The Lamb
Chapter Six: Chalice
Rating by chapter: PG
Disclaimer: Buffy the Vampire Slayer and all its characters are the property of Joss Whedon and Mutant Enemy. I’m just sneaking Willow and Tara out for a night-time stroll… Neither the author nor this site receives compensation for this work.
Spoilers: This is an Alternate Universe fic, but it does contain some spoilers for ‘Chosen’ of season seven.
Feedback: Yes, please. This is my first Buffy fanfic. Reply on the forum or send email to
tara_the_phoenix@yahoo.caSummary: Tara discovers that she must save Willow, so Willow can save the world. But who is this preacher come to destroy them both?
“I’ve been waiting for you, Tara,” the girl said, her palms resting comfortably on her knees.
“Y-You’ve been waiting for me?” Tara replied, cursing herself for her hugeness, her clumsiness, and her stupidity. “B-but who are you?”
“I am the goddess Aranaea,” the child simply replied.
Something within Tara’s mind clicked with certainty, and though her rational mind would have her disbelieve the child’s words, she knew the truth. After all, she could see the heaven-threads right here, right now. “What are you doing here?” Tara asked.
“Saving the world.” The child-goddess said the words so offhand that Tara could barely understand them.
“Saving the world?” Tara whispered, then she looked around her at the blackened womb of Willow’s hell-blasted tree. “Who is this girl?” Tara asked, desperate to know why, oh why was Willow so special?
In response, the child
(goddess)waved her hand at the table and there appeared a magnificent chalice made of the finest crystal, glinting off the soulfire of the goddess. The goblet was deep and pure and Tara thought she’d never seen anything quite so beautiful ever before. Aranaea’s eyes looked steadily into Tara’s, and she said, “Willow Rosenberg is the last best hope of this world.” The goddess paused, then said, “Tara, you have no comprehension of the sacrifices this precious woman has made for the inhabitants of not only this world, but countless others.”
But anguished Tara could recall the desperate Willow-wounds, from the cuts and bites to the most horrible shattering of her skull, and she thought that maybe she could comprehend it. Tara sat back in that quiet reflection, her eyes going back and forth from the chalice to the devastated ground until Aranaea made a curious gesture, gently forcing Tara’s eyes to meet her own.
“For the past year, the First evil has been waging war on the world, centering its offensive in Sunnydale, the home of the Slayer. But it was the power of this lone woman that decided the outcome.” Aranaea stopped long enough to concentrate her gaze to the withered ground next to the table, Tara’s eyes helplessly following. The weapon
(scythe)winked into existence, and Tara recognised it’s ferocity, it’s gleaming edge, it’s waves of power. And Tara could almost see the link between scythe and soul, that Willow had consumed the power of this weapon entirely in her dire need. In a quiet voice, for to speak of such things in irreverence would be catastrophic, Aranaea said, “Willow Rosenberg is the single most powerful witch alive on the earth, and her insistent call brought me out of hiding. I merged my will with hers, and together we used the mystical power of the scythe to turn every Potential Slayer into a true Slayer, with all the powers that came with the calling.”
Tara should have been confused with this welter of words and concepts outside her natural ken, but the link of her mind with Willow and the goddess revealed flashes of images that testified of the tale. She could almost see them, as if through a thin grey filter.
“But the powers of the gods are limited to the power of the vessel,” Aranaea sadly continued. “And Willow was attacked before we could complete our work to eradicate the First, to repair the rift they made to come to our plane of existence. If only,” and Aranaea stopped and looked away from Tara with tears in her eyes, and Tara was mystified at the sheer magnitude of this tiny goddess’s love for Willow.
Finally the child-goddess returned her reddened gaze to Tara’s eyes, smiled wistfully and snapped her fingers.
The crystal chalice shattered into a thousand pieces, and finally Tara understood. She reached over to take a shard in her fingers, to delicately touch the gleaming edge, as the crystal ever shone in the glow of the goddess.
“The powers of the gods are limited to the power of the vessel,” Tara repeated. “And the vessel broke.”
Aranaea nodded. “There was nothing I could do, except sustain her physical body as best as I could. I chose to stay, and every wound she received I felt as if in my own flesh.” Aranaea gasped, crying in the remembrance of it, and again Tara could see the ghostly images of the vampires surrounding Willow, their knives slicing her abdomen, their swords piercing her, until she was borne down into the dust, her cherished head dashed to the floor.
