The Seventh Spirit

by Adam-Clay Webb

  Rainshine took another long, deep sigh. “This is the Vine Temple,” he told them. “Follow.” With that, Rainshine led them to the entrance of the building. Clover looked about, the magnificent beauty and stunning fragrances around her distracting her from the pain and discomfort she was feeling. “Don’t touch anything… The Sage is just inside… He will decide your fate.” There was an unfamiliar solemnity in Rainshine’s tone. There was no door before them, just what seemed to be a white curtain. Rainshine pushed it aside and entered the temple, walking silently and reverently. The others followed closely. Inside was surprisingly bright, and massively spacious. Bright flowers lit the place as well as the noonday’s sun could, maybe even better. A man was kneeling before them, his back turned to them, his head bowed before a huge statue of marble, a statue that was perfectly carved to form a smiling woman holding a basket of fruits and flowers on her head. The hair on the man’s head, to no one’s surprise, was long and white, even longer than Rainshine’s though. After about a minute of silent waiting, the man slowly raised his head.

  “Hmmm… Rainshine… It is unusual of you to bring visitors. What might be the meaning of this?” he asked, looking up at the statue.

  Rainshine hesitated to answer. His nervousness had become more obvious. “These visitors I bring are not of the Vine, oh Great Sage.”

  There was a while of tense silence.

  “What could have caused you to joke like this?” the sage asked, sounding a bit nervous, his oldness showing in his voice. He then turned around and stared at the teenagers. His face grew suddenly pale, but he didn’t look angry or livid as Rainshine would have expected. He looked like at least a hundred years old, but somehow didn’t have that frail, helpless picture. Shock and confusion further wrinkled his aged face. “What is this?” he struggled to ask. Rainshine grabbed Lex and brought him forward.

  “He and his friends somehow stumbled down here. I reckon he is the boy from the prophecy you often speak of.”

  A look of interest and discovery replaced the pale look of shock that was there just a moment ago. He slowly walked toward Lex, looking at him in obvious inspection and examination.

  The Sage slowly stretched forth his hand and touched Lex’s face, looking at him with scrutiny, like he was some bizarre and foreign object. Then he looked over at Rainshine, who gulped audibly.

  “How did they get down here? I haven’t known you to be a careless man, Rainshine… That is why I chose you to be our Keeper.”

  Karukia held down his head in guilt.

  “My apologies, my great sage… I erred…”

  The old man looked back over at Lex. “It is strange, nonetheless… The one time you leave the entrance open, the boy from the prophecy falls in… I do not believe this. Prove to me that he is the child the prophecy speaks of, or I will kill them all, and punish you with death as well.”

  Their eyes widened and their hearts fluttered in fear.

  “But how can I prove it?” Lex asked nervously. “This thing inside me has a mind of its own! I can’t just switch it on and off at will!”

  “It lends you its power only when you are in grave danger,” the man said, showing Lex he wasn’t as ignorant as he might have thought.

  “That’s right.”

  “Well then.” Rainshine’s eyes widened as he knew just what the Sage was thinking. Without even the slightest form of gesticulation from any of the Vinebenders, thick vines bolted toward the group through the walls, cracking them up. The attack was made with such great speed and accuracy that it could not be parried. The powerful vines, powered by the most powerful Vinebender alive, struck Lex’s friends and blasted them onto the hard stone walls. They cried out as they hit the walls, reddening them. No doubt, bones were fractured.

  “No!” Lex cried, turning to see his floored, bleeding, groaning friends. Not again… Mike wasn’t moving or speaking. Clover’s crying was heavy with agony. Lex summoned up an ice ball quickly in his palms and hurled it at the Sage with blistering eyes. A vine swiftly bolted from one wall to the opposite, slashing through the ice ball, making the ice spread alone the vine.

  “Interesting,” the Sage muttered.

  With a roar of anger and desperation, Lex hurled two more freshly made spheres at the Vinebender, but without any visible effort, vines defended him.

  “We’re getting there,” the Sage said to himself. Then, thick, spiky vines burst down through the roof and grabbed Clover, raising her off the ground and wrapping themselves around her tightly.

