Master of Elements

by Sonya Bateman

  Snow fell everywhere, but it was much lighter than the storms in the Annukhai village. I caught a glimpse of Meriwa and Shadahni standing together, straining and trembling with their arms raised to the sky as they fought the terrible storm that the monster trailed in its wake.

  Just as Ian and I headed to stand with the kids, the Wihtiko snapped upright and flung the bears off, one of its huge wings broken and shredded from the claws and teeth of the Alqani. It screamed its horrible, grating cry and leapt across the threshold of the seal, and the kids scattered as it thumped on the ground, shrieking and thrashing.

  Malak gave a mighty cry from behind his carved mask and slammed his fists into the ground, causing a boulder the size of the beast’s head to erupt from the ground and send it reeling, half-blind and more furious than ever.

  The creature had almost gained its footing when it started to rain polar bears. I had no idea they could jump so high.

  A dozen of them piled on the beast, pinning it to the ground, and the Annukhai rushed in with magic, weapons and masks — jumping and hooting, slashing and stabbing, and piercing it with spikes of sharpened stone. With the creature outside the seal, we had access to all of our power to finish this. Ian and I plunged into the fray. He used a bronze sword he’d taken from the weapon stash, and I stuck with the knuckle knives. The thing was actually starting to weaken, and I thought we might have half a chance to win.

  That was before the Wihtiko straightened suddenly, emitting a hurricane blast of bone-chilling wind from its body in all directions that sent bears and djinn tumbling across the landscape.

  I landed in a heap about twenty feet away. As I scrambled to get up, a massive thud shook the ground and spilled me back down. I tensed and pushed into the air, gaining a low float just in time to see the creature stomp a foot. That was what caused the quake. The ground rippled and split around the impact in widening cracks — and they’d almost reached the seal.

  Malak’s father hadn’t broken the Great Seal. The Wihtiko had. It must have smashed its own prison when it had escaped the Annukhai’s assassination attempt.

  The others were rousing and regrouping, headed back in. More arrows, spears, and harpoons flew. The Wihtiko roared and pivoted as a harpoon ripped through one of its wings, and it ducked low and opened its mouth at a handful of warriors rushing it.

  A massive stream of fire blazed forth from its beak and engulfed them.

  Jesus Christ. The damned thing breathed fire, too? I suddenly remembered the endless parade of djinn souls inside the Wihtiko, all of those different eyes staring out blindly in horror. They must have come from dozens of tribes as the Wihtiko slaughtered its way across the ancient djinn world. All of their elemental power must have been trapped within it, too.

  The stench of burning flesh filled the air, and pandemonium erupted. I spotted Ian running for the creature with his sword upraised and sprinted to join him. But before we reached the Wihtiko, a lone figure dashed in front of it and raised a hand to its opening maw, where fresh fire churned toward release.

  The figure was Meriwa. With a wordless cry, she gestured sharply and launched a massive lance of ice into the creature’s mouth, skewering its brain.

  It gurgled and sputtered, falling back slightly with water and black slime streaming down its body. Meriwa advanced again, and the Wihtiko bobbed down toward the ground until its face was even with her, its glowing eyes pulsing like a heartbeat.

  She froze and slumped in place. Her jaw went slack, and a thin ribbon of black liquid streamed horizontally from her lips, headed toward the creature. It opened its beak and sucked the stuff in like a grotesque milkshake as its wounds began to knit themselves shut.

  Damn it, nobody was dying here today if I could help it. Not even Meriwa.

  “Dinner is not served, you overgrown fucking feather-duster!” I shouted, dropping to one knee and slamming my hands into the ground. Ian blurred past me, still headed for the creature, and I decided to skip the fancy rock fists and stone buzz saws in favor of something I’d already seen work.

  Two jagged spikes exploded from either side of the ground near the creature and hurtled toward the Wihtiko, each of them bursting a jack-o-lantern eye and pinning it in place.

