The Ancients

by Adam-Clay Webb

  Aven slammed his palms together. A green light awoke in his eyes. “Forest Art! Eternal Garden!” Upon that single command, the earth tremored for hundreds of square miles, and tore apart as giant trees burst forth with vile life. The emerging forest covered much of Notherland, and grew to contain several active battlefields.

  “Incredible… The expanse of this forest dwarfs even the greatest summoning of Eden,” Azar said, his voice barely breaking through the tenseness of his awe.

  “I can sense an invisible poison being created by the trees in the forest,” Shade said. “Once the battle remains in the forest, the poison will be inhaled by everyone. Only the Leaf Sage is fully immune to the poison’s effect, but the other sages might not suffer considerably within the short time we have.”

  “By using an attack like that, is he disregarding the Fire Sage altogether?” Azar wondered aloud.

  “The first of our two advantages is the combination of enemies that we face. The Fire and Leaf Sages are the least compatible combination for a number of reasons,” Ohm said. “Firstly, Aragan’s fire, more than anything, will destroy Aven’s creations. Also, their temperaments, as I’ve already read, are discordant. Aven is prudent, but decisive. Aragan is wild and reckless.”

  “And our second advantage?” Azar asked hopefully.

  “Our enemies have been fighting since the beginning of the war. They’re exhausted.”

  “Of course, our disadvantage is the time factor,” Shade reminded them. “Ohm, you already know you must command your summonings to use their strongest attacks from now. There is no time for a cinematic build-up.”

  Ohm hissed. “Don’t tell me how to use my summonings!” The old man closed his eyes in a sudden depth of focus.

  “Final Form! White Sun!” Aragan commanded, and a flourish of concentrated white fire surrounded him. A wretched but tired redness blazed within his eyes.

  Shade had to command the wind dragon to move quickly. Though distant they were, the heat from Aragan’s final form nearly consumed them. Even without making contact, the heat from the sage’s flames was already consuming much of Aven’s forest.

  In a step of incomprehensible speed, the Wind Sage reached up to Aragan. Probably in his peak state, Aragan could have at least imagined a counter, but being this jaded, the Fire Sage couldn’t even think. Appa’s palm rested on Aragan’s chest gently. Aragan’s eyes widened as he also felt Appa’s palm against his back, preventing the force of the forward attack form pushing him back. The image before him was a speed clone. At that same instant, Aragan felt several similar gentle forces coming from many directions.

  “Flame Scattering!” Appa commanded.

  In that moment, with a kind of swiftness that was unearthly, Appa had sent unthinkable forces of wind against Aragan’s body, and more importantly, against the hellish fire that had shrouded him.

  Those watching on the dragon were rendered speechless by the vast and rapid expansion of fire that swallowed up and evaporated the entire forest in a matter of seconds.

  Azar looked down at the endless field of white fire, which seemed to be expanding to every coast of Notherland. Still, on Ohm’s command, Appa forced the fire in such a way that while the flames rapidly pushed outwardly along the forest and even beyond it, none of the flames was raised above the height of the forest’s trees, which would have been troublesome for the wind dragon and its riders.

  Ohm felt a slight relief as hundreds of thousands of his summonings were gobbled up by the fire. This alleviated quite some amount of pressure from his mind, which might have even added moments to his life.

  “It’s covering all of Notherland?!” Azar asked. As far as their eyes could see, there was only whiteness.

  “Quite possibly,” Shade said.

  Ohm only snickered.

  Aven was just rising to a stance a few hundred meters out, flames clinging on to his body. As he was burnt by Aragan’s fire, the damage was almost as quickly undone through vines that ran under the earth and connected to his feet, which drained the natural energy of the remaining forests at the edges of Notherland, which were spared by the vast pool of fire.

  Standing calmly in the sea of fire, completely unmoved, was Jeerkia, aptly guarded by a bubble of water that Aragan’s fire could not touch.

  “Aragan, move!” Aven shouted, and shifted his feet. This would be the Leaf Sage’s fastest attack. At that, ten swift vines jumped up out of the earth before and beside him. But this warning was only to ease his conscience a little. He was sure that neither Appa nor Aragan would be able to move in time to escape the vines, but he had decided that killing Appa was worth killing Aragan.

