He has a good idea what he can do to destroy the gate, he just has to hold out long enough for the others to reach the dais and get away. If he can’t, there’s little hope that they will survive what’s to come.
A little to his right he sees the dark form of Ozgirath as it lays upon the rune covered floor. The dagger Jiron thrust into his breast still glows with ruddy light, the dark robe remains still.
Then his eyes return to the gate as the malignant presence that James can only call pure evil tries again to bull its way through. He can sense the frustration and growing anger coming through from the other side. He can also sense lines of magical energy being channeled to the gate from elsewhere and being absorbed by it. Try as he might, nothing he does effectively interrupts the streams of power from being delivered.
When at last he deems the time is right, he creates the sphere. One that he’s created twice before, each time with massive destructive power. The first time was outside the City of Light, the result of which destroyed a good portion of the Empire’s invasion force. Not enough to stop them, but it hurt them bad.
The second time was not too long ago when mages came to destroy Illan’s army and everyone with it. The resulting explosion that time was immense. It seared the earth for miles in every direction and weakened the boundary between the planes to such an extent that a creature not of this world was able to pass through.
Now staring at the sphere before him, he sees his death, as activating it will surely mean. There will be little chance to escape its blast once he does. Then all of a sudden, the presence from the other side makes a massive push as it tries to force its way through the gate. The gate bulges to an extent further than ever it had before. Sparks dance across its surface and just as James is sure it’s going to break through, the pressure subsides.
Now James, he says to himself. While it’s regrouping for another attempt. He focuses his eyes on the sphere and sends the command that will activate it. For Meliana.
No sooner does the sphere become activated than it latches onto the streams of power flowing to the gate and draws them to itself. James can also feel the power of the Star beginning to be drawn into it as well. Opening up the conduit as wide as he can, he funnels raw, primal power to the sphere.
The sphere goes from translucent to deep red in half a second as unimaginable power is absorbed into it. The magic that James had used to prevent the gate from opening is now being drawn into the sphere.
Sparks begin to appear across the surface of the gate and it bulges forward as the presence again tries to cross. Only this time, it’s not meeting any opposition. As the gate opens, terror rolls over James as something begins to cross over.
Tearing his eyes from the gate, he concentrates on the sphere. Now so dark red as to be almost black, it crackles with power. Then it reaches critical mass and detonates.
Back in Zixtyn, the priests of Dmon-Li continue sacrificing slaves and directing the resulting power to Dmon-Li’s altar in the nexus of the temple. Which in turn sends the power to Ith-Zirul. A backlash of energy travels back along the power stream when the sphere detonates. When it reaches the altar…
Crumph!
…the magic explodes in a tremendous conflagration of energy. The temple rocks on its foundation as the force of the explosion blasts the temple asunder.
“Jiron!” screams Aleya when the temple explodes into the night. Standing at the window, Aleya and the others see a massive fireball rising to the sky where the temple had stood.
“Damn,” curses Reilin under his breath.
“Come on,” Shorty says. “James said to get out of town if things went bad.”
“It couldn’t have been much worse than that,” agrees Stig.
Aleya collapses by the window and is wracked with sobs. Stig tries to comfort her while Shorty and Reilin gather their things.
“We can’t know that killed them,” he says to her. “They’ve survived worse before.”
“You think so?” she asks as she raises her head hopefully.
“Sure,” he says. “But we need to get out of here before someone comes looking.” To Shorty he asks, “You got everything?”
With their traveling packs in hand, he says, “Yes.”
“Then head down to the stables and get the horses ready,” Stig tells him.
Nodding his head, Shorty rushes downstairs.
Aleya pulls herself up off the floor and stares once again at the fire that is still arcing toward the clouds. “Please be okay,” she says. Then taking a deep breath, she takes Aku by the hand and turns to Stig. “Let’s go.”
“What the hell was that?”
Covered in rock and dirt, Scar and Potbelly find themselves at the bottom of the stairs. The blast knocked them back and threw them down to the bottom.
“James I would imagine,” Potbelly replies as he pries his leg out from under a large piece of what use to be the temple wall.
“I think I’m blind,” Scar says from further up the stairs than where Potbelly had landed.
“You’re not blind,” replies Potbelly. “It’s just dark. I think the blast collapsed the hallway up there and buried those soldiers along with the torches they were carrying.” Stepping carefully, he begins feeling his way up toward Scar. “You still have that flint?”
“Yeah,” replies Scar.
Then a second or two later, he hears cloth being torn, then sparks appear as Scar strikes the flint stone. A moment later, a flame appears and Potbelly sees Scar sitting on a broken section of the temple. Beside him is a strip of cloth that use to be attached to his tunic. Using his knife, Scar winds the burning cloth around the blade and holds it aloft as a torch.
“I think we’re alone down here,” Scar says after looking up and down the stairs for others.
“Looks that way,” agrees Potbelly.
