Wild Arms: The Dee Legacy
By Robin “JChance” MacLachlan
Chapter 4: Truth's Light Hurts the Eyes
The two Elw and three humans sat on the porch surrounding Vassim's studio, drinking something that, from the three's expressions, was rather unlike the human concept of tea. The alchemist, now in fresh robes with his long hair unrestrained except by his unusual stiffly outstretched ears, turned to them apologetically. “Yes, I am aware it tastes rather dreadful, but it is not merely a social grace. It binds heavy metals in the blood. Zed is unhealthy company when injured.” Only at this did Connie do more than pretend to drink it, instead trying to gulp it as quickly as possible.
Anne smirked. “Guess medicine stays nasty no matter how almighty advanced you get. Anyway, you were saying?”
Vassim cleared his throat, and went back to staring into his cup. “They could have hidden themselves perfectly, but their beliefs seem to compel them to attempt to make this planet hostile to your kind. I have been attempting to find such disturbances, and trace them back along the leylines to their origin.”
William took a sip, doing his best to look as if he was enjoying it. “So...they're making Filgaia's energies human-hostile. It sounds like something that would get the Guardians upset, certainly. But where have you traced it so far?”
“All I have
determined is that the origin is somewhere in the northern half of the
southeast continent, somewhere within the former
Connie slammed down her cup. “That's right near the Baskar Colony--talk about ungrateful! We'd've been happy to see them...well, if they kept their mouth shut. Just thinking about that little jerk...” She clenched her fists and teeth as she recalled Kalam's unpleasantness.
Lully winced at the memory as well. Being sealed within the circle had been akin to losing his eyes for the hours he had been held. “Yes...let us hope that there are a few cooler heads among them.”
“Indeed,” William concurred, finally reaching the bottom of the unpleasant infusion. “How close are you to pinpointing it well enough for us to travel there?”
“Assuming that I can maintain a steady rate of increase in precision, and no further interruptions occur...” He looked back towards the door and Zed. “Some time tomorrow.”
William nodded, but Anne looked at Vassim archly. “OK, long as your food doesn't taste like your tea. And no zonking us out, we can sleep just fine on our own.”
Vassim looked back somewhat fuddledly. “Obviously not. He is simply a rather difficult patient. For all his apparent self-regard, he takes so little care with himself, and so much with others...”
The rest of the day passed with each in their own pursuits. Anne ran through sword-forms, and Connie practiced the Elw language, known to the Baskar but as a fixed ceremonial tongue, with Lully and Vassim whenever they were not occupied with the search or some abstruse alchemical text. The books called to William too, but he resisted; instead, he followed Connie's earlier example and walked on the wall surrounding the house, ARM in hand, trying to get a feel for his body. The need for balance and the knowledge of the fall that could result brought him somewhat into the moment, but frustratingly often his mind still drifted off into curlicues of thought, and more than once he barely saved himself when a foot slipped off.
He kept at this until Vassim emerged to announce that supper was on. It was a sort of stew containing vegetables and egg, and unusually spiced. For this last, he offered thanks to William's aunt and her compatriots for reopening relations with the rest of Filgaia. A thousand years without spices, he said, was far too long. A bit later, laughter erupted from him and Lully after Connie asked for something in Elw.
“What's so funny about the water pitcher?” Connie asked, confused and a bit irritated.
“That...was not exactly what you asked for,” Lully answered, still amused. “You asked...roughly...for me to throw the toilet.”
Connie couldn't help giggling too. “Not too bad for my first day speaking it for real...”
The next day dawned mistily, but William was up with the shaded sun, unlike his female companions. He could keep himself from Vassim's library no longer. As he came down the stairs, he found both Elw already awake, or still--he wasn't going to disturb them at their work to find out. Instead, he pulled a book from the shelves, almost at random, and quickly became engrossed. It was a history of old Terra, and he lost himself in the rise and fall of empires, people's changing ways and their constant nature, until Vassim began exclaiming excitedly in a most un-Elw-like manner. This brought the other two down in a hurry as well, and the three together clamoured for the result.
When Vassim's ears stopped twitching from the din, he pointed to a spot on a projection of Filgaia's globe. “The influence originates here. Almost due north of the Leypoint of Time, in an old Guardian Lord shrine on the coast.”
