The Spark

by Taylor Gibson

  “I don’t mean to question your customs, your majesty,” I said, “but why does Bradel need to die?”

  “Because I declare it! Now if you will excuse me, I must be leaving.”

  I had to help Bradel, but not directly. I saw that he had left his pipe lying in the grass before he shamefully crawled back down. Just as I thought he was beyond saving, I witnessed him coming out to find the king’s warriors approaching him with cuffs at the ready. George distracted the gnomes for a second as I gave the scholar a small, sharp, silver jewel that he could fit in his robe’s pocket. He winked at me with an obliged smile, and as the guards cuffed his hands and crawled back into the hole, I knew that he had a chance of survival because of what I did for him.

  Gnomes were some of the most peculiar races I had ever studied, other than centaurs, leprechauns, bwaggi trolls, and wildmen. I wondered if the king of Bronthwall killed all of his subjects that failed him or if Bradel was just misfortunate enough to be sentenced to death. I just hoped he would use that sharp jewel to get away from that kingdom. George and I continued on with our search and with the woes of Äbaka being kidnapped behind me, I was able to put my full concentration on looking around for him instead of wondering what might have happened to him. Remembering that some gnomes in the Imgan worlds were sneaky thieves, I made sure that those gnome guards didn’t make off with my jewels and coins without me noticing. After realizing that everything was where it belonged in my bag, George and I ventured forth to the stone steps leading to The Jungles of Matta Shimbib. I thought that these jungles would be the first place that the old wizard would venture to. After all, we had been fighting the dragon and Draäm a few yards away from the cliff wall.

  The stairs were a bit further down the wall, but I knew it was probable that somewhere in that mess of trees and wildlife, the wizard was there, surviving the harsh environments and taking on whatever challenge nature had to offer him with sheer willpower. It was the afternoon when we finally reached the stone stairs on the east end. Going so long without a known name, it was I that named them that day.

  “George, these stairs, they haven’t had a name at all after all these millennia of sitting here. I shall call them The East End Stairs.”

  George nodded and gave me his input, “It sounds a bit bland like most things in Shimbia, but I think you hit the marker just right on that one, Sui.”

  “Thanks,” I said, sarcastically.

  The trail up the steps was magnificently gorgeous with luscious, green plant life overlooking a clean, white-sand beach just over the edge of the stairway. I never noticed it before, so discovering such a splendid treasure of nature sent shivers down my spine. The water, which I could see through the bright green and ripe leaves, was as teal as my own eyes, which were mesmerized by the view. It was a reflection of beauty. I breathed in the rich, clean, tropical air and breathed out all of the negativity that had been bottled up inside me since the night we were attacked by Draäm, the necromancer, and Spike.

  The fields of Crosscc were measureless as I admired her green beauty that stretched for miles and miles beyond what the naked eye could see. The monkeys that chirped in the tree reminded me of my sister playing with her loud and obnoxious friends. There were a series of bird calls echoing off of every tree trunk in these vast jungles. The only things that I was worried about here were the predators such as: the shigs, tigers, lizards, manticores, giant spiders, bwaggi trolls, and many other carnivorous things.

  The jungle was an enormous place, let alone the fact that there was more than one jungle in Matta Shimbib. Just before we got to the top of The East End Stairs, George and I were interrupted by a wild crossicute that swooped down in front of us. It seemed to be targeting us as friends by the way it hovered above the ground and squawked at us. I could not believe it, but it was true! This bird wanted us to ride it across the jungles, so that we could be safe from any harm of animals or poisonous plants. Crossicutes had excellent vision, so I knew that this creature would be able to spot Äbaka the minute he saw him through the leaves on the trees. Somehow, the mystical crossicutes were able to know what you needed, so they would assist you if they deemed you worthy of their intervention.

