by A. R. Cook
“Now come on, who here didn’t want to do that?” Katawa snickered.
“I warn you, Wretched One,” Merros said threateningly, “You stand amidst the Sage-Blessed, the most powerful magic users in Luuva Gros. I would not attempt another attack if I were you, less you wish for me to conjure a sea to drown you in.”
“As amusing as that would be, I doubt you would like to drown everyone else in here along with me,” Katawa noted. “Besides, I have no intention of fighting you. I wanted to see the magnificent Hijn council for myself. My, you are rather short on staff, aren’t you?”
“No thanks to your kind,” V’Tanna said bitterly.
“That is a pity, isn’t it?” Katawa began to pace about the room. “But I understand your true value. You have nothing to fear from me. Although, you must feel pretty confident right now, with there being—” He took a second to count the Hijn around him, “eight of you, and one of me. It would be embarrassing if I got the better of you, now, wouldn’t it?”
Without any warning, he dashed at Desert Rain. He grabbed her arm, while the desert Hijn
cringed as he pulled her close.
“Let her go!” Clova warned. Already she was producing her pouch of seeds, pouring some into her hand. She could create a whole ensnaring forest of thorny vines that could trap any living creature alive.
“Why would I hurt poor little Dez?” Katawa smiled broadly. He put his muscular, scaly arm around her. “After all, I wouldn’t even be here if I hadn’t followed her scent.”
Desert Rain shuddered. That’s how he had found them. He must have taken an imprint from some wounded Gadderbat lying around in Syphurius. As a Gadderbat, he had been able to track her individual scent all this way.
Mage Skyhan came forth, taking Desert Rain in her arms and guiding her away from Katawa. “You are not welcomed here,” the healer said. “If you have no wish to fight, cease using
your powers. If you wish to make amends for your deeds, we will listen. Otherwise, I strongly suggest you leave, before we are forced to take action against you. This is the one warning you will get.”
“I’m surprised you give a warning at all,” Katawa scoffed. “As for making amends, that really isn’t my style.”
“We don’t fear you,” Clova declared. “And we aren’t going to let you do your damage on Vaes Galahar!”
Katawa smiled wryly at the Forest Hijn. He looked her up and down before answering. “I wouldn’t bother wasting my energy on this chunk of rock,” he replied. “Frankly, I have decided to stop…how shall I put this… ‘tampering with’ your Noble Cities.”
Desert Rain, as everyone else, was surprised by his comment. “That’s…nice of you,” she said.
Katawa sighed. “Not really. Now that I’ve had time to remember the extent of my talents, and dispose of a certain nuisance that may have hindered my plans—” He gave a sly glance to Desert Rain when he said this—“I have other, more important matters to settle. Besides, it’s all gotten quite dull.” He ambled over to a table and leapt onto it like a cat, his bulk causing the wood to creak. “I have become so utterly tired of distorting structures. It’s like burning wood, or breaking glass. For all the energy one puts into the act, it’s all so…lifeless.” The table beneath him began to shift and stir, the wood cracking as it twisted. Gnarled tendrils spurted forth until the table had grown into a nasty purple shrub of claws. Katawa glanced at the distorted table with bland apathy. “See? It’s not like the table cares what I do to it.”
Desert Rain’s lips tightened. “It would be more fun if the table could scream, wouldn’t it?”
Katawa nodded. “Aptly put. Come, Desert Rain, you’re an artist—or were an artist, I should say. You prefer to paint and write about things with beauty to them, don’t you? Poems and stories of life, pain, suffering—that’s raw beauty, a deeper beauty that all that happiness fluff. An
inanimate object can’t suffer, as you well know. There’s no art in that.”
“What you’re saying is, you’re going to use your magic solely on people,” Rukna said. Already he was lowering his head, directing his stubby horns at Katawa.
“Then you must be stopped now,” Merros said, reaching up a hand towards the demon. There was a dark blue marking of a coiling sea serpent on the palm of his hand, and the marking was already starting to glow.
Katawa jumped down off the contorted table. “Such hostility you give to your guests. This is the Hijn council, isn’t it? Then I have a perfect right to be here.”
