by Ryk E. Spoor
But while he was chewing on that, I saw a shadow, dropped and rolled, as Hræsvelgr dove upon me, chill-bladed claw cutting a gash along my body. Oh, damn, I’m almost naked, too.
That was fixed even in the moment I thought it, and I realized I had other options. Even having thought about this power beforehand, it was different actually using it. I came to my feet, dressed, and something shimmered into existence, a long wide tube with a handle, I swung, pointed it as the half-substantial Roc-sized eagle began its second dive, and pulled the trigger. “Let’s lay down the LAW.”
A projectile of flame blasted from the mouth of the mystical bazooka and detonated on the creature’s head. Magical flame warred with airy cold and Hræsvelgr flew erratically, desperately trying to shake off the clinging fire, and finally plummeted to the ground with an earthshaking crash.
Flaming projectiles screamed at me from Ugu’s staff and my weapon became an ornate spiky orange shaft of steel, spinning so fast it countered the arrows. I charged back towards them, but the ground was moving, rising, a great hand reaching out, crushing down on me, but I imagined red and blue and the power of legend, and up, up, and away! Through the hand I went, shattering the dull-witted elemental before it could realize what had happened.
But things were happening faster now, Ugu and Amanita working together and far, far more quickly than anything mortal could ever have managed. I rebounded from a crystal shield and something shocked me, thunder-bound power so intense that its pain momentarily eclipsed my burning soul, and I escaped, fingers to ghostly-green crested forehead and instantaneously moving, behind them, calling energy and the soul of the oceans forth in a rising dragon of water accompanied by the shimmer of long black hair and the calm of discipline I’d never known; the dragon strike slammed into the crystal shield and it began to crack, but the King and Queen leapt from the Royal Box and landed safely below, a barrage of steely bolts filling the air from Ugu as the ruins of the stands were transformed to a savage flock of wood-and-stone gargoyles set to rend me apart.
I disappeared from them in a puff of blue smoke and brimstone, but I hadn’t thought ahead too much, just over there! Regaining my bearings took too long; Niddhogg’s tail smashed into me.
That very nearly finished everything.
I fell from the sky, tumbling over and over, fetched up against a broken wall of the Grey Castle, stunned, unable for a moment to move. What…that felt…like stone.
I realized suddenly that my combination of Faerie and Mortal power was a two-edged sword. While wielding the full power of Faerie, I no longer had the True Mortal invulnerability; if, on the other hand, I pulled in Ozma’s gift, hid it for a moment within my Mortal shell, I could not use the power; it had to be released, driving me forward, or it would do me no good at all.
But as Niddhogg slammed down a talon the size of a two-bedroom house, I yanked the power inside somehow, withheld it from my form. The concussion was like Yoop’s club, only even softer. These things were almost purely magical creations, elementals, unlike Yoop who had at least started out fairly solid. As it lifted its paw and looked with glazed-yellow eyes, I released the magic, reached out to the chaos of the war that was now raging full-bore, and for just a moment the sounds faded, all sound disappearing into silence, and inside an echo of a singer, a fighter, a blonde-haired outcast. My body blazed brighter, into a detonation of pure light that blinded and dazzled the stony creature. It roared in confusion, staggering, and I ran up its leg and onto its back, as Hræsvelgr, wounded but once more airborne, came at me. I stopped, waving, hurling insults, and then dove aside.
Amanita’s injured demon of the air collided with her infuriated and blinded monster of the earth. Immediately Niddhogg turned its fury onto Hræsvelgr, and half the south tower went down on top of them as they rolled over and over into the Grey Castle.
More exchanges of power, even faster now as they unleashed monsters, dancing swords of power, true tempests and transformed creatures. I battled my way through them with borrowed sword and symbolic power and spells created by a hundred imaginations, Druid-fire and Freeze-Arrow and “you cannot pass!,” a sword of pure light and an orchestral fanfare so mighty that it echoed awe and wonder through my entire life.
I was closing in on them. I felt the power still burning within me, but it was not close to the end — I thought. But would I know? Or would I go on fighting until — in one fiery instant — it all came apart, never sensing that my soul was almost gone?
