingers and rubbed it together with a look of greed hidden under disinterest. With his other hand, he grabbed a bottle from his belt filled with a mix of poisons and let the golden blood trickle into it. The goddess said nothing, paralyzed as the jet-black venom coursed up her body. The man raised the vial to his lips but paused, smirking at the goddess.

"You know, us mortals aren't as stupid as you think. Perhaps you should have thought of that before you decided to come to me." Reveling in the moment he drank the blood slowly, wiping a hand across his mouth when he finished. Artemis watched him glow a similar white color for a fast, bright moment. "Now come here. I need to harvest the rest of your blood. I'm about to make a few people... immortal."