Destruction
She runs. She runs and the Devourer hunts her relentlessly. It is a creature of fire and chaos and death. She had bound it once with powerful magics and used it as her ultimate weapon. But now it has been freed, it remembers who enslaved it, and it hungers for her soul.
She runs over the desert sands, heedless of the bloody footprints she’s leaving behind her. She looks ahead and sees a statue. In days past, she might have looked at the stone colossus and seen a monument to the ruler of Babylon, the sorcerer queen, to her. But that was back when this land was verdant meadows on the edge of a thriving empire. Today, it is a barren wasteland and she sees the statue only as a temporary hiding place. But the Devourer knows her better than any of her many lovers. It will find her. And so her only hope is to keep running and postpone her end for what little time she can.
The desert sun burns her skin and parches her lips. She runs. Biting insects swarm around her in the twilight dusk, hungering for her blood. She runs. Wolves howl in the night, hunting for prey. She runs. Her legs give out. She crawls. And then she reaches the Canyon of Souls, a vast chasm in the earth extending as far as the eye can see, cutting off her escape. She manages the slightest chuckle. She should have known this was here. She was the one who put it here, after all. So this is it. She can’t go forward. She is cut off on the right and the left. And on her back she feels the heat of the Devourer’s burning as it surges toward her.
It stops, and she doesn’t have to look back to know that it is unleashing the same devastation which had previously obliterated her foes. The deafening crackle is the sound of the Devourer raising its hands, calling forth the fires of the underworld. The rush of air is the creature inhaling the four winds. Next will come the explosion of its fiery breath and everything before it will be obliterated. She closes her eyes and accepts her fate.
Redemption
Burning light blinds her. Furious roaring assaults her ears. Singeing brimstone fills her nostrils. Scorching air blows over her skin. And yet she is alive. She sits, not before the judgment seat of heaven, but on the ground; breathing scalding air–but still breathing.
A voice booms out, “Go!” Her body is spent, and yet it’s willing to run and throw itself into the chasm in obedience to that command. Except it wasn’t directed at her, it was directed at the Devourer, and the monster flees in terror.
“Are you my rescuer?” she asks the nameless voice.
“I am.”
“But how? Do you even know who I am?”
“You are Charlotte,” comes the reply. Not “Semiramis, Queen of Babylon,” the royal title she’d chosen for herself. Not “Fell Sorceress,” the appellation her enemies called her. Not “Whore Empress,” the name her subjects called her behind closed doors. Instead, he calls her “Charlotte,” as her mother once had.
Tears start to clear the smoke from her eyes and she looks up at the one who stands over her. He is a royal knight, a priestly champion.
“What do you want with me?” she asks.
“I want you to stop running,” he replies.
She can certainly do that; her body is too worn and broken down to do anything else.
He turns to look at the broken statue and her gaze follows. The stone is scorched and broken; its pieces lie scattered across the desert.
“Is that who you want to be?” he asks.
“No!” The answer leaves her lips before she even realizes what she’s said. But it comes from her heart. She’d do anything to obliterate her past.
“Then I proclaim this,” says the warrior. “You are Charlotte, my beloved, and any word that disputes this is a lie. Now rise up and step forward, knowing that I will be with you.”
Her strength is restored, and she stands. Though night has fallen, the last vestiges of the Devourer’s heat bring her some measure of warmth. All around her, she sees how the Devourer’s fury has been spent on the sands, melting them. Turned to glass, they shimmer as they reflect the twinkling light of the stars above. She sets out, resolutely, toward a village deep in the darkness.
Proclamation
Sandra runs. She runs, and the men hunt her relentlessly. She looks behind her, collides with someone in front of her, and both go tumbling to the ground as her pursuers encircle them.
It was a woman Sandra had collided with, a woman in a white dress who rises up with royal dignity. “Why are you chasing this one?” she asks.
“She stole from us,” shouts one of the men. “Five gold shillings.” The woman in white pulls five coins out of her purse, places them in the man’s hand, and says to all of them, “Go!” For an instant, Sandra half sees a glowing crown resting on this woman’s head. The others must see it too, because one by one they head off. The woman turns to Sandra and reaches out a hand to help her up.
Sandra takes it and is lifted up. She looks around, nervous that those men may still be lurking around, but she only sees verdant meadows, playing children, and the crumbled remains of some ancient monument. “Who are you?” Sandra asks.
“My name is Charlotte,” the woman in white answers.
“Yes, but… who are you? Why did you save me? Why did you pay for what I did? How did you send those men running?”
“Where to begin…” wonders Charlotte. “You see this statue?” She gestures at the ancient boundary marker. “Let me tell you about a woman they once called Semiramis, Queen of Babylon.”
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