“Faith saved her,” the child-goddess continued, and for a moment Tara was confused, wondering if the goddess was speaking metaphorically, until she saw the mirage, an image of a Slayer picking up Willow’s broken body and taking her to the bus. “But they weren’t fast enough.” Tara saw as the bus tumbled back down the newly formed canyon, tossing the girls inside it like dolls. “And rescue took far too long,” Aranaea wept. “How I wished to save them all, these brave and precious women who gave their lives so freely so the world could live in peace. But dearest Willow was my last hope, and needed every ounce of my protection, so I had to, I had to let them go, I had to sacrifice them in order to save her.” Aranaea was crying freely now, and Tara’s benevolent heart wrenched within her at the terrible choice, her own eyes now gleaming with tears.
Aranaea finally looked at Tara, and there was something in her gaze, some deep knowledge that actually frightened her. “I kept her alive, Tara, but it is up to you to save her.”
“Me?” Tara spluttered. “B-but you’re...”
Tara was going to say, “You’re a goddess, why don’t you do it?” but Aranaea interrupted, saying once again, “The powers of the gods are limited to the power of the vessel. I have no power here. You do.”
Tara was held spellbound by the fierce determination in the child’s eyes. Aranaea looked at Tara with a hint of wonder and then Tara felt the god-curtain wash over her, as Aranaea’s presence surrounded her, and pierced her. And within Tara’s mind were many doors, each of them latched tightly and warded against entry, imprisoning the fearsome beasts inside, her malicious memories that had to be just so contained or she would lose her humanity. And the god-curtain swept under the doors, and through the keyholes, and blessed the rooms within, and sanctified them, and celebrated the glorious win.
Tara sat as doors opened, and there was no more horror, only love. And the precious child-goddess whispered, “You have no idea, do you?”
And as Tara sat cross-legged on the blighted ground, she could feel the edges of her consciousness blur with sensory overload. The whirling storm of magical energy surrounding her, the insistent showers of god-presence emanating from the child like a nuclear reactor, the disquieting dimness of the blackened leaf-curtain; a part of her wanted to curl up into a little ball and gibber in madness.
But once again the insistent sapphire eyes of the child-goddess held her, grounded her, and for a few moments Tara was allowed to calm herself, to quiet her breathing, to shut out the madness around her. Only then did she remember what the child had just asked.
“No idea of what, exactly?” Tara asked, regaining her composure and a little of her trademark cheekiness.
“Who you are!” Aranaea replied in near-exasperation. “Humans! How is it possible that you can’t feel your own destiny? Do you really think so little of yourself?”
Tara hung her head and thought
(a drifting mite)that yes, she thought little of herself.
And the goddess tweaked that little memory from her, and reached forth her small and delicate child’s hands across the shards of crystal on the low table to take Tara’s huge and clumsy ones. She gripped them tightly, and then growled, “Tara.
You are the Kraken.”
(trolling the depths of the magics)
No, impossible.Between their conjoined hands a massive vessel emerged, another chalice, larger and somehow more ornate than Willow’s. Aranaea tightly squeezed Tara’s hands again and said, “This, my dearest Tara, child of my heart, is you.” She finally released Tara’s hands to sit back down on her heels.
Tara could only stare at the goblet in front of her. Didn’t Aranaea just say that Willow was the most powerful witch on the earth? Correctly interpreting her silence, Aranaea said, “There are few women like you on earth right now. There are warlocks and witches in plenty, and Willow is the greatest of them all, but true healers are very rare. I think there is a healer in India, and another in Romania. But
you are the most powerful healer on earth. I should know, I was the one who created you.”
Tara looked at the goddess with stark astonishment in her eyes, her mouth forming a question, but the insistence of the goddess in making her statement could not be stopped, and the child continued, saying, “And, in order for Willow to save the world, I need you to change this,” and she waved at the crystal shards on the table, “into this.”
With another snap of her fingers, Willow’s chalice reformed as it had been, with no mark to tell the shattering tale. The goddess put her hands over the goblet and closed her eyes. Pure white liquid light poured from her palms to fill the chalice to overflowing, and Tara felt her heart ease in the pureness of the goddess’ love. Aranaea opened her eyes once again; her piercing sapphire eyes that somehow saw everything of her, that swept the dark corners of her mind clean. “Save Willow, Tara,” Aranaea whispered. “So Willow can save the world.”
