Doctor Fate: In the Dungeon of the Damned

Epilogue - The Flame-Flower

The old woman moved slowly through the small cemetery adjacent to the ruins of a long-abandoned chapel in western Massachusetts. Thirteen headstones occupied the grounds – ancient, worn, broken, moss-eaten, some sunken into the ground, but on all of them the names were still legible: Cornelia Rainsford, Emeline Malady, Georgine Pendergast, Rebekah Crue, Aphra Okes, Aurinda Okes, Silence Meagher, Verity Gorge, Jane Ingold, Zipporah Bastwick, Hecuba Hodge, Lydia Calthrop, Keziah Judge.

The dates of their births varied greatly, and the years of their births ran from 1608 to 1632, but the year, month, and even day of their deaths was the same: November 1, 1666.

The old woman cackled malevolently as she walked among the headstones. Once the ground beneath her feet would have scorched her soles like hot coals, but that was a time long past. These grounds, this chapel, had long ago been – what was the word? desecrated? literally correct, but not as the word was used by common folk – she supposed the term would be something like "anti-sanctified." What word would you use to mean a fortress taken over by the enemy, and now a stronghold of that enemy? She thought of those large lethal hawk-wasps that killed tarantulas and made nests of their carcasses. Like that.

She carried in her hand a strange silver pot holding an even stranger flower: its stem was gnarled and thorny, but its petals, exactly thirteen in number, were pointed, like those of a sunflower. And yet, on closer inspection, they writhed and throbbed in a way no flower petals should. On closer inspection, those petals were revealed as tongues of flame.

One by one, the woman daintily gripped each petal between thumb and forefinger and, holding it over a grave, dropped it to the ground, where the flame flowed outward in the shape of the skeleton buried below. One by one, the graves shook and shuddered and the ground in front of each tombstone convulsed and churned until finally a hand or head broke free from the earth. One by one, the animated corpses of long-dead women climbed from their graves and stood by their headstones as the flesh regrew itself over their bones, until thirteen women stood in the deserted churchyard, in varying states of tattered dress, their flesh covered with dirt and mould and the occasional worm, but complete again.

Aphra Okes was the first to speak. "Hail, sisters. We are made whole again. We are ONE again!"

The women responded, "Hail, Sister Aphra."

Then Aphra Okes turned to the old woman carrying the remains of the flame-flower, stripped of its petals, but with ovary, receptacle, and stigma intact. "Hail, Lamashtu, mistress of us all!"

The old woman curtsied and said, "I am your servant, not your mistress."

"Servant and mistress, and soul of us all. We are one in you, Lamashtu."

Again the old woman curtsied.

Jane Ingold spoke. "We thought we would never return, but you have found a way, mistress."

"Our time came at last," the old woman said. She paused and looked over each of the women approvingly, and then met each one's rapt gaze, eye to eye. There was a satisfied silence and then, after a while, she continued. "I ventured into Faerie as often as I could, but after my first attempt to steal the flower, I was immediately recognized on every return visit. Sometimes, they would take me captive and torment me. As great as my power is in this sphere, that realm is altogether different, strange even to me, and I was each time barely able to escape, although I often left behind my human host to whatever doom those fierce denizens had planned for me. But always there was a price. One time I returned to find that all my remaining acolytes had vanished without a trace. One time I returned, and a century had passed."

"Praise her, sisters," said Lydia Calthrop, "For her conviction never flagged."

"Praise her," the assembled women shouted.

"But finally the wheel turned, as it always does; even Anu's wheel is turned on its head," the old woman said. "For Nergal returned. Oh, my Church, his power was unrivalled. No demon, no god, has ever wielded such power. If not for the wit of Doctor Fate, he would even now be ruler of this world, and many other worlds besides. 'Tis lucky for us that Nabu's servant conquered him, oddly enough, for Nergal would not abide us. You would be too great a threat to him. For the Coven of Ashland was ever the greatest circle of witches. When you thirteen are gathered, even Nergal has reason to fear you. Had reason to fear you."

"Had? Then he is removed as a threat forever?" asked Emeline Malady.

"Yes, my dear one," the old woman responded. "The Good Doctor destroyed him utterly. Even his soul has been cast down. But not before he ventured into Faerie and retrieved the flower! He used it to call forth former allies from the Pit, and with it populated again his necropolis of Kur."

"But the flower regrew its flames again, even after Nergal made use of it? You used it to restore us?" asked Aphra's sister, Aurinda.

"Yes, dear," replied the old woman. "Nergal has finally answered that question for us, and quelled our greatest fear. The flame-flower regenerates, one petal per moon. I watched and waited seven months for the flower to regrow all its petals but finally I was able to restore you. For when Nergal died, I retrieved the flower from where it lay hidden – deep in the heart of the Tower of Fate itself. Stolen from right under the nose of Doctor Fate!"

The dark congregation seemed to gasp in unison. "Tell us all, mistress!" Aphra exclaimed.

"It has taken me eighty years, but I finally found my opportunity to occupy this body. Lady Grey is a formidable witch herself, but the charm of protection Doctor Fate placed on her was the strongest such spell I have ever encountered. No amount of cunning or force allowed me to pierce it. But I was vigilant, and persistent. And finally, one day, for exactly one minute, the shield dropped. For Doctor Fate had died."

"Doctor Fate – dead? But then..." Verity Gorge's question was halted in mid-sentence.

"Died, but he is not yet dead. Sadly. But if he were, Nergal would be alive. So pick your poison, I reckon. Fate sacrificed himself to prevent Nergal from stealing the Amulet of Anutu, but Nergal was sickened by Fate's vital-force when he tried to imbibe it. I have no idea how that happened, but I intend for us to delve deep into the matter. Fate's life-force returned to the Doctor and he defeated the poisoned Nergal. Later, when he realized the means by which Nergal had retrieved damned souls from the Pit, Fate made the journey back to Kur and relieved Neti, who is now Lord there – yes, Neti, ha – of the flame-flower. He hid it in his Tower, which would have been as inaccessible to me as Kur, or Faerie – but for my possession of the body of his friend."

"And the perfect friend for me to have possessed! For not only was Lady Grey trusted above all others and invited to dine with Doctor Fate and his delicious wife " – this was met with a few murmurs of lecherous assent – "but she is one of the greatest practitioners of plant-magic I have ever encountered. And flowers are her specialty. All her wisdom was mine to access, and I used it to cause the flower to regenerate. Blood," she added as an aside, "the more innocent, the better." And the demon-inhabited crone smiled wickedly and licked her lips until they shone in the moonlight.

"Finding the flower in Fate's maze of a warren was simplicity itself with Lady Grey's heightened sensitivity to flora, and concealing it was, too, for Fate had foolishly given Inza a bracelet made of beads from Ishtar's necklace, and Lady Grey – well, I, inhabiting her – simply pilfered the bracelet on my way back from 'the loo.'"

Lamashtu looked at the frail, withered arms of the body she had stolen. "These flesh sacks are so weak! Even in a magic fortress, there is need of a toilet! But these flesh sacks are also strong, for they will enable us to do what your insubstantial ghosts could not – seize dominion over life in all its forms! What say you, my Church, my Congregation, my Coven?"

Thirteen voices shouted in unison. "Hail, Lamashtu. Dominion is ours!"

The old woman turned to leave the churchyard. Behind her, in the silver-blue moonlight, the shadows of the thirteen witches slithered along the ground back to the feet of their owners, climbed up their bodies, and then completely drowned the figures in darkness. The shadow-women then slowly shrank and reformed into sleek black winged shapes, and thirteen crows alighted from the churchyard, bound for the lights of the great city by the sea.