Ugu’s face was showing the strain of the combat, sweating, no longer so sure, realizing that I had not been making some empty boast. He could counter every trick I showed him, and had many of his own, but… “My Queen,” I heard him say grimly, “He is coming, and I think all our efforts may not hold him more than another minute or three.”
Amanita’s laugh floated over the battlefield, and I felt my heart constrict. She doesn’t sound worried at all.
“A minute or less — perhaps less than half that — and he is done.”
I paused, shielding myself. “What?”
“Ah, he has heard.” Her smile was poisoned candy. “They told you, no doubt, that your power burns your soul. But did they tell you how it does so, little Mortal? For as you so truly say, ’tis your Will that drives you, that holds you to this world with such power as could shatter a world held within you. But what drives the Will, save the knowledge of your loss?
“The power erodes you, wears you away, as a river cutting through a canyon, a candle burning down. And the layers of your soul are time, Mortal, the length of your soul the depth of your life.” The cold smile widened. “How long ago did you come to Faerie, Erik Medon? A year? A year and a half? For know this: you have burned nigh unto a year of your life already, and when your soul is worn away to the point at which your purpose began — when that which drives you was truly a part of your heart — in that moment you shall forget what drives you, and your will is gone, the power with it…
“And in that moment, Mortal Man…you will die.”
Chapter 53.
For a moment, Erik Medon stood still, the aura of his shield flickering, as he stared at Amanita, and Ugu began to feel a faint hope.
And then Erik Medon laughed.
This laugh had none of the bitterness of his prior words; it was pure surprised humor, the laugh of a man told an excellent jest. Ugu watched as Amanita looked first surprised, then furious. She never liked being laughed at.
The laugh cut off suddenly, and the radiance of the power with it, and only cold, ice-blue eyes gazed into his and Amanita’s; but the mouth still smiled, with a sharp and dangerous smile.
“How do you think I knew Polychrome the moment I laid eyes on her?” he asked quietly, and Ugu suddenly knew they were doomed. “I fell in love with her before I even knew what that meant, as pictures and words in a book!” The power of Faerie flamed up again, but brighter, much brighter. “And the last part of the puzzle is answered, because now I know why I had to be chosen. Pray to whatever gods you believe in that my body gives out fast, because you’ve just shown me how much farther I can push this!”
The once-Mortal’s body was almost a pure blaze of light, and he seemed to shimmer within that power like something seen through the heat of a furnace. “I HAVE FORTY MORE YEARS TO GIVE YOU!”
He lunged from the Earth, and the force of that leap sent a concussion through the ground, left a crater the size of one of the castle towers. Against Ugu’s shields he slammed a single punch, and shattered the spell as though it were crystal and not pure mystical force.
Were I not a Herkus, I would be ended in this moment. Only the superhuman strength and toughness of his people kept him upright as the shield-spell shattered and the remaining force of that blow took him directly in the chest. As it was, he skidded backwards and tumbled fifty feet before he stopped and regained his footing. I can afford to reserve nothing now. We either defeat him in the next few minutes, or this once-Mortal will have our hearts in his hands.
> He reached deep within himself, unleashed a stupendous column of force driven by the power of a thousand Faerie souls he had taken in the first days of his power. Even as he did so, he felt another part of him go cold, reviling his former self. But there is no turning back; they were no longer Faerie, merely power, for long since had I stripped them of anything that made them otherwise.
Now it was on its way, and even Amanita threw up her arm to shield herself from the malignant radiance and absolute power of that stroke. Erik Medon did not dodge; instead he held up his hands, middle fingers down, as a strange peaked cloak shimmered ghostly about him, and golden light streaked out, branching, forming a series of insubstantial circular shields that took the brunt of even that attack, every shattering disc robbing Ugu’s bolt of substance until the final shield, not more than inches from the Mortal, merely cracked and disappeared with the last vestige of power.
