by Cynamin

Part Three

The mists obscured the dark keep early in the morning, and everything was damp. Corliss could hide within the mists to approach her enemy, but they could also mask unknown creatures that would hunt her in turn. The Slayer’s stomach was twisted in knots, and not just from the coming battle.

It had taken her three days to recover completely from her wounds, even relying on the vampire’s strength. Corliss had never seen the vampire her life was connected to now. The circle had him, they said, their magic keeping him unconscious indefinitely. Though Leal had said nothing, she had the horrible feeling that when this battle was over so would what was left of her life. Why keep the vampire alive when her task was done?

Perhaps it was the mist that made for such melancholy thoughts. Wherever they came from, Corliss tried to shrug off the feeling that they were right. She clutched a large spear Leal had given her before she left home. Now was the time to kill this sorcerer, the one who had sent the gryphon and taken away her life.

The dark keep was little more than a set of ruins. It was not the keep itself that was this sorcerer’s home, but a set of caves underneath it. He was not human at all, but a part demon that had embraced everything that made evil. In doing so, whatever humanity he had left had disappeared. The gryphon was his creation, created from the essence of a demon and his own dark magic. She would have to defeat him before he could bring more darkness into the world.

The mists obscured the entrance to the cave, and, Corliss suspected by a magic spell as well. But the mists could not obscure her Slayer senses, and the members of the circle nearby were working to counteract the sorcerer’s spells. Hidden behind a large standing stone, surrounded by rubble, was a dark rift in the earth. She descended into the crack, and the darkness at the world’s heart.

Once into the caves, there was no light at all. The Slayer found herself making her way by feel. It was eerie, not knowing where she was, where she was going. Kind of like what he’s done to my life, she thought bitterly. Then the bitterness turned to anger, an anger that gave Corliss new strength.

Corliss rounded another corner, and found herself in a suddenly lit room. The torches were dim, but after the total darkness of the corridor it took her eyes a moment to adjust. That moment was all it took, and a blow struck the Slayer in the stomach. She cried out in pain, clutching her stomach and falling to the floor.

As her vision cleared, she saw her enemy, a dark form towering above her. “Poor dear,” he chuckled.

Corliss’s eyes filled with tear of pain. Raising her hand from her stomach, she saw it was stained with blood. She gasped in fear.

The sorcerer laughed. “Hurts, doesn’t it?”

Corliss made no reply.

“I did not expect to see you again, girl,” the demon-man sneered. His eyes glowed a sickly green in the dim room. “Thought my gryphon took care of you. But it’s no matter.” He raised his sword menacingly.

“So this is it?” Corliss asked finally. “You’re just going to kill me where I . . . sit?”

The sorcerer laughed. “You didn’t think I’d let you escape, did you? Of course not. If I kill you, it will take a long time before the circle can create a new champion. That was the plan. But walking in here, that is even better.”

“How so?”

“You don’t know?” the part demon said in evil glee. “The circle imbued you with great magic to make you what you are. Now, that magic will be mine. And once it is, there will be no one who can stop me.” He looked at her, pained and bleeding, and stood proudly above her. “You are going no where,” he said arrogantly, and turned away from her.

Corliss sat against the wall of the cave, silently watching as the sorcerer prepared his ritual to take the magic that made her the Slayer. Her silence enabled her to observe him, but it also served another purpose. Already the new wound in her stomach was healing, closing with a speed that terrified her. Obviously the sorcerer did not know of the magic that had enabled her to survive the gryphon’s attack, the magic that would enable her in moments to strike against him. That was, if she didn’t alert him to the change.

Minutes later, the dark sorcerer still had turned around, and Corliss was feeling certain that she could stand again. Clutching the spear that she had dropped as she fell, the Slayer quietly rose to stand. She leaned on the spear for a moment, clenching her teeth to stifle a pained gasp as the still healing wound protested the movement. The pain faded quickly, and Corliss smiled.

“Oh, sir,” she said with false sweetness, “I believe you have forgotten something.”

“And what would that be,” the sorcerer asked as he turned, then looked at her in surprise when he saw her standing, leaning on the spear.

“This,” she declared, and turned the spear quickly in her hand, running the point through his stomach, where he had gotten her twice now. “That is for my life.”

The sorcerer slumped to the ground, surprise still etched on his face as he died. Corliss looked at him for a moment without feeling, then climbed back to the light.

Giles paced about his living room, silently gathering the various notes he had made in the past day, the additional notes on Buffy’s dreams, and a cup of tea. Buffy sat still on his couch, watching as he wandered back and forth without a word. She was silent in turn, and only her eyes moved, but it was a stillness borne of tension.