“Better see if we can get out of here,” Scar says. Getting up off the broken section of temple wall, he turns toward the top of the stairs. That’s when he realizes his swords are not in their scabbards. One is lying further up the stairs and the other is wedged in amongst a pile of rocks so tightly that no amount of pulling will free it.
Potbelly sees his predicament and suggests, “Take the sword from the dead guy at the bottom of the stair.
“Good idea,” replies Scar and descends to the bottom where the dead guard that they shoved down the stairs lays. The man’s sword doesn’t fit within the scabbard around his waist so Scar removes his empty scabbard and then buckles on the dead man’s. He then draws the sword quickly from the scabbard a couple times to be sure it’s in the proper position. Once he’s satisfied that it has an easy draw for emergencies, he bends over and tears off several strips of cloth from the dead man’s shirt to use as fuel for his makeshift torch.
“Now, let’s get out of here.” With his knife-torch held high, he ascends back up the stairs. The stairwell is choked with rubble which makes the footing treacherous. At the top, they find little resemblance to the place they had so recently been fighting for their lives. A few bodies of temple guards are wedged in among the debris that’s all but blocking the top of the stairwell.
From where Potbelly stands slightly below Scar on the stairs he asks, “Is there a way out?”
“Maybe” replies Scar. “Here take this.” He then hands Potbelly his knife-torch. “Let me see if I can get us out of here.” Moving toward the choked passage, he begins to feel a slight breeze which gives him hope.
Using his hands, he starts trying to push the rock away. When that fails to yield results, he begins digging out the stones chocking the passage. All of a sudden he stops and turns back to Potbelly. “Kill the light!” he exclaims quietly. “I hear someone.”
Potbelly flicks the burning cloth from the blade of the knife and stomps the flame out once it’s on the ground. When the passage again goes dark, they notice a faint light coming from the left side of the rock pile.
Scar moves as close to where the light is coming from as he can. A
fter a moment of looking, he returns to Potbelly. “The blast must have broken the outer wall of the temple,” he explains. “I’m pretty sure we can get out if we remove a few of the larger pieces.”
“Then what are we waiting for?” Potbelly asks.
Nodding his head toward the light, he says, “The grounds out there are crawling with soldiers and priests. We’d never make it.”
Potbelly then finds a large chunk of rock and sits down, Scar does the same. “Could use a rest anyway,” Potbelly admits with a tired sigh. “Just have to wait until it quiets down out there before we make our break.”
Leaning his head back against the wall, Scar adds, “We’re still better off than we were before the blast.”
“You got that right,” agrees Potbelly. Then after a moment of silence he says, “You remember that time…”
Chapter Forty
_________________________
Sunlight on his face is the first thing he becomes aware of. Then as consciousness continues to come back to him he hears birds chirping, feels a slight breeze blowing, and then realizes he’s lying on grass.
Opening his eyes, he sees the tops of trees stretching up to a beautiful blue sky with just a trace of clouds floating high above the earth. From nearby comes the sound of water as it rolls along a streambed. Sitting up, he finds himself in a clearing next to a gently flowing stream that crosses from one side of the clearing before entering the forest on the other.
Taking a deep breath of air scented with pine, he can hardly credit what his senses are telling him. Reaching out he takes hold of a blade of grass and plucks it from the ground. Rolling it between his fingers, he tries to verify if this is real.
Then all of a sudden, the aroma of hot pepperoni pizza hits him and his stomach begins cramping. “I must be dead,” he says aloud to himself.
“Hardly,” is the reply from behind him.
Turning his head, he sees Igor sitting on the same log that he sat upon when James first passed through the door at the interview when all this began. Next to him on the log is a large pizza box with Mama’s Pizza written across the top and two plastic cups filled with pop. Igor gestures to the pizza and says, “Help yourself.”
Getting up off the grass, James comes over and sits on the log with the pizza between them. “How did I get here?” he asks. Never one to turn down pizza, he takes a slice and bites off a big mouthful.
“Always with the questions aren’t you?” retorts Igor with a grin. “Fortunately for your curiosity, I’m in a position now where I can answer a few of your questions.” He takes a slice of pizza and shoves half the slice in his mouth before biting it off.
James waits patiently for him to finish chewing. In the meantime he finishes off his first piece and takes a second. The pop in the cups turns out to be a favorite drink of his and he quickly downs a third.
Finishing off his bite, Igor says, “Take it easy. You need to make it last, there are no refills.” He gives James another toothy grin. “As to your question about how you got here, I brought you here.” When he sees the questions again beginning to form behind James’ eyes he adds, “I snatched you the instant before that sphere of yours went off.”
“Thanks,” he says, “I thought I was a goner.”
“Well, we owed you that much,” he says.
“So can I assume that I have accomplished all that I was brought here to do?” James asks.
“Oh yes,” Igor replies. “It couldn’t have worked out better all things considered.”
“What happened to the Star?” he asks. “Did it get destroyed in the blast?”