  There was a terrible screech as the tens of vines pierced through fire and bone and flesh, making deadly holes. With no chance to utter final words or even accept his rueful end, Aragan fell, and his own fire ate up his meshed body.

  Aven’s eyes dilated and the flesh on his face sagged. Impossible… How did Appa escape? The Wind Sage was somehow nowhere in sight. Feeling his brother’s presence behind him, Aven spun around, and looked up at Aven who was standing on air several meters out with folded arms.

  Forgive me, Appa. I have forgotten your godlike speed. Indeed, it took none less than Oga to put you down.

  “Ocean Art! Ark’s Domain!” Jeereeka finally commanded, clasping his hands.

  “Particle Art! Wind Arrest!” Appa commanded, holding a hand out toward the Leaf Sage.

  Aven clenched his teeth. Dammit… Can’t… move… He struggled, but even slight movement was impossible. Aven’s heart weakened when he saw the manifestation of the Water Sage’s attack. The green light in his eyes dimmed in resignation.

  Azar and Shade beheld a sight stranger than anything else that this war had yet produced. As the ocean around Notherland rose up, what they saw in all directions was as an endless mountain range of water.

  “Notherland will be…” Azar’s words were cut short by the chilling fright that weakened him further. Towers of waves tens of feet high bordered the entire continent.

  Aven, finally able to move, turned quickly at the sound of a sudden thud. A momentary puzzlement took him as he looked down at the unconscious Appa. He then turned again and faced Jeereeka, who just as quickly lost his strength and fell to his knees.

  “As luck would have it,” Aven said to himself in a sigh.

  “What’s going on?” Azar asked, shielding his face from a sudden golden brightness that swept everywhere, appearing to consume the three sages. Gasping in realization, Azar looked down at Ohm, and shook him repeatedly, but alas, he was dead.

  The bright light scattered, leaving behind the lucky Aven, who made no hesitation in falling to his knees, and upon his face. But the vines that had healed his constant burns were finally exhausted, and Aragan’s sea of fire lunched at him. He uttered a slight snicker, finding it amusing how he and Aragan ended up killing each other.

  “Father… Oga… I hope you somehow lose this war.” Those were the Vine Sage’s final words, before the sea of flames cremated him.

  Azar gazed about at the towers of ocean.

  “A great tsunami is in order,” Shade said. “Let us not be caught up in it. The sages are destroyed. Ohm… well done.” He touched Ohm’s unmoving chest and smiled very slightly. “Hang on, young king,” he said, then commanded the wind dragon to take to a wind-speed flight as Jeereeka’s waves tumbled down.

  Chapter 35: Darkness Unearthed

  On a tiny island of only thousands of people, neglected by the gods in the grand scheme of things, there was a small victory for the humans. Native sorcerers, though none above the fourth grade, fought off the few of Kizer’s beast that had appeared there. The islanders, though bodies and gore scattered about them, felt a great relief when Kizer’s last giant fell.

  “Look!” a young girl alerted, pointing skyward.

  Everyone in earshot looked up with the same expression. Soon, the entire island was staring up at the strangeness. As a chilly wind swept the isla
nd, it appeared that the sky was fast freezing. Above them, a strange mist thickened into a covering of ice, a dome that arched around the entire island, meeting the land at its coasts to make mountain-walls of ice.

  “It must be the Ice Sage!” one magician exclaimed. But Yuki and his wind dragon were far above the dome, shrouded in a blue mist that camouflaged against the background of sky.

  “And the Earth Sage?!” another managed ask in panic as the ground shook.

  “The island is sinking!” yet another said.

  But with all the alerts, no one there was gifted with magic strong enough to do anything. Even if they weren’t all exhausted, their magic would still be unable to affect Yuki’s ice even slightly.

  The island’s survivors frantically huddled together, seeking refuge from this seeming doom.

  “The sea is rising up! Father! What’s going on?!”