This stopped Merros instantly. All the Hijn glanced about at each other, and then all looked straight at Desert Rain.
“What is he talking about?” Clova asked her.
“I honestly don’t know,” Desert Rain replied.
“Oh, Dezzy Dezzy Dezzy,” Katawa said, walking towards her. He pushed Mage Skyhan aside casually, and she flinched away from his monstrous hand. He brought his snout close to Desert Rain’s ear, and he spoke in a hushed voice. “Look at yourself, and look at me. You and I are more alike than you think. Our bodies changed more severely because we inherited greater power from our predecessors than they. Do you understand?”
No, Desert Rain wished she could say. But she was beginning to understand. Why he had a dragon’s face…why his power was so much greater than a normal demon’s…why no knight had ever sensed him coming before he attacked. None of the Knights had sensed Katawa’s dark energy because it had been masked by another force, a more ancient energy within Katawa’s body. She looked down at his tattoos, and only now, getting a good look at the emblems of fire on his chest, did she see the glimmer of something beneath them. Deep sunken marks of wine-red and greenish black, like bloodstones.
Dragon stones.
Desert Rain sunk her face into her hands. She mumbled her answer.
“What was that? I don’t think they heard you,” Katawa said.
Desert Rain raised her face to look at the others. In a tortured voice, she told them: “He’s Hijn.”
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Chaos and Capture
Katawa reveled in the stunned expressions of the surrounding Hijn. “You see? You people really don’t give Desert Rain enough credit. She’s quite clever.” He wrapped an arm around her, lifting her off the floor in a mock hug. He liked how she shuddered beneath his embrace.
“But…a Sage would never choose a Wretched…” Clova stammered.
“You Nobles really think you’re special, don’t you? Not all of your beloved Sages were soft-hearted fools. There were those who wished to pass their knowledge and strength along to heirs who showed promise—heirs who could grow to be as intelligent and powerful as they. My benefactor found much in common with me. It’s a shame that his gifts aren’t very useful to me, but his magical energy does well to feed my own abilities.”
Desert Rain’s brain was processing everything as a fuzzy dream. She felt dumb for being so blind. How could she have not figured this out sooner? How could she have not realized how much he had manipulated her? To think she had believed Katawa’s stories, how he had made her sympathetic to him with his fib of being a helpless victim at the hands of the Darkscale Court. But then again, she had seen those memories for herself. He had been destroyed by the Darkscale, and the answer to why hit her like a lightning strike.
“They tried to kill you because they didn’t want you to become a Hijn,” she murmured.
Katawa turned his piercing yellow eyes to hers. She was close to being struck dumb, but she went on. “Your brother…the Darkscale found out you had befriended a Sage. So they tried to kill you before you could inherit his powers. And it wasn’t Fate that saved you…your Sage did, didn’t he?”
Katawa smirked, and gave Desert Rain a kissing lick on her forehead. “You’re more intuitive than I thought. Amazing that you can still think this clearly, after being soulless for this long. I thought that some savagery would have set in quite a bit by now. I wonder why…” It was then that he could feel something hidden under
Desert Rain’s sleeve. He tugged up her sleeve to reveal the marble bracelet that the shaman had given her on her upper arm. A shimmer of blue light rippled across it. “Well, this is a lovely trinket. Where did you get this?” He touched it, and a blot of energy electrocuted him, causing him to back away from Desert Rain with a yelp. He glowered at the girl. “I see you’re getting help from higher sources. It really is no matter. This
makes the game more fun.”
“No more games!” Fierno had finally regained his consciousness, but he needed support from Guargos to stand. “You may have gotten away from me before, but I refuse to let
you get away again.”
Katawa rolled his eyes. “I must have hit your head one too many times. You’re stupider every time you get back up.”
This was intentional provoking, of course, and Fierno played right into it. He began to recite the guttural mantra of Fireflare, an orange ball of light forming in his hand. Guargos grabbed him by the wrist to stop him, but Fierno let the fireball fly. Katawa leaned to the side and the fireball missed, for Guargos’s grab had offset Fierno’s aim. The fire hit a banner, setting the fabric aflame. Merros quickly doused it by saying a quick two-word mantra, generating a blast of sea water from his hand.
