by Philip Blood
“But what of the other seven houses?”
“Five, really; the Terran House is wiped out, and House Dragon is outlawed and nearly destroyed. Once The Dragon is brought to justice, his House will be ended, like House Terran. Four of the remaining five Houses are driven by other forces rather than religion. That leaves only one House which indoctrinates their people with a religion, the Argoth.”
“I see, I guess, yet each House keeps control of their people through peer pressure, even if it isn’t through religion.”
“Most definitely, peer pressure may be more powerful than magic,” she noted.
I pondered her statement, and then said, “So Earth, or should I say, House Terran, is not in the Ascension Quest?”
She nodded, “On Earth things are a complete mess. It all got started when Gaia’s line ended. She was the first Archimage to go, and she is still the only First to fall in The Ascension Quest. When she died, Earth was open to the other Houses, without the anchor of their Archimage to stop their influence. It became a maelstrom of war, religion, ethnic differences, prejudice, rampant change and just plain chaos. People of Earth don’t know what to believe, and have no House Archimage to bring any kind of order, so madness ensued. Earth became the Battle World for the Houses.”
Something about her statement angered me, I’m not even sure why, but I worked on self-control, which doesn’t come easy for me, trust me.
She may have noticed something in my expression, because she said, “I see you are tired; I think you should get some rest. Tomorrow I will begin teaching you how to use your powers.”
Breakfast was served in a smaller room with a tall window, made of small square panes of glass. The view was out over the countryside, and if you went to the window and looked down, you could see the Island Witch’s army amassed below, working on a road up the mountain, like morons building the tower of Babel, though if they kept it up, eventually they would reach the gates of this castle.
I looked at Finnabair, who was sipping from a cup of tea, and said, “Aren’t you worried about them?”
She smiled. “No, it will be some time before they can reach the gates, and time is on my side. It is hard for any force to remain united in purpose for long.”
Myrka then asked, “What do you do about mages? Surely the necromages have attempted to breach the castle by various means?”
“I have been here a long time, and I have had the leisure time, and power, to imbue many aspects of this castle against such an attack. The gargoyles you see adorning the battlements are not just decorations, they are golems, capable of flight and the defense of the walls. They also sound the alarm should any attackers reach the walls, and then I can come and see what needs to be done.”
“And for underground attacks?” Myrka demanded.
“I have other defenses below ground,” she assured the Tarvos sorceress.
Myrka continued, “And what of Derkaz attacks, have they not attempted to blast the foundations of this castle apart and let it tumble to the ground below?”
“Yes, there have been attempts, but much of the foundation is shielded, and I tend to make examples of any necromage foolish enough to try. They must come close to make such an attempt, and then, well, things go poorly for them.”
But Myrka kept prodding, saying, “But even then, eventually, if enough of them assault you, this castle will fall, even if you are an Albus Second.”
Finnabair nodded, “At which time I will just move on, and they will have a pile of rubble for all their trouble.”
“You will not fight them?” Myrka demanded.
Finnabair raised an eye ridge fin, “I am fighting them, every day. I will just not fall to their attack in the end.”
“So they will win, in the end,” Myrka noted.
Finnabair sat back in her chair calmly, and said, “Who is the victor, those who lose half an army, or those who lose none, and live to fight another day? The Albus believe in the long view. This ‘victory’ will cost them more than my ‘defeat’ will cost me, so who comes out ahead?”
“That’s not the point, in the end, they will win!” Myrka declared.
“Only by your scale of measurement, not mine.”
Myrka then said, “And if they block you from Five Point travel, and then take you?”
“I do not need to Five Point travel, I have built a portal here, and they cannot destroy the portal if they have not breached the castle. I will depart prior to that taking place.”
“You have built a portal here!” Myrka exclaimed.
“Why the big surprise, Myrka?” I asked.
Hydan chose to answer, “Portals take a lot of invested power, Nick. It can take a host of mages a hundred years to make one.”
“Or an Albus Second a few hundred years, if she spends the time,” Finnabair noted, and added, “which I have done. Losing the portal would be annoying, but not irreplaceable. The Portal is in the tallest central tower, in fact, it IS the tower.”
I then asked, “Can a portal be blocked?”
“No, though it can be destroyed, but that could take a lot of work and time, just like it takes to make one,” my mother replied.
After breakfast was over, my mother invited us to come to a practice chamber, deeper in the castle. We all went, and it turned out to be a large chamber with a rounded ceiling, all made of white marble.
Finnabair walked out onto the floor, which was made of intricately patterned marble pieces which formed a massive image depicting a great battle in what looked like some grand palace of the gods.
“Asgard?” Hydan asked, looking at the floor with interest.
“Yes, it is an artist’s depiction of the great betrayal,” The White Enchantress replied.
“What is that?” I asked.
Toji answered, “Where The Dragon tried to end the Archimage Baal, and eventually murder all the Archimages in the Ring of Ten. But he was unmasked as a traitor who broke the Archimage Accords. This shows the battle which ensued as The Dragon escaped the wrath of the other Archimages and fled Asgard.”
