As if freshly reborn from a fiery cocoon, Eudroch was left standing next to his mother, but in his hand was now a three-pronged spear that glowed and pulsed as if made from the very lava that had just consumed him.
Turning around, Eudroch and the Queen walked across the room to stand on the ledge of the entrance looking down at the outside steps of the pyramid. The Fire King started to follow Eudroch, his eyes still open saucers of longing.
Just loud enough for the King to hear, Eudroch uttered something in the Fire Dragon tongue, and the King fell to his knees and then the floor.
Two of the Fire Warriors ran to the King’s side, and after one of them bent down to feel if any breath still passed through his lips, he looked up frantically.
“What did you do to him?” Mona whispered.
“I told him to die.”
Eudroch turned back to face the stunned crowd of Fire Warriors.
“King Polopu has gone to Annoon, where Sigela herself will soon join us. I am your King now. Go to wherever you worship, and pray to Sigela—give her your strength, as I go now to bring her back to her people. Soon, everyone will either join our Fire Tribe or perish.”
His assertion was answered only by silence as he motioned for one of the warriors to bring Mona to him. Eudroch handed her one of the divinium cubes, a headset, and an enunciator collar, then motioned for Cara to help her don the Rune Corp technology that would allow her to speak in the dragon tongues. Cara ambled over to help Mona, wincing with the effort as she helped her strap on the magical gear.
“The final battle between the sons of Earth and Fire will be fought in Annoon,” the Queen said out loud, “where life itself began so long ago and where my sons were born.”
The Queen turned to her Seer.
“Remain here and watch over these…people. And no mistakes this time or they will be your last.”
“Yes, my Queen,” the Seer whispered, his gaze cast down toward the floor.
“My sons will meet their destiny at the top of Annoon,” the Queen said, “where all four of the dragons converge! Soon, the world shall tremble again once Sigela has returned to her rightful station.”
In the distance, but coming closer, Mona could hear loud thunderclaps. Within seconds, a mighty lightning storm raged above the pyramid. Bolts of electricity bounced off the outside of the pyramid, and Mona could hear the distant shouts of the people below as they ran to find cover. A few of them stayed at the base of the pyramid, their hands upheld and their faces smiling with joy at the storm.
As the lightning bolts increased in intensity and number, Mona felt the same tingling sensation in her stomach that she had felt that first night with Merrick. She knew what to expect, and was only happy that her beloved Eudroch had chosen her to go with him and the Queen.
Before she could think anything else, she heard a deafening crack, and with that, she was flying high above the Fire Tribe pyramid as living lightning.
She watched the landscape blur below, but they were travelling so fast, that she couldn’t discern any landmarks. She didn’t need to see where they were going, however, because she already knew that they would arrive in Annoon soon, the place where Merrick was supposedly hiding.
She felt a sudden joy at the thought of seeing Merrick again that she did not fully understand. How could she still care for him when she was in love with his brother? Her heart seemed to love them both, even though she felt an intensity for Eudroch that she had never felt for Merrick. Despite this, a part of her hoped that they would not find Merrick. If they did, she would be forced to make a choice between her two loves, and she feared that the decision would not bode well for Merrick.
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With tears in his eyes, Balach watched as the Queen, Eudroch, and Mona were taken away to ride the lightning, on their way to Annoon. Balach had trusted his instincts, but he was already beginning to doubt his wisdom in giving Eudroch such complete control over Mona. He tried to tell himself that he had saved Cara’s life and his own, for a short while at least—and that he had spared Mona the pain that Eudroch would have given on her, while forcing her to comply with his wishes.
Merrick had once told Balach about a saying from his world—that the best defense was a good offense. Balach had not known what Merrick had meant at the time, but as he watched Mona leave with Eudroch and the Earth Queen, he understood and hoped that Merrick’s advice would prove sound.
As soon as Mona, Eudroch, and the Queen had disappeared, Balach remembered that he and Cara were still prisoners of the Fire Tribe. Interestingly, the warriors paid no attention to him or to Cara.