“An
ill-omened one, if I do not mistake it for another,” Lully
added. “It was the site of a terrible
battle before that, and though Courage and Desire were ever to hand, Love and
Hope would barely answer. It was
abandoned long before the fall of the
“Sounds like they're playing the bad guys to the hilt...”, Connie commented.
“They are Elw,” was Lully's cryptic response.
This led to a puzzled silence for some moments, until understanding dawned on William's face. “Good or bad, you live like Vasquez wanted us to.”
“Yes...ever attendant to meaning. Mother always told me Doctor Emilio was a wise man,” Vassim said with a smile, “although eccentric even for a prophet.”
“I don't think 'villain' is the meaning they're going for, though,” William said to Connie, drawing a look of insulted intelligence.
Lully took one last look at the projection and turned away. “It seems rather...they see their only hope in the fulfillment of their hostile wish. We should start moving again before its influence begins to cause suffering.”
Vassim made a wry face. “I am afraid that you will have to take the more difficult way back. My patient, impatient as ever, departed earlier this morning, and the boat is still somewhere in mid-crossing.”
“Isn't that wonderful,” Anne grumbled. “Wish we could just whistle up another one...”
Lully was more optimistic. “If luck is with us, it should not be too great a delay--the mage-apes can take us through the Forest Prison quickly, if there is one near the entrance.”
Shortly, Vassim saw them off. “My prayers go with you, guided ones,” he said as they departed, then less formally, “Please convey my regards to my sister when you return, and tell her I shall be visiting soon. My shame has imprisoned me long enough.”
“His sister's in the real world?”, Anne asked, confused.
“Yes, and for a long time she was the only one,” William answered. “He's the Gardener's older brother.”
Connie tripped over her own boot, flabbergasted. “You mean...”
“Yes, Mariel. She started the Baskar movement, didn't she?”
“Yeah, it's like...” Like having one of the Guardians speak to you out of nowhere. Like running into the Migrant King...although he had become a menace. Like finding the secrets of John Dee. “Like the Guardians are taking us on a tour of all the legends.”
This brought a smile out of Lully. “It would seem they have their whimsies...or, considering the depth of the synchronicities involved, the Powers set, for this world's purposes, above even them.”
Soon, they passed two simple but eternally-burning candle-lanterns at the edge of the forest in which the Elw imprisoned monsters that had crept into their world. Though the day had cleared outside it, the eldritch wood was ever-covered in fog. Some Power or another seemed to be having a joke at the travellers' expense--no ape was in sight, even when Lully hooted a greeting into the trees. “I was an ape, I wouldn't want to live here,” Anne said with a raised eyebrow. “Y'all...I mean Fulcanelli's bunch...seal 'em in here on accident?”
Lully shook his head. “We respect our ancestors more than that, at least. They are free to go, and most dwell here by choice. For all its dangers, it reminds them of their home--and they often find the security of our life dull.”
“Speaking of danger...” Connie looked to the Elw. “I know this is an adventure and all, but you got anything in your bag of tricks to keep us out of it?”
Lully nodded, and began to weave a spell--a subtler one, summoning up probabilities rather than raw power. Under its protection, he led them forth along winding ways that, it soon became apparent, respected no ordinary geometry. William had heard the labyrinth described in his aunt's tales, but still he was awed at the convolutions of space which the everpresent mist concealed. For hours, their enchanted fortune held; they saw few monsters, and these few remained unaware of their presence.
Then, Lully stumbled, and put a hand to his head, face twisted with a soul-deep pain. “Two...two are coming. True demons, not the metal men they once served...my spell is nothing before their malign will...” Then he collapsed, twitching in agony. The creatures hovered into view, misshapen octopoid abominations, almost absurd if it were not for the obscene aura that seemed to darken the mist around them. Though they did not share the acuity of their stricken guide's psychic senses, the three humans could feel the presence prying into themselves as well, reaching for every fear, every doubt, every sorrow they might possess. For a moment that seemed as long as their journey, they stood frozen as the monsters approached.
