Chalice of Life

by R. A. Rock

  “Getting the Chalice isn’t going to kill us,” Finn said, lifting Tessa’s chin and staring her down. “And we’re not giving up. Right?”

  “Right,” Tess agreed.

  “Right,” Jayde said firmly.

  “Right,” Ethan said, then rolled his eyes.

  “Now how are we supposed to go on?” Finn said, puzzled. “There’s just the staircase that leads out. And no other way forward.”

  “Well, if it’s anything like a glass ceiling…” Jayde said, thinking. “I had to break through it.”

  “A glass ceiling,” Finn said. “Which is an expression meaning an invisible barrier in a career path that especially affects women and people of visible minorities, preventing them from advancing in their fields.”

  “Thank you, Mr. Google,” Ethan said, clearly choosing to keep his irritation to himself, though Tess could see it all over his face. “What’s that got to do with the Cinderella stairs, mortal?”

  “Well, what if you blasted through it? What if instead of going up, the way is through?”

  “Hm,” Ethan said. “Worth a try.”

  He held his hands out in front of him and sent a strong pulse of magic at the stairs. They shattered and the other three ducked, covering their heads. Ethan merely turned his head as the glass flew past him.

  When things settled, they stared. There was another damned tunnel on the other side of the stairs. But as they watched, the glass began to pull back together.

  “Quick,” Jayde said, darting forward through the glass shards on the ground. “It’s reforming.”

  She ran through the opening, followed by Finn. By the time Tess got there, though, the glass was closing in, too small. Tess moved through, putting her arms up to protect herself from the glass a second time. Ethan sent a concentrated blast of magic again, breaking the sides to enlarge it once more. He stepped through just behind Tess, so close he could feel the heat from her body. Finn and Jayde were facing them, making sure they made it through.

  “Oh crap, Tess,” Jayde said when they were all through the staircase. They looked at Tessa’s hands and Ethan saw she was bleeding. Jayde began to take off her backpack to get out the first-aid kit but Ethan shook his head.

  “Damn it, we don’t have time for this,” he said, grabbing her hand and holding it between his two palms. When he took his hands away, the cuts were healed.

  “Thank you,” Tess said.

  Ethan gave a nod.

  “Let’s go,” Finn said.

  Ethan pivoted on his heel, taking only about three steps before he arrived at the entrance into a huge cavern. He glanced up, just barely able to make out the ceiling of the cave.

  When he lowered his eyes, he held his breath, wondering how he hadn’t seen it before. Then he realized that it was because it was sort of see through and hard to make out in the faint light.

  “The Holy Grail,” Jayde breathed.

  “The Chalice of Life,” Tess said, and both women took a half step forward into the cavern at the same time.

  “No,” Ethan said, putting out his arms to stop them. But it was too late. The spell had activated. The four of them flew upward toward the ceiling.

  Fast.

  Too fast.

  And when Ethan hit, everything went black.

  Chapter 50

  Tess shrieked. Then she stopped. They were falling. But not actually hitting anything yet. Without warning, she suddenly landed on hard rock. Tess let out an oof as she smacked into the unyielding stone.

  She lay there for a long moment, trying to breathe. Once she could draw breath again, she pried open her eyes. They had somehow fallen up to the ceiling of the cavern, which held the Chalice, and were now lying sprawled out on the ceiling.

  “What the hell is going on now?” Finn said, covering his face. “Arg, this place sucks. I’m so sick right now.”

  Tess looked at what ought to be up but was actually down and shook her head, trying to clear it or make sense of the situation.

  “Are we on the ceiling?” Jayde said. “How did we end up… up here?”

  “Ethan?” Tess said but he seemed unconscious. She reached out and shook his shoulder a little. “Ethan.”

  Ethan opened his eyes and looked around. “Oh, this is so weird,” Ethan said, clutching his head. Then he gave first Tessa and then Jayde a dirty look. “Had to step into the room, ladies?”

  “It was involuntary,” Tess explained.

