Dark Canticles of the Blood Witch is a hexology spanning three continents and two different worlds – the Planum Materia, or physical world, and the Planum Astrali, the astral world of spirit, thought, dreams and nightmares.

This adult fantasy series of novels contains some explicit content aimed at mature readers, and has a voluntary age restriction of 18+.

Are you ready to enter the Planum Astrali?

Prologue, Scroll Three

The desert air was cold and dry, and the acrid smell from the nearby salt pans made the nose feel dry and burny. Out in the distance, a sandstorm seemed to be heading straight towards the ancient temple ruins.

The stars above the temple ruins glimmered brightly, each little speck a distant world with its own troubles, impassively looking down at the scene below.

A rider came galloping towards the ruins, and reined in just behind one of the smooth, thick walls. He quickly dismounted, all the while careful not to drop the bundle of rags he was carrying. The first wisps of sand began swirling around his legs as the sandstorm approached, and to his relief, the man saw a doorway in the otherwise solid wall.

Hurriedly, the man pulled on the camel’s reins, and the camel moaned loudly, but followed. Soon he was inside the doorway, being somewhat surprised at the size of the square stone room in which he found himself. The camel was too large to fit through the rectangular door, but stuck its head inside the room, partially closing the doorway with the bulk of its body, and darkening the interior almost completely.

For some time, the terrified man sat listening to the sound of the storm outside, and the occasional moans of the camel, but eventually tiredness overcame him.

A soft, red light woke the man, and he looked to see the doorway being open, with no sign of the camel. On the floor was a strange dried-out husk that almost looked like a tangled bundle of hessian ropes.

Outside, the pre-dawn was painting the sky a pinkish red. The man unwrapped the bundle of rags, and sighed with relief as he saw that the baby was still asleep, and breathing steadily. He held his child close to his chest, and tears began flowing from his eyes as he thought of the terrible events of the night before – the fires, the screams, the warmth of the blood that ran down his chest as his wife died in his arms. He would have his revenge, he swore.

A strange smoke slowly began filling the room, and soon the man was struggling to breathe. He scrambled to his feet and ran towards the doorway, but suddenly it was blocked, as if there had never been a doorway. The entire room was filled with a strange light that seemed to come from the smoke itself.

Through the smoke, a beautiful, naked woman became visible, and she began walking toward him. The man laughed as he realized that he was only dreaming, yet no matter how hard he tried, he couldn’t wake up.

The woman came to a standstill before him, and put a restraining hand on his shoulder. She raised her other beautifully shaped hand and ran her knuckles against his cheek. “Shhh!” she bade him, and stroked his chest. Somehow, the man calmed down, and began losing a grip of the baby in his arms.

With a start he came to, and found himself back on the ground, with smoke rising from the floor exactly as it had before. Now properly panicked, he shot towards the door like an arrow from a bow, but instead of escaping the room, he ran straight into a stone wall, bouncing backwards and landing on the cool stone floor with a gasp. The baby in his arms made no sound. Anxiously the man unwrapped the baby, only to find it still fast asleep and breathing quietly.

Confused, the man got up and began walking around. He could feel things moving amidst the smoke, and shivers ran down his spine.

“I have waited a long time for you, Mujaheed.”

Startled, Mujaheed spun around, and once a gain the feint outline of a very beautiful, naked woman manifested itself inside the smoke.

“Wh… who are you?” he stammered.

She came more clearly into view, and smiled mysteriously. She held out her hands, and, without thinking, Mujaheed gave his child to her.

The woman unwrapped the baby, and looked somewhat worried. “He is almost gone.” With that she held the infant to her breast, and the boy instinctively began drinking.

“Tell me, Mujaheed, how do you feel about the men who raided your village?”

Mujaheed’s eyes went wild. Through clenched teeth he said: “I want them. I want to hunt them down one by one and kill them all. Burn them, like they burned my brother. Skewer them with their own spears, like the did with my wife.”

“In exchange for a child, you can have that.”

Mujaheed looked confused. “You want to take my son?”

“No, silly!” the woman laughed. Her voice had a silvery colour to it, and yet something dark lurking beneath the surface. “I want you to give me a child.”

“Oh…” Mujaheed slowly said as comprehension spread across his face.

