For another five minutes or so, both the Emperor and Merrick ate their food, in relative silence, commenting on this dish or that—both of them bonding over a plate of an odd-looking vegetable Merrick had never seen before, but which tasted sweet, like a piece of fruit.
When he was finished with his plate, the emperor clapped his hands together twice, and the room went silent. Behind Merrick, drums began to pound out a steady but slow beat while chimes filed the air with the sweeping tones of dozens of small bells. All heads turned to the back of the room, where a group of a dozen men clad in body-tight white outfits danced their way into the chamber.
Even though Merrick knew it was an illusion, the image of an ethereal, half-transparent dragon formed around the men, making it appear as if they were the fleshy spine of an actual dragon that had decided to join them for dinner. This, Merrick guessed, was their ceremonial representation of the Wind Dragon, Araki.
The men gyrated and turned in time with the drums, their bodies hunched over and close to one another as they moved together like a virtual chain. Unlike human dancers, this group rose into the air as they snaked their way above the heads of the dinner party guests. When they passed above Merrick, his hair tussled with the wind being generated by their moves, and he could hear that they were whispering words that sounded and felt sometimes like gentle breezes and other times like the trade winds of the sea.
The dragon snaked its way up to the top of the vaulted ceiling of the dining hall and then swooped suddenly back down to the floor—the drums growing louder and faster as they descended.
Three other figures dropped somewhere from the ceiling and floated in fetal positions, spinning slowly above everyone’s heads. Two of them were women. One was dressed all in red, and the other was clad completely in green. The last figure was a male, and he was dressed in blue.
The dancing dragon coiled around each of them as it passed them in turn. As the dragon left each body, the curled-up dancers began writhing and stretching as the glowing white light pulsed across their bodies, like the light was bringing them to life. The white dragon continued to whirl about the dining hall above the heads of the dinner guests, swooping this way and that, still in time with the rhythmic beating of the drums, while the three lone figures crept to each other through the air.
When they met, like acrobats, they grabbed each other’s wrists and ankles and formed a spherical shape with their bodies. The gyrating white dragon settled into circling about the sphere in slow ellipses like the moon revolving around the Earth.
The drums and the chimes stopped.
All was silent as the display above continued in beautiful equilibrium.
The drums slowly began to pound again, growing in momentum as the three dancers who made up the sphere broke away from each other and revealed another dancer who had not previously been there. This one was a thin, wiry male, wearing only a black loincloth. He floated on his back, apparently lifeless.
The dancing dragon coiled around the nearly naked male, as he seemed to flutter to life. He opened his eyes, wide with fright, and moved away from the dragon and the other dancers.
But he was not alone for long.
The Wind Dragon and the other dancers started circling around him in a chaotic dance that left the barely clad being terrified and confused.
Eventually, as the action above increased, growing more and more frenetic, the terrified male opened his mouth as if screaming, but no sound emerged from his throat. As soon as this happened, all the other acrobats and dancers stopped in place, and the drumming ceased as well.
They all remained perfectly still and looked on in wonderment.
The nearly naked male crossed his legs, put his hands together as if in prayer, and closed his eyes, while the dancers began to slowly revolve around him.
The dancer in green floated closest to the heads of the dinner guests. The one in blue floated back and forth at a level above him. The dancer in red floated at a layer above him, just below the floating figure of the cross-legged man. Above the man, the Wind Dragon dancers began a slow, almost lazy pattern that dipped down to weave their way around each of the floating figures and then back up to where they had started above the head of the nearly naked man. They repeated this maneuver twice more before Merrick recognized that they were tracing the shape of an infinity symbol in the air.
Gradually, the lights above went dim until the ceiling and the dancers were shrouded in darkness and the drums and chimes ceased their accompaniment.
The Emperor turned his gaze back to his guests and smiled as the table blossomed in applause.
Mona and Jonathan looked impressed but confused, whereas Master Banzo simply nodded his head up and down slightly in appreciation. He, like Merrick, understood what they had just witnessed.
They had just seen the Wind Family’s version of the Drayoom creation myth, depicting the first Drayoom, Abred, and how he came to be. In the Fuugoshujin’s version, of course, Araki played the prominent and dominant role, breathing life not only into Abred, but also into the other three dragons. Merrick also noted that their version stopped short of the creation of the first female Drayoom, Gwynfyd—something that did not surprise Merrick in such a male-dominated culture.
In the end, although a skillfully and wonderfully enacted piece of art, it was also a blatant propaganda statement, with the message being that none of the other three dragons could exist without the Wind Dragon.
“Did you enjoy our depiction of the tale of Abred?” the Emperor said, beaming with pride. “I believe their performance was inspired this evening.”
“Much like your city and your palace,” Merrick said, “it was beyond anything I have yet to see in the rest of the Drayoom world.”
This reply seemed to make the Emperor happy as the lights above came back on, and the emperor turned to address the table.
