by Joseph Lallo
In all of her travels, in all of her wanderings, Myranda was never able to bring herself to come back. Even after fifteen years, the thought burned at her mind. She drew nearer, the jagged, fallen shapes becoming recognizable. The school . . . the temple quarter . . . the market district . . . they all stood as shadows of their former selves. Husks destroyed by siege weapons and eroded by time. The castle, small and sturdy, was the only thing that stood in any meaningful way. No attempt had ever been made to rebuild. It was too near to the front, the Alliance Army decreed, too dangerous. The thought was madness. The city of Kenvard had stood through a dozen wars. Wars against the old Kingdoms of the north. Wars against the lesser provinces of Tressor. Even today the walls stood proud and strong. No. Myranda wondered how she had ever believed that the Tressons could have taken it so quickly and so completely. The doors had been opened. Her people had been betrayed.
At Myranda's signal, Myn began to circle slowly down. The forms of the city became more distinct. She'd last seen this place when she was no more than six, but the memories stirred bright, vivid, and agonizing. The ghosts of her life stood before her. Once busy courtyards had decade-old trees pushing their way through the cobblestones. Vines grew over doors and windows. The sight was painful enough, but slowly a more searing realization came. There were buildings that were whole, buildings that had not been there before. Paths had been worn here and there by foot traffic. Signs of life…
Thin black smoke curled from the chimneys of the new buildings. They were squat stone structures that bore more than a passing resemblance to the forts that she and the others had fought their way into and out of time and time again. A sharp blast on a horn rang out over the countryside and soldiers streamed out into the streets. There were dozens of them, hundreds even. In moments, arrows were hissing through the air toward them, but Myranda brushed them astray with a wave of her hand. She felt a pulse from Ivy, even without searching. It was viciously powerful, a shift from joy to anger. It came from the castle.
Myranda guided Myn in low. The air was heavy with an evil smell, a smell that stung the nose and burned the eyes. She'd smelled it in Demont's fort, but it had not been nearly so strong. Myn swung low, her massive wings inches from the rooftops. Myranda's eyes, tears of anger now streaming from them, beheld the faces of the soldiers. Nearmen, every one of them. Not so much as an attempt had been made to hide the fact. The streets rushed by below her in a blur, Myn's claws dashing soldiers to pieces below her. Myranda kept the arrows from them and set her eyes on the great castle gates. They were closing.
“Get us through those doors,” Myranda urged.
The dragon pumped her wings and they surged through the air. Myranda leaned low and held herself tight to the beast's back, her mind tightly flexed to the task of forcing away the flying arrows. The great wooden doors drew nearer. The opening between them grew smaller. At the last moment Myn shifted sideways and swept her wings back. The pair of heroes burst through the gap. Digging her claws deep into the stone and ancient carpet of the floor, Myn screeched to a stop in the entry hall. The half dozen nearmen who had been hauling the massive doors closed now began to push them open.
“Keep the doors shut, Myn!” Myranda ordered, leaping to the ground.
Myn made short work of the nearmen and forced the doors shut against those outside. Myranda held out a hand and focused on the brace, heaving it into place. The alert that had summoned the nearmen outside had left the castle nearly empty. The task now was to keep it that way.
“Good work, Myn. Keep those doors closed! I'll be back as soon as I can!” Myranda cried as she sprinted down the great hall and deeper into the castle.
Walls blackened by fire, great portraits torn to ribbons, and magnificently carved doors whisked past Myranda as she hurried through the castle's halls toward her target. As a little girl she'd dreamed about seeing this place. Now she was grateful that she hadn't time to linger. The state of ruin around her, and worse, the corruption that showed itself at every turn, dashed her dreams to pieces. She worked her way through the winding halls. Her echoing footsteps mingled with those of the guards too slow to answer the call in time. Flashes of magic made short work of locked doors. Finally she found her way to a massive hall. The throne room.
