Guardian of her Gates

Want to sample before you buy? Read on:

Hulngal glided through row upon row of esoterica stacked high and haphazard, before the ding of her shop’s bell drew the tall, willowy woman’s attention to the front of the store. She laid down the reliquary she was holding on the nearest shelf, and folded her arms neatly across her belly, overtop her dazzling mystic’s raiment, as her assistant came to fetch her.

“Unscheduled, my lady,” Igibala said with a disdainful glance over her shoulder at the figure waiting just inside the doorway.

“We are open, are we not?” asked the proprietor with a gentle smile.

Her assistant just rolled her eyes and disappeared to take the customer’s coat.

“You’ll have to forgive her,” said Hulngal as she made her way to the front of the store, mists sweeping up to cover the shop’s wares in her wake. “She is—” She stopped short as she caught sight of the well-built man, boots still dripping with the snow that swirled outside in the early December evening.

“Ugh,” she added, dropping all pretense at human kindness. “You.”

“Mistress,” the man said swiftly, lowering his head in supplication. “I can do this no longer,” he begged, stepping toward her. Halted by a swiftly raised hand from Hulngal. He raised his own hands before him in apology, palms out. “I have walked too long among them. I have done my best to send fresh souls as my masters command. But I cannot, I cannot bear another year of this gods-forsaken winter.”

“Could be worse,” said Igibala, mopping up the water he’d dripped across the shop’s frontage, working hard to scour the scum burgeoning like trailing ivy in his wake from the lushly painted tile. “They could have stationed you in Alaska.”

“It would be fitting, given your failures,” said Hulngal, shaking her graceful head at the way he had allowed his human disguise’s clothes to become caked in dirt and mire. “How have you let yourself fall this far? Are you not meant to tempt, rather than revile?”

“You see – you see! I am cast down from what I once was. From fire and revelatory agent of wealth. From begetter of fear and guide to the stars themselves. I am become lesser in this nightmare realm. Would I could but return to my place of power, reclaim my legions, and once again retake my rightful seat—”

“That’s the point of a punishment, dear,” said Hulngal. “Your term is not up. Return to your duties and cease darkening my door.”

The story continues in Guardian of her Gates.