  The panic soon collapsed into frozen stares and shivering, as the people saw the waters rising about them, prevented from flooding in on them and drowning everyone only by the walls of ice. Knee level, then waste height, and then in seconds, they no longer had to look left and right to see the waters. The entire island, domed by the sage’s ice, was submerged, and was sinking further still. The islanders’ ocean had become their sky. Sunlight had now melted to a struggling flicker of refracting yellowness.

  “Seventeen,” Yuki counted to himself, then did a quick rough check of how many thousands were scattered beneath the oceans in icy vaults.

  ***

  A black streak ripped through the Muyan skies like a fateful comet bearing the wish of the billions dead and the millions alive.

  The comet came to a graceful landing on a hidden island, denting the ground only with a small crater. Kizer and Oga had already stood to face him. They stared at the infinite depths of darkness in Lex’s eyes.

  “Something is different about him,” Oga said quietly.

  “Are you really here to fight us, young Lex?” Kizer asked. “What point is there anymore? You have already failed. There is no longer a world to save. There is now, only a world to create.”

  “You two,” Lex said, and took a few forward steps, making Kizer and Oga see clearly that their presence no longer stifled him. “You title yourself gods, yet you hide in the shadows of this great war you have started. You two are nothing but cowards.” His voice had a calmness to it that made Kizer grow suddenly wary.

  “What has happened to you, young Lex?” Kizer finally asked. It seems someone has tampered with his soul.

  “I have finally seen reality for what it is,” Lex said, but an answer like this only brought more puzzle to this newness the gods felt about the young Icemaker.

  “Kizer, the purge is moments from completion. Mere millions remain,” Oga said. “I suggest we finish it before becoming distracted.”

  “Ah, yes, even though I am become impatient,” Kizer said.

  “What makes you think I will allow you two to escape?” Lex asked. The island quaked as an intense aura of Zagan darkness enveloped him.

  “In this hour, I must call upon my one reliable son,” Kizer said. “Adam!”

  As the quaking effected by Lex’s aural burst calmed, Adam rose up from out of the earth before Kizer, facing Lex.

  “Father,” the Earth Sage greeted.

  “Your brothers are destroyed save Yuki. He is off doing his own thing, and I cannot reach him. But I know he is still out there roguing about. I will personally handle him after the purge is complete. This mission is yours. Buy Oga and me a final hour to finish the purge. Kill him if you can.”

  “If I can?” Adam took great offence. “You two should go before I remind you of what I’m capable of.”

  Oga’s eyebrows jerked at this. “You allow your son to speak to us like this?” he asked Kizer.

  Kizer snickered. “If your memory serves, you should know why I can make exceptions for Adam,” the god of elements said. “Oga, get us there.” And Oga grabbed Kizer’s shoulder, vanishing with him, leaving no visible mana behind.

  Left behind were Adam and Lex. The island trembled constantly under the weight of their auras.

  “An hour, they say,” Lex’s fearless voice came, this time darkened by the Zagan legion that had overcome his soul. “They have no idea what they are dealing with, sending a mere sage to fight me.”

  “Your overconfidence is most insipid,” Adam said, unfazed by the immense power that burst forth from Lex’s dark aura.

  “None shall stand in the wake of my darkness,” Lex declared ominously, with a coldness in his eyes that made Adam disbelieve that this could have been Yuki’s son – ironically.

  Tens of sharp shadows swifted out from Lex’s coat of darkness. Smooth movements that reminded Lex of the first Earthshifter he had seen in action made narrow dodges for Adam as the roping shadows dug down into the earth.

  Adam’s attention was focused, for a moment longer, on Lex’s eyes. Even though the Zagan’s darkness did not shine through them, he saw a hollowness that he found even more chilling. That boy. His soul is too gone. This could be…

  In a movement like a fast-forwarded spaceshift, Lex, a trail of shadow behind him, reached up to the dumbfounded sage. The entire island suffered enormous cracks and stones flew up, as the force of Lex’s fist struck the Earth Sage. A second’s tenth carried in it ten splashes as Adam skipped across the sea, probably fifty meters spacing each of his landings. Finally, far out from the island’s coast, Adam plunged under the water, surging up a forceful ripple.