Shaking his head, Igor replies, “No. It would take something a bit more to destroy something like that. It’s still there beneath the rubble that once was Dmon-Li’s high temple.”
“Once?” prompts James.
Igor grins. “The blast completely destroyed it,” he explains, “as well as just about every other temple he has. It’s going to take a long time for him to regain the influence that he once enjoyed on this world, if he ever does.”
“What other temples?”
“Did you happen to notice streams of power being directed toward the gate that was made?” Igor asks. When James nods he says, “When your sphere exploded it sent a backlash of power along those streams resulting in rather large explosions on the other end.”
“Did Jiron and the others make it out?” Picking up his third slice, he bites off a mouthful as he waits for Igor’s reply.
Waving away the question, Igor hops off the log. “My time is running out and there’s still one more thing to do.”
James looks on curiously as Igor walks a dozen feet away. Then all of a sudden an archway appears beside the little guy. James’ eyes widen as he recognizes his grandparent’s home on the other side.
“A choice lies before you James,” Igor tells him. “You have but to pass through this arch to be returned to the life you left behind.”
James comes to his feet and approaches the arch. The feelings of homesickness that he thought were behind him come back in force. “Can I return here if I do?” he asks.
“No James,” replies Igor. “I assure you, the opportunity will not present itself again in your lifetime.”
Then the front door opens and his grandmother comes outside. She takes her place in her favorite chair on the porch and begins rocking. Emotions rise, as memories come of the times when he used to sit in her lap as she rocked him in that very same chair as a boy. Unbidden, a tear runs down his cheek as he watches her rock.
Igor moves over to the pizza box and grabs another slice of pizza.
“I…I don’t know,” James says, turning from the arch to look back to Igor.
“I must go, James,” Igor says. “The archway will remain for ten minutes. Then it will vanish.” Then he shoves the entire slice into his mouth.
James turns to look at his grandmother rocking on the porch once more. “But what…” he begins to say as he turns his head to look back at Igor. He leaves the question unasked when he realizes that he’s alone in the clearing.
Ten minutes to decide the rest of my life?
He sits on the ground before the archway. Holding out a hand he forms his orb. Can I give this up so readily? But then looking back to his grandmother, he knows that he’s all she and his grandfather have. Without him, they have no one.
Wracked with indecision, he continues to sit as he ponders what to do.
“James, there comes a time when…” A talk he and his grandfather had months before he answered the ad that started all this comes to mind. His grandfather had wisdom that he didn’t appreciate at the time. He simply thought it was just another attempt to get him motivated in finding a job. But now that his view of the world, and life especially, has grown, he understands just what his grandfather had been trying to tell him.
Making his decision, he gets to his feet.
The following spring, life is good. Rebuilding continues to bring the City of Light back to life. Some sections of the city that were destroyed during the siege and subsequent occupation by the Empire have been rebuilt. One building in particular has been given prominence in the construction effort. Still not even a third completed, it’s going to take another year or two, maybe even longer, before the High Temple of Morcyth is completed.
Its walls rise in uneven levels as the work progresses at varying speed depending on what is being built in each particular area. It actually didn’t take that long to come up with a blueprint for how the temple was to be laid out. One evening Miko and a master builder went into a room at a local inn and the next morning, the plans were formed. Only divine guidance could have made that possible in such a short time.
Today however, all work has been suspended. The Madoc Patriarchal Council has declared this day a holiday, that all work must cease until the sun rises on the morrow. The city is enjoying a party the likes of which it has rarely seen and everyone has turned out.
Several buildings which had been b
uilt upon the old temple site were demolished and the rubble removed over the winter. Lord Pytherian had loaned the effort several hundred soldiers, else it would never have been done so quickly. What will one day be the temple’s courtyard has been decorated in festive, spring flowers, garlands, and anything else the people could lay their hands on.
“Are they coming?” one lady shouts to the two men standing at the entrance to the temple.
“Almost,” one of them yells back.
“He better hurry up or there won’t be any food left,” Scar says.
“You got that right,” replies Potbelly. “Look at ‘em, they’re like a horde of locusts.”
“Locusts?” asks Scar.
“Yeah,” replies Potbelly, surprised he hadn’t heard of the little beastie. “It’s a small insect that…”
Dressed in the finest attire that could be found, they stand before where the doors to the temple will be placed once the front wall has been made ready for them. Inside, they hear the final words of Miko, as he finishes the ceremony.
“…together. From this day forward, you James, and you Meliana are one. Forever bound to walk through this life together until the end of your days.” Bent over the Book of Morcyth, Miko looks almost comical in the ceremonial robes of the High Priest. He found a description of what they were to be in the Book of Morcyth and had a set made for this occasion. When he put them on, Scar and Potbelly couldn’t stop laughing, which is why they had the honor to stand guard at the outer door.
He pauses a moment as he scans the pages. Silence hangs over the hall as everyone watches.
“Is that all?” asks James him quietly.
The Mists of Sorrow: The Morcyth Saga Book Seven Page 56
