“Fly at Maze!” he ordered the knives as he waved a hand from side to side.
The blades all suddenly pirouetted, to point back at the powerful leader of the Ivaric attack on the Mover from Faralag, then began to fly towards him, posing a sudden and unexpected threat to Maze.
“What is this?” he thundered angrily, and negligently flipped one hand upward, causing the knives to fly at a new angle that sent then all shooting above his head and beyond him.
“Where did that come from, girl?” Maze angrily demanded of Riesta, not yet aware of Silas’s approach. “Have some reserves to call on, do you?”
“Silas!” Lexy shouted, and he instinctively turned to see that one of the knives Maze had redirected had struck the girl in her chest. Her face went white, and then she collapsed.
“Lexy!” Silas shouted in fear and anger.
“Maze, you’ve hurt her!” his anger boiled over. He looked up at a building next to the one that partially sheltered Riesta, and he called the building to collapse downward and to the side, onto Maze and his soldiers. He pulled both his arms inward and down as he commanded, “Bury him!”
Stones and timbers creaked and groaned and snapped, then fell downward, provoking a wave of shouts and screams from the unfortunate men and women between the building and Maze.
“What is this? Who are you?” Maze turned to look at Silas, then made a red protective dome of energy appear around himself to protect him from the sudden avalanche of debris Silas had called down upon him. The dome appeared just in time, as building rubble buried it quickly from sight.
Without hesitation, Silas turned and ran back to where Lexy lay on the ground and he knelt beside her, then cradled her head in his lap as he began to examine her wound.
“Silas,” the girl’s eyes opened. “One more honey kiss, please?” she asked faintly.
“You hold on, and we’ll have more kisses, I promise,” Silas told her fervently. “You’re going to be alright.”
“Stillwater!” he called. “Imps! Stillwater!” he felt full of energy, and he suddenly knew what to do and how to do it all in the moment of crisis.
“Riesta, come here to me!” he commanded with a wave of his hand, and the Mover was suddenly pulled across the paved street towards his side.
“Protect us and hide us!” he commanded, and a purple dome of energy suddenly enclosed a large portion of the city street-cum-battlefield.
“You called for me, Silas friend?” Stillwater appeared inside the dome, hovering just over Silas’s shoulder. “What manner of magic is this?” the imp looked up over his shoulder at the encompassing dome.
“She’s dying, Stillwater! Lexy has a grave injury! Take us to the Healing Spring immediately!” Silas cried, tears welling in his eyes.
“I will call others!” Stillwater proclaimed.
“Silas!” Riesta recovered from the shock of being dragged across the street to his location. She knelt down next to him. “Our poor girl! Will she be okay?” the short-haired Mover asked.
“If the imps arrive quickly, maybe,” Silas felt Lexy’s muscles relax suddenly, and he gripped her tighter.
A dozen imps were suddenly in the air inside the purple dome.
“We go now,” Stillwater declared, as the blue beings huddled around the three humans, and took them away.
Chapter 19
“Lexy!” Silas moaned as soon as the group materialized upon the shore of the Healing Spring waters. He pushed Lexy’s body into the water and then sprang in beside her.
“You’ll be okay now, Lexy,” he murmured softly as he lifted her body to a prone position floating upon the water. The water that lapped across her chest turned red from the bloody stains on her blouse.
Lexy lay still in his arms, pale and silent.
“Lexy?” Silas spoke the girl’s name softly, and he leaned closer towards her. “Lexy?” he repeated.
There was no answer, no movement by the rebel girl.
“Lexy, a honey-tasting kiss?” he asked softly, as he lowered his head and momentarily rested his lips against hers.
“Silas?” Riesta asked from the shoreline, where she sprawled as the imps had landed her, watching intently as the drama in the water unfolded.
“She’s dead,” he murmured softly, as he continued to look down at the woman in his arms. “The knife struck her directly in the heart.”
He reached down and tugged on the haft of the knife, removing it from Lexy’s torso. He held the dagger in front of himself, studying it dispassionately for a moment, then he submerged it in the water and stuffed it in his own belt.
“I’ll use this to get your revenge,” he said to Lexy softly. He gave a sob, and cried, then he pulled the body of his friend to the shore and lifted it gently onto the grass.
“We share your sorrow, friend Silas,” Stillwater spoke for the imps, who remained floating in the air respectfully, none moving to alight or undress.
“Thank you, Stillwater; she was a good fighter, and a good friend,” Silas delivered a simple eulogy. “Now, all of you may be submerged. Undress and let me care for you.”
The flock of imps silently did as directed, while Riesta sat silently on the grass and watched. None of the imps spoke at all; their usual ebullience at visiting the spring was replaced by profound sadness and shock at the tragedy that had unfolded at the healing spring.
“I am so sorry that your friend has been taken,” Odare told Silas as she floated to him and hugged him tightly.
Silas placed the imps in the water with an almost ritualist attitude, using the movements of carrying and arranging the imps to focus his attention away from Lexy’s quiet body. When he had the last of the imps immersed. He returned to where Lexy lay, and he sat on the bank next to her.