They were too busy discussing something among themselves in hushed tones.
Their whispers soon turned to arguments. Some of them were loyal to Eudroch and thought that their former king had been too weak to rule, while others saw Eudroch as an outsider who had just killed their rightful leader. Others feared Sigela’s wrath regardless of where their loyalty lay, shouting that it was a great sin to kill Sigela’s chosen king.
Balach hoped that their arguing would provide enough distraction for Cara and him to escape, but as he walked over to Cara who was clutching her sides in pain, the Seer motioned for one of the Fire Warriors to escort the two of them to a holding cell deep inside the pyramid.
After being prodded and pushed along the stone passageways, they were placed in a small chamber with a door made of iron bars encased in stone. After the warriors locked the door, one of them stayed behind to guard them. Cara lay down on her side, curled up in the fetal position, while Balach slid his back down the wall and sat on his haunches.
“Cara,” Balach quietly said, “we have to find a way out of here, so we can help Merrick.”
Cara groaned, and her eyes fluttered, as she fell in and out of consciousness. She was obviously more hurt from Eudroch’s blows than Balach had realized.
As she passed out again, her body twitched, and her face contorted with painful grunts and sighs. Balach wanted to comfort her somehow, but he decided that sleep was the better treatment for the time being.
He watched her until his own eyes felt as heavy as iron. Each time he tried to force them open, they closed again for an even longer period of time. Soon, he couldn’t open them at all.
As he drifted in the land of dreams, he heard a quiet voice that grew in intensity.
He jerked awake and looked around to see who was there. On the other side of the bars was a woman, older than Cara or Mona, with black hair and bronze skin. She had the unmistakable look of someone’s mother, and Balach could feel and see her emotions clearly—a powerful mix of love and intolerable sadness.
The woman knelt outside the barred door and motioned for him to come closer. He shuffled as quietly as he could to the cell door.
“My name is Swella. I am here to help you, but we have to hurry before the guard returns.
“How did you get him to leave?” Balach asked.
Swella bowed her head, and Balach saw a single tear race down her cheek. He prodded no further about her actions or her motivations.
“You have to wake up your friend,” she said. “Together, we can leave this place—go to my home. I have a plan.”
Balach walked over to Cara and gently shook her shoulder. She barely reacted. He looked back to Swella who motioned for him to try harder.
With a sigh, he shook Cara by her shoulder so hard that her body rolled from side to side, but she still did not wake. Without looking back at Swella, he leaned forward and whispered a word of waking in the Earth Dragon tongue.
Cara immediately opened her eyes with a start.
Her hair was stuck to her cheek, and her face was flush, but her eyes were clear, and he could tell that she had regained some needed focus even with the short amount of sleep she had just received.
Cara looked up at him.
“This had better be good, Balach, or I swear that you’ll be the one who’s unconscious in a minute.”
He stepped back and pointed to Swella w
ho was now waving frantically at them to come over to the cell door.
Swella turned her head, acting like she had just heard a distant noise.
“Hurry,” she said. “Either come now, or I will leave and do this myself.”
“Do what?” Cara asked.
“Stop Eudroch.”
Cara laughed.
Swella’s eyebrows scrunched down, and her lips pursed.
“How do you plan on stopping the mighty Eudroch from capturing Merrick and bringing him back here for the ceremony?” Cara said.
The woman looked at Cara with a bemused expression.
“I can’t stop him from doing that. But I will stop him if he makes it back here with your friend. First, we need to get out of here—then, I explain more. Now, quick. Just you. Grab my hands through the bars.”
Cara did as Swella asked, and Swella began to chant unfamiliar words in the Fire Dragon’s tongue. She stopped and told Cara to say the same thing in the Earth Dragon’s language. Together, they chanted for only a few more seconds before the bars crumbled to dust.
Swella smiled.