Finnabair spoke to Myrka, “Tarvos, may I ask your assistance in a demonstration for Nicholas?”
Myrka didn’t answer, but she walked out onto the glossy floor to face Finnabair.
Suddenly a glimmering oblong cocoon encompassed the Albus sorceress, it was slightly blue tinged, and nearly transparent.
“Attempt to strike me with a Derkaz blast,” Finnabair instructed.
Almost before she finished her request, Myrka pulled her arm up and a blast of blue energy lanced out at Finnabair. The power hit the shield around her and was deflected into the ceiling above, which caused some of the marble to come falling down. Pieces which would have hit Finnabair or Myrka seemed to turn to dust before they struck either sorceress.
“Thank you,” Finnabair said calmly.
A moment later the dust disappeared and the ceiling changed back to the way it was before the blast.
Then my mother turned to me and said, “That is an example of a shield, which can protect you against such uses of the Derkaz, or other harm. To make one, all you need to do is know it is there, and that it will stop Derkaz.”
“That, and be more powerful than the blast which was sent,” Myrka noted.
“And that. However, it is important to understand that not many mages could send enough Derkaz power to get through a Second’s shield, especially if they are rested.”
Myrka shrugged.
“OK, when using Derkaz, why does it matter what Tier the mage is? Isn’t Derkaz an outside force?” I asked.
My mother nodded, but replied, “And yet, it must be controlled by the person using it, and is therefore bound by their level of power.”
I then said, “But you were ready, what if you weren’t?”
Finnabair smiled, and turned her back on Myrka, and then her shield dropped. She spoke calmly, “I only showed you the shield ahead of time so you could look at it. Myrka, whenever you want.”
My
rka waited a few seconds and then fired another bolt. The results were the same, though this time I only saw a flash of the shield, just as the bolt arrived.
Myrka snarled, I guess she wanted to kill someone this morning, or she just hated anything which she didn’t win.
Finnabair fixed the wall where the blast had hit. I decided if any more of these demonstrations were in order, I was going to stand behind Hydan.
“My subconscious reality maintains order around me, even when I am not conscious of what is happening,” Finnabair explained.
I nodded, Hydan had taught me about that already.
Then she asked me to come out onto the floor.
“All right,” I said, but then I spoke to Myrka, “Don’t test me with any of those bolts! You nearly killed me with one of your blasts, and once is enough.”
Myrka nodded and walked back to stand with Hydan and Toji.
When I joined my mother, she explained what she wanted. “The first thing you need to do is learn defense. Offense is all well and good, but when facing a mage, most of what you need is defense. Your offense is unlikely to get through to them anyway, so you will have to get up close and personal to do them harm. That’s why we are starting with shields; Morgain uses the Derkaz so you need to be prepared. We will move on to other forms of defense after you have mastered this shield.”
We worked for several hours, and at times, Finnabair had the others assist us. Eventually, she even had Myrka use a very weak bolt, and then stronger. We worked up until I really did believe she couldn’t nail me, even if I wasn’t looking. That was the important part, me believing it was true. That took a lot of work and practice, but once you got beyond a certain point, and you believed, it suddenly got easier.
I spent a week learning things from my mother and working with her warmed my heart. There was pleasure in learning something from her which was more than just the lesson, and because of my trust in her, things went well.
She didn’t crush me until the last day.
I was feeling pretty cocky by then, and wasn’t worried about arrows, thrown knives, bullets or Derkaz blasts; my subconscious reality was growing strong.
That’s when she started hand to hand work, and I found myself, not overmatched, but devastated in my ineptitude. They were ALL better than me, and not by a little. Only Hydan refused to spar, but the others, including my mother, had me for lunch every time we had a mock battle.
One of the times I landed on my back, with her blade at my throat, my mother said, “The thing is, Nick, it isn’t enough to believe in your knife anymore, that is a given, or you are already dead. Once you and your opponent have your weapons on equal ground, each keeping their blade real, now it comes down to other factors. One important one is your prowess with the blade.”
She and I were out at the center of the practice chamber, so when she lowered her voice at this point they could not hear, “I find you have some skill already, Nick, your body remembers past training your conscious mind has lost; I can see it in the brilliance of your moves, except when you let your conscious mind foul things up.”
Then she raised her voice back up to normal volume as she said, “But there is far more to combat than martial skill! Though you cannot affect your opponent, you may be able to affect things around you, and try to distract your mage opponent, assuming this isn’t an officiated duel. And, you must expect your opponent to be doing the same thing.”
She helped me back to my feet, and then said, “On guard.”
I raised my knife and tried not to think about what I was doing, I didn’t want my conscious mind screwing me up again. Suddenly my mother lunged forward, and I easily took a step back, only to find myself falling over a piece of the floor which hadn’t been there a moment before. Somehow one of the marble carvings had lifted up a foot, right behind me.
I went down hard, and Finnabair stepped up above me, though she didn’t do anything. The advantage was already obvious.
“I raised the floor behind you,” she noted.
“Wow, I didn’t know you could reach that far!” I exclaimed.