  Like an intelligent being, the crossicute with his bright-orange feathers and blue crown feathers landed and waited for George and me to climb on his back. Knowing me, George stepped back to allow me the honor of saddling first. I had always desired to touch one of these birds, let alone ride one! I could feel the mystical powers within the winged animal of Crosscc. It was a passionate entity with persevering eagerness to befriend me. I immediately accepted him and climbed atop of his long, broad, soft-feathered back.

  George straddled the beast behind me, and with a quick spin of direction, the bird shot off like a bullet into the air. If he hadn’t been able to grab onto my waist, George would have surely flown off from the force of this creature’s incredible speed. I gripped the tight feathers along the bird’s long, slim neck, and without any need to direct the animal, he made an automatic course to the north. Aerial creatures, such as birds were one of my favorite creatures. There was something about flight that caught my fancy. In that invigorating moment of excitement and zeal, I felt love for birds a hundred times more than ever before.

  We soared above the green trees and under the blue sky with not a care in the world. The crossicute was looking through the gaps in the trees for any sign of the wizard, helping us, and without any luck, we were still not disappointed. Patience was on our side, and with a clear and open mind, we were bound to find him somewhere among the wilderness. But without notice, and without a sliver of mercy, the peace was shot straight out of the sky. With a scream like a thousand banshees, the crossicute fell through the trees with us. Someone had shot the poor avian with an arrow.

  When we scurried to our feet in shock, I saw five foul-smelling and grotesque-looking jaqae baring a tattoo of a horned demon on each of their bare left shoulders. Their right shoulders were each covered by a rusted silver pauldron. They wore only a bit of hide armor, dragon scale braces, and shin-guards. The barbaric nature of these beasts was unparalleled by the rest of the jungle predators by far.

  I took mighty Soba from the strap behind my back and swung the tip to their eight-feet-high faces, after spinning it in a circle around me to add a spark for igniting the sword aura in fire. But before I could take off their heads, they ducked simultaneously. George took out his iron daggers, which we both knew weren’t going to aid us much against these foes. What other weapons did he have aside from magick? Based on what Äbaka had told me about these demons, only the sharpest of swords could penetrate the flesh of a jaqa. The only deadly weapons aside from that included magick, mystic weapons, and legendary blades, such as the one I carried in my hands.

  For killing a bird of majesty, and for putting our journey to a halt no less, I didn’t care how much larger than me they were. I wasn’t afraid to face them, even with little experience against their kind. Those jaqae were about to pay with their lives, as the Fancore was my witness! With a great many spells at my disposal, I extinguished the flame, on my sword and embalmed it with another type of flame with a greenish hue. It was a poisonous blaze that flung onto one of them, but he blocked it with a massive shield spell as broad as his own broad-ribbed chest. Jaqae were natural warlocks, dark sorcerers, and witches; almost nothing was enough to take one of them down, just as my forefather had taught me. Yet again, I wasn’t going to allow any inexperience to stop me! I was the chosen one; nothing could stop me!

  In a move that came so swift, the jaqae behind me came forward with an assortment of weapons. The jaqae were barely armored, but well armed; one with a spear, one with an axe, and two with bows and a quiver of lead arrows on their backs, standing at a distance. My intensions of killing the disarmed one in front of me were disturbed, as I knew that I would be cut in half if I tried. George distracted the four of them by casting balls of ice-cold wa
ter in a rapid pattern. On impact with the water, the arrows in the two archer’s quivers were scattered about the jungle. The only ones who could use their weapons were the one with the axe and the other with the spear. Magick spells and incantations were the only armaments that the other three were left with.

  The one directly in front pushed me down, catching me off guard as I was observing George’s tactical spell casting. I held my sword as a shield when I saw a fist hurling like a boulder down to my face. Nearly cracking the bones inside of his knuckle, the evil sorcerer pulled back holding his wrist close with a dismayed expression on his face. The other jaqae were beginning to deviate away from George when they realized that he was not as much of a threat as I was. It was the sword that they feared. It was obvious that they knew what it was and who I was. Hoping that they could take on the woman from the prophecy, the four that were behind me— now in front— began their assault, closing in on me all at once with everything they had, ignoring George.

