The Dark Rose

By darkmagickwillow

Copyright © May 2003

Chapter 1 (The End of a Quest)

The black-clad figure paused in her ascent up the snowy slope. The wind howled as she reached up with gloved hands to shake some of the snow off her cloak. Paying no more attention to the wind and snow, she looked up the slope at the ancient stone castle, its large sandstone blocks blackened with age and the pollution that reached even this Alpine fastness. The precisely placed stones without mortar told of Roman craftwork as did the impressive arched entrance protected by an iron portcullis. It had stood for millennia and it would have been a challenge even for her to storm had the curtain walls and gateway been manned.

But they weren't and snow had drifted up to the nearest corner of the wall and spilled over into the courtyard below. No sentinels were visible inside the walls either. Her magical senses felt the presence of magic in the keep. That meant she could finally use her powers once she was over the wall. The keep's inhabitants apparently relied entirely on the null magic area and the demons in the woods to secure their fortress, but as the dried blood on her cloak attested, demons were no match for her even without magic. She smiled grimly and set off towards the snow drift, her snowshoes allowing her to maintain a normal pace through the thick snow.

The dark witch climbed over the snow drift, crossing the thick curtain wall without incident. She quickly walked across the snow-dusted cobblestones of the courtyard and reached the iron-bound double doors of the keep. She removed her snowshoes and paused a moment to listen. She quietly moved her hands along the outline of the ancient oak doors, feeling for magical protections on the entrance. There were none.

It was time.

She raised one hand and exerted her will on the iron-bound doors. The foot-thick oak exploded into the keep as a hail of splinters. She heard screams from the inside of the keep as she strode through the ruins of the doors. Two black-cloaked figures were bleeding on the floor nearby as she entered the huge chamber. Rows of thick black stone columns lined the walls to her right and left, separating the chamber into a main area and two side walkways. A red-stained black stone altar stood near the end of the room. Behind it was a pool of water. A dark robed man stood at the altar, looking shocked as he surveyed the ruined entrance of the keep. In the center of the chamber, exclaiming at her entrance, were a dozen more dark monks surrounding a mystic circle engraved into the stone floor.

With a smooth gesture and a single word of Latin from the dark witch, the center of the room exploded in a sphere of white-hot fire, reducing the dark monks there to charred bone and ash. She walked without hurrying towards the far end of the room and the one remaining dark monk. He recovered from his astonishment and raised his hands. With an ancient arcane chant, he sent lightning cascading across the room towards her. Her magical shields absorbed the lightning with a small sparkling of brightness while she strode towards him, implacable as death.

"What are you?" he asked in quavering voice.

"I am death...unless you give me the Soul Gem." she answered coldly, crushing the charred bones of the monks under her black boots as she walked steadily towards him. The stone beneath her feet glowed red hot but it made no impression on her.

Looking at the black-masked apparition approaching him, he believed her, but his order had protected the gem for seventeen long centuries since Constantine had banished them from Rome. His vows would not allow him to simply give up their greatest treasure. Fates worse than death awaited him if he violated those vows. He grasped at the crystal that hung around his neck. "The order has many treasures that I would gladly give you, but that is not one of them."

Her black-in-black eyes flashed as she said, "Then die." Within seconds the dark monk withered to bones and then the bones crumbled into dust. She reached down to the remains of the monk and picked up a crystal on a leather thong, shaking a few particles of dust from it. She carried it in one hand as she walked to the pool at the end of the room.

Raising the Soul Gem high, she cried out to the pool, "Find me the soul of Tara Maclay!"

Half a world away, a young woman suddenly woke up to the sounds of a violent thunder storm outside her window. She was breathing hard and covered with sweat, but as she looked around the familiar setting of her dorm room she realized that it had just been a nightmare. She lay back in her bed, looking up at the twinkly Christmas lights that ran around the borders of the ceiling and consciously slowed her breathing. It must have been caused by the vampires we fought tonight, she thought, but all she could remember of the nightmare was a dark figure standing in a Greco-Roman temple.

She shook her head and smiled ruefully, thinking about how much her life had changed in a semester at UC Sunnydale. She certainly hadn't planned to spend her nights at university fighting vampires, but patrolling with the Vampire Slayer had become a routine for her most nights of the week, she fighting with her spells and the slayer fighting with her supernatural speed and strength. It wasn't the safest way to spend her time, but she knew that she was doing good, and she'd found a family in the slayer and her watcher to replace the one she'd lost when her mother had died at the end of summer.

Rolling over onto her side, she checked the time on her clock on the bedside table and realized that she had only been asleep for a couple of hours. Her last finals were tomorrow so she rolled back onto her back, worrying about how long it would take her to fall asleep again, and fell deeply asleep almost before she completed her thought.

The black-clad witch gazed intently into the Pool of Seeing as the calm surface of the water was replaced with an image of the familiar arid terrain of southern California. As the pool focused closer and closer on her heart's desire, she saw UC Sunnydale, then Stevens Hall, and finally a window in that same building, each image well known to her from the past. Without showing her the room hidden behind the window, the image faded from pool.