The vaulted ceilings towered over her head. Moldering tapestries sagged on the walls. On either side of the room, the walls had been modified. Where once were great arched doorways leading to lavish gathering rooms, now there were rough stone walls with heavy wooden doors. The first few were marked with carefully engraved placards, etched with numerals one through five, with the fourth door hanging open to reveal a closet sized interior, empty. Beside each door, attached to the wall, was a rack. One bore an intricately carved staff. Another, a massive two handed sword. The last bore another sword . . . the sword. The one that she had found with the remains of the swordsman. The one that made this quest her own.
Myranda turned back to her task. There, at the far end of the room, perched on a slightly raised platform rightfully occupied by the thrones of a fallen kingdom, stood a sight that boiled Myranda's blood. There was a cage. Inside was Ivy. Fastened about her mouth and neck, and three each on her arms, legs, and tail, were crystal chains. Not the crystal embedded iron that had held Myranda, but pure, brilliantly glowing crystal. They led through the bars to the walls where they were affixed first to support pillars and second to head-sized storage crystals. Crystals that even now pulsed with stolen energy. The chains were taught, so much so that they suspended Ivy from the ground. A handful of mystic nearmen, bearing robes and wands rather than armor and swords, tended to the crystals, carefully replacing those that were full with fresh ones.
Ivy's eyes turned to Myranda. Instantly they were radiant with joy. She struggled and let out muffled screams of excitement. The elation spilled off in scintillating waves of golden light that were drawn ravenously into the chains. The links leapt and danced at the sudden flow of power. The nearmen turned to the intruder, others finally bursting through the door behind her. A wand was raised and a crude spell hurled forth. By some horrible twist, the churning ball of black magic was spared the hunger of the crystals and sailed toward its target. Myranda tried to force it away, but her own will was not offered the same protection. She dove aside, dodging the spell.
A wave of red and a searing heat erupted from Ivy as she shifted suddenly to anger. The force was such that the nearmen nearest to her were thrown aside. As before, the gems soon drank away the power, but it was enough. Myranda sprinted to the nearest of the fallen mystics, the soldiers behind her at her heels. She wrestled the wand from the spell caster. No sooner was the item in her hand than its operation became clear to her. The wand itself contained both the spells and the power to cast them. It took the merest thought to set them free. It stood to reason, as the merest thought was typically the best the nearmen could manage. A spray of destructive black magic launched itself from the weapon, bringing the soldiers to a very swift and somewhat messy end. Myranda turned and leveled the weapon at the mystics, but the wand was spent.
Myranda dropped to the ground as a new wave of magic swept toward her. It splashed against the bars of the cage, buckling and peeling back a handful of them, though not severing any of the chains. Myranda took up one of the bars that was broken free and scrambled to her feet. A swing of the makeshift weapon, dripping with a brutality the young wizard hadn't thought herself capable of, destroyed the nearest mystic. The fallen wand made quick work of the rest. The room filled with a brief burst of golden light as Ivy's mood shifted again.
“It is all right, Ivy, I'm here now. I am going to get you out of this,” Myranda assured her as she approached the anchor point of the first chain.
She raised the bar and brought its end down. The link, little more than brittle crystal, shattered after a second and third blow in a tiny burst of raw magic. As the chain fell limp, Myranda moved down to the second. One by one the restraints fell, each giving Ivy more and more room t
o struggle. Before long the jerking chains were yanking themselves free, too weak to restrain the desperate creature. When the last of them shattered, Myranda squeezed through the break in the bars to help her friend. With some difficulty, she pried the shackle clamped like a muzzle about Ivy's mouth.
“Thank the gods you are here! I knew you would come!” Ivy said, almost too happy to speak. “You have to get this off of me! Quick!”
She tugged madly at an amulet affixed to the neck shackle. It shone with the gold color of her aura, only magnified. As she tore at it, it made a perceptible shift to orange.
“Quick, quick, quick!” she cried with growing desperation. “It makes me happy then mad then happy and if you can't get it off then . . . augh . . . Get away from me!”
The ranting creature pushed Myranda forcefully through the gap in the bars and then held tight to them. The gold was washed away in a torrent of red that mixed with screams of Ivy's anger.
