Dammit, it must have fallen out when I rolled and I can’t reach it without putting my neck in range of those teeth.
Rylan spared a moment to check to see if she would be any help; apparently out of arrows again, she was twenty feet away, her knives out and making a growing pile of dead and twitching bodies and completely busy. At least she’s keeping them busy and off me. Again.
He turned his full attention to the dire wolf. Just come at me, what are you waiting for?
He anticipated it coming for his belly, and planned to dodge to the side and bring the knife up like he’d done to the ogre.
But the wolf didn’t come; instead, it moved its head and shoulders side to side.
Now what’s it doing? Rylan questioned, then it dawned on him. It wants me to commit to a slashing attack, which I’ll miss, then it will grab my arm, rip it off, and eat my head.
Elwen’s words came to him. You must learn to control. Misdirect.
With a glance at the wand, he put tension in his left leg but didn’t bend it, and waited for the wolf’s head to bring its path left before he stabbed at its face. The wolf sprang at his arm, but Rylan pushed off with his left leg to throw himself hard to the right, sweeping his left arm back out of the way of the jaws and forcing himself into a spin toward the ground.
The dire wolf’s jaws crunched closed on empty air as it passed over his body, and Rylan hit the ground flat then pulled into a roll over the wand, grabbing it in his right hand as the dire wolf turned for another spring at his throat.
“Don’ik’tora!” Rylan exclaimed, and the dire wolf vanished in a flash of white light and acrid smoke.
Rylan shook with adrenaline, but turned to see how Elwen was doing. There were only half a dozen creatures left, three of them ogres, but they were staying out of range of her knives and waiting for her to tire.
She is, Rylan noted with worry. I can make short work of them, but first things first.
He returned to Naia, his fingers brushing the surface of the Bane just as it blazed into life.
She grabbed his wrist as her eyes flew open, burning with hate. “Ever wonder what it’s like to fly, brother?” she growled, and teleported.
Chapter 29
Rylan found himself several hundred feet above Elwen, and Naia’Toth dropped him. As the ground rushed up, he tried an air hammer, but that didn’t work; it only moved with him and making a parachute of it didn’t work either.
He didn’t dare teleport, he had no idea where he’d end up, but he remembered the dust-devil effect Naia’Toth had when she was flying.
Air elemental. How does she make an air elemental? He thought furiously. With teleporting, you reach into maché, feeling the atoms of your own body, does it have to be your own body?
Rylan closed his eyes and reached into mache, experimentally connecting his atoms with the atoms of the air around him.
It didn’t work; it was like trying to grab dollar bills in one of those tornado machines.
He tried again and connected with the air itself, trying to create a rapport with it, treating it like a being, an entity, life itself.
And it moved. Moved like a flock of birds, at his command.
He gathered more birds to the flock and hardened it, forming a cushion beneath him. He slowed down, slowing to a stop, where he opened a single eye and found himself just above Elwen’s head.
Her eyes were wide. “Magen,” she whispered in awe.
Rylan didn’t have a chance to react before the ground burst beneath her feet, sending them both into the air.
Chapter 30
All of the creatures had been thrown by the explosion, and Elwen crashed to the ground, unmoving. Rylan had been protected by the air elemental beneath him, though he struggled to regain his balance.
Naia’Toth’s demonic voice seemed to come from air itself. “You see what is wrought when there are two of us,” she said. “For peace, there can only be one.”
“You did this!” Rylan screamed. “You can’t create death and take credit for life!”
“I shall create life, you have seen it,” Naia’Toth said, “Once you’re dead, the people of this village shall replenish my army, and I will gather more, to enforce the peace as I bring wonders to your world none have ever seen. Any who oppose me will find their loyalty in my army, and when I become bored, with the Bane I will enforce my will across the Universes.” She laughed. “What you said, Elwen once told Jolon’Toth, and she didn’t stop me. Neither will you. Brother.”