  “Clover!!” Lex raged, turning to see the suffering girl. She was covered in blood and vines. Red drops hit the floor below her, each doubling the boy’s rage.

  “The thorns on those vines are releasing a poison that will kill her before she can think of dying,” the Sage said coldly and without remorse. “I will crush her before your eyes.” The Sage folded and tightened his left fist, and the vines pressed tighter. After a bit more moaning, she was done. She was soaked in blood, and appeared to be dead. Tears welled up in the eyes of the unmoving Kyle as he looked up at his sister, unable to move or speak.

  “Clover!!” Lex yelled. His eyes slammed shut, then opened quickly. Rainshine grabbed Karukia and dragged him away from the black-eyed boy. In a split second, a shadowball manifested in his left palm. He hurled it at the vines that held Clover. It tore through them and through the stone roof like they were made of air, and went forth to destroy whatever else that was unlucky enough to be in its path. With what appeared to be a single step, the black-eyed boy covered a few meters. The ground cracked beneath his feet as he reached beneath Clover and caught her. “Noooo!!” Lex’s bellow caused the temple to shake. “What have you done?!” the dark thing inside him made his voice nearly as scary as his eyes. He gently rested Clover on the ground and stood and turned to the Sage.

  The old man stared at the black eyes with clenched teeth and a fear he did not expect to feel. He flung both fists out toward Lex instantly. Immediately, two massive, heavily spiked vines burst through the walls behind him, each nearly grazing a side of the statue. Lex held his palms out to the incoming vines, the dark aura about his body. Two shadowballs appeared in his open palms quickly, his fingers barely arched around them. The swiftly moving vines, as they met Lex’s palms, were atomized, completely disintegrated by the dark spheres. Like flying snakes, the vines seemed to have been sent into a one-way portal.

  “Those spheres,” the Sage contemplated, remembering how easily they tore through his hard vines and even harder roof of five-inch-thick stone. There was a swift zing. Hardly slow enough to be seen. The black spheres headed forward to the Sage. The veteran quickly summoned vines to tear through the wall to his left and push him out of the way of the shadowballs. The bloodthirsty shadowballs ripped through the vines and tore their way through the stone statue, destroying it, and made their way through the back wall.

  “Alright, alright!” the Sage conceded, looking at the damage wrought to the statue and the temple. “The girl! I can heal her!” the Sage gave his word, holding his hands in the air in surrender. Lex conjured up another shadowball, one twice the size of his record size. He glared at the Sage, then relaxed slightly, seemingly just remembering the cause of his burst of rage. The sphere turned to black mist and he turned to look at Clover. His body shuddered as he looked at her. The darkness in his eyes faded away. He fell to his hands and knees, and he felt like his life was leaving his body, like he was dearly paying for the power he had borrowed.

  “Clover…” he muttered. Tears ran down his face. He looked at Mike and Kyle. All his friends looked dead, and he felt like death was pulling even him away. He struggled to stay awake as he felt his consciousness slipping quickly from him. He fought the feeling of extreme sleepiness, and shakily stood, and made his way to Clover.

  “I will heal her as I promised,” the Sage said, and walked over to her and Lex.

  “I will… kill you…” Lex struggled to say, then fell on his side, unable to move.

&n
bsp; “Quickly! Rainshine! Karukia! Heal the others!”

  Rainshine ran over to Mike, and Karukia ran to Kyle. The Sage quickly got Clover out of the vines that were still about her, and rested her body on the ground in her own blood. She was limp and pale. Lex watched hazily, struggling to stay awake. His vision became blurrier by the moment. The Sage knelt over Clover in a hurry and ripped her tattered dress off her. It was soaked in blood and torn and bored all over. He pressed his palms down on her chest and belly and closed his eyes in focus. He breathed heavily as life energy was draining from him and seeping into Clover. Her wounds began to heal immediately, and her bones were recalcified, made even stronger than before. Her blood made more of itself to replace what was just lost. The Sage began panting and veins stood up all over his body. It seems I went overboard. He then raised his right hand. Slender vines burst through the roof, floor and wall immediately and wrapped themselves around his right wrist. Sounds of strain came from him as he pressed down on Clover with his left hand. In a moment, the vines wilted down to dead, useless brown threads.