She removed her black cloak and mask, spilling long red tresses down her back, and leaned into the stone rim of the pool with both black-gloved hands as she gazed into her own reflection. Her face hadn't changed a bit in almost nineteen years, she thought, looking into the reflection with her black-in-black eyes. Magic had shielded her body from the years if not her soul. She still looked like the same old Willow.

It had been nineteen long years since she had returned to Sunnydale. The happy memories of love and friends were overshadowed by the tragedy of a death she still could not accept. It was a place she had intended never to see again. She sighed, resigned to the necessity of returning, and thought back to her last day in Sunnydale.

It was a beautiful day, the sun brilliant in a cloudless blue sky, and they had just put Tara into the ground of the too familiar cemetery. Willow thought how wrong it was that the sun still rose, that there were still beautiful days, as she shed her last tears.

Turning away from the grave, she looked at her friends who were waiting for her to finish saying goodbye. Their grief showed clearly in their faces and Willow knew that some of that was for her even after all she had done in the past few days. She remembered the time when they had all been so happy together, but it seemed like a dream now.

She shook her head. They didn't matter. Only Tara mattered. She told herself that nothing, not friends, not family, not anything, meant anything to her without Tara. Her emotions weren't entirely believing her about this, but she pushed them ruthlessly away, burying the feelings deep where they couldn't trouble her. She was resolved to follow her plan to bring Tara back. She didn't know exactly how she was going to do it, but she was determined to do it no matter what.

She walked over to her friends, Buffy and Xander and Giles with Dawn standing further away behind them, and looked at them for a long moment before speaking. "I have to go" she said. "I can't stay here where everything reminds me of her."

A wave of protests erupted from her friends, Buffy saying "You can't," Xander saying "No!", and Giles warning her "You shouldn't go anywhere so soon after..."

She let the protests wash over her senses meaninglessly, like the crashing sound of an ocean wave. There was nothing they could do to dissuade her.

She touched Buffy gently on the shoulder and looked into her eyes, letting her see all the pain she was feeling. "Remember when Angel died and you had to go away?" she asked.

Buffy looked searchingly into her eyes for a long moment and Willow worried that she might somehow divine her true plans, but eventually Buffy looked down and nodded. "Come back as soon as you can."

Willow answered, "I will."

Xander interrupted, "You shouldn't go by yourself, Willow."

Giles added, "I think Xander has a point." He looked concerned for her despite the remaining evidence of his injuries. Injuries that she had caused.

Willow shook her head vehemently. "I need to be alone," she said. "That's the whole point. Well, that and getting away from all the memories here. I can't do that with someone following me everywhere and I don't know how long I'll need. " Her eyes pleaded with them to understand her.

Buffy nodded. "She's right. I knew how she feels. I don't want her to leave any more than you do, but she need some time."

"I still don't like it." Xander said. "The last few days where you were by yourself didn't go so well to say the least."

Willow replied, "I couldn't do anything like that now, Xander, even if I wanted to which I don't."

Giles nodded his agreement though his misgivings about her leaving were still evident in his eyes. She was glad he didn't have Tara's ability to see auras. The magic still ran strongly through her veins.

She could tell the Xander still wasn't convinced. "Look, Xander," she said. "I'd like you to be okay with this, but I'm going whether you are or not."

Xander looked down, gathering his thoughts. He looked up and walked over to hug her. "Okay," he said. "If you have to go, go, but come back soon." She hugged him back, thankful that they wouldn't try to stop her or follow her.

She looked over at Dawn, who had remained silent through the whole conversation. "Dawn," she began only to see the teenager turn away from her. She paused, trying to think of something that would make everything all right for her, but could only come up with "I'm sorry." It didn't matter for Dawn still ignored her.

Willow rode home with Xander while Dawn went back with Giles. By the time Willow got there, Dawn had already left to stay at a friend's house. Late that night once Buffy was on patrol and she was alone, Willow packed a small bag, taking a few clothes and some mementos of Tara--the doll's eye crystal, some photographs. She left behind most of the pieces of her everyday life. They wouldn't be needed where she was going. She walked to the bus station through the darkness and boarded the last bus out of Sunnydale.

As the bus passed the "Welcome to Sunnydale" sign on its way out of town, she vowed "I will find you, Tara, no matter what the cost." As she said those words, her eyes became the black-in-black they would be from that day forward. She leaned back in her seat, waiting for the next stop where she would find less mundane transportation and begin her quest.

Willow shook her head, breaking away from her reverie. Tara came first. That was all she had to know. If she had to return to that cursed city she'd avoided so long to find Tara then she would. She didn't know how Tara's soul had come to be in Sunnydale, especially at the dormitory she remembered from her youth there, but she would find Tara and rescue her soul from whatever dark power held her.

She felt troubled by a sense of uncertainty that she hadn't felt for years. Sunnydale. Her friends and old life. Tara's grave. All those people and places that she had avoided for so long.

She reminded herself that she had defeated powerful dark mages from every part of the world and had made their knowledge and power her own. She had found the deepest repositories of dark secrets and learned their hidden lore. She had even walked into the Hellmouth itself searching for her love and had returned. What in Sunnydale could oppose her?

Willow turned away from the pool and walked out of the ruined dark temple to return to her beginning.

Continued...