The Dark Rose

By darkmagickwillow

Copyright © May 2003

Chapter 22 (Alone in the Dark)

Willow strode confidently into the throne hall of the Master. Her head was held high and her eyes were alert and perceptive without being overly cautious. Her gaze narrowed as she found the Master on his throne, alone in the darkness. He was illuminated only by the throbbing glow of the Heart of Corruption hanging on its chain about his neck.

The huge emerald seethed with ill power, throwing off gouts of icy green fire like the active corona of a miniature star. Deep beneath the surface of the world, its evil strength rivalled that of the Hellmouth itself. Yet for all its fury, it provided little illumination for the Master's subterranean domain. Willow's bones ached in the frigid cold of the tenebrous cavern, and the noisome stench of corruption exuded by the gem almost made her gag.

The Master had been horribly marked in his fight with Willow. Terrible burns scarred his face and one eye was gone entirely. His other eye was sunk deep in its socket and was luminous with emerald fury as he regarded her. His withered hands caressed the Heart unconsciously.

The stone of the cavern around them was perfectly smooth. There were no cracks or rough edges. It was clearly shaped by magic. Yet the marble of his throne was heavily pitted all over and cracks were beginning to form at its base. The corruption of the Heart was destroying the stone around it with its malice as surely as it was eating away at the aged vampire.

The Master attempted to smile at her, but nerves and muscles destroyed beyond even the power of vampiric regeneration turned the smile into a terrible grimace. "You passed my tests," he said, blackened tendons visibly moving in his jaw where the skin had melted away. "But you can't take me, girl."

"We'll see," Willow said without giving away anything on her expressionless face. She wasn't here to banter. She had no real hatred for the Master. He was just an obstacle. She just wanted to eliminate him so she could return to Tara and say those three small words to her.

He stood up slowly, wincing with pain as he did so. "You were a fool to come down here," he said. "Up there you were lucky. Down here I am the power." He clenched his bony fist around the Heart and a coruscation of emerald might erupted from it to surround him in a halo of magical fire.

Willow waved a hand and was immediately surrounded by a pearlescent bubble of force. The Master hammered at her with blasts of emerald fire, but the shield simply shimmered with the blows and reflected them all. This time Willow was ready to face the power of the Heart.

In response, Willow blasted at the stone floor of the cavern by the Master's feet in an attempt to bypass his defenses as she had above. This time flares of green fire met her blue flame to form a terrible storm as they strove against each other. Blue and green flames swirled and clashed in a brilliant display of power. The stone walls of the cavern rang with the sounds of their conflict, but eventually Willow had to give up her attack, as the Heart's might was simply too great to be opposed directly.

Before Willow could mount another attack, the Master struck, hurling a tremendous gout of magical fire at her. It struck her shield and clung there, eating into her defenses like vitriol. Willow panicked for a moment as she watched the fiery liquid flow over magical shield, rapidly pitting its pearlescent outer layers. Then she had an idea. She drew her shield in, then rapidly bounced it away from her just a short distance. The clinging fire was hurled away to be reabsorbed into the gale of emerald flames whirling around the Master. His form was obscured by the violence of the power surrounding him.

Lightning crackled from Willow's fingertips to detonate on the ceiling above the Master. Great chunks of the cavern's stones tore away and fell down towards the Master. The Master saw the attack and erupted with a gyre of wild green fire that consumed the stones, turning them first into red hot slag, then vaporizing them entirely. The tempest of emerald flames surrounding him grew as it consumed the rock until Willow almost could not look into the brightness of its rage.

Then he brought the full vehemence of the firestorm down upon Willow, battering savagely at her shield. The whirlwind of flame howled as it circled her and ate away at her protections. Willow desperately poured more power into her shields, but the rage of the storm was destroying her defenses faster than she could rebuild them. As she strove with all her strength against the dark force of the Heart, she realized that she had reached the limits of what she could do with light magic alone.

It pained her to make this decision, but she couldn't defeat the Master without help. Now was the time to call on dark magicks. However, once she opened her senses to feel the familiar flows of darkness, all she could feel was the dark force of the Heart. It shone to her magical senses like a supernova, obliterating any traces of the lesser darknesses around it. Even the Hellmouth was invisible and intangible this close to the Heart of Corruption. Here in its home, the Heart permitted no rivals to its power.

As Willow began to feel the full force of despair, knowing that she was going to die alone in the darkness without accomplishing her purpose, the Heart offered itself to her. Somehow millennia of pouring malice and fury into the emerald had awakened the stone, bringing to it a dim sentience that wanted to fulfill its dark purpose. It had no loyalty to its owner, only to power, and Willow's native power was far greater than that of the Master. It knew it could do great things as Willow's Heart.

The Heart offered itself with feelings and images, having no capacity for words. It promised all its power to her if only she would reach out and take it. With its help, she could destroy the Master with ease. It would become her heart. The effluvium of its corruption filled her nostrils with the sweet, gagging scent of putrescent flesh as it reached deeper into her mind, showing her a vision of the power it would give her, the world it would create for her.

