Writing Assignment 2: Prologue

Prologue

Red Alice

Alice pressed against the wall so she could see the door. Through the door was only blackness and cold. Behind her she could not only hear, but feel the bass beat of the pounding rhythm, throbbing through her bones. Feel the heat of the pressed bodies of the crowd. The never-ending drug and magic infused music, her bacchanalia carrying on without her, shadowy forms writhing to the beat. Behind her, her beautiful people danced, wreathed in smoke and strobing lights. 

She wasn't sure why she had pulled away, exited the rhythm. Behind her was music, warmth, and life, the sweet smell of perfume and cloves mingled with sweat. In front of her, through the door was only darkness. And potential.

"Perhaps the party was getting stale?" she mused to herself. It had been going on for what, ten years, twenty? A hundred? She really didn't know. She wasn’t good at time, under the best of circumstances, and it was even harder to keep track in this place, this bubble apart from reality, this realm of her own manufacture. 

All this existed because she had willed it into existence. These beautiful people were here because she wanted them here, brought them here, carefully selected them to be here. Her power and her songs flowed through them, music culled from a hundred planes of existence. Because of her, they danced forever, untiring, unending, no need for food, or water, or sleep. They didn't age. They never became bored, were barely even capable of rational thought, they felt, they experienced, and that was enough. They belonged to the music. To HER.  For a moment she felt some satisfaction in that and almost rejoined the dance. 

But something was still nagging at her. She absentmindedly brushed down the crinoline of the short, lowcut black velvet dress she wore, and then fiddled with a lock of her wild, red hair, the one that always fell down across her face. Trying to isolate the source of her unease. She was feeling lucid for once, clear. That was unusual, and generally she'd found, the universe had a purpose behind these bouts of clarity. She concentrated on the feeling. Suddenly the knowledge came, rushing through her drug addled brain like a flood. She experienced knowing the thing, tasted it, smelled it. It smelled like blood and ash, tasted like rot. Something was wrong.

Red Alice had always been called "the crazy one" of the Alice triplets. She was first called that by her sisters, then her many lovers, and finally by the bards and historians that attempted to chronicle the multiple centuries of the long bender that was her life. In her more lucid moments, she had to admit, it was a fair cop. Rationality was not her forte.  

But she was one of the Alice sisters, so it was important to not mistake crazy for weak. The power of her witchcraft was almost limitless. The Wise considered her one of the most dangerous creatures currently active in the world, both because of her raw power and her extreme unpredictability. She beat out ancient dragons, arch demons, faerie lords, undead sorcerers and a raft of demigods for that dubious honor. And along with that power, came these occasional flashes of intuition. Intuition WAS her forte. She often found herself inexplicably knowing things. Things no one could know, that no one should be capable of knowing. This was one of those times. 

"The world is changed." she thought. "I feel it in the water. I feel it in the earth. I smell it in the air. I hear it in the beat. Something is wrong, very wrong, something at the borders of the world is fraying. It feels like what happened before, but different somehow."

She chewed her lip. What had happened before had been bad. It had taken all three of them to deal with it, and it had still been a near thing. She did not relish a reoccurrence. 

But what to do? She considered for a long moment, a plan coming to her. This was not a "her thing" she decided. Nothing of music, mirrors, or madness in this. Nothing of dreams. This was a Black Alice thing. It stank of her sister's domain, of spirit and shadow, and the boundary between the living and the dead. She needed to talk to her sister. And then she remembered that her sister was gone. She remembered the Falling Out (the capital letters in her mind were well deserved, the world had still not entirely recovered from The Falling Out. Bits of it never would). The three of them had quarreled. Black Alice was gone. Gone over the sea.

"No way, can't go over the sea" she thought to herself. "That evil sea bitch is still waiting. She won't forgive or forget. Can't face her on her home turf. She'd eat my heart." Red Alice shuddered for a moment. She didn't fear much, but she feared HER. "Not on her home turf, not in her place of power" she mentally repeated to herself. 

Minions. Tools then. She needed tools. Mortal tools so that bitch wouldn't smell her magic on them. And her tools would need a ship. A powerful ship, to carry them safely through the realm of her enemy, carry them about her business, no matter how far Black Alice had run. Carry them away from Valoria, across the wide ocean to the Ten Thousand Isles. That's where her sister went. After they parted ways. That was the place to start. 

She smiled a moment remembering The Ten Thousand Isles. Volcanic islands, emerald slopes wreathed in clouds. White sandy beaches, tall ships sailing clear blue seas. Palm trees. Dashing pirate lords. One particular dashing pirate lord. That had been a good time. She wondered how he was getting along, and then with a sinking stomach realized he was certainly dead by now, along with his children and his children's children. That made her sad and she wept a tear for her dashing pirate lord. 

Red Alice managed to focus again, hard as it was for her. She couldn’t go herself but she knew just where to get the tools she needed. She had to move fast, though, while she was still lucid, before the madness came back. It always came back. She didn't have much time.   

Red Alice walked through the door and vanished into the yawning darkness behind it. Left behind, the thumping bass that had been playing nonstop for seventy two years, four months, nineteen days, three hours, and twenty one minutes, finally faltered and stopped. The dancers looked up, waking, as the enchantment faded and their minds returned to them. The shock on their beautiful faces was intense but brief, as the long avoided years finally caught up to them in a rush. Before one another's horrified eyes, they aged decades in seconds, youth withering, and died where they stood, leaving only desiccated corpses dressed in fashionable clothes to crumple to the ground. There was a clatter as instruments fell to the floor.  The party was over. The party was just beginning.