  Fighting an eight-foot-tall demon— as you can imagine— is an overwhelming task, let alone five of them closing in on you with simultaneous deathblows. I used the best of my swordswoman abilities to block every attack sent my way. Sometimes I even blocked all five of their thrashes with my sword at once! I held the huge buster blade in my right hand, firmly gripping the hilt like a python grips her dinner; and in my left hand, I wielded a ball of fire, which I used to burn the demons and shield myself from magick strikes that would be absorbed into the flame. One of the bowmen was a female, judging by her breasts and the longer hair tied in an unkempt ponytail.

  I thought she would make a great first target since she was obviously undermined by the others. The female jaqae were not treated as equals to the males simply because they were typically weaker in physical strength. I knew that was so because my forefather told me much of these vile beasts. She was a lightning fast, agile jaqa with quick reflexes on her side. This gave me more of a reason to end her before the others. She wielded a sword made entirely of magickal energy like the other bowman, but she also used a series of destructive offensive magick in the form of electricity that nearly caused my body to collapse when she hit me with a few strikes to the knee.

  I continued to block and parry the incoming attacks, as I tested my most excellent skills to kill off the female, but she kept evading the fire jutting from the palm of my hand. George came after the four males with his daggers, hoping to pierce some lavender flesh. The beasts kept stumbling over each other trying to kill me with blow after blow of weapons and magick spells. I warded them away with my poison-flamed sword and a shield made up of blue fire energy. It was difficult trying to avoid getting cut or whacked by one of their brute weapons. When George got a good spike into the axman’s legs, the jaqa howled in pain and turned around to curse at the man who had made him bleed.

  George was smashed in the side by a brute arm. The jaqa cackled sinisterly as George flew between the trees. I then found my chance to cut him down while his back was turned. I dropped my sword on the ground and took my bow in hand for the very first time, pulled the arrow out, placed it on the arrow shelf, barely looking through the sight window, and pulled it back. Like slow motion to my eyes, I shot the staff-sized arrow straight through the spine of the jaqa wielding the axe and killed him.

  When the arrow returned to my grip, I dropped the bow and traded it for the sword. I wielded two weapons now, striking and slashing nonstop at the enemies with rage and fire burning in my heart. I eventually got to cut the female in her chest when I caught her off guard. There were three left to go, and already I was beginning to tire of the nonstop movement that my body was forced to endure.

  In the midst of the stirring hellfire, I saw, out of the corner of my eye, the gnome Bradel striding over logs as he stared the jaqae down as if concocting a rout to take in killing them all at once. He was holding two gnomish swords and baring fresh cuts and scrapes on various regions of his face and body. A long, blood-dripping slit in his left eye was probably one of the worst marks that he had received, as far as I could tell in those few seconds of watching him hop over the surfaced roots of trees, changing direction around the jaqae. George came back into the fight and was trying to distract the unarmed jaqa with the wounded hand, but the rest of them learned from the mistakes that the axman had made. The gnome leaped on the back of the spearman’s head and stuck the two swords in his cranium, with his eyes squinted to shield them from the tar-black blood that lightly splattered on his beard and face.

  With the bow and spear, I shot the monster in his forehead while I had the chance. The two remaining jaqae continued to cast spells of dark magick and flaming, maroon balls of energy. The one with the wounded knuckles was completely vulnerable to a side swipe to the hip, as he was unable to use his right hand to block. I took advantage of this route to ending the battle as quickly as possible.

  I crossed my weapons together for the final blow, and just before I could swipe my blade to cut his torso in two, the sword hooked on the bow, and without warning, the buster blade I wielded split into two symmetrical pieces, all the way down to the gem on the hilt’s tip. It was an astonishing sight, to see the massive sword become two. And with these two new blades in either of my hands, I could not help but admire them for the surprising way it had happened without my deliberate control. Two weapons of different uses became one. The identical swords were as graceful as a flame. But how could a holy sword be compatible with an ordinary bowblade like this? It was something I had to worry about later, lest I allowed myself to spend my last moments enjoying the mere sight of them in my hands before I could even use them.