  “Sure, it was,” Ethan said, an exasperated expression on his face. “And you both figured that after all the damn booby traps we’ve been through that the Chalice would just be sitting there for you to pop in and pick up?”

  “Well, no, of course not,” Jayde said. “The worst of the booby traps is always on the object itself.”

  “The worst?” Finn winced at the thought that there was worse to come.

  “Of course. Disoriented. Afraid. Trapped. On the ceiling, no less. Check this out.” Ethan spread his hands. “Bet we can’t stand.”

  They all tried. The best Tess could do was sit up.

  “Now, we have to sit here and die in full view of the Chalice. That we know could save us if we could just get down to it. Seems like a pretty damn effective booby trap to me—and a punishment, no less.”

  “Kind of mean,” Tess said, scowling. “But the King is kind of mean sometimes. And he believes in people getting what they deserve. I’m sure in his mind, this seems like justice.”

  “Whatever, who cares about the King?” Finn said, sounding a little desperate. “How do we get down from here? Some of us don’t have as much time to waste as others.”

  “Ethan, can you destroy the spell with magic?” Finn asked.

  Ethan shrugged and lifted his hands. He blasted the spell for a few seconds before he stopped.

  “It’s no use,” Ethan said, shaking his head, a discouraged expression on his face. “I don’t know exactly what your King is, but he’s powerful. I don’t think I can break it. Maybe with Ignis, I might be able to. But not by myself.”

  He thought for a moment.

  “It’s like he gathered the magic from an entire galaxy of stars and put it in this spell.”

  “Sounds like him,” Tess said, annoyance all over her face.

  “I wonder if we can fall,” Jayde said in a small voice.

  “I don’t want anyone to test and find out,” Tess said sharply. “That is a long way down. And if we fall from up here, we will either die, if we’re mortal, or break every bone in our body and spend months healing, if we’re immortal. Either way, our search for the Chalice will end.”

  “Good point,” Jayde said, giving a sharp nod. “No experimenting. We need a safe solution to this Dr. Seuss problem.”

  “Dr. Seuss?” Finn asked, puzzled.

  “Children’s literature. You should put that book on your list. For when you get tired of movies.”

  Finn gave her a warm smile. “Wish I was sticking around the Earthly Realm long enough to do that,” he said with only a hint of sadness showing in his smile.

  “Right. Of course.” Jayde seemed a little embarrassed. “I just thought of his books because he drew these pictures that always broke my brain as a child. Strange creatures with dozens of legs. Impossible hills that no one could climb. That sort of thing.”

  “Well, this is an impossible situation,” Finn said. “Got any Dr. Seuss solutions to this problem?”

  “I don’t know,” Jayde said, but Tess could tell her brain was already working on it. “If we were on the ground and the Chalice was on the ceiling, what would we do?”

  “Fly up and get it,” Tess said immediately.

  “Of course,” Jayde said. “You’d fly. So…”

  “There’s a couple things wrong with that idea,” Ethan said. “First of all, she can’t—”

  “Change forms,” Tess finished for him. “I can’t shift. Something’s preventing me.”

  “Probably the spell,” Ethan said. “Second, even if she could, how
would she pick up the Chalice, which would be enormous when she’s in her tiny form?”

  “Well, if we couldn’t fly,” Finn said, “we’d climb up.”

  “But we can’t even stand,” Jayde pointed out. “How could we climb?”

  “Can you use your magic sight, Ethan?” Tess asked.

  “My magic sight?”

  “Yeah, that thing you do to see magic,” Tessa said. “Your magic sight. How far does the spell extend?”

  He got that look on his face when he was seeing the magic and not just the physical objects in a space. After a moment, he blinked and his attention came back to them.

  “The spell covers the whole room, but someone might be able to go down the wall. It’s definitely weaker there and I think somebody could—”

  Finn was the closest to the cavern wall and he started scooting on his butt before Ethan could finish speaking. When he got to the rock, he flattened himself against it, sort of like he was diving.

  “It’s working,” he called out.