Then Connie's hand shakingly fastened on one bead, of a clear glass that seemed to return more light than it collected. “Stea Roh...”, she called in a pleading voice of shaken faith, and something answered faintly. The pressure lightened slightly, like the spot where the sun attempts to push through heavy cloud. Anne seemed to fight it off best--her stricken face turned to anger, and her gloved fists clenched with a squeak of leather. Then, at once, her sabre rang as it seemed to jump from its sheath to a ready position, and her lariat flew out, snaring the nearer of the creatures. With a cry, she yanked it closer and lunged forward, sword already beginning a deadly arc...but no foul blood met the air. In her rage, she had failed to notice the power swirling around the other monstrosity, and just before her blade struck home, it loosed the spell with a mad scream. Spheres of dark energy appeared from nowhere to pin her in place, and as they began to flow together along her body, she screamed.
With the abominations occupied and their comrade in distress, the other two sprang back into motion. William began to take aim, fighting shakes as the bow sprang from his staff. Connie continued the prayer she had begun, but somehow differently from other times. The Force she had been trying for in the past few days came to her as never before, and instead of merely touching a deep part of her soul as they usually did, the words filled her completely. And then they changed of their own accord, pouring forth in an unexpected pattern instead of the familiar litany. The spell--and her whole consciousness--ceased to be a faint contact with the sun-Guardian's power, and instead she felt its entire self approaching from deep within her, moving towards a union of human and divine. Something like the elytra of a beetle bulged under the back of her shirt, and her skin shifted, shaping itself to plates of red chitin in imitation of the great scarab's armour. Then a light shone through the cloth in front, and it rose of its own accord to reveal not a human belly, but a miniature of Filgaia's sun. An irresistible blast of white radiance leapt from the sphere, burning away the last of the malign aura and washing over the demons, who smoked and shriveled under it.
Screeching, the beasts flew madly upward. Connie tilted her body back to keep the searing light on them, but they moved quickly enough that only its edge caught them. The black stuff binding Anne guttered like a blown candle, but remained.
William by now had a bead on the monster that had cast the spell, but was uncertain he could keep it. He struggled for to find the unity within himself, against awe, against the sympathetic pain the still-screaming Anne inspired, against the weakness the psychic onslaught had left behind. Then he let the struggle itself drop to the back of his mind, and it was there. He was one with his body, one with the ARM, one with the shining arrow it fired. As the arrow, he did not merely fly straight--he arced up to meet the fiend, piercing it in a burst of black blood and passing through, then looping through its companion and back into the first creature, like Duras Drum's own sewing needle. Finally, even the energy of his feeling could give it no more impetus, and it remained in the lassoed creature...until Connie's light bathed the wounded monstrosities full-on and burned them back into nightmare.
Anne thrust her blade into the ground to stay on her feet as the spell shattered. Though she felt as if her bones froze her from within, even the tiny ones in her ears, she would not be brought down. The stainless-steel bolt dropped into the fallen leaves, followed by the black, smoking rope. Then something else struck the ground. Connie, the last of the insect-armour fading back into her skin, had fallen to her hands and knees, breathing heavily. Where her right hand had landed, a circle in the soil glowed beneath the leaves, and gathered itself smaller and brighter until with a final flash it became a fragment of a stone tile. Slowly, she sat back on her feet and brought her head up, holding tightly to the partial Medium. Though drained and drawn, her face also held a strange triumph, of knowing some secret that could not be communicated. “I'll have to do that again...but not yet.” She fell over sideways, onto Lully's legs.
William, the least drained of the four, ran stumblingly over to help her up. After it was certain that she would not fall again, he extended a hand to Lully...but the Elw instead struggled to a sitting position and meditated briefly, a sonorous monosyllable of a mantra echoing through the woods a few times. He then took the hand and pulled himself easily to his feet, as if nothing had happened at all. “I am recovered. I suspect Miss Hardin is more injured than she realises, though...” He walked to her side and pronounced a healing incantation...but she kept a distinctly sour look as the spell sparkled over her. She did muster a more pleasant look, if a forced one, as she turned to her bosses. “Nice going there, kids. Good thing you listened. But try not to burn my next rope, OK?” The look faded, and she muttered something incomprehensible.
Her blade stayed out as they went on. Lully, meanwhile, could not stop being impressed with Connie. He kept looking at her as if he expected her to change again at any moment, and after a while spoke up. “It is...rather unbelievable. I am travelling with someone the Guardians chose to give the shaman's gift of embodiment...”