“There is one final piece of entertainment,” the Emperor said to the guests at the table, “as your servers bring you dessert and after-dinner drinks. This next demonstration is in honor of our esteemed guests from Rune Corp and in honor of the Ard Righ himself, whom we are pleased has graced us with his presence this evening. Please enjoy.”
Four Drayoom warriors stepped forward and effortlessly rose into the air.
The pageantry of the previous dance was no longer present.
Instead, these four looked as if they could and would kill on a word from the Emperor.
CHAPTER 36
THE FOUR WARRIORS took their places, floating shoulder to shoulder in a line, and bowed deeply to the Emperor.
In response, the child ruler gave the barest hint of a forward tilt of his brow, but it was enough to signal the warriors to begin.
In the demonstration back at Rune Corp, the Alphas had performed mostly predetermined fighting katas as well as an actual sparing match or kumite. In similar fashion, the four Wind Warriors, each clad in what looked like white versions of Rune Corp’s formfitting battle suits, began with a regimented series of forms, showing the team’s precision, discipline, and dedication to their fighting arts.
Arms shot up in hard angles as they blocked imaginary opponents, followed by solid fist strikes to the air that would have pulverized anything that might have gotten in the way.
After these, the warriors lined back up with their hands at their sides. Sparkling flecks of divinium solidified into solid blocks of air in front of each of them. One-by-one, the warriors shattered the blocks with focused strikes from their feet, fists, and even their heads. This was not a display of elegance, but of sheer power. Merrick had no idea how solid the divinium blocks were, but the entire room shook each time one of them was destroyed. As soon as one block was destroyed, another one materialized to take its place.
After almost ten minutes of this, the four figures stopped simultaneously and bowed again to the Emperor, who once again answered with only a slight nod of his head. Miraculously, the warriors did not look to be out of breath in the slightest.
&n
bsp; As soon as the Emperor gave the sign, the four warriors flew to opposite corners of the room and assumed their battle stances.
One of the warriors held a piece of divinium carved into a six-inch long tube. With a single word, a spear-tipped shaft of pure wind shot forth from either end, until he was holding a six-foot-long spear.
Another of the warriors produced a handle also made of divinium that grew into a full-length katana sword with a blade of wind.
The third warrior’s divinium handle manifested a flail with a chain of wind ending in a softball-sized spiked ball, while the fourth warrior held out his arm with his palm facing up and manifested a ball of violent wind energy, ready to be thrown.
The four warriors floated motionless until a voice boomed from the dinner table and pierced the silence like a thunderclap. The warriors sprang into action, attacking each other. Merrick turned his gaze toward the Emperor, from whom the massive sound had emanated.
That was the first time Merrick appreciated how powerful the Emperor’s magic actually was, and it gave him pause.
Merrick hadn’t heard a dragon word spoken with that much force since he himself had escaped his prison at the Earth City after having mistakenly killed Balach’s father. The word Merrick had spoken that day had been fueled by his intense emotional state at the time, and it had taken all of his power to speak it.
The Emperor, however, looked as if uttering a word with such intensity had not taxed him at all.
Forcing himself to turn back toward the action, Merrick set his gaze back on the battle above their heads.
All four of the warriors had rushed to the center of the room, swinging their weapons as they charged—except for the one with the ball of energy. He held back and waited for the other three to be closer together before throwing his pulsating globe directly into the fray.
The warrior with the spear spun his weapon like a propeller and spoke a few words in the Wind Tongue that caused a disc of shimmering air to shoot out from it and to collide with the incoming ball of energy. The explosion from the two forces meeting was intense and shook the room.
The warrior with the katana sword swung his blade in tight, controlled arcs at the warrior with the flail. The warrior under attack pulled his chain tight to deflect each of the incoming blows.
After the warrior with the katana slightly overextended one of his swings, his opponent threw his mace ball at the attacker’s face.
The warrior pulled his head back just in time, as the spiked ball stopped at the end of its tether less than an inch from his face. Pressing his advantage, his opponent unleashed a flurry of attacks, swinging his flail with relentless brutality as the first warrior did his best to block each attack while trying to put some distance between the two of them.
On the other side of the room, the warrior with the spear crouched down and held one end of his spear in front of him, aimed at his opponent, while letting the other end of his spear trail behind him, hidden by his body. He circled the man whose hands were bristling with power, engulfed in newly generated balls of energy.
Merrick recognized what the spear holder was doing. By hiding the spear behind his body, he was denying his opponent the ability to tell how long his weapon actually was. As the man holding the balls of energy stepped in to throw a roundhouse strike with the knife-edge of his hand, the other warrior telescoped his spear out in front of him, letting his opponent run right into it with his sternum.
Merrick could hear the warrior forcefully exhale as he doubled over and frantically held up his left arm to fend off any further attacks from the spear. Merrick was sure that if it had not been for the protection of his battle suit, the warrior would have run himself through on the other warrior’s spear.
As it was, the fact that he had lost his breath still made him especially vulnerable since he wasn’t able to speak, much less utter any dragon words.
