9
There was no thought, no contemplation of what was going on or where we were. There was only the idea that Fanny was dead and that Greta had killed her. There was only the thought that I wanted to do to Greta what she’d done to Fanny.
“Fanny!” I screamed as I ran to her. I heard the sound of Jake and Owen running behind me.
Greta didn’t even look toward us, her eyes were fixed on the gates all around the coliseum, flitting from one to another.
As I got closer, I realized that Greta’s hair wasn’t tinged red because of dust. As I got closer, it was clear that her hair was spattered red with blood. Is she covered with Fanny’s blood? Or that large beast lying in a heap? One thing was clear. Greta had used that sword in her hand to kill something. I didn’t know she had it in her.
When I got to Fanny, I knelt and turned her to me. Her eyes were open and wide in terror, filled with tears. Her face was caked in dirt, and there were tear tracks on her cheeks. She was still as stone, but she was alive – for now.
I took her into my arms and held her as she sobbed and sobbed.
“Fanny, what’s going on? Are you okay?”
She didn’t speak but shook her head.
“Did Greta hurt you?”
Again, she shook her head.
“Fanny, can you talk?”
“Yes,” she said in a barely audible rasp. “It’s hard because I’m so dry and I screamed so much.”
“If Greta didn’t hurt you, what happened? Why are you just lying here?”
“Emily …” Fanny broke down into even deeper sobbing.
“What, Fanny? What happened?”
I shook her in frustration. We didn’t have time for melodrama. If we didn’t get us all out of that place soon, I feared we’d all go mad or get killed – maybe first the one, then the other.
“Em, I can’t move.”
“What do you mean you can’t move?”
“I mean I’m paralyzed. From the neck down. I can’t move, Em,” she said between sobs.
“Oh, Fanny.” I rocked her and pulled her to me. It was impossible that Fanny could be paralyzed. Fanny’s entire essence was movement. She was a whirling dervish of kinetic energy. If we were in a place of nightmares come true, then we had just landed in Fanny’s worst fear.
“Fanny, how did you get paralyzed? Does it have something to do with Greta?”
“I don’t know how,” she rasped. “But I don’t think it’s got anything to do with her. We dropped out of the sky here, and I realized I couldn’t move.” She broke out into fresh sobs.
“Why is Greta here with you? How did she get here?”
“She leapt onto me at the last minute – grabbed my arm. Even in the spinning, horrible ride, she wouldn’t let go. She screamed and cried, but she didn’t let go.”
“Son of a bitch, I can’t believe she did that. She wasn’t invited.”
Greta probably had nothing to do with Fanny’s predicament, but I felt my rage at her rise anyway. She just couldn’t stand that maybe I’d be the one with Owen, not her. That maybe I wasn’t a freak after all, or maybe even if I was, people liked me anyway, despite all her efforts to make people hate me. She’d glommed onto Fanny just so she could try to instill herself between me and Owen. But she’d gotten a little more than she’d bargained for. It almost made me laugh out loud. Payback’s a bitch, isn’t it, Greta.
“Doesn’t matter now, Em. She’s here, and we’re here, and I can’t move. Emily, I’m so scared.”
“Shh, it’s okay,” I said as I held her in my arms. “I’ll figure out how to get out of here. And we’ll figure out how to make you – work properly again.”
In the background, I could hear Jake and Owen asking Greta questions, but it was like she didn’t even know they were there. She kept staring at the doors without flinching.
With a loud thud, three of the guards threw more heavy broadswords into the arena. The swords landed about five feet away from us. Within seconds, we heard the sound of metal gates rising.
I heard Jake say, “Greta, tell us what the hell to do here.”
“Pick up a sword and kill whatever comes after you before it eats you,” she said impassively. Neither Jake nor Owen hesitated. They scrambled to pick up a weapon and take a defensive stance.
“Adams, are you going to sit there and let the beast eat you? I thought you were some kind of uber warrior girl. Or did you make that up?” Greta said.