  Then Clover took a deep breath and started panting heavily, like she had just surfaced after holding her breath under water for several minutes. The Sage withdrew his hands and sighed. He held up his right hand and more vines slithered down through the holes in the ground and wall and grabbed on to him, wilting quickly. He sighed, like he was a desert traveller having a cool drink of water. Clover stared up at him with wide eyes, confused. Then, she looked down at herself quickly and gasped. She screamed out in shame and fright. The Sage quickly took her dress and tossed it to her. In about a second, she found herself in the bloody, tattered dress. She looked over at Lex, who was still struggling to stay awake. He gave a faint, but comprehensible smile, then his eyes closed, and time left him…

  “He’s awake!” Clover announced.

  “Huh?” A confused Lex arose and looked around. “Clover!” Her grabbed her, hugging her tightly.

  “Finally,” a familiar voice came from behind him. He turned around and his eyes met those of the sage. Lex clenched his fists and his face changed immediately. “Please relax, child,” the sage said calmly.

  “It’s alright, Lex,” a voice he trusted came from his left. He turned quickly and saw Kyle and Mike sitting, looking quite alright.

  “Kyle! Mike!”

  “Yes, everyone is alright,” the sage assured. “Well, except… her.” He turned and pointed to the rubble of marble that was once the image of a beautiful woman. Mike and Karukia laughed a little.

  “I don’t understand,” Lex said, a look of confusion on his face. He noticed Rainshine and Karukia sitting around.

  “Haven’t you noticed, Lex?!” Clover blasted, sounding annoyed, even cross. “My new clothes!” Lex looked at her.

  “Wow…” he whispered musingly, his face conveying his thoughts more than his voice. He had just noticed the fresh, new look she had. She was wearing a short green skirt with perfectly spaced pleats, and a top that resembled the ones he saw the villagers wearing, but it wasn’t as skimpy. Lex grinned, even laughing a little, unable to help himself. Clover giggled, seeing she had stunned him. Kyle hissed silently and rolled his eyes.

  Lex turned back to the sage as soon as he could manage to take his eyes off Clover.

  “I just needed to see for myself the dark, prophetic power within you. So I got you in the state of mind that is necessary for you to borrow the demon’s might.”

  “I see… But did you really have to be so rough?! You nearly killed my friends! You were about to kill Clover!”

  “I wouldn’t have,” the sage said, “I just needed you to think I would… Karukia, Rainshine and I got them back to perfect health as you can see.” Lex remembered seeing the Sage kneeling over Clover. “Come, all of you.” The six of them gathered round the sage, seated and ready to listen.

  “You said I was the boy from the prophecy,” Lex reminded the sage.

  “Correct. But allow me to start from the beginning… at least the beginning of my great people.”

  Will the Sage really tell them the secrets and origins of our village? Rainshine wondered.

  “Close to two millennia ago, I was the son of a powerful man.” The Sage saw the expected expressions on the visitors’ faces. Kyle was the most sceptical of the four.

  Not even worth wasting brain power on, Kyle thought.

  Mike wondered if the Sage could possibly be the boy child that some versions of the story claim never really died when the Magmalian nation struck the Vine Village.

  “My father was the ruler of my village,” the sage continued.

  Mike’s brows furrowed, as he wondered whether he was to believe.

  “It was quite an ordinary village, though, but that wouldn’t be the case for very long. One night my father, the village chief, left, saying nothing to anyone, not even my mother. Late the next day he returned, to the relief of the villagers. Mother Nature had appeared to him in the person of a beautiful woman, and had given him the power to control all green things. She told him that with this power, the village would prosper, and his people would last forever.”

  “Wait, wait, wait!” Lex interrupted, “Did this nature lady meet up with four other leaders and give them the power of—”

  “Earth, air, fire and water. Yes, and that had happened a century before. The folly of these kings, my father told me, led to their demise, and they lost their power. Only one of the kings had the wisdom to preserve his power I believe, the Earthshifter. Well, moving on anyhow,” he resumed.