Seeing this, the warrior with the spear doubled his attack, buffeting his opponent across the back and shoulders and then sweeping his legs out from under him—the result of which was to send the warrior somersaulting over and over in the air. Just as the spear warrior prepared to deliver a final blow, the Emperor whispered a word as soft as a gentle breeze. Merrick could barely hear what the Emperor said, but the spear warrior obviously heard it loudly and clearly.
Instead of dealing a killing blow, he pushed the rotating warrior away with his foot so that he floated over to the nearest wall and hung there limply. Then the spear warrior turned back to the ongoing battle between the other two fighters.
It wasn’t apparent to Merrick which of the two warriors who were still fighting had the upper hand. Each seemed equally matched to the other, with the finesse of the katana blade being countered by the sheer viciousness of the swinging mace.
Merrick could see the warrior with the spear sizing up the battle. He could not sit out the fight without it being taken as a sign of fear, but he seemed to be having a hard time figuring out how to engage in the battle.
After only a few moments hesitation, the warrior with the spear launched himself at the fighter armed with the flail. Merrick wasn’t sure why he did so. Maybe he thought that the one with the flail was the stronger of the two and wanted to team up with the weaker opponent to take him out first.
The spear warrior came in low as the warrior with the chain and mace was starting his latest tirade of swinging attacks against his opponent. Even though Merrick did not think that there was any way the warrior with the flail could have seen his new attacker in time, in one perfectly timed arc, his swing rushed past his opponents face, missing it by just a fraction of an inch before continuing on to connect with the shoulder of the spear warrior as he moved in to attack.
As the spiked ball made contact, its wielder uttered a word that sounded like sparks from a crackling fire, and with a deafening boom, a single bolt of lightning burst through the dining room ceiling and struck the warrior with the spear on the top of his head.
Merrick sat to attention as he recognized the word as being from the Fire Dragon’s tongue. From the looks of those around him, including the Emperor, no one was in doubt as to what type of magic had just been used. The warrior with the katana floated slowly backwards, away from the flail-wielding fighter whose face also seemed to show surprise and shock at what had just happened.
The man who had just been struck by the lightning floated limply in the air. The smell of burning flesh filled the dining room.
The Emperor’s face reddened, and he shouted a word that made the two warriors scurry to grab the lifeless body and then return to the dining room floor. The other warrior whom the spear warrior had previously bested also descended slowly to the floor.
Together the three warriors fell down on their knees and bowed their bodies completely forward—their fallen comrade in a heap by their side. Each of them extended their arms forward and held their respective weapons in their upturned palms.
“Forgive me, Ard Righ,” the Emperor said. “I ordered that the wards be deactivated for the top half of this room so that the warriors could have full reign to use their magic as they saw fit.”
“With all due respect,” Merrick said quietly, “that doesn’t explain how your warrior was able to use Fire Dragon magic. I recognize the command he spoke. Is it possible that he was using a hidden piece of divinium from the Fire Tribe?”
“I do not know, Ard Righ,” the Emperor said. “But he has shamed this house and blasphemed against the Wind Dragon, Araki.”
Merrick kept a straight face, but was amazed as what a practiced liar and actor the Emperor was, as he pretended to know nothing about what had just happened.
Now Merrick knew for sure that the Wind Family not only had the missing Rune Corp cube, but that they had also figured out how to use it.
The best he could guess was that the cube was actually inside the spiked ball connected to the chain.
“That man is dead, Merrick,” Mona said as she leaned over to Merrick. “I thought thi
s was supposed to be a demonstration?”
Merrick heard Mona, but he was too busy staring at the warriors and the flail that was still glowing in the warrior’s outstretched hands.
The Emperor stood and walked over to his men, a scowl set on his young face.
He addressed the warrior with the spear and the one with the katana by their names, telling them to exit the dining room and to take the dead warrior with them—that they would be reprimanded at a later time.
“Kanjun,” the Emperor said to the warrior still holding the flail. “Stand before me and accept your punishment.”
The warrior sprang to his feet in a single fluid movement. He stood in front of the Emperor with his arms at his side and his head bowed.
“You have disgraced and shamed your Emperor and the Fuugoshujin,” the Emperor said, “by taking the life of one of your fellow warriors and by uttering the foul language of a dragon other than our honorable Araki in these halls. You know there is only one punishment for these acts. Since you have served me well in the past, I will give you once chance to end your corporeal existence honorably.”
The warrior nodded a single time, his lips pursed.
He fell to his knees again, closed his eyes, and mumbled a few phrases that sounded like sad wisps of wind winding across a desert floor. The warrior reached into the back of his battle suit and returned with a dagger that looked like a shortened version of the katana the other warrior had used in battle.
He placed the tip of his divinium blade against his abdomen and held onto the dagger with both hands.
Merrick remained silent, unsure of what he could say to stay the warrior’s self-execution.
Before Merrick could speak, the kneeling warrior opened his eyes and pushed the dagger into his abdomen, cut through his stomach with a slash to the left and finished with a cut upwards. He left the dagger in his body and placed his hands on the tops of his thighs as his body bled out.
The Equilibrium of Magic Page 20