I thought that I’d seen the worst that the place had to offer. I had suffered through the brambles, the noxious fumes and the perpetual taste of sulfur in my mouth. I had escaped being buried alive with Owen. But to top it all off, I was stuck in the place where nightmares become reality, maybe forever, with Greta Hoffman. Just great!
“I hate to admit she’s right,” Jake said, “but you better grab a weapon, Em, because whatever’s behind those gates isn’t going to play nice.”
“Fanny,” I said as I stroked her hair. “I’ve got to put you back down on the dust for a minute, okay? I won’t leave you. I’m going to grab one of those swords and stand here by you and make sure nothing … gets you.”
Fanny just nodded her head, and I gently lowered her back to the ground.
I grabbed the last sword. It was about three feet long and looked to be made of steel. It was a brutishly made and ugly weapon. It looked so dull that I imagined I’d have to hack the hell out of anything to kill it. It was more of a club than a sword. I would have given anything in that minute to have the Order’s Singing Sword from the Netherworld.
The broadsword felt so heavy in my hand. I’d gotten so out of shape since my days of training with Madame Wong. It felt like I could barely pick up the blade. I wasn’t sure how I would wield it deftly at an attacker. But between the club-like heavy broadsword and my trusty dagger given to me by Hindergog, I figured I had a fighting chance at saving Fanny from anything that tried to attack her.
I didn’t have time to think on the subject any longer. The guards had rolled the large metal gates open by hand, and in each of the four newly opened gates stood a different but equally frightening beast.
One for each of us still standing. Maybe the dead beast had been intended for Fanny, but Greta had taken it out. As much as I loathed Greta, I felt gratitude that she’d kept Fanny alive this long.
The crowd roared with shouts, whistles and applause. The noise was deafening.
If I used my training, I could take down one of the creatures, maybe two. But Jake looked like he could barely hold his sword up, let alone use it. And Owen looked like he was going to shit his pants any minute. I don’t think I can take on four at once.
“As you think, so you do,” Madame Wong had said.
No time for doubt. You can do this.
I closed my eyes, breathed in and out the putrid, burning air. I lost myself in the molecules of the Web of All Things. I became one, as best I could be, with Akasha.
There was a sensation, almost like hearing, but not with the ears. It was more a sensation of sound. There was something … flying. It was in the air and coming for me.
I felt a searing heat on my back as something ripped through my vest, my shirt, and into the flesh of my shoulder and back.
I ignored the pain as best I could and took to the air, flipping myself end over end. Then I swung my body to face the direction that I’d come from. There, hovering in the air, was a flying agent of destruction.
Its wingspan had to be at least ten feet, maybe fifteen. From a distance, it looked like its wings and body were covered in metallic feathers, but as it flew at me, I quickly saw that the creature didn’t have feathers at all. The flying death machine was, in fact, covered in a shiny, silvery sort of metal. But this metal didn’t just shimmer, it seemed to have movement about it, like water.
The beast had large talons with razor-sharp claws and a beak that looked like it had been sharpened to a point. Its eyes were like a lion’s eyes – large, orangey-yellow and savage.
I have to admit that the flying metal killing machine unnerved me. I began to sweat buckets. I breathed hard despite the fact that it hurt to suck in the burning air. If the metallic beast had animal senses (I wasn’t even sure if it was an animal), then it would sense fear oozing out of every pore of my body. As unhinged as I’d become, I was not in sync with Akasha.
All these observations and thoughts were a whirlwind in my mind, happening in seconds as the flying thing came through the air at me – fast. I still hovered and quickly decided that an air battle would be my best strategy. If I went to the ground, I’d be a sitting duck and far too easy to pick off.
I waited until it was almost to me, then I shot up out of its reach and flew through the air to where Fanny lay helpless. I could see that she was safe – for now. In the mere fraction of a second that I had, I saw that Greta was wielding a sword at a bizarre kangaroo-lion-like thing. It looked like it had more wounds than she did, but I saw that her arm movements were haphazard and slow. She was fatigued.
Jake was doing his best to fight back a creature that looked like a jackal with razor-sharp teeth and pure black skin. He, too, looked tired, but there were more wounds on the beast than him – so far. I had a bit of time.
