The Seventh Spirit

by Adam-Clay Webb

  “She disappeared!” Lex exclaimed in fright.

  “What in world??” Kyle looked on, unsure of what to believe, of whether to believe his eyes.

  “Let’s go!” Clover said, sounding excited, and ran through the black arch. Kyle and Lex looked at each other, then ran into the wall of shadow, the vortex to a strange world. The portal disappeared into a black mist.

  ***

  A frightened Clover grabbed on to Lex, and Kyle uncased his sword quickly. Soon, they were standing back to back to back, facing three primary directions, slowly alternating, each trying to get a wholesome view of the strange place. There were two huge full moons in the sky which offered a green glow that could hardly combat the solid darkness. There were no clouds, no stars, there was nothing else in the dimly green sky. As far as their eyes took them, there was only wasteland. The ground was rough and rocky, and there were no buildings or trees in sight.

  “Herriot?!” Kyle called out.

  A frightening laugh came down from the skies. The children looked up quickly, seeing nothing but the moons, which seemed to be one moon apart. They looked like giant eyes peering down at them. “I will be with Clover… You two are on your own! Remember now, there’s no need to be afraid, little girl; this is all make-believe.” She laughed again, sounding quite thrilled.

  “Herriot!” Kyle bellowed again.

  Clover released Lex and powered her hands with mana that shone brighter than the moons, consoling herself with the idea that the world wasn’t real, and was ready to take on anything that came her way, or so she thought. Seeing Clover’s readiness and confidence, Lex followed suit, taking his fighting stance, ice energy coursing through his veins, quickly forging an iceball. Lex stared at what seemed to be a massive wolf approaching from the distant darkness. He stared into its bloodshot eyes, the only things he could distinguish clearly, the iceball in his hands growing denser. The three turned and faced the dangerous thing. Lex turned suddenly at the sound of a frightening roar. Kyle and Clover only glanced back at the iron-toothed lion with a thick orange mane, returning their eyes to the slightly nearer wolf. The earth seemed to shake at the heavy stomps of the third approaching beast. Clover stared with even more fright at the ox-like thing with four deadly-sharp horns of steel on its head. It was even bigger than the other two.

  “This is how we will proceed!” Herriot’s voice echoed through the place loudly, consoling Clover and frightening Lex even more. “Each of you will choose your enemy! There are three classes as is obvious; Feline, Canine, and Bovine – the cat family, the dog family and the ox family. Amongst the three of you, all three classes must be chosen. You have half a minute to make up your minds. The clock is ticking away!” Their backs still together, the nervous three began reasoning.

  “I think I would best handle the lion,” Kyle began, “it will be a battle of speed – the other two seem slower and less agile and should offer more leeway for your ice and mana to regenerate.”

  “Alright, what about you, Clover?” Lex asked. She switched glances a couple of times to and from the huge ox-like monster and the fierce, red-eyed wolf. Lex and Kyle could feel her shaking.

  “Relax, sis,” Kyle whispered, a heavier tone of annoyance than encouragement in his voice.

  “You choose, Lex,” Clover said.

  “No, make your choice!” Lex insisted.

  “Alright, alright… I’ll take the ox, then! No, no, gimmie the wolf,” she decided.

  “Fine by me,” Lex answered, “the cow’s mine.”

  “Time’s up!” the witchy voice came down from the skies, “Utter your choices!”

  “Feline!” Kyle shouted to the moons, then cast his eyes back on the lion. There was a strong confidence in his voice that Lex wondered about.

  “The wolf is canine, right?” Clover asked to be sure.

  “Right,” her brother answered.

  She sighed heavily, trying to rid herself of fear. “Canine!” she declared.

  “Bovine!” Lex shouted, staring at the bloodcurdling beast, a vibrating iceball in his hands.

  “Take a step towards your opponent!” Herriot ordered. Kyle bravely took three steps toward the lion, sword in hand, ready for action. The lion made a threatening roar at him, but his confidence was not swayed. With a timid heart, Clover took a small step toward the wolf, which almost seemed to wear the slight smirk on Kyle’s face. Boldly and readily, Lex took a solid step toward his enemy. There was now some amount of distance among the fighters.