“Now catch me, you. Guesses for grabs where I am next!” As he spoke those nonsensical words, he was gone, and here, hands grasping for both of them, hurling them apart, the reinforcement of the other’s power now gone. Ugu was on his own now, as was Amanita, unless they could rejoin. They were twin poles of power; this was the foundation of their conquest, and what had kept either from betraying the other in the early days. Never had Ugu needed her support more — nor she his.
But neither was helpless, and Amanita proved it with a shrieked invocation, gesture and mystic powder-shot scattering across the shambles of the courtyard. Hundreds of stone soldiers, Tempest-spawn, and lesser Torrents materialized and charged the Mortal.
He could destroy one, a dozen, even a hundred, but he was, now, just one man, though of supernal power, his impossible duplicates gone back to the vapor from which they had come, and sheer numbers would overwhelm him, even as a mighty warrior might fall beneath the wrath of a hive of ants.
For a moment he disappeared beneath a tide of fang-mouthed, taloned horrors, and Ugu thought they had won. But the Music of the Spheres sounded a note of doom, blue-gold light suddenly blazed out from within, and a detonation of power blew the mob away like leaves in a hurricane. “AWAY FROM ME!” the Mortal’s voice thundered, and the power raced out in a perfect sphere of destruction, scything down all save Amanita, Ugu, and Jormungandr; the impact finally shattered Amanita’s wing of the Castle, and the central dome collapsed like a malignant flower opening, exposing the seething, roiling mass of black vapor and lightning that lay within: the Great Binding.
Jormungandr charged at Amanita’s order, and Ugu reached into his robes, took out a final handful of charms and suspended spells, the most powerful and final resorts of defense and offense he had ever devised — aside from the Eye of the Soul, without which he and Amanita would have been dead long since. He needed this time to prepare.
The acid-green serpent of corrupted water’s essence slithered, an undammed flood, for Erik Medon and opened its mouth, spewing corrosive slime everywhere. Somehow, the Mortal evaded the fountaining death, leaping and bouncing with acrobatic skill and speed beyond comprehension. Jormungandr missed in its strike, but reversed — not by turning, but by simply changing malleable front and back to their reverse.
But Erik was standing before it, hand upraised, phantom image of black hair and white glove, and snapped his fingers. With a doomsday roar, the very air ignited around Jormungandr, water’s nemesis — fire -- burning it away, flame without source or cause until naught but grease-black smoke remained of Amanita’s last creation.
The dark-air eagle and the grey-stone dragon had destroyed each other.
Erik turned towards Ugu, and now the wizard could see that the shape within the vengeful light was growing less substantial, evaporating like his soul due to the terrible exigencies of the power he had taken. The eyes still were visible, now green like avenging emerald, now blue, but the rest was indistinct, hair mingling with light as though boiling away, body more light than substance. But he showed no sign of stopping.
“Here I come,” Erik Medon said, as the light around him gathered in a sparkling aura.
And he burned a path across the ground as he came.
The shields Ugu had spent a dozen years preparing were shattered in instants. The spells that could have slain a hundred men missed their target or were brushed aside, the foolish attempt of a child to harm a warrior born. Bright-flaming fists battered into him even through his greatest defenses, kicks stunned him, and a final double-handed strike slammed through his staff, broke one rib, left him prone and defenseless in the ruins of the wall he had just been slammed into.
“And that’s all,” the Mortal said. “You have nothing left. And though it’s taken a lot from me, I have more than enough power to finish both of you.” The fury and loss in his voice was under control, but no less because of it; merely colder and more calculated.
Amanita laughed, and this laugh was very much mad. “Oh, you want power, little boy?”
And before even the lightning speed of Faerie could stop her, Amanita Verdant leapt lightly into the heart of the Great Binding.
Chapter 54.
I stared as Amanita disappeared within that roiling black mass, neither I nor Ugu moving. For a few seconds, nothing happened.
Then the black, lightning-shot cloud — that seemed to scream in anguish and hatred to my augmented senses — began to spin, funneling inward like a whirlpool, but from the center something began to grow.