“You see? This place is made with the power of only one dragon, not two. Now how do you like my plan?”
Before Cara could answer, they heard approaching footsteps, and they raced to follow Swella as she ran off in the opposite direction.
CHAPTER 48
MERRICK LOOKED UP and took stock of his position. He stood in almost complete darkness, barely able to make out the leaves of the trees to either side of him. Ohman’s ghost was nowhere in sight, and Merrick felt more alone than he ever had.
He remained quiet, listening to the night sounds. Crickets chirped. Wings flapped as they passed quickly overhead. Leaves fell, tree limbs creaked, and all manner of life clicked or buzzed around him so that the sounds of the forest wove themselves into a cacophonous blanket of language that Merrick could only partially understand.
The woods might have been speaking to him or about him—he couldn’t be sure.
Suddenly, his heart jumped with hope as he saw a glowing white figure pass across the path closely in front of him. He ran to the spot where the apparition had been but could not see it. On his left, another glimpse of white. He followed that as well, but found nothing, again. Another shape, behind him this time.
Winded, Merrick sank down to the ground on his hands and knees. He looked up at dozens of floating white figures that were hovering overhead. As he watched, those dozens turned into a hundred—maybe even more.
But Ohman was not among them.
Maybe Merrick should have been afraid of the ghosts crowding around him, but he felt nothing. He simply sat with his back against a pine tree and stretched out his sore legs. The heat from the ground warmed his legs.
“I still need you, Ohman!” Merrick said.
He was so tired that he started to laugh, gently at first, but then uncontrollably. As he continued laughing, he ran his hands through the dirt at his side and was surprised when his left hand sloshed into a puddle of water. With a groan, he pushed himself up on his hands and knees, crawled over to the puddle.
He stared down into the water and saw his face framed with the frenzy of ghostly white above him.
Closing his eyes, he dug his fingers into the ground next to the puddle, trying to feel the comfort of Terrada and to gain strength from her. He focused his thoughts on traveling through the ground, riding along Terrada’s spine, but nothing happened. The earth beneath him was not familiar, but he could tell that it was old—older than any he had ever encountered, its name beyond his ken. Even though he knew the ground was a part of Terrada, this piece of earth would not help him and would not grant him safe passage to the Earth Dragon’s heart.
He would have to earn that on his own.
Merrick reached up and touched the bark of a pine tree, noting how it felt almost hollow. Wedging a finger in between pieces of the pine’s bark, he tore off a piece and held it in his hands. He tried speaking to the bark, but still there was no answer. Splinters of the bark wedged under his fingernails, making his fingers throb, feeling as if they were bloated with blood. He savored the pulsing pain because it reminded him that, in this land of the dead, he was still alive. Alive and alone, with Ohman no longer in sight.
He would have to finish this journey on his own, fueled only by his will and powered by his own magic.
Merrick looked closer into the puddle at his own face. Gone was the mask of rage he had seen so many times in mirrors. In its stead was the face of an old man. He raised a mud-encrusted hand and felt along the deep creases of his face. His hairline was receded, and his skin was just beginning to wrinkle.
He made a mental check of the rest of his body—the cold tightness in his back, the ache in his legs and the cramping in his hands. He had used too much of his internal magic and had cut off years of his life just to come this far. How much shorter would his life be, even he were not killed on this island?
He did not know.
He wasn’t an old man yet, but he looked old enough that he should be seeing his children off to college and sitting on his sofa next to his wife. Despite his mounting depression, he thought that he was beginning to resemble Ohman. He knew that Ohman was not his father, but there was a clear likeness nonetheless. The way his nose bent slightly at the end and his brow that cast a certain shadow over his eye sockets both reminded him of Ohman and all that the old man had taught him in such a short period of time.
