Just watch where we’re going please.
Gaea laughed in his mind.
If he had any lungs to draw a breath with he would have sighed.
As they neared the far shore, Gaea swept in and came shoulder-to-shoulder with Wren. “You probably already know this, but it bears mentioning,” she said. “My other children will not be as easy to push around as Dormigor.”
Wren puffed out her cheeks. “Yeah, we know. That’s how Bannor got hurt. My fault really, I thought I was being cautious… and I was way off. We don’t even have a ward that keeps them out. Dor walked right through Ziedra’s and Senalloy’s magical defenses like they were nothing.”
“My children have wondrous abilities, do they not?” Gaea remarked.
Wren frowned. “Yes, but could you get them to work on that temper?”
“If only I could,” Gaea said. “As you see, they misbehave even with their mother. It took considerable persuasion to get them in here. Some may still remember that I trapped them here.”
“Trapped?” Ziedra groaned. “Great, family resentment.”
Wren took them in a wide arc around the depression leading down to the shrine, keeping them some three hundred paces off the ground.
“I find the structure interesting,” Gaea said. “They must not have all held it against me, or they wouldn’t have built that shrine.”
“Let’s just assume they’re hostile—really hostile,” Daena said. “That’s the only sane assumption to make.”
“Mother can you see any of the Lokori?” Ziedra asked.
They slowed and came to a steady hover over the depression. Bannor felt a tingling go through their combined body as Gaea manipulated the nola energies flowing through him. The threads and textures of the cosmos flickered through his vision. After an instant, the forest around the shrine that seemed empty of life became alive with movement.
“There appears to be some two or three score of them in the trees around the clearing,” they reported, swinging around to survey the area below. “The closest are there in that cluster of rocks on the north side.”
“So, there’s no doubt they see us and know we’re here.”
She nodded. “A reasonable assumption.”
“I think the more important thing is if there are any in the shrine.” Azir stated turning in the air to peer down at the entrance far below them. “We should just whip in there and defend the opening while someone knocks a hole in the back.”
“I would support that strategy if they couldn’t phase through the rock,” Gaea informed him. “Given our time constraints, the simplest plan is probably best—a distraction. Bannor and I hold their attention while the rest of you gain entry.”
“Mother, please think about what you just said,” Wren said with hands on hips. “Just you and Bannor against all those killing machines?”
“We’ll parley a little first, then when it gets ugly, which I anticipate it will—we’ll improvise.”
“Not to poke holes in your plan,” Ziedra said. “What if you can’t hold all of their attention and half of them come try to kill us?”
“Defend yourselves,” Gaea responded with a sigh. “I understand lethal force may be necessary. I will not think any less of you if deaths are necessitated by this action. Wait here and I will signal when you should make for the shrine.”
“Gaea, let me watch your back,” Senalloy said gliding over to hover beside her. “This is a lot even for the mother of the first ones.”
Gaea shook her head. “Senalloy, if things do unravel, they will need your experience. Bannor and I have a number of retreat options.”
Senalloy frowned but nodded.
“Ziedra,” Gaea said.
“Yes, Mother?” Ziedra answered.
“Be aware of the protections around the materials cache, they are more than defensive. They will bite back. I’m not close enough to tell in what way. So, a simple bend will not suffice to get you inside.”
Ziedra winced. “A ward break in the middle of a fight—” She rolled her eyes. “Oh, this will be fun.”
“All right,” Gaea told them. “Stay here out of range. I will get them focused on me. Don’t be surprised if it’s a little—showy. I will signal you when they are distracted sufficiently.”
Obviously unhappy, Wren let out a breath and nodded.
Bannor felt a surge of warmth, the all-mother pleasuring in the love of one of her children. They drifted over and put an arm around Wren.
The blonde savant pulled back a little, because it was his body and not Gaea’s. She relaxed after an instant and they hugged her, and placed a kiss on her cheek. “I promise to be careful,” Gaea said. “You do the same.”
Wren dipped her head. “I will. I’m fond of both of you.”
“Okay,” Gaea said, as they drifted back away from the group. “Here we go.” She raised their hands. Bannor felt her focus their energies, pulling in power from the environment and from Starholme itself. Spirals of blue light flickered around his limbs, magic rasping and licking like thunderbolts. His heart speeded and his insides twisted as he felt a familiar icy sensation push through his bones. His arms and legs grew heavy and the armor squeaked as the straps stretched. A crystalline-appearing refraction appeared in the air around them.