  “When my father told the people of his incredible meeting with nature, his people laughed at him. Some mocked him, saying he was drunk, or going mad. My father, though, wouldn’t leave doubt in anyone’s mind. At the flash of his hands, vines obeyed him. He displaced and uprooted massive trees without even touching them! At this, the people were amazed, and believed. They bowed down to worship him, calling him a god. But he stopped them, and even scolded them. He told them that he wasn’t their god, and should they worship, they should worship the giver of this power, Mother Nature.”

  “So nature had become their god, then,” Clover deduced.

  “Correct. My father even made a decree that a statue of this woman he saw be erected in the centre of the village, and once per week, all should bow before it, and pray for prosperity and protection, and give thanks for all their blessings. With the power my father possessed, my village was no longer weak. Other much larger villages attacked us, not knowing our secret power, and my father singlehandedly wiped out several armies. Soon, we were the famed and feared Vine Village, and we later became known as the City of Vines. Twenty years passed. I was eight, my sister thirteen. She and I, mother and father, were a happy royal family. There was one nation, though, that was brave enough to strike our village knowing full well my father’s power, a fearless nation that strived to be the superpower of Libson, and eventually the whole world. Heli Aragan could not stand the thought of another people being even half as strong as his own. This king controlled almost a half of Libson already, and his province was called ‘Magma Land’.”

  “Wow… What about Hercule?” Kyle asked, remembering Blade say that the Herculean army was stronger than many thought.

  “Hercule! Heh! I remember that name… A battalion in the Magmalian Army called Hercule… They turned against the army and started a coup, trying to get as many soldiers as they could on their side. They were the top-ranking soldiers, and had a lot of influence, but their voice was nothing compared to that of the king’s.”

  A look of interest and scepticism was on Kyle’s face. Could he possibly remember such details about so long ago? None of this has to do with his village. Is he a madman or does he take us for idiots?

  “They managed to win over about an eighth of the army, and planned a secret assault on the king.”

  “But why?” Kyle questioned.

  “Well, the army was grossly oversized and grossly underpaid. As a matter of fact, everyone was gr
ossly underpaid! The country was being raped! Aragan was hoarding the state’s resourced for himself and his upper-class clergy.”

  “Come on! Back to the Vine Village!” Mike insisted impatiently.

  “Right, right. Now where was I… Yes, so King Aragan launched an attack.”

  “No! What happened to Hercule?!” Kyle went off again.

  The Sage sighed. “Well, Hercule made an assault on the very tower from which their king reigned. This attack started a very bloody and chaotic series of events known as the Herculean Rebellion. Thousands of casualties were taken. Finally, the king did regain control of the state, but the losses were disastrous. Surprisingly, most of the Herculeans were alive at the end of the rebellion. The king would seem a ruthless madman to order them dead. If more blood was shed on his command, whether that of innocents or criminals, people would surely turn against him, and the state would plummet deeper into mayhem. So he sent what was left of the Herculeans, and all who sided with them, into exile. They left Magma Land and headed to the far north, where the Herculean village was founded.”

  “Village?! You should see Hercule now!” Kyle raved, as if he were born and raised there.

  “You mean to say Hercule exists until today?” the Sage asked, quite surprised.

  “It’s as big and powerful as Magma Town!” Kyle added.

  “Magma Town?!” The Sage laughed. “It seems the tables have been turning over the centuries… Could power really have been shifting to Hercule? Amazing… So what is—”

  “The Vine!” Mike roared, sounding even restless.

  “Right!” the sage continued, “So Aragan ordered an attack on our village… Flaming arrows and bloody swords swarmed us…” There was a sullen look on the Sage’s face as he revisited his past. “In only minutes, there were bodies everywhere! My father defended his people as best as he could, but the Magmalians were just too many… I watched them take him down… I saw them run their swords through him as he tried to protect his people. But my sister, Summer… she wouldn’t let us be killed. She was so strong… She was always strong.”