  The earth quake ferociously. The frightened Clover stooped reflexively, one hand behind her and the other before, both offering useful green light. Kyle took yet another step toward the lion, showing it his mental position. Lex stood his ground, staring at this monstrous enemy. Massive cracks ran through the ground, separating the three pairs. Then, frightening Clover and Lex, the land separated and began drifting apart where the cracks appeared, until each landmass was quickly meters away from the others. Clover, Lex and Kyle now stood with their backs to an endless abyss.

  “Get ready!” the voice from the skies declared.

  The red-eyed wolf made a sudden dash toward the timid witch. She flung her hands toward the beast, and the bright green mana went toward the wolf. “Abingush!” As the mana hit the fast-moving enemy, it enveloped him even more quickly than Lex’s ice would. There was a wet-sounding, splattering blast, and the wolf was blown to bits. The force from the explosion sent Clover skating backward toward the infinite abyss. Looking back at the gap in the earth, she crouched quickly and regained her balance.

  Clover summoned up more mana on her hands, lighting the place effectively. Black sand? What is this? she wondered, noticing that instead of blood being scattered about, there was this dark, sandy substance. She looked about frantically, seeing this strange black thing begin to move about like a great wind had suddenly appeared. The black matter swirled about, gathering together before Clover, and somehow morphed itself into two wolves, each more massive than the original.

  A well-rehearsed sidestep and a swift, powerful swing beheaded the wild lion, sending it over the abyss easily. “What?!” Kyle readied himself as he saw a pride of lions rushing toward him from the darkness at unreal speeds.

  Lex hurled the ball of elemental ice at the monster than was moving toward him at a speed too unimpressive to dodge the attack. On contact, the iceball quickly diffused and imprisoned the helpless beast in a thick layer of ice. The huge block of ice rushed toward Lex. He jumped and landed on it, quickly pouncing off before it fell off the land.

  *

  “Abingush!” Flashing her hands toward the two wolves, she managed to rid her sight of them, but she felt a sudden faintness as her mana was running low. She lounged over with heavy breathing, feeling dizzy and lightheaded.

  “The repetitive use of a single attack is the single worst way to fight!” Herriot’s voice descended, “Each consecutive time you use that spell, it eats up twice as much mana as it did before. Try this weak-level suspension spell, ‘azanath’.”

  “What?!” Clover asked in a panic, seeing another wolf rush toward her from the distance. Veins stood up in her forehead as she conjured up as much mana as she could find.

  “Putting all your eggs in one basket is a risky move, Clover!”

  Clover relaxed a bit, saving just a bit of mana. She jerked forward after stepping back slightly and realizing she was almost over the cliff.

  “Azanath!” the witch commanded, flashing her mana nervously at the wolf not even a meter away. The mana created a sudden flash of green that quickly faded, leaving behind a sight that made her stare and wonder. The wolf had made a great leap, ready to devour her, still in the air with an opened mouth of long white fangs. Its claws seemed ready to strike, but defying the laws of physics, the beast was motionless, suspended in the air.

  “Your enemy will not be suspended forever!” Herriot’s voice came down, waking the girl from her stare of awe. She got up nervously, and stepped back a little. Her foo
t caught a loose stone and there she felt a fright that even the wolf did not manage to offer. She made a dangerous backward fall, heading down into the pit. With desperation and survival reflexes, she grabbed on to the edge of the cliff, too frightened to scream, still staring up at the unmoving wolf. Suddenly, the wolf resumed it motion. Clover screamed on top of lungs as the wolf nearly grazed her, diving down into the hole in the earth.

  Kyle was having quite a hot struggle fighting off the vicious lions though he handled his sword quite skilfully for his age. With desperate roars, Kyle dodged an attack, putting to use all his years of training. He wedged his sword into another of the lions. Like the others, its body turned to the sand and fell at his feet. On turning to the right, Kyle saw another fast-moving lion coming to have him for dinner. It reached up to him much faster than he had calculated – his tiredness had begun to warp his judgement. With an outcry of bravery and fright, determination and lots of adrenaline, the boy shoved his sword toward the lion, plunging it straight through its mouth. The lion sunk its teeth down on Kyle’s arm with its last portion of life. Then, the lion became as black sand. Kyle looked down at the bloody wound the blade-sharp teeth of the iron made in his arm. The pain was agonizing, but it thrilled him. He laughed almost crazily, holding his sword to combat the approaching beasts.