“Don’t fire in here, you fool!” the Ocean Rider bellowed. “You’ll set the whole damn place on fire!” He said this not so much in concern of preserving the Grand Chambers as he did out of his natural aversion for fire.
“Then let’s settle this the warrior’s way,” Fierno dared, picking up his fallen sword.
Katawa’s face grew maliciously dark. “I’m really getting tired of you.”
Fierno ignored Guargos, who attempted to halt his advance. The warrior charged forth, slicing his sword in a horizontal swing that would render a body split in two. The swing was meant to divide Katawa at the waist, but it did not. The Wretched merely leapt into the air, bounding straight over Fierno with a surprising grace for his bulk. He landed directly behind the warrior, who was taken off-guard by the demon’s evasion. Before Fierno could turn his body around, Katawa latched onto his shoulder with his jaws, the sharp teeth snaring the Fire Hijn in an agonizing bite. The demon shook Fierno as a dog mangles a chew toy, and the knight’s sword went flying from his hand as he was wildly jostled about. Katawa would have shredded Fierno to pieces if he had not been suddenly head-butted by Rukna and sent reeling across the floor. Katawa dropped Fierno, who moaned as he clutched at his wounded shoulder. The Wretched tumbled fluidly, though, and rolled up onto his feet as if he had done this a thousand times before.
Rukna readied his head and shoulders, and gave Katawa another charge. The demon grabbed the Mountain Hijn by the horns in mid-charge, but Rukna plowed forth with enough force to push the Wretched back a few feet. Katawa was much larger, however, so once he regained his footing, he lifted Rukna off the floor with ease and flung him into the wall.
Merros came to stand in front of Katawa, his hand glowing its blue aura. “If you find amusement in fighting us, then I am sure you will find me a more than suitable challenge.” As he spoke, he slowly circled around Katawa, holding the demon’s attention. Once he got Katawa’s
back turned on the others, V’Tanna silently motioned for everyone else to get out of the Grand Chambers. Clova glided over to the dazed Rukna and got him to his feet, leading him towards the exit. Guargos picked up the bleeding, half-conscious Fierno and held him protectively under one arm. Desert Rain hoped Merros would hold Katawa’s attention long enough, but then worried about if Merros could hold up against Katawa on his own.
Katawa whipped his head to look over his shoulder. He snarled as he saw the other Hijn retreating. He moved to pursue them, but V’Tanna blocked his way. Already she was murmuring a chant, strands of lightning forming between her fingertips.
Katawa curled his lips at the Mistress of Storms. He could see the tiniest shard of fear in her eyes, and the fear grew as his ghost hands emerged from his back. But his ghost hands did not strike at her; they shot past her with a malevolent force, causing her to duck in alarm. The giant hands, extending on tentacles of purple mist, smashed against the exit doorway. The fingers coiled inwards, pinching the archway of the door. The wall around the door pulled in like elastic fabric, and when the hand released and pulled back, there was no door, but a jagged scar in the wall where the door had been molded shut.
Rukna banged his fists on the wall scar, but found it solid. “We’ve been shut in!” he cried.
Merros blanched. He had hoped that he could contain the Wretched without having to use any devastating spells, for anything he tried could end up hurting the others. It was too dangerous to try using too much magic in an enclosed space; the overwhelming amount of energy from all that magic could suffocate all of them. Then there was the problem of this demon being a Hijn, if he truly was. In that case, they could not kill him; the Hijn council had taken an oath ages ago to never destroy one another over any reason, what with there being so few of them left. He and V’Tanna would have to use small spells, enough to knock out the demon. They would have to be quick about it, however, for Rukna was not having much success breaking through the wall by ramming it with his horns. The demon stood in the middle between Merros and V’Tanna, but from his nonchalant manner, he may as well have been standing in a grassy meadow.
V’Tanna tilted her head slightly, a warning for Merros to move aside, in case the demon dodged her attack. Merros started moving aside, but at the same time he was murmuring a spell, fabricating a disk of boiling water. The demon faced V’Tanna, but his ghost hands were splayed towards Merros. Katawa was ready for any attack from the front or behind.