  The beast screamed and thrashed, and Meriwa fell to her knees — shivering and gasping, but still alive. By then Ian was there, leaping straight at the creature with his sword drawn back. He brought it around mid-air in a wide, flashing arc that sliced the trapped monster’s throat open across the ruff. A massive glut of steaming black fluid poured from the wound, completely drenching Ian, who stumbled as he landed and tried to swipe the stuff from his eyes.

  But the Wihtiko still wouldn’t go down. It stomped in place again, smashing the wall of the Seal and my stone spikes to shards. In fact, the ruined gobs of its eyes were already pulling back together, the gaping slash in its throat slowly drawing itself closed. It should’ve been dead, damn it. We’d dealt it a dozen mortal wounds by now. But how many hundreds of lives had it already stolen for itself? It consumed life.

  Infect it with the life of the earth.

  The words that didn’t make sense whispered through my head, and I had an absolutely insane idea. This thing fed on death. So what would happen if I force-fed it life?

  Until it was filled to overflowing.

  Before I could talk myself out of it, I flew at the Wihtiko and dove beneath it, grabbing one of its thick, scaly legs with both hands. If I was going to do this, I’d have to stay in contact with the earth. I felt the magic flowing into me and drew on it hard, from the dirt and the stones, the grass and the trees, the valleys and the mountains.

  There was life everywhere, in everything I touched. And I pushed it all through my hands, into the creature of death.

  The scream that burst from the Wihtiko started out loud and piercing, but it cycled lower as I kept pumping it with the power of the earth beneath, the cradle that gave rise to every blade of grass, tree and flower. Life magic. Its body began to swell as it drank in the magic with its bottomless hunger—but this wasn’t a trickle of power from a deer or hapless djinn.

  It had wrapped its poison mouth around a fire hose of life, and I wasn’t letting go until this nightmare balloon popped.

  The once-dried up leg I clung to was almost as thick as a tree trunk now, writhing and groaning as new scales burst forth under my grip, gleaming and wet before they withered away like flower petals and dropped away. Above me, I could hear the withered skin and flesh crackle like dry paper, as downy new feathers rained down around me. The creature’s struggles started to lose strength as its shriveled organs swelled and burst inside it.

  Holy shit, it was working.

  “Ian!” I screamed, desperately hoping he could hear me. I didn’t dare let go of the thing. “Just hit it with earth magic. As much as you can. I think water might help, too, if you can grab any of the Alqani to help.” I wasn’t a hundred percent sure about that last part, but water was life itself. And it couldn’t hurt the effort.

  At first I wasn’t sure he got the message, or understood my rambling. But then I sensed a blast of pure magic coming from the general direction I thought Ian was. Seconds later, another one rippled out from a different source, then a third, and a fourth. More and more joined, until I couldn’t even separate the threads.

  The Wihtiko shrieked like a teakettle and reared back from the assault, weakening by the second as it tried to live a few million years in a few instants.

  It was still moving feebly when the heat of the magic flooding me ramped up to an agonizing inferno, and my blood started to burn. My body still had limits, even with an increased capacity, and I was reaching them fast. I gritted my teeth and gave one final push with everything I could summon, every scrap of energy and ounce of willpower I had left.

  The Wihtiko detonated like a feathery bomb, burying me in an avalanche of dried, brittle chunks of monster.

  I was too exhausted to get them off me.

  Figuring som
eone would come looking for me, eventually, I went limp and took slow, shallow breaths. Despite the crushing evidence, I still half-believed I’d hear another one of those awful shrieks any minute, and then the creature would start reassembling itself like some horror-movie villain.

  But there was only dusty, muffled silence. And then some of the rubble shifted, letting in cool air and probing hands that grabbed me and hauled me out.

  I sprawled on the ground, coughing and spluttering. “That you, Ian?” I murmured without trying to look. “I think I’m not dead.”

  “No, you are not. But the Wihtiko is.”

  “Oh. Good.” I closed my eyes and pressed my face to the cool, cool ground, hoping it would soothe some of the fire that still rushed through my veins. “Just leave me here,” I said. “I’ll catch up later.”

  “I will do no such thing.”

  “Mmph. Stubborn ass,” I grumbled. “Gimme a minute, then.”