  Then it was working too well. Finn started sliding down the wall of the cave. Headfirst. Toward the floor, far below.

  “Finn, stop,” Tess yelled. “You’re going too fast. You’ll break your neck.”

  “I would stop if I could,” he yelled back. “It’s gravity. Not magic.”

  “Shit, shit, shit,” Jayde said, her hands clenched into fists. “What to do? What to do?” She snapped her fingers. “That’s it.”

  Finn was about twenty feet off the ground.

  “Finn, push off the wall,” she screamed. “Now.”

  Finn heard her and gave a mighty push with both his arms and legs, launching himself off the wall. This sent him back into the field of the spell, and he fell up, splatting next to Jayde on the ceiling again.

  “Shadows take me,” he said, his voice faint. Then he reached out and put his hand on Jayde’s. “Thank you.”

  Jayde nodded several times quickly.

  “So no climbing,” Ethan said as Finn slowly sat up, looking a little dazed.

  “We’re not going anywhere until we break this spell,” Tess said. “The King is very smart. He would know that the Chalice would be something the humans and the Fae and various other groups would want. And he would have protected it accordingly. If Ethan can’t break it, no one can. We’re stuck here.”

  “Wait,” Jayde said, holding up her pointer finger. “I just remembered a Dr. Seuss book that might help us.”

  “We’re listening, mortal,” Ethan said.

  “Well, in the book, this elephant finds a—”

  “Wait, elephants are real?” Finn said, eyes wide. “I thought that was just in story books.”

  Jayde and Ethan both gave him a look of disbelief.

  “Yes, Virginia, elephants are real,” Ethan said.

  “I haven’t seen that movie yet, but I can just tell it’s a quote,” Finn said. “We have to watch it together, Jayde.”

  “Okay,” Jayde said, grinning at Finn.

  “Are there elephants in it?” Finn asked.

  “No, but—”

  “Your story, mortal? Remember? We have a Chalice to acquire?”

  “Right,” Jayde said, her face getting serious. “So he finds a flower with a whole city of tiny people on it. But nobody believes him, and he has a lot of trouble protecting the tiny people. Until—”

  “I hope this is the point of this story,” Ethan said, his face impatient.

  “Until they all shouted together. Everyone all at once and it was enough. But only because they worked together.”

  “Worked together?” Ethan and Tess said at the same time. Then they exchanged a glance.

  “Humans have only survived and done so well because we learned to cooperate. We had to. We don’t have magic. Working together is one of our strengths.”

  “She’s right,” Ethan said, studying Tess with his magic sight. “You can do magic here on Earth, Tess. Remember?”

  Tess considered it. Could she do magic and help Ethan? She had never done it on purpose before. But what was the alternative? If she didn’t help him and they didn’t break the spell, then they would be sitting here for a very long time.

  Ethan would definitely survive. And she would—for six months anyway. But Jayde wouldn’t without food and water. And Finn definitely wouldn’t. He had much less time even than the mortal.

  This decided Tess. She would try to help. No, she would help. Doing magic couldn’t be that hard. She would figure it out.

  But Ethan had started talking about the magic again and she tuned back in.

  “All Faerie magic has a focal point that’s almost always an object that they’ve imbued with Starlight. The focal point for this spell is that purple stone. If we destroy it, the spell will be broken.”

  Tess stretched her neck and she could see the stone.

  “I couldn’t do it on my own. But maybe together.”

  “You two could blow up,” Finn said, a worried expression on his face. “ Tess has never used her magic like that.”

  “And what happens when the spell breaks and we’re suddenly not stuck to the ceiling?” Jayde asked.

  “I can change to my flying form,” Tess said, and Finn nodded.

  “And Ethan will be fine,” Jayde said. “What about me and Finn?”

  “I can catch you and Finn, mortal. Don’t worry.”

  “Okay, if we’ve got that sorted out, then blast away,” Jayde said, making a flourish with her hands.

  Tess and Ethan’s eyes met. Ethan scooted closer and took her hand.