“I'll kill them! I'll kill them for doing this to me!” she howled, an anger that was not her own surging though her.
Myranda could feel the raw power washing over her, and the anger prodded at her, trying to force itself into her mind. She shook it away. The poor creature was lost in a torrent of emotion, no doubt spared the full transformation that usually accompanied such rage by the crystals that still tore hungrily at her. Ivy released the bars and took the amulet firmly in her grasp. The thin chain that held it in place snapped like a piece of twine. She threw it to the ground and crushed it to powder beneath her heel. The storm of emotions abated instantly.
Struggling to catch her breath, Ivy crawled through the gap in the cage. Behind her she dragged easily her own weight in crystal chains, tripping, tugging and pulling at them to get them untangled from the bars. Myranda rushed to her and helped her to her feet. The poor creature looked beyond weary, but the joy and relief gave her strength enough to stand.
“I knew you'd come! Thank you so much for saving me,” Ivy said. “Where are the others?”
“Still captured. I haven't found them yet,” Myranda explained, guiding Ivy toward the door.
“You came to find me first! I knew you liked me better than Ether. Do . . . do you hear that?” Ivy asked suddenly.
Myranda stopped, prompting Ivy to do the same. With the cacophony of jangling crystalline chains halted, Myranda could hear a rhythmic pounding far ahead of them. The nearmen outside were trying to get in. They had to hurry.
“Quickly. They are beating on the doors. We need to reach . . . “ Myranda began, but Ivy interrupted.
“No, no. Not that. The scratching. It is on the ceiling,” Ivy said, turning her keen eyes upward. “There!”
Myranda squinted, a chill gripping her spine as she was just able to make out a bat-like creature nestled in a corner, its unnatural eyes trained on her. It was a tiny beast Lain had called a watcher, a spy for Demont. He knew they were here.
“Quickly!” Myranda urged, running for the door the soldiers had thrown aside.
Ivy tripped and stumbled on the chains dangling from her every limb, trying to keep up. It was no use. The door slammed closed of its own accord. Instantly Myranda could feel locking spells she could not hope to break fall into place about every door in the room. At the same time, she felt two spells that had been in place drop away. A slow, ominous creak drew the hero's eyes. The doors marked I and II were swinging slowly open. Myranda tried to will them closed again, but the crystals filling the room drank away her spells even more quickly than those in the arena had. With no other options, she rushed to the first door and threw herself against it.
“Go! Find the entryway! I'll . . . “ Myranda ordered.
“No! I'm not leaving without you! We do this together!” Ivy interrupted, throwing herself against the other door.
Myranda's eyes darted around the room as the door shook and rattled against her, pounding blows growing stronger with each passing moment. Ivy's eyes wandered too, a vague look of recognition drifting across her face as she looked upon the room from outside the cage for the first time. Her gaze locked on the fourth door, open toward her. A shudder went through her.
“This . . . this is where it started. This is where . . . this me was born,” she said distantly.
“Then these other doors . . . they must be the other revisions. Demont's other attempts at creating a Chosen,” Myranda surmised.
A sudden, powerful blow threw Myranda to the ground, whipping the door open. The creature that stepped from inside may as well have stepped right out of Myranda's childhood dreams. He was a man, tall and strong. His face was the picture of divine nobility, gleaming immaculate armor covering his impossibly perfect form. He was precisely what Myranda had imagined the Chosen would be. At the time the thought was enchanting. Now the sight terrified her. Before she could recover, the warrior grasped Ivy by a handful of her chains and threw her with a strength he should not have had. The hero sailed across the room, colliding with the far wall and dropping to the ground in a clattering mound of glassy chains.
The door Ivy had braced opened to reveal a second form in every way identical to the first, though cast in a different role. In place of the shimmering armor there was a flowing robe, and perched atop his head was a pointed wizard's cap. It was precisely the sort she would have expected all wizards to wear prior to meeting dozens who wore no such thing. The warrior took up the two-handed sword, the wizard took up the staff, and the twin creations turned to their foes.