  Lex had no time to observe the other battlefields. His next enemy – enemies anyway – already approached. Four massive oxen marched up toward him, and the large gap in the earth wasn’t even two steps behind him. As the beasts puffed threateningly, what seemed like a black smoke came from their nostrils.

  “Bloody hell,” Lex muttered, gripping his cold, vibrating, well-charged iceball, but there were four enemies to take care of. Then, an idea struck him that would probably solve half his problem. Still gripping the orb tightly, he pulled the sphere apart slowly, and the iceball had become two. He discharged ice energy into them, bringing them each to three fourths the size of the original.

  As if that were their cue, the oxen stampeded toward him with malignant speed. The boy quickly hurled the spheres he held at two of the approaching enemies. The other two oxen blasted past the slowly moving slabs of ice, one enemy moving a bit faster than the other, maybe being a bit more bloodthirsty. Lex had calculated that after freezing two of them, he would have had the leeway to make a quick run to avoid the others, but before he knew it, the faster was already upon him. He made a sudden high jump, powered by fear and adrenaline. He landed shakily on the horns of the swift ox. His eyes bulged as he realized the bull had made a stunningly powerful jump off the land. He quickly made a fast two-step run across its back, making a jump toward the next bull, which was coming toward him with both damnation and salvation through the air. He landed on the bull’s back, and without hesitation, which could have been fatal, made a desperate jump toward the land, barely clinging to the cliff. His heart beat like it would burst through his chest.

  Kyle’s stamina seemed to be that of a hardened soldier. His will to survive had empowered him beyond his normal strength. He knew that the second he yielded to exhaustion he would literally be dead meat. The fierce lions rushed at him by the second, and so he killed them.

  Clover had just managed to rise to her feet. She tried with all her strength to conjure up even a bit of mana, but she only ended up hurting her head and feeling fainter.

  Slowly, like it was in no rush, no temper, a nastily-sized six-horned creature walked toward Lex. All he could manage to summon up was a cool, bluish mist. At the same time, a red-eyed wolf, much larger than the others closed in on Clover. Clover looked about in panic. She saw her brother battling the unending pride of vicious lions, pushing his endurance, his sweaty, bloody body, to its very limit. Lex too was looking about desperately, searching for a miraculous idea. His eyes, even from the distance, met Clover’s, and he saw her fear. She was shaking like a leaf in a hurricane, and tears of fright and dread rivered down her face.

  The Icemaker clenched his teeth with a new determination, certain he would kill the old hag the next time he saw her. “Clover…” Again, he struggled to find some ice energy to make even one last sphere. He formed the gap between his palms and uttered a cry of strain. He felt a strange energy run through his veins, and an unfamiliar presence with him. He had managed to create a small iceball. He looked down at his pulping veins. Usually, they would glow a faint blue whenever he was draining the last of his ice energy, but this time they were glowing a much darker blue.

  This energy… He noticed a vivid blackness swirl through the iceball, and mix itself in, darkening its colour significantly. Still turned toward his own enemy, he fixed his eyes on the shaking Clover, who was at the very edge of the cliff. He saw her glance over at him. Without even looking down at the sphere, Lex could see a strange black aura surrounding it. It felt much heavier than a regular iceball, and much more energetic, and he knew that whatever this strange energy was, it was in his favour. The boy shook as he was sure he heard a faint, eerie voice speak to him.

  You aim…I will fire, the voice told him. In obedience, holding the darkened iceball in one hand, he pointed it toward the wolf that was nearing Clover. He glanced back at his own enemy, his hand stretched to attack Clover’s. With an unexpected suddenness, the wolf took off toward Clover fiercely, like its senses had finally kicked in. She stared into the face of a terrible death. Like he had hoped, the iceball jetted out from his hand at a mighty speed, a small black tail of energy trailing it. As the mighty wolf pounced to kill Clover, the iceball struck it. The orb’s impact was so powerful, that the wolf’s own momentum was treated like nothing. The ball blasted the wolf away from Clover. It shot off in the direction of the ball’s flight. By the time the wolf had hit the ground, it was frozen solid. Ice crept from the cold blue slab to the ground beneath it.