When Giles stopped his pacing, but did not appear to be about to speak, Buffy looked up at him in concern. “Should I be worried?” she asked finally.

“Hmm?”

“You called me here, said you had something to tell me, and now you won’t . . . tell me. Should I be worried?”

Giles looked startled at the question. “No! No, of course not.”

“Then what’s up? You miss me?”

Giles smiled slightly. “No . . . Well, maybe, but that’s not why I called you.”

“So why’d you call?”

“I, um, discovered the identity of the woman in your dreams.”

Buffy’s stillness was broken. She sat forward eagerly, nearly bouncing where she sat. “Really? There’s really a person I’ve been dreaming about?”

Giles looked at his notes. “Corliss Aethylwyn,” he acknowledged. “She was the chosen one somewhere in the late dark ages. The exact date is uncertain.”

Buffy brightened at the mention of the dream woman’s name. “And she was a Slayer, like me,” she said softly to herself.

“Well, no.”

“Yes, she was,” Buffy said earnestly. She was worried for some reason at being told her dreams were wrong. They couldn’t be. “You just said she was the Chosen One, Giles.”

Giles shook his head. “She was the Chosen One, Buffy, but she was not a Slayer like you.”

“But . . .” Buffy protested. “I mean, she fought demons, and . . . huh?”

Giles blinked wearily. “I’m not explaining this well,” he acknowledged. “Corliss was a Slayer, but she was not one like you. Slayers of her time were . . . actively chosen, created, if you will, by a group of magic-users known as the Circle.”

“Let me guess,” Buffy interrupted, “predecessors of the Watchers?”

“Well, yes, actually. When one Slayer died, they selected an unborn child to become the next Slayer, actually giving her all the abilities that had belonged to her predecessor. The child was born with her abilities, and trained to fight evil from a very young age.”

A moment’s pause. “So what changed?” Buffy asked.

Giles sighed. “Actually, Corliss did. She is the only Slayer of her kind the Watchers have any record of, because she was the last.”

Buffy replied, quietly thoughtful, “Everything changed with her.”

“Yes. She almost died . . .”

“My dreams,” Buffy whispered. Then, with certainty she said, “The Circle saved her. They bound her life to a vampire’s, made her immortal.”

Giles looked surprised. “Yes, exactly. A powerful demon . . . a sorcerer . . . thought that by eliminating her, her would have enough time between Slayers to destroy . . . everything. The Circle had no choice but to take any means necessary to save the Slayer they had so that she could destroy him instead. By binding her to a vampire, she could only be killed if the wound would kill them both. Fire, beheading, and a stake through the heart. Killing one of them in any of those ways would kill them both.”

Buffy nodded. These things she knew from her dreams. She had lived these events in her dreams. Still, there was a question she was afraid to ask. “What happened to her, Giles?” she asked softly. “How did she finally die?”

“Don’t you know?”

Buffy shook her head. “My dreams haven’t gotten that far in her life. Last night I watched her defeat the sorcerer.” She looked at Giles expectantly, but afraid of what the answer would be.

Giles shook his head. “I don’t know. I doubt anyone does. After defeating the sorcerer, she . . . broke ways with the circle. She stole the vampire they had joined her life with and was never heard from again.”

Strange. That was all Buffy could think. Strange that she truly had been dreaming the life of a real person, someone who had once fought evil like her. Even given up on the Watchers, like her. “Let me guess,” Buffy said instead. “The Circle, annoyed with their Slayer going awol, and realizing that making her immortal to fill a time gap was really stupid, become the Watchers and create Slayers like me instead? So they wouldn’t have to hand pick them any more as babies.”

“Yes, I suspect so,” Giles said surprised. “There is nowhere that says that exactly, but after her defection the Watchers Council was formed and the nature of Slayers changed.”

“And here I always thought I was chosen by those mysterious ‘powers that be,’” Buffy said, teasing. Then she thoughtfully added, “Do you think the reason I’m dreaming about her has something to do with the Watchers?”

Giles sighed. “I’m afraid that may be the case. After all, she did break from them as you have, and her breaking away caused everything to change.”

“What do you think the Watchers will do this time?”

“I don’t know, Buffy. I do know, through a friend in the Watchers who manages to contact me every once in a while, that you left them in a bit of an uproar. They’re up to something, she’s sure, but she doesn’t know what. But I do know one thing.”

“What’s that?”

“Today’s Watchers are not the Circle anymore. They are afraid of change.”

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