To an outsider, the sides of good and evil would have seemed obvious. On one side were two Adonises, each a picture perfect specimen of heroism, naught but courage and nobility in their eyes. On the other, a tattered woman with desperation and fear plastered on her face and a beast still weighed down by the chains of imprisonment, each at the end of their rope and seeking escape at any price. Never had the unlikeliness of the world's heroes been drawn into so sharp a relief.
Ivy climbed to her feet noisily, brushing shards of broken crystal from where they had bitten into her skin. She sneered in pain, specks of red staining her white fur. The warrior was stalking toward her. The chains wrapped around her legs robbed her of her footing, leaving her struggling to steady herself. All the while the warrior was drawing closer, his sword raised and a look of triumph already in his eyes.
Myranda rushed to attack the warrior. With her magic all but useless here, she was not entirely sure what she was going to do when she reached him, but she had to do something. Suddenly she felt a will tighten around her, like a vice crushing her from all sides. Her pained eyes turned to the wizard. His staff was held out, a look of concentration on his face. Myranda struggled, pushing back with her mind but quickly having any progress wicked away. How did their spells evade the crystal's thirst when hers did not? Her mind struggled to analyze the spell about her, trying to work out the possibilities. The increasingly familiar sensation of a rib snapping quickly reminded her that now was not a time for academics. A solution came to mind and was immediately put to work.
The crystals tore the power from her spells moments after they were released, but the results of the spells would surely remain. All she had to do was start something the crystals couldn't stop. A short, focused burst of concentration coupled with a muttered arcane phrase conjured a short lived, intense flash of flame. A moment later, the cloak of the wizard was aflame. The will holding her in place wavered while he attempted to extinguish himself, but it was enough. Myranda broke free from his grip and launched herself toward him. The pair tumbled to the floor with enough force to send the staff sliding across the room.
Ivy was trying to back away from the warrior, but the long chains that still clung to her limbs and tail tripped her relentlessly. They were at once underfoot, wrapped around pillars, twisted around her legs, and entangling her arms. The fear welled up inside of her, bringing with it a sense of panic that further hampered her efforts. One of the chains attached to her wrist had found its way beneath her feet. She struggled with increasing
desperation to free her hand. A moment later she took a step to gain better footing, inadvertently releasing the chain. Her arm snapped back with remarkable speed, trailing behind it the length of crystal chain. It coiled through the air and lashed across the warrior's face like a whip, shattering its endmost link against his cheek. A few drops of black blood trickled from the resulting wound, and a more stern look came to the warrior's face. The ramifications of the event slowly worked their way into the frightened creature's mind. The blue aura began to fade. A devilish grin replaced it.
Ivy worked her arm in slow circles, drawing more and more of the chain into the air. Each time the warrior stepped near enough, she widened the circle briefly and a lash of jagged crystal pushed him back. Now her other arm did the same. Long tendrils of brilliantly glowing chain drew intricate designs in the air. As she worked more and more of the chain into carefully timed circles, those that remained became less tangled. This was a rhythm. This she could understand. Minute, graceful movements tugged and pulled chains from her legs, tail, and neck into the air. Now she was an indistinct white form in the center of a radiant blur of chains, bending, twisting, spinning, leaping. It could only be described as a dance. The complex pattern of motion that moved the whole of her body finally managed to keep every last link of chain airborne, hissing through the air fully extended and somehow not clashing or tangling.
Myranda scrambled for the staff, ignoring the sharp pain in her abdomen. This was a nearman, and thus the staff was his source of power. She had to keep it from him. He grasped at her, catching her ankle in a punishing grip, but it was too late. Her fingers closed around the weapon. Instantly the many enchantments of the staff seemed to insinuate themselves into her mind, forcing her to become aware of them. Spells that did not so much need to be cast as selected. Most were harsh and excessive by Myranda's standards, but desperate times have a way of adjusting one's standards. She unleashed the same vicious, vice-like spell that had been used against her, instantly rendering the wizard immobile and struggling for breath. With virtually no will to resist with, the wizard was at her mercy.
