by Mark McCabe
“Y . . . Yes,” she stammered, suddenly realising that the wizard’s rage was due to her own silence. It seems he wasn’t done with tormenting her yet. Her heart was hammering against the wall of her chest. She felt even more vulnerable now than before she had tried to resist him.
“I thought so,” he snickered, obviously amused at her sudden submissiveness. “Or perhaps you’d like to see what I’ll do if you dare to defy me again.”
The image that suddenly flashed into Sara’s mind was so revolting she could do nothing to stop herself from retching again. For a few moments, her chest and stomach heaved as she emptied what little remained inside her onto the floor of the chamber. Her wretchedness was now all but complete, the taste of bile in her mouth a bitter reminder of what she would have to endure if she tried to resist the wizard further.
“Now watch,” he said, spitting his words out at her with venom as she struggled to regain her composure. “Watch while I take your would-be rescuer here and turn him into meat for the dogs.” Once again, she looked on helplessly as Golkar turned his back to her and began to lift Rayne up from the floor, levitating his body up into the air with the same astonishing ease he had done before.
No, Sara thought to herself. I won’t be able to live with myself if I don’t try to stop him.
She knew that she couldn’t defeat Golkar. Regardless of that, she also knew that she had to try, even though her heart quailed at the thought of the torment he would inflict on her when she failed. Hadn’t Rayne somehow found his way to this place in what he must have known would be a doomed attempt to rescue her? She owed him the same, at the very least.
Girding herself once more for the onslaught she knew she could expect by way of reply, Sara hurled all of the mental energy she could muster straight at the wizard. As she did so, she tried to form a picture in her mind of him being thrown to the floor by the force of her will. The immediate result she obtained was encouraging, though not as effective as she had hoped. Not surprisingly, this time he was ready for her. This time his defences were up and waiting.
Her immediate goal was met nonetheless, though Sara cringed at the way he allowed Rayne’s body to drop unceremoniously to the floor again with a sickening thud. At least the muffled cry Rayne gave as he hit the floor told her that he was still alive.
That positive thought was quickly dispelled as Sara found herself reeling under the impact of yet another assault from Golkar. Though she fought to maintain the defensive barrier she quickly put in place, she knew that this time he wouldn’t be taken by surprise, this time there would be no easy impasse. And she was right. Slowly but surely, Golkar began pushing the barrier between them back towards her.
Yet it wasn’t Sara’s strength that was failing her. It was more than that. She simply didn’t know how to conduct such a fight. Push back, that was all she knew. Yet she knew that she would need to do more than that. This was more than a contest; it was a deadly battle. Her life, and Rayne’s, were at stake, if not those of all Ilythians. Just pushing wasn’t going to be enough to stop Golkar. That knowledge, that she couldn’t actually hope to win this deadly battle, only seemed to further undermine her attempts to fend him off.
After all, he was a wizard. He was a Guardian with centuries of experience. Maybe Josef was right and she did have as much or even more power than Golkar did. Perhaps she had even caught him at a bad time. Twice now she had been stunned at the impact of her attempts to stop him from harming Rayne. But even so, he knew how to win a battle like this. This was what he did. It was one thing to have such power, but another to know how to use it.
Deep down, Sara knew that, whatever minor victories she might have had thus far, in the end, she was going to lose. How could it possibly be any other way? And failure would bring heavy consequences. All she was achieving was making him even angrier than he had been when she had first tried to intervene. With mounting horror, Sara began to see that her attempts to confront the wizard might only end up bringing even more pain and suffering to Rayne than he would have otherwise had to endure.
Sara felt her will to resist Golkar steadily diminishing as the realisation of what she had done slowly crystallised in her mind. Fight on she still did though, even though it was futile. She just couldn’t sit there and watch him hurt Rayne anymore without at least attempting to stop him, to fight back. Wasn’t that what she had originally set out to do, she reminded herself as the barrier separating their two wills was inexorably being driven back towards her. Wasn’t that what she had said she would do when they had brought her here and locked her in a cell? Wasn’t that what she had told her father she would do so many years ago?
Despite her resistance, Sara felt the last vestiges of the mental barrier she had erected beginning to collapse. Then, as the prospect of defeat seemed to loom ever larger in her consciousness, she suddenly became aware of a voice. It came from way down in the deep recesses of her mind, weak and barely discernible. She tried to ignore it at first, for she knew that it must be Golkar. He had finally broken through her defences and was trying to undermine her resistance from within. There was no way left to stop him now. She was going to die. Her time had finally come.
No, the voice cried. Listen, Sara. It’s me, it’s Josef. It was suddenly loud and clear, urgent and insistent. It was, it had to be, Josef. Somehow he was still alive. The man who had saved them from the sligs was still alive and was calling out to her for help. Golkar must have heard it too, for in the same instant that she realised where the voice had come from, the wizard broke off his attack and a moment later she heard Josef cry out in pain, only this time it was a real scream, not just words in her head.