  The frightened girl looked over at the frozen enemy, then turned her head to look at the panting Lex in the distance, his hand still stretched out toward her, a dark blue mist rising from it. Herriot, who was holding back Lex’s horrid foe the whole time, finally released it upon him. Clover stared as the mighty beast rushed toward Lex with a malignant speed. He heard it coming and felt the earth shaking, but he couldn’t find the energy even to attempt an escape. The girl watched as the beast shoved its deadly horns through Lex mercilessly, and shoved him, along with itself, over the cliff to a dark peril. She was rendered mute by what she had just witnessed.

  Kyle was now weak until his knees wobbled. Oh shit… I’m dinner now… Three lions pounced toward him from three varying angles. Still not giving up, he flung his sword forward to kill the one directly before him, while the other two ripped him apart viciously.

  “And we have a winner!” Herriot’s voice blasted down from the skies, then a truly witchy laugh followed, and the dark world faded away, and the four of them were standing unharmed in the house. “And not a second had passed,” Herriot said to the still mesmerised, even traumatized children.

  “Holy crap… It all felt so real…” Kyle marvelled, “The lions, the pain, being ripped to meaty shreds!” He sounded more excited than frightened. Clover was still shaking, like she was standing between the cliff and the giant wolf. Tears still ran from her eyes, and she struggled to breathe.

  Lex had just gotten his mind together, remembering that it was all make-believe. “Come on, Clover! It wasn’t real!” he tried to comfort her, resting his hand on her shoulder. She grabbed him suddenly and hugged him tightly, crying on his shoulder, like she really owed him her life.

  “Are you serious, little girl?!” Herriot blasted in obvious disdain, “You’re a bloody witch! A witch of your potential will face much more horrible things in real life! Now stop disgracing—”

  “Hey, relax!” Lex blasted in her defence, “She’s just shaken up, okay?! If you had made me watch her die, you’d be a sorry block of ice right now!”

  “You watch your mouth, child!” Herriot blasted back, red mana flaring around her hands.

  “It wasn�
�t real, Clover…” Lex kept telling her. Kyle hissed and sighed, and walked away from them.

  “It was real to me, Lex,” she finally spoke, the temper of her breathing calming somewhat. She finally released Lex and stopped her crying. He smiled at her.

  “Come, girl, let’s get you some water,” Herriot offered, her tone changed to a much softer one as she saw the girl’s reddened, slightly swollen eyes and her tear-soaked face. She brought the girl from Lex into the kitchen.

  As Lex was about to sit, a loud crash brought him chasing after Herriot through the beaded curtain. Kyle followed closely, sword drawn and ready. The boys stood still in fright, not wanting to make things as dire as they could be. A masked swordsman was holding Clover from behind, a long, glistening sword under a millimetre from her throat.

  “One wrong move and the girl dies,” the man declared calmly. He wore a black mask that seemed to be made of some sort of metal; it was tightly fitted to his face. Already, mana was glowing about Herriot, and Lex had an iceball in his hands. “Interesting,” the masked man said, not sounding very surprised, and certainly not sounding afraid, “a witch and an Icemaker…”

  “How’d you know?! And what do you want with me?!” Clover asked nervously, pressing toward the masked man to get even a bit of distance from the cold sword that breathed against her neck.

  “You’re a witch too?” the masked man asked in a subtly excited tone. “Heh! Seems I’ve hit the jackpot here.”

  “So you’re here for me, then,” Herriot said, “let the girl go – it’s me you want!”

  “Settle down, now,” the masked man said, bringing the sword closer to Clover’s neck, “I’m sure we can work something out here, but first thing’s first.” He took out a length of black rope from his pocket with his left hand.

  Herriot’s eyes narrowed at the sight of it. She knew exactly what it was. A professional witch hunter, I see. “The girl’s no witch,” she told the man as calmly as she could, “release her and I’ll go willingly.”