  The bowman with no bow used his magickal energy sword to put a slice in my shoulder. I let out a scream and shouted from the pain jutting ferociously through my arm. The gnome— whose name I had forgotten at the moment— leapt down to the jungle floor with his swords ready to enter the ankle of the jaqa with the wounded knuckles. Making his way toward his target, the gnome’s foot was stomped on with immense pressure from the callused, draconic foot.

  A broken foot defeated the old gnome and he was no longer able to assist us. George came along to move the old man away from the blood, blades, and magick as I continued to fight for my life, which was hanging by a thread. The jaqa tore my arm open like water or sand over fire. The jaqa with the wounded hand was stabbed in the ribs by George, drawing his attention away from me until I roared in anger, “Nothing is going to stop me from finding my forefather! You will fall like the rest of your kind shall, jaqa scum! Join the maggots in the dirt and allow my destiny to be fulfilled as the chosen one! I didn’t ask for this to be placed on me, you know!”

  I ran to an open area where I had enough room to breathe, and then I raised both of the blades into the air, setting them aflame with a deathly glow in the dark of the jungle. Whispering under my breath the words of an ancient tongue, I conjured up a new creature that I always wanted to introduce to the rage of battle. Her name was Alkonost the Charmer. There is not a more beautiful seductress that I knew of in the beast realm. She spread her bird wings and sang like an angel. She had the body of a large, vibrantly colored bird and the head and breasts of a woman. Her song had a means of causing distraction to even the most evil of hearts, and sure enough it worked, giving me a chance to strike down the mesmerized jaqa.

  Without hesitation, I charged both jaqae with my twin swords held out on either side of me to cut both of them down like a couple of rotten trees. The lavender skinned demons prepared for my advance, and as late as they were, the bowman managed to grab the blade on my right and throw it back at me, while I successfully cut the other’s lower abdomen. Coming within an inch of my own life, I ducked under a spinning razor spell slung in secret by the one I had killed just before he fell to the shadows of death.

  With a screech of immense volume, Alkonost flew towards the bowman with her talons fixed on his head. The last jaqa began to use all of his energy to put an en
d to all of this. I crossed my blades in faith that my next slash against him would be the one that killed him. The summoned siren continued to hack and slash at the jaqa, who struggled to escape the mighty grip of her talons and ear-piercing screech. When I felt the time was right, I sprinted in the jaqa’s direction, so that I could end his suffering with one quick swoop of my blades. As soon as his eyes met mine, I stopped in my tracks and ordered Alkonost to step aside. As soon as she was clear of the line of fire, I pointed my blades and shot out a ball of sparking flame from between the tips, with almost no time for evasion. The fireball dropped and spread across the ground, roaring and crackling its way up to wrap itself around the demon until he burned to death; a corpse as dry as a fire lizard’s black, hollow bones.

  The battle came to a rough and rather ungraceful end. Almost the entire time, I could feel the inescapable sensation of fault. Something about my victory, I knew was not complete. Had I made a mistake, I wondered? I couldn’t keep up with all the mixed emotions streaming through my body after that bloody showdown. Trees seemed to be speaking to me in whispers through the soft, quiet breeze. I saw a large hand reach out to touch me, and I discovered that George was deeply wounded in the same place that I was.

  The right, upper arm just below the shoulder; this was the same place where the jaqae wore their pauldrons. I stopped to think for a bit, perhaps they did it because we wore no pauldrons? That made no sense, of course, and it was not a valid motive to slash us in the same exact area as they did. I was delirious and stunned, so I could not think with a level head. I felt as though we should have just fled before we even fought. George still had enough energy to lift my motionless body over his shoulder. Even though I was covered in armor and had two extremely heavy swords in my hands, gripping them tightly, he was able to make it at least one mile. The gnome was obviously much lighter than I, so as a bonus, George carried him through the misty jungle as well.