It was her fault, she realised with a sickening feeling in the pit of her stomach. Though he must be on the verge of death, he had sent out a plaintive call for help and all she had done was allow Golkar to switch the point of his attack from her to him. She hadn’t even tried to stop the monster. Just as she had feared, her ineptitude in this one-sided battle was only dooming her friends to more pain and anguish. How much more would they have to endure because of her? She was floundering. She had to do something: equivocation was worse than inaction. She had to resist him, or die trying. She had to fight him, or stand by while he destroyed each of her friends in turn.
Without any further hesitation, Sara responded in the only way she knew how, by resuming her attack on the wizard. With her new-found resolve fuelling her efforts she quickly fended Golkar’s assault away from the old man. This time she stood firm when the Guardian renewed his attack on her, throwing herself back into the fray with reckless abandon.
She was too bewildered to even consider what was happening any longer. She just went with the flow of it all, running on pure adrenaline and instinct. A blind fury seemed to take hold of her as she pushed back the wizard, parrying wave after wave of energy that came coursing across the space between them as he too lifted his game in the face of her renewed vigour.
That’s right. This time Josef’s thought was as clear as a bell, though even in her mind his voice sounded weak and faltering. Push him back Sara, push with all your might. Try to force him backwards. Put him on the defensive.
Somehow, she found that she could, push him back that is, both physically and mentally. Josef’s unexpected appearance had given her a new sense of purpose. Sara dug deep now, drawing on all of her hatred for the wizard, remembering what it was that he planned to do to her, and to Rayne, and to all of the inhabitants of Ilythia, remembering all of the things that Josef had told her of what was to come should she fail. She felt the fury steadily rising within her. He was evil, so evil she couldn’t even contemplate where such malice had sprung from. He had to be beaten. He had to be defeated. He couldn’t be allowed to complete his cruel plans.
She watched in wonder as the wizard’s body began to recoil as he gave ground in the face of her furious counter-attack. This time it was his turn to try and weather the storm that had suddenly assailed him. He was grimacing himself now
as he struggled to resist her, trying vainly to brace himself against the floor of the chamber as his slippers slowly but surely slid back across the rough wooden planks of the floor.
Not for long though. Golkar had no intention of being defeated, not here, not in his own chamber, nor anywhere else for that matter, and certainly not by her, not by a girl not even versed in the ways of the use of the arcane arts. If anything, the reversal only seemed to spur him on to an even greater effort. For the first time, he seemed to comprehend that his opponent was a closer match for him than he had previously realised, that the duel they were engaged in really was one to the death, that his precious source of power may just have to be destroyed to ensure his own survival. Sara’s new found hope quickly turned into shock as a ball of fire suddenly appeared in the wizard’s hand and he hurled it in her direction. It all happened in the blink of an eyelid.
For Sara, all hell seemed to break loose and the world seemed to slow on its axis. She watched like a detached observer as the fireball careened across the room towards her, slowly but surely cutting through the force she was throwing at her opponent. While that was happening, she gaped in shock as she felt a second and even more unexpected assault on her senses. She shuddered as a set of what felt like cold and icy fingers took a hold of her skull and slowly begin to twist her head around and away from the fireball, thwarting her efforts to deal with its inexorable fiery progress and sending cold slices of pain spearing down into her cranium at the very same time.
Though she had to fight to suppress her mounting panic, Sara knew that she had no time to deal with this second and more insidious assault. The fireball, though slowed considerably by the fierce battle of wills that still continued unabated between her and the wizard, was clearly the more immediate and deadly threat. Its steady but obdurate progress towards her only added to its horror. It was like someone had thrown a switch to slow-motion and everything now was moving as if they were wading through treacle.
Disregarding for the moment the vicious pains that seemed to stab right down into the very core of her brain, Sara concentrated all of her effort on maintaining her focus on the fiery object that was rapidly filling her field of vision, on slowing it even further and desperately trying to steer it away from its original and murderous path. Somehow, she managed to do it. She looked on with wonder as the fireball spun past her shoulder, watching it turn lazily on its axis as it did so. The scorching heat of its passing signalled how perilously close the wizard had come to destroying her. When it shattered against the wall beside her, unexpectedly spraying a hot stinging liquid all over the side of her face and her neck, her assessment was only too painfully affirmed.
Once more she tried to ignore the pain in order to concentrate more fully on the task at hand. Though the stabbing pains in her head had continued unabated throughout the whole incident, she was surprised to realise that her decision to disregard them while she dealt with the fireball seemed to have had the effect of diminishing both their frequency and their intensity.
That was it. For the first time since the battle with Golkar had begun, Sara began to think that she might actually be able to beat him. Even pain, it would seem, could be subdued by the strength of her will. She was better at this than she realised. Somehow, she was doing something right.
Slowly, but surely, she mentally prised the icy grip away from her forehead and flung it across the room and away from her body. With the pressure on her neck relieved, she hastily resumed her assault on the wizard with a new found confidence fuelling her efforts. She was wary now and alert for any more of his surprises.
The nagging doubts quickly returned, however, nibbling away at her confidence again, like termites steadily undermining the foundations of a building. She was forcing Golkar back, but to what avail? And what would he throw at her next? Her skin still stung painfully where the remnants of the fireball had splattered against the side of her face. His goal had now become all too painfully clear.