V’Tanna finished her mantra and let loose her lightning. The demon dodged the attack by leaping to the side, but then Merros timed his attack right and sent a gush of hot water at Katawa. The demon gritted his teeth and fell to his knees as the seering water drove into his backside, but his scales prevented the water from burning him too badly. Merros did not intend his spell to do much damage, but now that the demon was wet, V’Tanna’s lightning would shock him with twice the effect. Both the Ocean Rider and the Mistress of Storms started to speak their next spells
quickly, but neither of them finished before both of them were snatched by the demon’s ghost hands, the claws clamping around their mouths and cutting off their spells. The demon reeled both of them in, dangling them above the floor.
“You must be able to do better than this,” Katawa commented. “I’m disappointed in this pathetic display.”
The rest of the Hijn, still trying to break through the wall, froze in panic. Clova started to reach for her bag of seeds, but her impulsive stepbrother was already charging towards the demon again, apparently having learned nothing from the previous encounter. Nor did he have any more success this time, for the demon threw Merros and V’Tanna at Rukna, sending all three of them to tumble across the floor in a pile of aching bodies. As the three of them struggled to untangle themselves from each other, none of them noticed the demon had darted behind one of the great dwarven statues by the wall. Desert Rain did not understand why Katawa decided to hide behind a statue, and then she realized he was not hiding. The statue started to tip forwards slowly, as the demon pushed it from behind. The statue started to fall towards the three Hijn on the floor.
Guargos snapped into action. He put Fierno down quickly but carefully—the Fire Hijn’s mangled arm was useless, and he was barely conscious enough to even sit up. Mage Skyhan placed her hands on Fierno’s arm and shoulder to heal them, but the wounds were deep and ragged and it would take her time. Guargos raced with heavy steps towards Merros, V’Tanna and Rukna, hoping to grab them before the statue fell. But he was half a step too slow, and he realized he would never grab the others in time. He readied his muscles, and as the statue came down, he put his heads up and caught the titanic stonework before it crushed its targets. The weight was nearly unbearable, even for the strong Hijn of Metals, and Desert Rain could
see his muscles twitch painfully in the effort to hold it up. By now, the three prostrate Hijn saw that they had been almost smashed into smithereens, and scrambled to get up. Merros and V’Tanna barely got to their feet when Katawa pounced atop both of them, his claws tight around their faces. Katawa swatted Rukna with one of his tails, flinging him yet again. The Mountain Hijn came to land by Clova, Desert Rain and Mage Skyhan, who could do nothing but watch in horror. Guargos was starting to loose his strength, and he fell on to one knee, but he could not let the statue drop, for Katawa had pinned Merros and V’Tanna right under it.
“Rukna, we have to help them!” Clova said, shaking her stunned brother.
Rukna’s head was throbbing by this point, since he had been tossed around so much. He lifted his hands woozily towards the statue, and began his mantra for his magical gift, Earthshift. He had power over earth and stone, and he tried to psychically lift the statue to save Guargos. In his exhaustion, however, he found he did not have enough energy to move the statue. He panted, shaking his head. “I’ll get it…I need to gather my strength…”
“Then allow me to help you, my brother,” Clova said. She took his hand, pressing her fingers into his palm. Rukna closed his eyes and searched for the deep connection that would blend his essence with his sister’s. They both were heirs to the same Sage, Earthbelly, so they both shared his gifts, and they strengthened one another in magic when together. He found the connection, could feel her thoughts and soothing green aura. The two of them were one, two rays of light converging into one bright beam.
Rukna felt the surge of energy flow into him, could feel his sister’s strength. He lifted his hand towards the statue once again, speaking the sacred mantra, and the stonework slowly levitated, freeing Guargos from his burden. Katawa turned up his head to see the statue floating above him. Suddenly, the statue swung around, and smacked into Katawa’s torso like a club, narrowly avoiding Merros and V’Tanna. The demon flew across the room, and smashed into a wall. He was dazed long enough for Rukna to send the statue straight at him, pinning Katawa against the wall with a bone-crushing tumble. The great bulk of the demon was stuck between the wall and the statue, and he could not wriggle out—plus he was in too much pain to do so. His lower half was buried beneath the statue, and it was a wonder that his legs were not broken.