It grew, towering higher and higher, condensing shape and substance from smoky power, a hundred feet, two hundred, five, a thousand, a head the size of a castle tower, scale-armored, black and poison-green and silver, house-high blades of teeth, a Dragon on a scale undreamed of. And it was laughing, a voice deep as thunder yet with overtones I knew. “Now let us test your power, little Mortal, for I have become the Binding, taken to myself all the power of Phanfasms and souls I have sacrificed these centuries. Not…precisely…my plan, but now I wonder that I hesitated.” The Verdant Dragon’s eyes opened, blazing a venomous crimson and as mad as the voice that spoke.
“Ohhhh, crap,” I heard myself say. I glanced down and saw Ugu pale as a ghost. This hadn’t been in any of his game plans either. I pointed down to him. “Stay,” I said, and launched myself into the air. Have to see how dangerous she is.
As soon as I left the ground, she spat out a column of black-edged green that slammed me back down like a sledgehammer. Even all the power of Oz seemed unable to overcome that absolute force. No wonder. The Phanfasms were said to be the ultimate in power, the greatest of the dark Faeries, and she’s apparently fused all of their power into one being — herself. Maybe it’s not more powerful than I am as the channel of Oz itself –
“But how long will your power last, little boy?” that storm-deep voice said tauntingly, echoing my own thoughts. “Oh, perhaps if you could fight me with your True Mortal capabilities you would win, for surely nothing more magical than I is, or has ever been.”
But it didn’t take a genius to see what she meant by “if”; the titanic Dragon flew, thousands of feet overhead. I couldn’t leap and bounce that high, and I couldn’t fly without the power of Faerie. I couldn’t use the power of Faerie, though, and still have my True Mortal power, which was the only thing that might penetrate that monster’s defenses.
“So fight as you must, please, fight and die screaming! But my magic is strong enough, strong enough to survive anything you can deliver for a time, and a little time is all you have; and then shall I remain, and all of Faerie will become mine!” She smiled down, a savage threat and hunger. “Oh, my King, I am afraid…I shall have no more use for you, either. But then, after your failure today, I’m sure death will be a welcome release!”
Her head rose. “First…I will deal with your friends and your army, little Mortal boy. That should hurt you a great deal!”
I looked with extended senses, memorizing what lay near my friends, twenty-decimals of similarity, and I was there, next to the Army. No time for reserves, the big guns are need
ed. And as she drew in her breath for a devastating attack, I concentrated. “You want to play with the big boys? Let me show you the biggest of them all!”
And I grew, changing, feeling invincible armor covering me in grey scales, claws forming, a great sheet of spines growing between my shoulderblades, dwarfing even the castle below me, titanic, uncaring, unstoppable, and I roared a challenge to my opponent, whose eyes were no longer so arrogant, her breath drawn in, mine as well, and we both breathed at the same time, the blaze of electricity and nuclear fire from my back channeling into me, through me, and outward, streaking out just as the Verdant Dragon breathed.
Black-green power met a column of blue-white energy and the two stopped, contesting, as I fought her life-destroying breath with all the strength and will I had left. The point of contact blazed, a sphere of seething radiance that made the sun itself look dim and distant. She redoubled her attack and I threw more of myself into my own, jagged-edged scales blazing red and blue behind and sending atomic holocaust onward, until suddenly both of us lost control and the energy exploded, shattering the last towers of the Grey Castle and knocking everyone but myself to the ground.
But even in that moment, the transformation reverted. Ugu’s Eye of the Soul is still working, tied to them both. Once, and once only.
She laughed again, a mad laugh that confirmed what I suspected: her will might have allowed her to retain control, rather than becoming just one of an amalgam of all the minds that were once there, but there was nothing sane left. If I didn’t beat her here, Faerie would be ruled by a monster without restraint or care, a sadistic, unpredictable sociopath with the power of a god.
But that clash of power had also shown me she was right. We’d both thrown our full power into that contest, and hers was the equal of mine. And she was equal to me in another way: she was no longer just a giantess or transformed human, she was a living container of Faerie power, with all the flexibility that implied. Perhaps she lacked my imagination, but I didn’t have that Eye of the Soul power to understand and negate everything she did.