Gaea slammed a fist into an armored palm causing an explosion of greenish light that became an intense ball of rasping, sparking power that continued to grow in force. As the power grew, he felt that icy sensation in his limbs pulsing as his already tough flesh took on mass and hardness.
The goddess raised their meshed hands overhead then swung them down. With a thunderous crash, energy jagged down and exploded into the shrine courtyard, annihilating a twenty pace circle of stone.
Gaea let go of the nola power that was keeping them aloft, and they plunged toward the ground some two hundred paces below.
Inwardly, Bannor winced, praying that Gaea knew what she was doing. Even in battle form it seemed like a long way down. His heart already pounding, became an echo in his ears.
They crashed down in the melted crater with the force of a meteor strike, causing a burst of shattered stone, sending cracks shooting through the bedrock. The impact made him catch his balance and he steadied himself with a hand and pushed back to a stand. They dipped into their senses, feeling the textures and lines of force in the environment. The display had definitely got the attention of the Lokori. He felt forms leaping down into the shrine area from the trees.
The Lokori continued to close in from all sides. Not rushing, but Bannor could feel their anger building with every statement they made.
Uh, Mother, is hacking them off part of the plan?
Gaea smiled in his mind.
Yes, but now they want to kill us!
The nearest Lokori were only a dozen paces away, and none had made themselves visible.
Through their nola sight Gaea picked a target and focused their energies.
Several kinds of nola force struck out at once. The invisible creature let out a howl as it was smashed backward as though hit with
a catapult shell, bouncing and making divots in the stone as it tumbled and finally ground to a stop a hundred paces away.
The creatures around them stopped approaching.
Lokori faded into view all around them, snarling unhappy faces glaring at them with yellow-eyed hate. Dormigor had been scraggly and thin compared to the lithe muscular bodies of the males and females that stood poised, hands and clenching and unclenching, claws shimmering and glinting in the reddish light.
Unlike Dormigor they did not wear piecemeal clothing, they wore clean blouses, skirts and kilts. Most of the fabric was black, but he saw some that were white, blue, or green.
A female voice growled behind them. “You are no kind of avatar.” With Gaea manifesting at full strength, they had the soulspeak to comprehend the Lokori speech—or perhaps the shaladen had finally figured out how to translate this ancient meta-language.
They turned to face the female who had spoken. Dressed in white with a silver choker close to her throat, she brushed back her blue hair as her golden eyes met their gaze. Bannor realized instantly that this was the Lokori that had nearly killed him. He felt Gaea note that. “So, Maga Bhaal, you do not believe our jhin. Is then our paa so weak?”
Bhaal tossed her head, teeth gritting and eyes narrow. “I did not trifle your paa, only that you speak false jhin. I have tasted your blood. You have much paa. My ragi was well struck.”
“If he is not the green mother’s avatar,” one of the other Lokori asked. “How does he sooth our names?”
“A good question Kas Momar,” Gaea responded. “How indeed? There must be some explanation, right, Kas Woden,” she gestured toward another male. “Perhaps you know the answer Maga Chind, or you Kas Indra, or you Maga Kali.”
In their mind, Gaea reached out to Wren with savant speak.
They felt Wren acknowledge and saw the others fade out above them.
Bhaal did not seem moved by Gaea’s naming of names. Bannor found it ironic that what they disbelieved was in fact truth. Their combined savant senses made the positions of the different Lokori clear and distinct. The creatures had closed the gap, they were subtly, but methodically, hemming them in and getting within striking range. He felt Gaea acknowledge what he had discerned.
Bhaal seemed to be the key, if they could convince her, they might be able to sway the Lokori into a non-violent solution. “Maga Bhaal, daughter of Kas Rudin and Maga Sylene, you are kaa of steel and your brother Torth is kaa of storms. Who else but the green mother would know this?”
Bhaal tilted her head. She pointed to the band on his arm. “The morid-paa of Eternity is known to us. Its mind rho is paa of the highest order.”
They might have been trapped in here but that didn’t stop them from looking out—or maybe they weren’t as trapped as you thought.
She focused on Bhaal. She relaxed the power of her voice and spoke in softer tones. “The morid-paa is merely a conduit to allow my manifestation through the gord-rho of the ancestors. We—I—want little from the followers of true kaa save a small boon that will cost neither paa or vhaa.”