Where’s Owen? I didn’t see him anywhere. But there was no time to search for him. I sensed the air shift around me and knew that the flying creature was on my tail.
For a split second, I was distracted by the pain in my shoulder and became aware of the blood trickling down my back and soaking my shirt. I tried to breath in a nice, deep breath to calm myself and was rewarded with a feeling like someone had started a campfire in my lungs.
That’s when it hit me – literally. The metallic flying thing knocked me hard in the back with its massive head, sending me hurtling to the ground. I landed on my stomach on the dusty ground. The floor of the arena was as unyielding as hard-packed soil back on Earth, not like the somewhat spongy ground we’d been walking on. I had a mouth full of the arena dust, and it tasted like the metallic air of that place, only ten times stronger.
I choked and spit and flung myself over as fast as I could. I could hear the wings flapping and felt the air moving and dust flying around me as the creature descended on me.
Acting on nothing more than instinct and adrenaline, I thrust my heavy sword upward with both hands in one large thrust. I could tell that I’d struck something and opened my eyes to see the creature flapping wildly and twisting its body from side to side.
It was so strong and heavy that as it flapped and flailed about, it took me with it. I was pulled up off the ground and flung from side to side. After about a minute of being whipped about, I decided to let go of the sword. I hurled through the air and landed again with a thud.
The loss of blood, the pain coursing through my body, and worry about Fanny made it difficult for me to focus and think of what to do. I sat there, trying to gather my breath without breathing. Then something caught my eye.
It was the shiny gem at the top of the hilt of my dagger. It had been knocked out of my hand when the flying beast hit me from behind. Now it lay a few yards away from me, the Sight Stone at the top glistening, the blade partially covered by the dust of the arena.
I commanded the dagger to come to me, and it wrested itself free of the dirt and flew to me. I put my right hand into the air, and it flew to my open palm.
Every time I held the dagger in my hand, it sent a surge of power coursing through me. The dagger had been held by many a priestess before me, and their power and magic were forever fused into it. I could almost feel the essence of Hindergog when I held it. The little guy had forged it with his own hands. His power was in it too.
I quickly got to my feet and walked toward the metal beast. The magic of the dagger was like this – I had to tell it what to be. Sure, I could use it like a regular dagger and cut, slice and thrust into things. But if I knew what I needed, the dagger could be so much more. I couldn’t just say, “Go stick yourself into this beast, and be whatever you need to be to kill it.” That wouldn’t work. I had to decide what it needed to be, and I had to command it.
What destroys metal? I thought as I walked to the flying beast.
When I reached it, the creature was distracted by the sword. It craned its head and flailed its neck around. I was able to pull my broadsword from its chest without much difficulty. But when I removed the sword, there was no spurting blood, no gaping wound. The metallic covering of the creature simply filled itself into the gap as if the sword had never been there. Apparently, striking it with my broadsword may annoy it, but it wasn’t going to kill it.
I thrust into it anyway, trying to keep it at bay long enough for me to think about what to tell my dagger to be to kill it. What I needed was a brain with more puzzle solving power than mine.
“Jake!” I called out. “Jake, what destroys metal?”
“What?”
“What destroys metal?” I yelled.
“I’m … a little … busy,” he yelled back. I could hear a sword slashing wildly through the air.
“I know, and I’ll be there in a minute to help you. But I’m fighting a metal machine, and I gotta know, what destroys metal?”
He didn’t speak for a while. All I could hear was our combined slashing and heavy breathing mixed with howls, screeches and grunts from the beasts we were still battling.
“I don’t know if you can destroy metal, Em,” Jake said.
“Everything can be destroyed, can’t it?” I said back. I continued to bounce in the air, slashing and thrusting at the beast as I flew, landing blows that slowed it a bit but that simply covered themselves over almost as soon as I’d made them.
“I don’t know! Now’s not the time for a theoretical debate!”
“I’m not talking about theory,” I said as I flew through the air to nearer where he was. “I’ve got to destroy this thing or it will take us all out.”