He would stop at nothing now . . . nothing short of her total destruction. And what’s more, he knew how to achieve that. One look at the wizard was enough of a reminder that her foe was no novice to this deadly form of combat. His robes, his maturity, the resolve etched on his face, they all spoke of an experienced and determined foe not used to losing. She may be stronger than she had previously thought possible, she may even be able to force him back and to deflect his blows for a time, but how could she possibly win?
As if to confirm her doubts, the wizard began yet another of his fearsome assaults. Sara felt a dread anticipation build within her as she watched him draw back his hand, clearly preparing to hurl some new and deadly object in her direction. Though she could see no hint of the fireball that had formed in his open hand in his previous assault, she guessed that whatever it was he intended to do it would be something she would rather he didn’t. Striving to maintain her own assault on him as she did so, she quickly tried to focus a part of her will on resisting his efforts to bring his arm forward again from its raised position.
The fresh clash of their wills ran through her like a shudder as their two minds wrestled, each fighting to subdue the other. Though an observer would never have known it, they were locked in a deadly duel now, Sara focusing more and more of her effort on stopping the wizard from unleashing his mysterious new missile, and Golkar struggling to free himself from the restraint which she was trying to impose upon him. As their two wills locked in a grim struggle, each sought for a weakness in their opponent’s resolve, an opening or a lapse which would give them the ascendancy they so desperately sought.
Sara began to wonder how long she could keep going. She sensed that her focus was wavering again, that she was struggling to maintain the intense level of concentration their battle was now calling for. She had never experienced anything like this before in her life. And it was taking its toll. She was tiring now, struggling to stay focused.
Too many new things kept happening; there was too much to deal with, too much for her mind to absorb, no time to plan the next step. To add to her woes, yet another unexpected development abruptly emerged, demanding even further division of her attention. Though her eyes were focused on Golkar, she suddenly became aware of a flickering light from the very periphery of her vision. Then Josef’s thoughts intruded on her mind once again.
Push him towards the mirror, Sara. I’ve opened the portal. You must force him through. Hurry. I can’t hold it for long. My strength is failing.
You’ve got to be kidding, thought Sara. She was already having the greatest of difficulties in simply maintaining the status quo.
As she tried to absorb the import of the new message from Josef, and how best to achieve what he suggested, she noticed her opponent risk a quick glance over his shoulder. It was clear that whatever was being said to her by Josef was also being heard by Golkar. Unfortunately, there wasn’t much she could do about that. She had no idea how to shield those thoughts from him and now was not the time to start taking lessons.
Sara allowed herself the luxury of glancing where Golkar was looking as well. She felt her pulse quicken as she saw the shimmering light she had seen in her room the night she had been abducted. It looked just like it had on that fateful night, like an opening into another place, a rough tear in the fabric of their world that led to some distant oblivion. Just where this opening led to she couldn’t even begin to guess.
Despite its familiar appearance, however, there was one significant difference to the portal that had been opened to bring her to his world. Unlike the one Golkar had created in her room, this one seemed to be an opening on the very surface of the mirror itself, the same mirror that Golkar had used to leave and return by earlier that day. Though the inside of the rent was filled with a brilliant white light, just as she remembered the one she had been taken through had been, this one was also less substantial. It kept fading in and out of focus, there one minute, as clear as could be, and almost disappearing from view the next, before reappearing again o
nce more as bright as ever. Sara guessed that Josef was having some difficulty keeping it open. Not surprising for someone she’d thought had been dead!
Now she could see a way of ending their grim struggle. With a renewed sense of purpose, she began to turn the whole of her mind to the task of pushing Golkar towards the mirror.
It was a fatal mistake, however. In her haste to achieve her new goal, she forgot to maintain the restraint she had put on his outstretched arm. Suddenly finding himself free to complete his intended action, the wizard seized the initiative she had so foolishly relinquished and flung his new spell at her with all the force he could bring to bear. Sara watched in horror as a bolt of lightning materialised in the space between them and shot like an arrow across the short distance that separated them.
Though she opened her mouth to scream as the bolt tore into her midriff, she never actually heard the sound she made. Her senses were suddenly flooded with such an agonising pain they began to shut down from the overload. What little control she had left deserted her. The room spun wildly before her as she thrashed against her bonds, jerking and twisting as her muscles spasmed and flexed uncontrollably in an involuntary dance. A dark veil descended over her eyes and the pain that only a moment before had threatened to consume her senses began to rapidly recede from her awareness. In its place came an overwhelming sense of well-being. The room and all of its confines slipped out of her awareness as surely as if she had died.
As her awareness began to return, Sara felt confused and disoriented. Wherever she was it was dark, so dark in fact that she couldn’t even see her own body when she looked down at where her hands and feet should be. It was also cold, so very cold. She felt a shiver course through her as she tried to make some sense of where she was and what had happened to her, of what was going on.
She had been in a room, she thought, and something terrible had happened to her . . . .she had a feeling that that was so but no actual memory, no mental picture, no details to give any substance to the feeling . . . but . . . but that was before, anyhow . . . what about now . . . where was she now?