Connie giggled. “Yeah, me and the Chief...Wonder what they'll think. Haven't exactly been a shining example of the Baskar code...”
Lully thought. “Gifts come to those who require them. And, more often than not, that means those who walk far from a settled path. I do wonder what your Chief was like at your age...”
This conversation went on, but William was not paying attention. He was watching Anne, who, despite having her sabre at the ready, seemed less to be looking out for danger than turned inward in some unpleasant contemplation. When she began viciously slashing at nothing, he was compelled to speak. “Did the fog do something to you personally?”, he asked, smiling lamely.
“Not the fog, life. Must look really bad if it's made you start tellin' jokes.”
“Sorry...I've never been good at it. I just...want to know what's wrong. I know that dark spells cut a lot more deeply than just physical pain...”
“Pain's pain. Been hurt before, know how to deal with it. Don't worry, Boss, you'll still get your money's worth.”
“That's not...I'm really worried about you! You can't...can't take a trip like this without starting to care about people.”
She turned to him, heedless that her swordpoint swept far too close under his chin. “Fine. If lettin' you play priest is part of the job description...I was useless back there.”
William's worry only deepened. “No, you weren't! And we wouldn't have gotten this far without you. We watch each other's backs.”
“Yeah, and now you and Flynn are growin' into your destinies or some crap like that, and you'll keep me around outta gratitude. Thanks.”
“No! Just because we've gotten a little stronger...” He floundered for words. “We'll still depend on you.”
“Depending. Silver spoon like you'd be used to that, wouldn't you?”
William couldn't help a note of satisfaction peering through his concern. “Now we're getting closer to the real story.”
Anne's blade jumped closer to his face. “You think I'm not being honest?!”
William flinched but held his ground. “Of course I don't. I just think this is something older than today. Those things dragged up memories I didn't know I had.”
This seemed not to sink in. “You ought to know that's the danger in gettin' chummy with the help. You might actually get an honest answer.”
By now, he sounded desperate. “You're not just 'the help'! You were right, a moment ago. I'm used to being weak, and getting away with it. But it's because of you...on your example...that I'm trying to get stronger. You're the reason I think I can get to the end of this.”
Anne was surprised but unconvinced. “I thought that was Rigdobrite.”
“Rigdobrite started me on this journey, and convinced me that it was important. But...you were the one who made me think that I could make my own chances, that there was hope beyond one miracle after another. And...I want to be able to do something for you. More than anything.”
She finally put away the sword, expression rather off-balance. “OK, you can start by stopping with the speeches and listening.”
William nodded, looking as if he were holding his mouth shut with enormous effort.
“I wasn't but two years older than Flynn when I left home,” she began. “Parents about dropped their teeth. And you know what they said to my back? 'Little girl like you won't make it on your own.' And I kept hearin' it. 'You're a girl.' 'You're too young.' 'You can't use an ARM.' Even from other Wanderers, folks who ought to understand. And I proved 'em wrong, every time...till today.”
William chanced a question. “But...didn't you and your comrades watch out for each other?”
“Sure, but we each pulled our own too. And look where it got 'em. Dead. Thought I could make it good with you two, help out two kids gettin' in over their heads.”
“And you have, and you still will. You've been out there what, five years?” This got a nod. “Connie's only been on the road three, one on her own. And I've been playing Wanderer with all kinds of resources behind me. Sticking with 'help' who were just that until I got close enough to start working.”
“Still doesn't change the fact that you pulled my ass out of the fire today. That goes down hard.”
“No, we didn't just. Even then...if you hadn't attacked, we couldn't have even moved.”
“Nice. So I'm a wooden duck, 'cept I don't fix with putty. Great to know.”
William sighed. “I don't know if it'll help, but...since the day we met you, to me it hasn't been Valeria and Flynn, and you off to the side. It's been the three of us together.”
She relaxed, a little, though her confidence seemed still shaken. “It does. Guess I know how you felt when you asked how the hell you were supposed to retrain.”