With sudden resolve, Merrick stood up and drew a long breath, exhaling slowly. The ghostly shapes still whirled through the trees around and above him, but they did not matter to him—nor did his situation. He would no longer be at the mercy of the fate others believed was for him. It was true that he had lost many of the people he had cared for, either to death or to Eudroch, but in so doing he had gained something as well. He possessed the strength that only comes from having nothing else left to lose. It pained him to think of it, but Mona, Cara, and Balach were probably already dead. With no one else left to care about, he was fully prepared to finish his journey, even if it ended with the loss of his own life.
He said a silent prayer to Ohman’s dead spirit, asking that no matter how much of his magic was necessary, no matter how much of his life he would lose, he would be allowed to reach Terrada’s heart, learn his true creation name and defeat—no, kill his own brother.
Merrick started walking along the forest trail again, slowly at first, but then faster until he was almost running. The farther he ran, the hotter the ground became, which meant that he was moving closer and closer to the volcano at the center of the island.
He pushed back a heavy limb that hung in his way, and suddenly, he was out of the woods, at the inside edge of the forest. A hundred meters or so in front of him loomed a great cliff wall that seemed to go on forever on both sides as if it formed a large enclosed circle in the middle of the island. Merrick walked up to the bottom of the rock face and placed his hand on it. The stone was as old as the forest floor, perhaps older. Despite its age and his inability to communicate with it, Merrick knew that he had to scale its face to finish his quest.
He looked back at the dark forest and saw the white ghost-like apparitions flying about for as far as he could see into the woods. He looked closer, and there, directly in front of him at the tree line, stood Ohman’s ghost, his one hand raised as if to say either hello or goodbye. Merrick did not know which was meant, but he could sense that Ohman was relegated to the forest and could not join him on the final leg of his travels.
Merrick caressed the divinium inside his arm. Now he was truly on his own.
He nodded at Ohman’s ghost and then slowly turned back to the cliff face. He knew that it would be safer to delay his climb until first light, but he was tired of waiting. He would make his own way and find his own light, and now was the time.
He pressed his body against the rock—close to it, like it was a lover. He probed for any handhold or place to set his foot to begin h
is ascent, but he found none. He continued searching while moving to the left, until he finally came to a fissure in the rock that was just wide enough to fit his foot in sideways.
With a groan, he hoisted himself up so that he was wedged into the crack. As he felt around for his next handhold, he recognized a familiar substance. Craning his head upward, he saw a small vein of divinium, shimmering black and red in the side of the rock.
Remembering Fenton’s lessons, Merrick whispered to the divinium—a word of breaking in Terrada’s tongue—and a piece of it split off from the cliff face with a deafening crack.
He hopped back to the ground, holding the small piece of divinium in his hand like a precious jewel. He began rubbing it with his hands while chanting words of molding and shaping, and soon had created an almost perfect sphere. He held it up to the moonlight, watching its green veins dance while he said a word of polishing. Soon, the small sphere sparkled in the moonlight, and even though it was slightly flattened on one side, Merrick did not try to fix it—thinking to himself that it was perfectly imperfect.
Merrick smiled—the sphere was just right. Its flaw, like the imperfections in humans and Drayoom alike, made it more interesting, and he marveled at its beauty.
Now that he had this divinium along with the piece in his arm, he would be able to tap all of his magic if needed. Slipping it into his pants pocket, he started to climb again, not yet drawing on his magic, but relying on his aging limbs for the time being. He had no qualms about using up his magic until his power was completely dried up, but he knew that he had to conserve it for when he finally encountered Eudroch. Merrick looked down and half expected to see his brother climbing behind him. Eudroch was not there, but Merrick was not so naïve to think that his brother wasn’t out looking for him.
As he climbed, the wind picked up and blew against his back—another dragon nipping at him along his journey. At one point, the wind grew so strong that he had to stop climbing and press himself completely flat against the rock face to keep from being blown off. He waited for the wind to abate, but when he realized that the wind would not relent, he continued on his way. Slowly, he made his way up the face of the rock wall, steadily approaching whatever awaited him on the other side.
The Conservation of Magic Page 39