Tears streaming, Rylan spared a glance for Elwen who hadn’t moved, and came to a decision. “No. I won’t make the same mistake.”
He shot upward, his wand aimed, not caring if he was burned alive. “Kerr’ik’naa!”
With a sound like a bomb, a shaft of energy leapt from the Earth to Rylan and flowed across his skin, turning him into a miniature sun as the energy left his wand and struck Naia’Toth. She screamed, knocked back and spinning as the energies devoured her.
Chapter 31
Without sparing a thought for what he’d just done, Rylan returned to Elwen. To his utter relief, she was still alive.
He gathered her into his arms. “Are you going to be okay?” he asked, stroking her hair.
“Ché,” she said with a grin, and cupped his cheek. “You fought well.”
“I guess I am a fighter,” he said, his voice catching.
“Sometimes, you just need the right thing to fight for,” she said, searching his eyes. “There’s something I have to tell you, something I never thought I’d say—”
Rylan felt a stabbing pain in his chest that threw him over Elwen’s body. Confused and in agony, he looked down and grabbed the thing in his chest; slick with his blood, it felt like tree bark and was as big around as rebar. Lying on his side, he looked to where it came from.
Naia’Toth walked toward them, angry and implacable. “Did you really think that spell would work on me? Marakath blew me out of kova with it; did you not think that in four thousand years I’d find a way to counter it?”
A tendril thick as Rylan’s arm shot from her armor to wrap around his neck and lift him choking from the ground. “Still, it hurts like a motherfuck, and right now the only thing on my mind is if it will give me greater joy to kill you now or torture you for the rest of your natural life.”
A thin voice wafted from the ground at Rylan’s feet. “Wait,” Elwen said. “Anale Naia, E’jon s’kana et.”
Naia’Toth looked down at her and barked a laugh. “Why would I do that?”
Elwen winced in pain. “The body you inhabit will eventually die, as will all you take after it, and you are weak after joining. Take me and you will no longer have to risk that. Only I am immortal.”
“And why would you do that?”
“Because I love him,” Elwen said, her gaze meeting his. “He’s shown me passion and strength I had forgotten existed. I would rather know he’s alive somewhere in the world, safe, than see him die now.”
Rylan tried to speak, his legs kicking, but nothing came out with Naia’Toth’s strangling tendril about his throat.
“Love? Hardly,” Naia’Toth scoffed. “You forget, I know you. Battle has made you cynical. And I hardly believe you will give yourself up to me.”
“It doesn’t matter if you believe me or not. As part of me, you get to make me watch. Forever. All I ask is you let him and Naia go.”
“They can do magic,” Naia’Toth said, “and I can spare no rivals.”
“They’re powerless without the wand,” Elwen rebutted.
Naia’Toth considered that, then happily said, “Okay,” and threw Rylan to the ground, knocking the wind out of him.
“Elwen, no,” he managed to croak out. “Must be ... another way.”
She fixed his gaze with hers. “This is the only way.”
Chapter 32
Naia’Toth’s eyes rolled up and she collapsed, twitching. Then a dark cloud formed around her, like fine dust off an ancient book. It rolled l
ike hunger itself over Elwen, who closed her eyes and shuddered as it took her.
Rylan forced himself to watch, the cloud looking like it was consuming her. “Elwen!” he said and took her hand, as if holding it might hold her soul to her body.
When Elwen’s body calmed, her eyes opened and she looked at him, then at their joined hands. She dropped his hand with disgust.
With an effort, she stood. “Still damaged, but healing.” She looked down at herself. “I’d almost forgotten what it was like to have an elven body... Naia was so fragile.”
She moved to Naia, taking the Bane and saying, “I believe that’s mine.” She put it on and turned to Rylan as it turned bright red. “Does it look pretty on me, do you think?”
“That belongs to me,” Rylan growled.