A heroine. A paladin of souls, a champion for good, the saviour of the world. Every childhood dream come true, and in the downcast humility of her pure heart, Tara balked one last time. “But goddess, who am I?”
Aranaea smiled a sweet sweet smile, and Tara drowned in it, thinking that if she were to smile like that at a woman that no one would ever tell her no. The child reached over the table, leaning to her and caressed her cheek with her little fingers, then kissed her lightly on the forehead. Tara could feel a searing heat at her forehead as if she had just been branded. But when the goddess turned to look at Tara again, holding Tara’s cheeks in her hot little hands, Tara could see an unfathomable depth of sorrow in her eyes. A single tear coursed down Aranaea’s cheek as her voice choked, “My dearest and most precious child, this time you will be the rabbit,”
(long thin streams of tar)“you are my sacrifice to save the world. You are the lamb.”
Of course. To Tara's oft-bewildered mind, and even amidst the fury of magical energy surrounding her, this simple statement made the most perfect sense. No wonder she felt such love and devotion for this woman, this Willow. She must, in order to lay her life down for her.
And Tara looked inside her soul, at the dark rooms swept clean, and decided that yes, she would die for her new
(Willow-light)friend. She would die willingly, and a thousand times over, if it would keep this most precious woman alive. This final task, her last hurrah, would make sense of it all.
Suddenly Aranaea’s head shot up, and she cocked her head as if she were listening to something. Tara turned her own head around, but could see nothing beyond the black curtain. But was the world here in Willow’s mind getting dimmer? “I’m running out of time,” Aranaea said, and Tara was shocked and frightened to hear a glimmer of fear in the child’s voice. “There was so much more to tell you, why I did what I did to you and your family, but I’m afraid there is no more time.”
My family? Wait.Tara put up a hand, imploringly; anything to get the goddess to stay and interpret her last cryptic sentence, but Aranaea was already standing up and brushing off invisible dirt from her dress.
“Goddess, please!” Tara cried, stumbling up from the ground, knocking over the table that suddenly whisked out of existence. Aranaea picked up the scythe from the ground and held it towards Tara. It didn’t seem right that such a little girl could have the strength to handle such a weapon.
“Take it, Tara, it’s the only way to defeat him,” the goddess said, thrusting the scythe at her.
“Him who?” Tara asked, senses reeling, holding out her hands to physically take the scythe, and finally reacting to the obvious fear roiling off the tiny goddess.
“Not like that!” Aranaea cried, almost sobbing with terror. Tara could see the world around them continue to darken, until an unhappy and uncertain twilight lay over the landscape of Willow’s mind. Tara nodded, finally understanding, even through her fright. She put her fingers on the scythe
(so much colourful dust)and sharply inhaled. The scythe disintegrated, and her head snapped back as unfamiliar and primal power surged through her veins. She could feel her spine crackling with it, and wondered that it didn’t burst from her eyes like lightning. It took a few moments for her to become adjusted to the new power within her, and by the time she recovered, the child-goddess was gone. And more than gone, for every ounce of peace and light in Willow’s mind was vanished, leaving Tara in a dim and unknown world.
“Well now, missy, just who are you?”
Tara whirled around to behold a man walking toward her. She watched in horror as his booted feet burned the dead grass under his feet, leaving charred footprints. There was a cloud around him; a noxious miasma that was felt more than seen, like the odour of blood but not the stain. He was dressed as a preacher in dark clothes, the single white spot at his collar glowing, not with the god-light of Aranaea, but rather with the same putrid luminescence found on moulds and lichens in the dark of night. On the surface he seemed rather presentable, but Tara could feel the thin filter, the layer of scum on top, that would dirty his every move.
“This ain’t the time for visiting, little lady,” the preacher was saying, and Tara couldn’t move a single muscle, couldn’t claw her way back into her own body even though she was desperately seeking retreat. She closed her eyes and concentrated, visualising her body back in the hospice room, the feel of the afternoon sun on her face, Willow’s hair underneath her hands. She ached to reverse, to withdraw, but some force held her, fished her from the mystical sea. In desperation
(trapped!)Tara opened her eyes. This had never happened before. She’d never been caught in someone’s mind and unable to return. Had her mother ever told her this was possible? The darkness emanating from the preacher had her trapped in a dome of misery, and she felt horribly exposed, like the preacher could see every dark part of her, every little malice, every little lie, every little secret.