“Fire,” Greta yelled.
“What?” I asked.
“Fire,” she said.
“Fire can melt metal, but every metal takes a different temperature to melt and you don’t know what metal you’re dealing with,” Jake said.
“Fire can destroy metal, if it’s hot enough,” Greta said.
“That’s true – I think. You’ve gotta find a way to create a fire hot enough to destroy any kind of metal. That might work. Good thinking, Greta.”
I feel ashamed to admit it, but even with a metallic monster threatening to kill us, my bad blood with Greta made me pissed that she was the one to think of the good idea. Why did she have to be the one to come up with it? I wasn’t used to having Greta on my side. Is she on my side? I couldn’t be sure. I didn’t trust her as far as I could throw her, but dammit, she was right about the fire. I had to try it.
I knew what I had to do. I flew through the air, away from Jake, Fanny, and Greta, to the far side of the arena. The beast followed as I’d hoped it would. I could feel the hot wind from its flapping wings on my back.
I somersaulted through the air and stopped in mid-air, facing the beast. I thrust the broadsword up into its jaw and through its beak, distracting it while I flew over it and thrust my dagger into its side, burying it deep within the metal creature.
Dagger, obey my command. Become a fire, a raging, roaring fire, hot enough to destroy any metallic substance in the Universe. Use fire to destroy the creature in which you are stuck, melt it to nothing so that it can no longer harm any sentient beings.
The creature winged around and came for me, my sword still stuck through its beak. It seemed unperturbed by the sword. It flew at me, its large wings causing a hot, acidic breeze to blow my hair, its beak held shut by my sword. Its razor talons were only a few feet away from ripping me to shreds. I closed my eyes and braced myself for the sensation of tearing flesh.
But I didn’t feel it tearing into me. And I no longer felt the wind from its wings. I opened my eyes. The great metallic monster hovered a few feet away from me, its
yellow eyes wide and flickering, its wings held out in full extension. It suddenly dropped to the arena floor with a thud. The horrific bird was changing color from a shiny, bright silver to a rosy color, starting at the center then radiating out to its legs then neck then to the tip of its beak. It began to glow, and soon it turned a deep shade of crimson.
My face felt like it was burning as the heat coming off of the creature reached me.
I heard the most awful sound like metal grinding against metal, a loud, terrible screeching of the metal creature in its death throes. It writhed about as its beautiful, but terrible, metal casing became red and molten. Within a matter of a few minutes, the once powerful killing machine lay in a heap of molten metal, motionless and silent.
When the creature stopped moving completely, I commanded the dagger to come to me. It slowly made its way out of the now cooling molten pile of metal and into my hand. Then I pulled, with all my strength, to wrest the dull-bladed broadsword from what had once been the creature’s beak. The heap of melted metal was already turning black as a cinder.
I had slain the beast that seemed to be intended for me. Three to go. I no sooner had that thought when I heard Fanny let out a bloodcurdling scream.
10
I shot up into the air and flew across the arena as fast as I could to the place where Fanny lay. She was as still and helpless as a roped calf, her eyes wide and full of terror.
Slithering toward her was a snakelike creature. It looked like a python that had swallowed two other pythons to make one three times normal size. It had to be three to four feet in diameter and at least twenty feet long. Its front end was raised up off the dusty ground, and it had pincers that looked like lobster claws, but the tips were razor sharp. Its tail was curled up and ended in a scorpionlike stinger. Its belly was scaly like a snake’s, but it was covered in large scales that looked as hard as rock. It poked its forked tongue out of its wide, smiling mouth as it snapped its pincers and slithered within a few feet of Fanny.
There was no time to think, only act. With everything I had left in me, I hurled the heavy broadsword at the creature. It must have been sharper than it looked because it sliced clean through the creature’s claw, severing it from the rest of its body. That got its attention. It shrilled and keened as it turned its attention from Fanny – easy prey – to me.
The Akasha Chronicles Trilogy Boxed Set: The Complete Emily Adams Series Page 34