“You’ll have to be more specific––do you mean the Bane, or Elwen?” She giggled. “It doesn’t matter really.”
She approached Rylan and picked him up. He almost collapsed when she let him go, but she steadied him. “You’re not going to fall over if I let you go, are you?”
He shook his head no; Elwen had given herself for this and he would not dishonor her with weakness. He would dedicate his life to saving her.
Elwen’Toth took his face in both hands and kissed him, gathering his lips in a sensual tenderness that was awful in its familiarity before withdrawing and turning her eyes upward as if consulting something within. “Hnh. She really does love you,” Elwen’Toth remarked, “but I don’t see it.”
She pulled the spike from his chest, spun it on her fingertips and jammed it into his heart.
Rylan gripped the spike in both hands, the light in his eyes wavering as he collapsed.
Naia screamed. She had just woken up. “No! You said you’d let him go!” She crawled to Rylan’s body and slapped his face to wake him, but it was no use. She tried to pull him into her arms but the spike was in the way so she pulled it out and tossed it aside. “I’m so sorry, I’m so sorry!” she said, hugging him to her and crying. “I didn’t realize what he was, and the things he made me say... I’m so sorry.”
“Finally,” Elwen’Toth said with an ancient relief, and pulled one of Elwen’s knives to aim at Naia’s back. “Goodbye, last scion of Marakath.”
Before she could strike, Elwen’Toth doubled over and screamed, dropping the knife. She clutched her chest, her hands coming away slick with blood.
“What? This can’t be...” Elwen’Toth said, and coughed, bringing up blood. “No ... no!” she said in a wet strangle and collapsed, convulsing.
Chapter 33
Naia, with renewed hope, held Rylan close as he, too, started convulsing. “Hang on, Rylan. Fight!” She said, tears in her eyes. She held on for several minutes, wishing she could remember one of her mother’s lullabies as the convulsions quieted.
“Come back to me, little brother,” she whispered like a mantra.
When he drew in a gasping breath, Naia, sobbing, released him to the ground, cradling his head.
He looked at her with suspicion. “Is that really you?” he asked.
She nodded. “How are you alive? She stabbed you—”
“The rune...” he said to himself, touching it through his pant leg. “Where is she, is she okay?”
Naia looked behind her at Elwen’s quiet body. “I don’t know, she’s––”
“Elwen?” Rylan said in rising panic as he got up to go over to her. “Elwen!” he shouted, and shook her.
Her eyes stared up at the sky.
“Elwen, no,” he said, hugging her to him and burying his face in her hair. “You can’t be dead, how can you be? You’re immortal!”
Naia knelt next to him, her hand on his shoulder. “I’m so sorry, Rylan.”
He shook with anger and grief, tears streaming. “It’s all my fault! The Spirit stone didn’t work, I must have screwed up the incantation ... if I hadn’t, you’d still be alive!” He squeezed her tighter, like it would make her a part of him.
Naia’s brow furrowed. “Spirit stone?”
Rylan gulped a breath. “Elwen taught me an incantation to draw Toth’s spirit into the stone, but it didn’t work. All the magic I learned, and the most important one I got wrong.”
Naia considered, then shook her head. “I don’t think so, Rylan.”
“What do you mean?” he asked, almost accusing.
Naia shrugged. “They’re not soul traps ... Elwen must have known that. I don’t know exactly how they work, but I can tell you that’s one thing they don’t do.”
“I don’t understand,” Rylan said, brushing the hair from Elwen’s face and kissing her cheek.
“I think I do,” Naia said, pressing herself into his back and rubbing his arms. “Toth controls the joining. Short of death, he can’t be forced out.” She found Elwen’s hand and took it in hers.
“She must have planned it all along,” Naia said, dumbstruck. “I can’t believe it. She gave her life for mine.”
Chapter 34
The three remained until sunrise. Rylan lay holding Elwen, Naia spooning him from the back.