And every dark and malignant room that the child-goddess blessed was now multiplied in its ruination, its lies and secrets magnified in a damning legion of darkness, and even as Tara’s well-trained mind raced to contain them all, to make little prisons again, she could feel the insidious clouds of hate and despair waft through her mind, poisoning everything they touched.
The preacher lifted a hand and casually waved it; whole branches of Willow’s tree were suddenly obliterated, carving him a path directly to where she stood, trembling, trying to run, feeling a weird cementing of her feet. As she looked down in panic, she noticed that the earth had indeed swallowed her feet and began to slowly chew on her legs. Her throat constricted as she begged to scream, but another gesture from the preacher bricked up her mouth. So Tara flayed her arms, scratching desperately at the dead earth, until they too were
(chains of restraint)bound to her with invisible cords, leaving her neatly trussed like a hunting trophy. Tara could only moan behind her closed mouth as the earth slowly advanced up her legs. She closed her eyes again and tried to calm her breathing, seeking any way out of Willow’s mind, because this wasn’t real, none of this was real! But even with her eyes closed she could see two red pinpricks of hatred glowing from the preacher’s eyes and she decided that if she was going to fight, she had better see her opponent.
So she opened her weary eyes, and she watched the terrible advance of the man,
(the long preacher, the dark hand, the silent might)the flickers of fire curling the dead tendrils of grass under his booted feet, the fog that surrounded and sustained him, and she knew true terror.
“So, thought you’d come a-calling in miss Willow’s mind, didja?” the preacher asked amiably, looming over her sinking body. With another shot of genuine fright, Tara noticed that his eyes were completely black. “By rights, you don’t belong here,” he continued.
He stood up and walked away, and with another careless wave of his hand another huge branch of Willow’s tree was devastated into dust. “I’m starting to get a mite ornery,” he continued, “seeing all these people coming into Willow’s brain, and I’m the only one that belongs.”
The preacher then returned swiftly to Tara and hunkered down on his knees before her. “Time for you to understand something, little girl. Willow belongs to me. I am the First, and I will rain devastation and misery on her until she has paid what she owes. I will visit her with every mental torture, every destruction, every rack and ruin my immense mind can conjure up, until she is nothing but a wasteland. And this will I do because the others got away, in death they escaped, but Willow is alive, and I will
feed on her.”
And with another wave of his vile hand, he opened a window into Willow’s mind, and showed her a scene of devastation so raw, so rank and gory that Tara wanted to gag on it. She could see Willow there, but Willow didn’t have white hair, her hair was red, and she was endlessly stumbling through darkened streets, blood pouring from her wounds, reeling from one broken and beloved body to another, one Xander, one Buffy, one Giles, weeping and crashing and falling, her body landing in their ripe bloated balloon skins that would pop like a bubble, her hands and limbs covered with their putrid rotting organs, until the stench was forever in her nose and the giggling hordes of madness danced behind her eyes. This was what Willow was seeing, every moment of every day she lay comatose, and Tara could have screamed at the dreadfulness of it all.
The preacher saw the genuine horror in Tara’s eyes and laughed at the pleasure of it. With another gesture he closed that window into Willow’s mind, but it wasn’t soon enough for Tara, for the images burned their way into her memory, creating more little rooms of misery, and part of her knew she would have nightmares about them for the rest of her life. “She will pay, little missy,” he said, and he reached forth his terrible smooth hand and patted Tara lightly on the cheek. Under his touch Tara could feel her cheek burning and she wanted to scream through her bricked mouth. With a genuine smile of maliciousness, he added, “And there’s nothing you can do about it. You think that you have power, but you’re wrong. Dead wrong.”
Tara’s mind whirled in despair. There was no way out. No way to save herself, let alone Willow, and a part of her addled mind cursed the goddess for not warning her of the dangers here.
Tara felt a pinprick in her arm. She looked down to see that the earth had swallowed her up to her waist, but there was nothing on her arm. A whooshing sound filled her ears, and a strange sensation flooded through her veins. The preacher didn’t seem to miss anything, and his face was contorted with hate as he saw her consciousness withdraw.
As Tara melted away, she could hear his voice, and it was all the more terrible for its quiet intensity. Locking his black eyes on hers, watching her escape, he merely stated, “It is said that even the powerful die.”
Grabbing her nearly insubstantial face as it faded from him, he added, “And the meek shall inherit the earth.”
To be continued with Chapter Seven: Ethan and the Witch
I have a few days off so hopefully I'll be able to continue this mad posting frenzy!