  “Direct all the power you’ve got at the stone,” he said. “But you’ve got to make it into a beam. It can’t be a circular shockwave like you produced when we fought the Shadows. I’ll help you focus it.”

  “Okay.” Tess lifted her hands.

  “On the count of three,” Ethan said, letting her hand go. “One, two, three.”

  Tess directed her Starlight at the stone. At first, the magic did emanate out from her in concentric circles. But then she felt Ethan’s magic pushing it until she was able to hold it in the shape of a beam. But it was more like a fluffy rainbow than a laser—ineffective and useless.

  Tess made a huge effort, bringing all her strength, both mental and physical, to the task. She took a deep breath and brought every bit of her concentration to her Starlight. Without letting a single other thought in, she was able to focus the magic into a beam of intense bright Starlight. She almost couldn’t bear to look at it.

  “More, Tess,” Ethan said, his own stream of magic strengthening.

  Tess pulled more out of herself, and her beam became twice as thick.

  “It’s not enough,” Ethan said, but he didn’t stop.

  Then Tess remembered when she and Finn had United before, they hadn’t used their own Starlight to do the magic. They had channeled the magic that was all around them.

  Could she do that?

  She wasn’t sure how.

  But Tess opened herself. Imagined herself as a pathway for the magic to flow through to the purple stone that was holding the spell. And all of a sudden, there was a rush of magic that hurt so much she screamed.

  With a huge blast, the purple stone exploded in a shower of light and color.

  Tess closed herself off again with a groan of pain.

  But after the burst of magic, the intense pain was too much for her, and Tess lost consciousness.

  Chapter 51

  As they were magically blasting the purple stone holding the spell, which was keeping them plastered to the ceiling of the cavern that held the Chalice, Ethan realized that it wasn’t going to be enough. His magic, even fortified with Tessa’s, wasn’t enough. They weren’t going to be able to do this.

  And then, he wasn’t sure what Tess did, but somehow, she got a shit-ton of power that made the stone explode into powder, color and light radiating out from it.

  And the second it blew up, Ethan could feel himself start to fall. Moving so fast he was like
a bullet, he arrived beneath Jayde and Finn and sent a pillowy cushion of magic up at them to break their fall. Jayde landed on the floor of the cavern unharmed, and Finn touched down a second later.

  “Why’s she not changing?” Finn said as they watched Tess freefall.

  And Ethan realized that whatever she had done to get that much power had knocked her out. He shot back up to where Tessa was falling and caught her in his arms, bringing her down to the floor and laying her on the ground gently.

  “You can fly?” Jayde said.

  “It’s not really flying. It's more like jumping,” Ethan said. “I just move so fast that gravity doesn’t bother me anymore.”

  Jayde blinked at this explanation.

  "Wait, why didn't you just fly when the bridge broke?"

  "I have to have something to push off of," Ethan explained.

  "But, then why didn't you just jump across in the first place?"

  Ethan tilted his head back and forth, considering.

  "I didn't want to risk it. I might have made it. But it was pretty far. And I really didn't to fall in the big, black hole."

  Jayde grinned.

  "Got it."

  “Tess?” Finn was next to her on the other side. He turned his gaze to Ethan. “What happened?”

  “I don’t know, man. It wasn’t going to be enough. Even with my magic and hers.”

  “But you blew it up, so…” Jayde said, confused.

  “She did something,” Ethan said. “She, for want of a better word, channeled more power. It wasn’t her own Starlight because she just doesn’t have that kind of magic.”

  Finn thought. “Back in Ahlenerra, we United a couple times.”

  Ethan was shocked. “Did you?”

  “Not in an addictive kind of way,” he said.

  Jayde gave him a bewildered look.

  “I’ll explain some other time,” Finn promised.

  “Look, the point is,” Finn continued, “when you Unite, the reason the experience is so ecstatic is because the energy of the universe is pouring through you. She must have remembered how to do that on her own.”

  “Well, there’s a reason that Uniting is against the fucking law,” Ethan said, taking Tessa’s hand. “You two could have killed yourselves.”