  It was probably more like five minutes before I decided to try moving again, content to listen to the cheers and cries of victory from the survivors of the battle. Eventually I managed to I roll over and sit up, absently brushing Wihtiko dust off my jacket. Then I turned my head toward Ian, who was sitting next to me.

  He was still completely covered in black gunk. His stiffening hair stuck out in random spiky clumps, his clothes were soaked, and his face was smeared with the stuff like a ghoulish mud mask. His eyes were fixed on me like I’d vanish if he blinked. I kind of felt like I might, too.

  I laughed at his worried expression, even though it hurt. “You look terrible,” I said.

  “I am certain you look worse,” he smirked. “By the way, I have retrieved your weapons from … that wreckage.” He gestured back. “It was not a pleasant experience.”

  I looked where he’d waved. There was a huge pile of chunked and powdered Wihtiko a few feet away, slowly dissolving on a gentle breeze.

  “Yeah. Thanks for retrieving me first,” I said, knowing he’d gone back for the knives after I was safe. “Is everyone else okay?”

  “We did not lose a single warrior, though most here will bear terrible scars from this fight regardless of healing magic. A few of us got away with only minor damage, like you.”

  I snorted in annoyance, then winced as I seemed to sprain my entire body at once. “Oh yeah, I just waltzed through that nightmare. Good old Donatti, lucky as ever.”

  Ian blinked a few times and then burst out laughing, slapping me on my pulverized shoulder. Despite the pain, I joined in.

  He pointed across the field to where fifty or so djinn paced, sat, or sprawled in a loose group, Annukhai and Alqani together, making splints and passing bandages freely between them. “Malak and Balain helped me pull you out, but they did not want to remain this close to the creature’s … remains. We can join them whenever you are ready.”

  “Not quite yet.” I probably could’ve walked at that point, but I didn’t feel up to talking or answering a lot of questions. I just wanted to enjoy being alive for a few minutes.

  Ian must’ve sensed my reluctance to chat, because he didn’t ask me anything. He just sat next to me, patient and quiet, even though he must’ve been dying to find out how I knew to do that to the Wihtiko.

  But maybe it didn’t matter all that much. Ding-dong, the beast is dead.

  I let out a long breath and tipped my head back, raising my face to the sky. Only a few wisps of clouds remained, and even they were unraveling from the ocean of strange stars. But the unfamiliar patterns didn’t make me uneasy this time. Those stars were a beautiful sight that meant the storm was over.

  As I stared, a thin ribbon of light spooled across the sky, pale white that flushed pink and deepened to red as it widened. Another ribbon formed beside it, this one brightening to spectral green.

  “Ian,” I whispered, nudging him without tearing my gaze from the spectacle. “Look at that …”

  I sensed him tilt his head back, and a soft gasp escaped him. More colored lights streaked and feathered across the star-spangled velvet black, until the entire sky was painted with a swirling, translucent array of pinks, reds, blues, and greens.

  As if the earth itself were celebrating the Wihtiko’s defeat.

  “The lights of the salifh,” Ian said in a hushed, reverent tone. “Never have I seen them so bright.”

  Silence filled the world. Even the breeze stopped blowing. The perfect, suspended moment lasted for a heartbeat, and then a clear voice drifted through the air, carrying a haunting melody of words I couldn’t understand. But I felt them, a blend of sorrow and joy and pure celebration.

  The voice was Meriwa’s. Soon more voices joined her, catching and carrying the tune along on a rising wave of harmony and counterpoint until the song swelled to the heavens. In that moment, I finally felt connected to Ian’s world, and I could put a name to the complex knot of emotions I sensed from him.

  Home.

  Chapter 34

  Utter confusion flooded me as I blinked my eyes open to bright, searing light. My sluggish brain finally determined it was the sun, blazing almost directly above me from a clear blue sky. Why the hell was I outside? I hated camping. Cy must’ve talked me into sleeping in the back yard again, which meant I was going to be sore all day from lying on the ground.

  But then I remembered this had nothing to do with Cyrus, or Jazz, or any human. I was surrounded by djinn.