Willow found herself looking down on the ruins of a city from a high precipice. As she looked closer, the ruins became familiar and she realized that the city was Sunnydale. She knew that she had destroyed it, vampires, demons, and all, finally freeing herself from its evil forever. From the ruins came a stream of people, coming forward to worship the beautiful, dark goddess who had saved them.

The crowd included everyone she had ever known, the living and even the dead who were limned with the cold emerald light of the Heart. She saw the kids who had teased her in school, their heads bowed worshipfully as they approached her. Even her family was there, led by the parents who had always ignored her, their expressions now vacant of anything but a slavish devotion to her.

Above the scene, a transformed emerald sun shone brightly. The green star was furiously active, constantly sending out flares of fire, but no warmth came from its odious radiance. Instead, the light turned the clouds a noxious green color as they hurried across the sky, seemingly eager to avoid the baleful glare of the new sun.

As the procession of people from the city grew closer, winding its way up the steep hills to where she stood, she saw her friends in the vanguard. Even Oz was there, his sad eyes showing his contrition for betraying her. Buffy's face was full of respect, finally seeing that Willow was the hero, not a sidekick any longer. Xander looked up at her as he approached, finally seeing her for who she was and loving her for it, but his eyes were also full of a sick sense of despair as he knew that he was not worthy of her. Only one person was worthy, and she led the group.

Tara was more gorgeous than Willow had ever seen her before, swathed in revealing robes of emerald green. Her smiling face was lost in ecstasy as she gazed at Willow. She neared Willow and knelt worshipfully before her, illuminated by a shaft of green effulgence from the active sun above. Her luminous emerald eyes were vacant of anything but mindless adoration as she looked up into Willow's face, completely under her spell. She was everything that Willow had made her, just a shell of the woman she had once been.

Willow mentally screamed with revulsion, violently hurling the Heart out of her mind. She would never want that empty devotion directed at her. Love was more than mere adoration. You couldn't create love with a spell; you had to make it anew every day with your heart. Love was worth fighting for. Once, she had put Tara under her spell and come so close to making Tara what the Heart had shown her, but never again. She would not even take the first step down that road even if it cost her her life.

And it would, she realized as she found herself back in the real world, her shields rocking from the concussion of the ferocious tempest of magical fire raging outside them. She could feel her life's energy pouring into her defenses to shield her from the conflagration, keeping her safe but draining her nonetheless. It was only a matter of time before she ran out of energy and her shields collapsed.

Then she knew how to defeat the Master. The magicks of blood and death weren't always evil. There was great power in willing self sacrifice. By giving her life in a final strike, she could destroy him and bring this cavern down around their remains, burying the Heart under tons of molten rock and rubble.

It was a simple spell, but it required a purity of essence that she didn't have. The dark magicks providing her with strength and endurance, protecting her from time and wounds, precluded her from making such a sacrifice. They were the last ties holding her to the darkness.

So she let them all go, severing the connections that bound the spells to her flesh, freeing herself from the last taints of darkness. She felt almost giddy, as if she had shrugged a tremendous weight off her shoulders. Her heart felt lighter too as she knew that she was finally living up to her promise as Tara would have wanted her to. She made no more distinctions among dark spells. The darkness was completely behind her at last.

She looked no different as the last remnants of the dark spells left her, but the loss of the dark sources sustaining her left her trembling with exhaustion. The constant drain of power to keep her shields up felt like the rapid loss of blood from a mortal wound. She shook her head, willing herself to stay upright. The spell would only require a few moments more.

As Willow reached inside herself for all the internal sources of power that could only be released with death, readying herself for the completion of her spell, she thought about Tara. She wanted her last thoughts to be of her love. She wished so strongly that they hadn't parted on such bad terms, that she had told Tara that she loved her. It would've been so easy to do then and now she would never have the chance.

She felt like she was about to cry, to open the floodgates of tears that she had held back for so long, but she couldn't. She had to be strong for a few minutes more as she completed the spell. Then it would all be over.

The firestorm outside faded from her mind as she thought about Tara, the fury of the storm inconsequential compared to the passion of her feelings for her love. If only there was another way, but she still could not pierce the veil of darkness shed by the Heart even if she wanted to and her life was not worth the price it required for its power. The Heart had chosen badly in its choice of a temptation for her, but she could feel that it was being truthful. Using its corrupt power would ineluctably lead her to create the world it had shown her.

She wished she could just have a few minutes alone with Tara to let her know that she loved her, to let her know that she was doing this to keep her safe and that she had kept her promise. Perhaps this sacrifice would expiate her sins though she dared not hope for such a gift. But more than anything, she wanted to say those three small words to Tara.

A familiar voice from behind startled Willow out of her reverie. "Do you trust me?" Tara asked.

Continued...