Suddenly all the blue pieces of marble in the intricate floor rose up in a circle about fifty feet around my mother.
“Toji, could you come here?” she said, and the blue pieces all retracted.
He came over and she said, “Do the same thing I just did, as far out as you can.”
Toji’s brow furrowed in concentration, and then the floor pieces lifted about twelve feet around him.
“I am a Second, so I can reach farther than a Fourth as you can see,” she noted, and then added, “But, if you are within the range of the Fourth, it is not much of an advantage.”
Toji fixed the floor back to flat and smooth.
Finnabair continued, “But notice we were lifting marble, we weren’t affecting another mage directly. That is completely different; the floor was not trying to stay the way it was.”
“I see the difference,” I answered.
“Try to lift the same pieces again, Toji,” Finnabair requested.
Toji concentrated again, but nothing happened.
“I am fighting his version of reality now, which is not something my subconscious reality can handle very far from my body, it has to be through conscious control,” she explained. “The trick here is to outwit your opponent; try things they are not consciously working to hold consistent.”
I took a deep breath and then nodded. We worked on it a LOT more.
After another week, I started to feel the pressure of holding still too long. Ziny was still a captive of those freaks, and each night I saw her in my dreams. I announced it was time to get going.
My mother was in her favorite chair in her library, and I was there with my companions. She closed a book she was reading, and said, “If you think you are ready, then you need a good plan.”
“I thought we had a plan,” I replied, “We sneak onto Mystical Island, release my dad, find Ziny, kick their ass and Five Point travel out, bada bing bada boom.”
“That is not a plan, son; it is a goal.”
Hydan laughed, “Here we go, any Albus plan involves the plan they tell you about, the part of their plan you discover during the operation, followed by the revelation of the plan they boxed you into doing, and later the plan of which you never even knew you were a part.”
Her eyes twinkled at Hydan, but she didn’t deny anything. Instead, she said, “Well, let’s just start with the plan I'm telling you about. I assure you it is real.”
“Told you,” Hydan said fatally.
I sighed, “OK, what is the plan?”
Finnabair replied, “Your first goal was to sneak onto Mystical Island, but how did you plan to accomplish this with Morgain watching for you? I hear you even told her you were coming for Ziny?”
“Yeah, so she would keep her alive as bait,” I answered.
My mother nodded. "She will be planning a reception for you now.”
“OK, so she knows we are coming, and will be looking for us.”
My mother nodded, “So the only chance you have is if she becomes distracted long enough for you to slip by. I will be the distraction, well, part of it.”
I didn’t know if I liked the sound of my mother in danger, I'd just found her.
My mother continued, “I have been playing a passive role, letting Morgain's forces come to me, and throwing them back down if they get too close, but otherwise letting her bottle me up in my castle. I will now finally go on the offensive, and she is going to learn what a mother is capable of doing to protect her son!”
“Be careful, though,” I said.
She laughed. “Really, Nicholas? You are planning to try and sneak onto Mystical Island with just two Fourths and a Third, when Morgain, the Dokkalfar necromancer, knows you are coming, and you tell ME to be careful!”
I shrugged. What could I say?
But she finished with a sly smile, and said, “Don’t you worry about me, son, I have a lot of tricks for this ups
tart sorceress. She has gotten my ire. But I will not be attacking alone. Oberon, the Sivaeral Second, is going to fight back as well, especially when I send him reinforcements. I will convince him to go on the offensive and take down the Island Witch’s army which has him currently bottled up on Ouroboros.”
“How are you going to do that?” I asked.
She stood, “I’ll show you.”
We followed her down into the roots of the mountain, into the dungeons below her castle, where we eventually came to a vast natural underground cavern. What we found were rows and rows of stone warriors. They looked like a more recent version of the army of 8000 Terracotta warrior statues archeologists had uncovered in China, from back at the time of the first Emperor of China. Here, in this vast chamber under Ivory castle, were, even more, stone warriors. These were made of the same white marble as the rest of the castle.
As we walked in the chamber, nearly 10,000 marble warriors all came to attention at one moment, the sound was nearly deafening. Once they were at attention, they were again as still as marble.
“I have been busy,” Finnabair stated. “On Earth, I once built an army for a Bakemono Third, who asked for my help. At the time, I felt the balance of power shifting, so I gave him his army. Unfortunately, things changed so the army was never used, and was later buried where they stood, but that is a story for another time.”
“The power to build this many marble golems would take a lot of sigils!” Hydan muttered, and then whistled. “You couldn’t do it, not alone!”
“No, I had help, but they shall remain nameless for now, it is up to them to tell you their part, if they choose.”
“I don’t see any sigils carved on them,” I noted, remembering the rock golems which Toji had faced when we had first met.
Finnabair smiled, “They are there, just hidden in places. Unlike the army I made on Earth, this golem army is under my command, and I will use my Portal to take them briefly to Earth and from there back to Abal, where we will come out at some underwater ruins, where an old Saeran Portal is located deep in Lake Graen. That portal is very near Ouroboros; I doubt Morgain even knows it is there.