He looked her up and down, as if seeing her for the first time. She was young and beautiful, with firm, pointy breasts, a trim waist and shapely hips and thighs. He reached out and touched her upper arm, and her dark brown skin was smooth like silk and soft as down. Strangely, there were tattoos swirling underneath her skin, like a drop of ink that had fallen into a glass of water.

The beautiful woman sighed wistfully, and ran a hand over one of her breasts. “Do you not find me beautiful?”

“Yes, yes, of course! I… I am… was married. I…”

With her left hand, the woman put a restraining finger on his lips, and as she pulled her hand away, Mujaheed noticed that the nail of her thumb was long and filed into a sharp point.

“Take me…” she said with a soft moan, and carefully placed the baby she had been holding, on top of one of the stone sarcophagi closest to her. “Take me,” she whispered again, and held her arms out toward Mujaheed.

***

Mujaheed woke from the warmth of the sun baking his face. He sat up and rubbed his head. Immediately he felt awkward. His hair had a strange texture. He looked at his hand and let out a scream – his hand was not that of a man, but that of a beast of some kind. Something came at him from the side, and he jumped up with a mighty roar.

The thing came at him again, and he grabbed it and bit the thing. A sharp pain shot through his body and, bewildered, he looked at the thing he was holding. It was a tail.

Mujaheed began screaming and screaming and screaming, until his voice was so hoarse and damaged that he coughed up blood.

A strange sensation came over him as he began crying, and suddenly he was back in his normal form as a man. He got up, and carefully inspected his naked body. He flexed his arms, and they were strong and muscular, unlike before. He looked at the muscles on his thighs, and bent over and felt his calves. Muscles were rippling on his back, and as he straightened up, his stomach muscles flexed involuntarily.

“Do you like it?” A soft feminine voice said.

Mujaheed looked up, bewildered. “What have you done to me?” he rasped.

“You are now an Asura-Deva. You serve me. And thank you for both children you have given me. They will become very powerful.” With that the woman shimmered and turned into thick, black smoke that slowly thinned out and drifted away.

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Chapter 4

Rana walked some distance away from her men, found a suitable spot, spread out her rug and knelt down. She put her palms together and began reciting an old prayer in an ancient tongue, then, when she finished, she bowed her head to the ground, placing her palms in front of her.

Next, she got up and performed a series of dance moves. They were smooth and flowing, and she ended standing with her one leg raised, gently resting her right foot on her left knee. Her arms were held outwards, and she slowly brought her thumbs, forefingers and middle fingers together, while fanning open the remaining two fingers of each hand. She closed her eyes and began meditating.

Several hours went by, but in the place where Rana was, there was no such thing as time. The Planum Astrali simply is like that.

At first Rana entered the Holy Void, the place of total absence of physical sensation, where there is neither cold nor heat, nor light nor dark. The Holy Void itself is made of blackness, but not the kind that is scary. The slight fear and anxiety she felt, was her own nervousness and uncertainty that she had brought along with her.

Rana took a very long time – or perhaps just a moment – to calm her thoughts and decide where she wanted to go. The questions uppermost in her mind were: What is the best way for me to make peace? How can I cement a lasting, peaceful relationship with the Badeshtrani and the Oni? Do I marry Shruvari and Falir out of duty, or pursue romance of my own?

Still inside the Holy Void, she began thinking of which advisor to approach. Ahram, the thought entered her mind. In an instant, she found herself in old Patha, land of her ancestors, long before she was born, and long before Patha had surrendered and merged with Illuz-lur, and before Illuz-lur waxed and waned in power, and Patha slowly becoming the dominant nation once more.

The streets of old Patha were made of dust, not cobbles, and the buildings had a light shimmer, characteristic of the white clay used to plaster them. The entire city smelled of spices and food, and she could hear the sound of many people. The place where she was, was a necropolis – a city made up of ones who had passed away, but not yet realized it.

Without walking there, she suddenly found herself in front of a tent made of camel skins, with a wrinkled old man sitting inside.

“Come on in, child,” he said, beckoning.

Rana entered, and sat down on a richly decorated little hassock. “Greetings, father.” The man was not her father, but it was a term of respect and endearment used for older men.

“Greetings. How fares my princess?”