  By the time Lex pulled his fist back, there was an emergence from beneath the water. Lex watched as the crouching Adam ascended quickly on the rock he had carved from beneath the sea.

  Stone bullets armied out to Lex from Adam’s floating ground. Light-swift parries blurred with the shadowy aura bought impressive escapes for Lex as the bullets wedged down into the ground all over the island. Lex’s quick vision sighted a hand of stone emerging behind him, grabbing at him. Two wings appeared on Lex and he zoomed up, escaping the hand’s reach as it crumbled back down. As Lex ascended, large shadowballs appeared in his hands. The boy gasped as he felt a chain wrap around his right ankle and tug him down forcefully. He uttered a bellow as the chain sent him whipping down on the island, digging up the earth with him. The shadowballs had destabilized and vanished into black clouds. When did—

  The boy grabbed the silver chain and darkness glowed about his hands. With a particular serge of Zagan strength, he burst the chain easily and flew up again, this time more watchful. “Weak!” he scoffed, again preparing two shadow-balls. Adam controlled his rock to move swiftly as Lex, now flying about, sent countless shadowy spheres at him.

  There were heavy splashes with the mixture of frightened water and dispersing shadow as Lex’s attacks plunged into the ocean all around. But none could catch the man on the floating rock.

  “Stay still!” the now annoyed Lex belted, holding above his head a full-sized shadow shell.

  “That looks dangerous,” Adam considered. Lex hurled the sphere at Adam. As it sunk down into the sea a few miles out, there was a colossal eruption of water as the ocean floor was dug up. Water rose up to towerly heights as tsunamis were triggered out from the impact’s ripples.

  Lex turned as he looked up at the rock that sped through the clouds above. “Get back here!”

  As Adam’s movements became swifter, Lex’s attacks became wilder and mightier. In moments, Lex had sent tens of shadow shells at the evading sage, sinking small island great distances away and even wrecking coasts of the Muyan mainland.

  The only thing unlucky victims could perceive was a sudden darkness, and then death.

  “Metal Art!” Lex heard a command from somewhere in the distance behind. But by the time he had spun around, Adam was nowhere there. “Silver Binding!” the same voice echoed from somewhere else. “Elemental Infusion!” the voice came from yet another direction. “Araganian Covering!”

  Lex’s eyes narrowed as he perceived
spots of redness all around under the sea. Two more wings jutted out from his back as chains, swifter than anything the Icemaker had witnessed, clad in a fire unbothered by earthly water, sprang up from the earth beneath the sea. They approached in seemingly infinite numbers, and the caster of the technique was still nowhere in sight.

  The boy made a swift movement that shook the air as the first three chains railed up at him, but even in his great speed, chains were already again millimetres from piercing him. The chain’s deadly speeds meant that if they struck him correctly, they could bore through his body easily. As fiery chains scorched the air as they shot forth toward Lex, his dodges became rapid and frenzied. He no longer had any time to look around for the attack’s caster. The flaming chains made an intricate web of hazard for many square miles.

  Lex clenched his teeth and dug into his power. He held his arms out, and the thousands, seemingly even millions of chains, stood motionless, each one and their coat of fire encased in Lex’s domineering shadow. The boy finally set his eyes on the Earth Sage, who was visibly awestruck by Lex’s mighty control. Lex relaxed his fists as the host of chains crashed down into the sea loudly. Adam’s rock moved close to Lex, until the Earth Sage was facing his nephew with only several meters between them.

  “Did I hear your say ‘weak’ at some point, boy?” Adam asked, as if it had just registered. His faced creased into what looked like an honest misperception.

  Lex then heard a worrying noise behind him and he saw a slight strain on Adam’s muscles as his veins surfaced and his arms fidgeted. Lex then looked behind him. His eyes widened now. What he saw was certainly not ‘weak’. Is he lifting…

  As he was now many miles from the small island the battle had started on, and quite some distance above ground and sea, Lex had a pretty good view of what was happening. The entire island was floating around two hundred feet above the sea, and was rising still. Small pieces of the island detached and chunked down into the water, making huge splashes. They appeared to be pebble-sized pieces of earth from where Lex looked on, but in fact, they were more massive than mansions.