Bannor noted through his ties to Wren and the others that they had entered the shrine. The Lokori were dangerously close now. With their unbelievable speed they could close the gap in an eye-blink even with the obstacle of the disrupted ground around them. None had dared to step into the fused crater created by Gaea’s blast.
Bhaal folded her arms, long-nailed fingers drumming on her biceps. “So, this boon you desire,” Bhaal asked. “Speak it.”
He felt Gaea draw a breath. “The ancestor’s left a special gord-kiri in this place we—”
Bhaal cut them off. “None outside the followers of the true kaa will touch the rho of the ancestors. The paa there is forbidden. Ragi will be put upon all who attempt to take from it.” She looked back to the shrine, eyes glinting. “All.”
Ah spit, they’re on to us!
Gaea sent a warning thought to all of the savants.
Lokori all around them were bowled over and sent careening back. They leaped into the air, smashing aside two of the dozen or so that avoided the stone attack.
They landed on the rim of melted rock, hands patterning in the G-yaki combat ritual as blue-haired Lokori charged toward them.
In his flesh, Bannor felt Gaea shudder. For the good of all, she would have to shed the blood of her grand children.
Tears streaming down their face, hands shuddering and balled into fists, they awaited the rain of talons that would come…
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* * *
Chapter Sixteen
We did what had to be done and it broke
my heart because I know how much it hurt
her. Gaea loves all her children, and to take
even one life, no matter how misguided was
agony…
—Bannor Nalthane Starfist,
Prince Conjugal of Malan
Like a shrieking pack of animals, the Lokori lanced straight at Bannor. Tears in their eyes, hands poised, the senses of scores of savants whirling through their psyche he and Gaea felt the cold chill of realization. With bellows of holy ragi on their lips, they knew nothing would sway the Lokori now. All that remained was to survive so they could be one step closer to making the cosmos safe from the genemar.
With a cry of anguish, Gaea plunged their diamond hard body forward, summoning the elements of air, fire, and stone to drive a wedge into the onslaught. Waves of stone, blasts of wind and fire knocked down the blue-haired followers of true kaa and sent them tumbling across the floor of the shrine amphitheatre. She was not gentle, they couldn’t afford to be.
Riding a wave of force, they hissed over the heads of the creatures racing to intercept the other savants. A heartbeat later they came to a grinding stop on the raised granite platform surrounding the shrine entrance. A swing of their arms caused a roar of stone to erupt upward into a twenty pace high barrier of jagged rock surrounding the stage. The blast of transforming stone knocked blue-haired bodies in all directions. The few that slipped inside, she snatched up with flurries of air and hurled them shrieking back over the barricade.
they broadcast to all the savants.
Not in recent memory, he responded. Gaea growled in his head.
They knocked a few more intruders back, but they would have to divert their attention from the defense to cracking the ward.
Bannor’s heart pounded and it was getting difficult to b
reathe. They consumed a lot of energy, even for this immort body. They dispelled a few more Lokori from the area but Bannor sensed Gaea’s growing panic. While in avatar form, she possessed the abilities of dozens of savants, but not the poise granted from constant exposure to fighting and stress. With her powerful intellect she deduced solutions and reacted at speed, but the windows of opportunity were shrinking. To avoid killing any of her children, Gaea had burned through a tremendous amount of endurance. The gesture was lost on the Lokori, the blue-haired inheritors of first one power would keep on until they were either slain or incapacitated.
Gaea stomped down into a low stance making the ground shake, stone swarming around their feet and calves, a tornado of wind shrieked into being around them, tongues of lightning licked from their skin as she called upon the power of Starholme and focused down into the threads of reality.
Power building, she patterned with their fists, doing an intricate flourish of movements that ended in a clap of hands. She drew back.
She struck.
The outer shell of stone that was the shrine disintegrated in a roar as their beam of concentrated magic, nola, and elemental energy scorched a path of annihilation into the ward of the first ones.
Compared to this attack, the blast that felled Odin’s High Jury was the pop of a soap bubble. Only the fact that Wren and Ziedra were working together and braced by the power of Starholme kept them from being consumed. The stroke leveled the stone massif behind the shrine and volatized a hundred-pace wide swath of the lake into billowing clouds of flaming vapor.
The hemi-spherical construct of metal and force beneath the rock resisted the blaze, streamers of energy coruscating and screaming as they splashed around the resisting surfaces into the atmosphere. The ward shields went cherry-red, then white-hot and finally black as Gaea’s assault overwhelmed them in a violent heave.
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