“I’m so sorry Silas that I caused this mess,” Riesta rose from her spot and hobbled over to sit down next to him as she apologized.
He looked at her and saw the abrasions on her face, as well as the blood stain on her shoulder.
“I’m sorry; I should have attended to you already. You should get in the water,” he said first. “You’re not to blame for Lexy’s death at all. Maze is the one who killed her; he’s the one we were fighting.
“Get in the water – this is a healing spring, a special place created by the Elves’ goddess Kere. The water will make you feel better. It will heal you,” he urged her, glad to momentarily have her well-being to focus on instead of Lexy.
“Just get in the water? What will it do to me? What did it do to them? Do you feel okay after being in the spring?” Riesta was hesitant to plunge into the spring.
“I’ve been here several times, and I usually just take off my clothes and float in the water,” he answered. “The imps and sprites are different though. The spring water does make them unconscious, and while they sleep they dream wonderful dreams.”
“Can you help me take this blouse off?” Riesta asked with a grimace. “I can’t move my shoulder enough to do it myself,” she indicated with her uninjured arm and hand.
“What happened?” Silas asked. He felt uncomfortable undressing the Mover and wanted conversation to distract from the circumstances. “Why were you fighting Maze?”
“It was so stupid!” Riesta said vehemently. “I was walking through the street and some of the Ivaric guards decided to harass me. A pair of them came up to me as I was walking along observing the city, and they tried to put hands on me.
“I pushed them away, and one of them fell down. Then the other guards laughed at them and the two started claiming I had used magic to attack! And I hadn’t! But they all started to approach me and had me trapped in that doorway, where I had to use my powers to protect myself,” she spoke with only an occasional wince as Silas undressed her.
“Now pull my pants off too please,” she instructed casually.
“Someone must have alerted Maze at that point, and I had only managed to hold off Maze for twenty minutes or so when, ouch!” she exclaimed as Silas inadvertently pinch
ed her flesh while tugging on her pants.
“Sorry,” he apologized in a low voice, while working to keep his eyes focused on her eyes, and not her body.
“You couldn’t have come along at a better time; I was at the end of my abilities, and Maze seemed to just be toying with me,” Riesta continued.
“And you did so much, so fast!” she complimented Silas.
“But I am truly sorry about your loss. Lexy had been a good companion in the few days that I knew her. She was devoted to you,” the Mover said.
“Here now, slip into the water. That’s it,” Silas instructed. “The water is warmer over there,” he directed. “In fact, it gets too warm for me if you go far enough.” He watched Riesta wade slowly through the spring, then he turned back to look at Lexy.
She looked calm and composed. Silas thought of his first meeting with her, when he’d just returned to Amenozume while it was under Ivaric control. Lexy had been eager to fight against Ivaric and had abandoned her own fellow rebels to join Silas and friends in a quicker stroke against the invaders. He and Lexy had been together frequently ever since, and he’d known her as a rough, passionate person.
And now she was dead, because of Maze.
He felt angry. He stripped off his own wet clothing, then slipped into the spring once again. The water was lukewarm where he entered, and he started to move towards the warmer section, but wished to avoid drawing too near to Riesta. The time was wrong to be near her, to think about her, except to help tend to her injuries.
“How long will we stay here?” she called to him at that moment.
“Another half hour or so,” he answered. “We need to give the imps enough time to enjoy their dreams.”
“And then we’ll go back to Avaleen?” Riesta asked.
Silas pondered that. The imps knew where they had found him, in the center of the hostile city. But they might not know any place else nearby that would be quieter and safer for his return.
“I’ll talk to the imps to plan this out,” he replied slowly. “We’ll get back, we just need to figure out how.”
“You know some of these imps well, by name,” Riesta observed. “Do you call upon them a great deal?”
Silas reflected. “No, not a lot. But I call them when I need them, like now, and they always respond. They are good people, good friends, loyal,” he cataloged the virtues of the imps, “and they like to laugh!” the thought brought a brief smile to his own face.
Riesta laid back and closed her eyes. “This water does feel good, better than any bath I’ve ever had,” she said dreamily. Silas looked at her, and momentarily observed the curves of her body, until he turned his eyes away in embarrassment. Lexy was dead on the grass nearby, while Mata and Lumene remained in Amenozume, weighing on his thoughts, leaving him no right to look at Riesta as anything but a fighting companion.
He left the water, which he didn’t need to heal any wounds, and he sat by Lexy’s body again, gently straightening her clothes, tugging out the wrinkles until the fabric was as smooth as possible. He rose and plucked a sprig of delicate yellow flowers from a shrub, then laid them on Lexy’s chest.
“Should we prepare to return soon?” Riesta’s voice sounded nearby. Silas turned and saw her climbing gingerly out of the spring, while a sheet of water ran off her skin.
“You stay in the water,” Silas replied. “The longer you soak the better you’ll heal. I’ll go ask Stillwater and a couple of others to help me find a safe place we can return to.”
“Shouldn’t we take Lexy directly back to the camp?” Riesta suggested, as she stepped back into the water.
The suggestion made sense to Silas, who was too upset to think clearly on his own. He walked around the perimeter of the pool to the imps’ resting place, then pulled Odare, Stillwater, and Fowler, a companion of theirs who Silas recognized though he’d not spoken to the blue being.