  Last night filtered back to me in stages. Dead monster, pretty lights, singing. At some point I’d managed to explain the whole infecting-with-life thing to Ian. I thought he might have been impressed, but I wasn’t sure. He’d probably called me ten kinds of stupid for trying to take on the Wihtiko myself before he pulled out the compliment.

  Well, stupid was my middle name.

  I rolled onto my side, trying to squeeze the glare from my eyes. I remembered a lot of celebrating and congratulating, some of them going to the Annukhai village to bring the good news to the rest of the kids, more of them heading to the Alqani village for supplies and things, or whatever. The snow had been melting, too. There were bonfires and happier songs than the first one, and at some point I was offered a pelt to lie on.

  That was the last of my memories until now.

  It sounded like a lot of the others had stayed in the field, too. I heard talking and laughter, a few fires still going, the rustle of grass under running feet. As I was debating whether to get up and make myself function, or stay here until my head stopped pounding, a shadow fell over me and a voice said, “Congratulations. You are still alive.”

  “Guh. Do I have to be?” I shaded my eyes with a hand and squinted up at Ian. “This isn’t fair. I’ve got a hangover, and I didn’t even get to be drunk last night.”

  “Perhaps you can make up for that now,” he said as he crouched down next to me. He held one of the bone-white tankards from the hospitality hut in each hand. “Apparently they have actual e’sal kahuul in the Alqani village.”

  I wasn’t one for drinking in the morning, but today I’d make an exception. “I’m all over that,” I said, pushing up to mostly sitting.

  Ian handed me a mug and lowered himself next to me. “I thought you might be. There is food as well, when you are ready for that.”

  “Ugh. That’s gonna be a while.” I wrapped both hands around the mug and took a sip. The real stuff was even better than transformed water, and it filled me right up with a pleasant buzz. “Honey’s food, right? This is breakfast enough,” I said.

  Ian gave a low laugh. “It is far past breakfast time.”

  “How long was I out?”

  He shrugged. “Longer than everyone else,” he said. “This would be roughly early afternoon.”

  Damn, it really was late. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d slept in this long.

  Now that I was a little more awake, I looked around and hardly recognized the place where we were. The snow-covered field had become a vast, grassy meadow dotted with wildflowers and bursting with vibrant color. Chi
ldren darted around, giggling and playing, and adults clustered in loose groups, talking and watching. They were no longer separated into Alqani and Annukhai, or even elders and young people. It all felt like one big clan. One family.

  The only blemish on the picturesque scene was a massive scorched spot where the Wihtiko had fallen. Nothing remained of the monster, but a wide line of blasted, cracked earth ran from the circle of death all the way across the field and into the forest, where a swath of dead trees marked its continuing path. Somehow I knew that it ran all the way to the mountain over the Annukhai village.

  And it wasn’t the only one. Scorched paths of varying thickness crisscrossed the huge circle that marked ground zero for Wihtiko destruction, trailing back to the woods on either side of the field and across to the black wall of the Alqani village.

  “Holy hell,” I said hoarsely. “Those dead lines … is all that from the life magic?”

  Ian followed my gaze. “Yes, I believe they are,” he said. “The paths mark the life that was sacrificed to destroy the Wihtiko.” He lifted a faint smile. “But it is nothing to worry about. In time the earth will heal itself, and new life will grow to replace the old.”

  “I still can’t believe it worked,” I said on a gusting exhale. “But I’m glad it did.”

  “As are we all,” a voice said behind me.

  I jumped a little, but I managed not to spill any of my mead. At least I recognized the voice. “Malak,” I said in greeting as he circled the pelt where Ian and I sat, but he wasn’t alone. “Pahna. You’re both okay.”

  “We’re more than okay,” Pahna said. “This is all so … we just can’t thank you enough. Both of you. If you hadn’t come …”

  Malak grinned and put an arm around her. “What she means to say is that we owe you a great deal, and we’re forever in your debt.”

  “Uh, no thanks. I don’t take debts,” I said. “Besides, we didn’t do it alone.”