Naia’s gaze turned to the pink clouds, her finger making circles on his shoulder. “What do we do now?”
“I don’t know,” Rylan said. “I guess, bury her. But she missed home. I wish I could take her back there.”
“All it takes is a portal,” Naia said simply.
Rylan sighed. “I have nothing of what I need.”
“Seriously,” Naia said, and sat up. “All it would take is the World stone.”
Rylan turned to look at her. “But all the rest of the––”
“I don’t know what all the rest of those things in your Hot Wheels box were,” she said, and flipped her hair over her shoulder. “But they’re junk. All we need is the World stone.”
Elwen pocketed it on that tree stump three nights ago, Rylan thought with rising hope. Please still have it.
He searched her pockets; there were a number of items in there, but to his great relief they included the World stone. Its black surface glinted red in the sunrise.
He stared at it, thinking, and made a decision. “I have to go.”
“Are you sure?” Naia admonished. “It’s another world, you have no idea what—”
“That didn’t stop her,” Rylan said with an accusing look.
Naia smiled. “I’m proud of you.”
“Really?”
“Yes,” she said and stood, offering her hand to pull him up. “You’re the brother I always wanted you to be.”
He stood and, with reverence and deep sadness, knelt to unclip the Bane from Elwen’s neck.
He presented it to Naia.
Her eyes got wide and she put up her hands defensively. “Oh, no. That thing’s never going to touch me again. You wear it.”
“I have no idea how to use it. You do.”
“Rylan, I can’t.” she said plaintively. “Not after what I’ve been through.”
“Toth is gone, this is harmless,” Rylan rebutted. “Sometimes being strong means doing what’s necessary.”
A smile broke over her face. “No fair using my words against me.” She took the Bane from Rylan and clipped it to her neck with a face that made it look like she was putting on a live lobster.
“Thank you,” Rylan said with a grateful smile, then picked Elwen up. He was surprised at how light she was.
Naia’s gaze fell on Elwen’s scars visible through her shredded clothes. “Jesus, these scars, Rylan. Do they cover her entire body?”
“They do,” he said, and blushed.
Naia shook her head and closed her eyes, putting her hands on Elwen’s body. The Bane turned a dusky red while the scars on Elwen’s body rearranged and melted away.
Rylan’s voice caught. “I didn’t think that was possible.”
“It was easy, she could have done it herself any time,” Naia said with a shrug. “But to her, every scar was deserved, until Toth was dead ... until she redeemed herself.”
“How do you know that?”
“She and Toth had a history.” She put her hands on his chest and sensed his scars. “I can fix those for you, too.”
“No!” he said with force. “Elwen gave these to me and I am who I am because of them. They are a part of me.”
“Okay,” she said awkwardly, then burst into a broad smile and gripped the Bane in her hand the way she used to. “I think I’m changing my mind on this. Doing magic is pretty cool! I wonder what else I can do with it.” The red of the sunrise glinted in her eyes.
Rylan regarded her carefully. “I’m glad you’re warming up to it.”
With a wink at him, she glanced at the World stone in Rylan’s hand, and it floated of its own accord to a spot five feet off the ground far enough away that the portal opening wouldn’t knock them over again. She put her hand on his shoulder, and both taking a deep breath, they said the incantation together as they did before.
The portal opened without the explosion, though, because Rylan knew exactly where they were going. Verdant forest stood before them, familiar but alien; strange birds of red and blue patrolled the sky, and in the distance, the twin spires of Dell Fyalmel.
They walked through, and the portal closed behind them.
About the Author
Edward Buatois is an eclectic new writer who brings his passion for reading to his science fiction and fantasy short stories and novels. His stories address the conflicts within a character's nature, such as a detective married to a serial killer, or a soul-eating Succubus who yearns for love. With a rich writing style, he builds relatable characters that also quirky and human.
Website: edwardbuatois.com
Spellbinders: Judas Mirror
The Magical Book of Wands Page 40