“What do you want us to do?” Stillwater asked in confusion when Silas first explained his plan.
“We need to go back to the city where you found us,” Silas explained. “But I do not want to take Lexy’s body back to the same place we began in. If you will take me to the city, then I will walk to where I wish to be, and then I will call you to that place, so that you will know where I want you to finally deposit Lexy and Riesta and me.”
“We will do as you say. Will you be long between when we leave you and when you call upon us again?” Odare asked. “Because if it will be some time, perhaps we should come back here and rest in the waters some more. Your pretty naked girlfriend could restore us to the wonderful waters.”
“She is not my naked girlfriend!” Silas corrected the imp.
“Is she not unclothed?” Fowler asked.
“Is she not a female? She appears to be,” Stillwater added.
“I had assumed she was your friend, but perhaps you will travel with any female, acquainted or unacquainted,” Odare immediately probed.
“She is an acquaintance; I met her months ago, in Faralag,” Silas spoke insistently.
“Not many humans leave Faralag, I am told,” Odare commented. “It is a superior human city. That is why the sprites favor it with a treaty, or that is partially why. Just as Kestrel’s home in the Marches is a superior elven community, and so we favor it.”
“I favor it because of Kestrel,” Stillwater added primly.
“And the mushroom markets,” Fowler chimed in.
There was a moment of abashed silence.
“She is here to help me fight L’Anvien, nothing more,” Silas felt he had to return to the original comments.
“You do not need to say any more to cover your feelings,” Odare said. On some unspoken cue, the three imps closed in around Silas. “We shall take you now,” were the last words spoken, and then gray nothingness prevailed.
Chapter 20
Silas found himself standing in a deeply shadowed pile of rubble, in a portion of the city that appeared deserted. He pulled his hood up and thought for a moment of Lexy tying the gauzy blindfold around his head to cover his eyes, then he began to pick his way through the stones and bricks and timbers that were the scattered remains of the building he had angrily pulled down upon Maze in reaction to seeing Lexy’s injury. The spot where Maze had stood while protected from the rain of building material was a small crater. Silas hoped that it was a sign that Maze’s protective umbrella of power had collapsed and caused the evil priest of L’Anvien to die painfully.
“No looters!” a voice shouted. “You, get out of there.”
Silas saw a pair of guards patrolling the street nearby, addressing him. He scrambled across the debris towards an alley that let him leave the battle scene and exit on the opposite of the block from the patrol.
The sun was low in the sky in the west, the opposite direction from where Silas intended to go, to his small campsite that lay east of the city. He turned his back to the sun and began walking. The streets had few people on them, perhaps in fear of the powerful battle that had erupted just a few short hours earlier, he surmised. His passage through the streets was simple without crowds, and he made good time on his way back to the gate out of the city.
Getting through the city gate was a simple matter, one Silas had discovered in other cities, as he produced gusts of wind that stirred dust and papers and clothing to distract the guards. Once he was outside the gates, he walked several paces beyond, to a point in front of small retail establishments that were closed for the evening, where he stopped and turned to face the city.
He was angry and bitter. He wanted revenge on Maze, he wanted the warrior-priest to hurt and know pain. He wanted Maze to live in fear until the time came when Silas would inflict punishment upon him.
“Maze!” he seized his Wind Word powers and used his voice to broadcast a message that would be audible to Maze in particular, but everyone else in the city as well.
“Maze, I will come back to Avaleen and I will destroy you. Prepare to feel pain!” Silas was surrendering to the a
nger he felt. He looked to the south of the city and waved his hand in the sky, forcing a mass of cold air to drop precipitously from its high altitude in the early evening sky, and then he tumbled it and mixed it so that it became a tornado that swirled and thrashed with frightening force on the outskirts of the city.
“Maze, I am the Abomination, and I am coming for you!” he waved his other hand and created another tornado on the north side of the city.
“Maze, I am sworn to kill you, and anyone who stands in my way!” Silas screamed the announcement to the entire population of the city, then produced a third tornado on the west side of the city.
“You will pay for the crimes and evil you have done, Maze,” Silas added one last threat, and set a fourth storm in motion on the east side of the city near his own location, and he watched as the storm tore at the ground, pulling in dirt and stone and nearby loose debris as air flowed violent into the vortex that lifted all things upward.
Silas sliced his arms through the air in front of him and all four storms immediately ceased.
“Good bye Maze, until we meet again,” he thundered, then stood silent, glowering with hostile intention towards Maze, any soldiers who served him, and everyone else who stood between Silas and the man who had killed Lexy.
Chapter 21
After allowing time for his anger to cool, Silas walked along the dark and empty road on his way back to the vicinity of the camp where his partners were hopefully present. His eyesight allowed him to stroll without accident along the road, and minutes later he reached his destination.
“I thought we were going to quietly explore the city,” Stash’s voice spoke first as soon as Silas became visible in the light cast by the camp fire.
“The fight today wasn’t planned,” Silas answered briefly. He didn’t want to talk about the day in the city yet. He needed to first bring Lexy back home.
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