Rana then began explaining at length all the events that had befallen her.

While she was explaining, the old man used his finger to draw the shape of an arghul flute in the dust. He reached into the sand and, to Rana’s surprise, pulled from it a brown pottery flute of exactly the same shape as what he had drawn. The old man licked his lips, and began playing.

The tune was sleepy and lazy. It felt slow, and Rana could see the sound waves wrap themselves around the various objects inside the tent. Finally, the sound waves crept closer to her, and touched her foot. She reached down and scooped up some of the sound waves in her hands, and played with them, pouring them from the one hand to the other like sand, listening to the sound, whilst continuing to recount her tale, her fears and concerns.

The old man nodded at intervals, but never seemed to need to take a breath – he simply kept playing on his arghul.

After a lengthy discourse, Rana finished, and the old man nodded. “I have a visitor I want you to meet.” He said that without removing his lips from the arghul, and without a break in the tune.

One of the baskets inside the tent moved, and a black snake came slithering out. The snake had the strange appearance as though it was made entirely of obsidian crystals, or perhaps onyx – Rana wasn’t sure.

The snake coiled up in front of Rana and said: “An honour to meet you, Favoured One. My mistress has sent me on this errand on behalf of her sister. They both wish you well.” The snake uncoiled, and revealed a small dagger in its sheath. It was beautifully inlaid with gemstones. “Take it. A gift.”

Rana took the little dagger, and pulled it from its sheath. It had a stubby, curved blade, and had no weight at all.

“When you strike with it, it will cut through anything. When you throw it, it will keep flying till it hits whatever it was that you had in mind, and then return to your hand. And… you can use it to cut fruit.”

“Fruit?” Rana asked incredulously.

“Yes. Don’t you have fruit where you come from? I love fruit… and mice…” the snake said, coiling and uncoiling. There, on the ground, was a silver tray with a variety of fruit. “Have some.”

Rana reached out and picked a strange fruit she had never seen before, and took the dagger and cut it into four wedges. The fourth wedge she then cut in three, and held the pieces on her two outstretched palms for the old man and the snake to help themselves.

“Ah, I like her, she has manners,” the snake said to the old man, who simply nodded, and put a piece of the fruit in his mouth. Somehow, the arghul never stopped playing.

Rana also put a piece of fruit in her mouth, and was almost overcome by the sweetness. It felt as though she herself was turning into a drop of honey, yet the flavour was so delicious that her mouth watered as she ate.

“I love fruit,” the snake said, swallowing her two pieces. “Just clean the dagger before putting it back in its sheath. It hates being sticky and dirty. And remember, it cuts through anything except its own sheath, so be careful. Your own mistress was concerned about us giving you such a weapon, you know how soft and gentle she is, but my mistress convinced her that you’ll need it.”

“To cut fruit?” Rana asked, cocking her eyebrow.

“No silly girl, to defend yourself.”

“Against what?”

“Against that.”

Rana followed the gaze of the snake, and let out a slight scream as she turned her head and saw where she was. She was back on the Planum Materia, and the bloodied corpses of her four eunuchs were strewn on the ground like rag dolls.

The creature coming towards her had six arms: there was a bow in his upper left hand, with the upper right hand nocking an arrow; there was a scimitar in each of the middle hands, and the pair of lower hands held a long spear.

Rana dodged the arrow without any effort, but suddenly cursed herself for trusting Falir and Shruvari. “So they send a Kigari. And the bastard asked me to marry him!”

The Kigari let fly with another arrow, and broke into a run. Rana easily dodged the second arrow, and suddenly wished she had her scimitar with her.

The Kigari took a long swipe at Rana with his spear, but she ducked and came up behind it, meaning to grab the pole of the spear and yank it free so she could have a weapon, but then she realized that in her one hand, all this time, she had been clutching the little dagger that the snake had given her.

Surprised, Rana lost concentration for a moment, and the Kigari back-handed her in the ribs with the pole of the spear.

She went down with a cry, dropping the dagger. Now the Kigari was on top of her, scimitars swooping down.

Rana did the only thing she could think of – she scrambled out from under the Kigari, between his legs – and began running. On instinct, she ran zig-zag, and arrows flew past her, one brushing through her hair.

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