By now, the other two had stopped talking, and were paying close attention--Lully with a mild curiosity, Connie absorbed yet impatient. She seemed back to her normal energy. “Nothing wrong with courting or whatever, but can you do it and walk?” “Lully says we're almost out of here.” This got her a dirty look from the two, William's distinctly red-faced. Still, they fell into line behind Lully again, and he led them on, towards a faint glimmer they could just see through the trees.
Back in the heat of the Filgaian summer, two figures stepped off a small screw-steamer flying the flag of Gil-Galad Railways onto the quays of Port Noble, a few days away from Adlehyde. Shortly after, a creaking cart followed them down the gangway. An inattentive observer could have thought it moved under its own power, although it was simple and weathered, about as far from a rich man's horseless toy as one could get. A sharper eye would see that, instead of steam or electricity, its motive power came from traces leading to a pair of small round machines, each with a single eye-lens and a pair of rounded feet. It accelerated to what seemed a dangerous pace as it passed along the sloping plank, and only by bracing themselves against the wheels with a dreadful screech of metal on metal could the twin orbs prevent it from speeding right off the pier. Rudy winced and put a hand to his head. “One, Zero, it's just gravity. You don't have to yell about it every time.”
“Behave, you little bastards,” Jane grumped in their general direction. “He's got enough to think about.” And think they both had, with no easy conclusion, about Rudy's enigmatic and deadly “brother.”
The railroad agent had preferred not to think about any of it. He'd paled and looked sick when he came upon the scene of Eric Cook's death, and turned his back on the sight with a weak smile. “Remind me never to piss you off,” he'd said, though the signs of combat were still clear, and cut a cheque on the spot, eager to see the Wanderers' backs. They'd sailed from the tunnel camp the same day.
As the cart rumblesqueaked off the pier, Jane cast a look at a stone tower further down the waterfront. “While we're here, think we should drop in on old Bart?” Two fishing poles protruded from an open window high on the seaward side of the tower, indicating that the former skipper of the Sweet Candy, now “retired” to an appointment as Port Noble's harbourmaster, was present.
Rudy thought for a moment, and nodded. “Sure. But we ought to drop by the wire office too, and tell Emma about...him.”
“You're cute when you brood, Blue, but you can't do it all the time. We'll be seeing her in a couple days--why waste the money?”
He couldn't help his mind drifting to the contents of the cart at this. Most of the boxes and trunks were Jane's, acquired on their travels; he could only really claim one heavy ARM, a few personal treasures, some spare clothes, and the small black cat who looked down magisterially from the top of the pile. But he did not comment; Jane was sincere enough, and the orphanage at Seim had become home to more and more found children from all over Filgaia as the years had passed. He shrugged and let it go.
At almost the same time, in the forest clearing south of Rosetta, four other travellers flashed into place under the hot sun. After a moment of squinting and shading eyes, the second-tallest spoke from under her brown hat. “Ears, you still haven't told me. Why no wings? Just feel like takin' a sail this time?”
“Perhaps they'd be too easy to detect?” This voice came, of course, from under a straw hat that sat slightly lower. “They must use a lot of energy.”
The bareheaded Elw shook his head, long hair swishing over his back. “That is true, but Vassim has also provided us a faster...way?” He was fishing around in the bag over his shoulder, looking confused.
“These?” The smallest member of the party held up a cloth pouch filled with some sort of round objects about the size of shooter marbles, grinning.
Lully looked at her oddly. “Yes, Teleport Gems preset with the location. But...why...”
“Practice.” Connie gave the bag an easy lob back towards its owner. Lully caught it, and passed out the red spheres. One by one, the gems glowed brightly, and their holders disappeared in a swirling red light.
The transition was rather more dizzying than the gate into the Elw world, more swirling like a blown leaf than simply shifting. The light deposited them, somewhat unsteady on their feet, atop a sand dune fringed with sea-grasses. “So where is it?”, Connie asked.
“A few miles in that direction,” Lully replied, pointing inland. This was greeted with three exasperated and confused looks, so he attempted to explain. “We did not think it was prudent to teleport three humans into their area of strongest influence.”
“You could've told us!”, Connie said sharply.
“Last I heard, that's what a guide's supposed to do...but I guess it's still the fastest way, 'less you can magic up a couple horses.” Anne looked at him questioningly. At this point, she wouldn't be too surprised.
“Sadly, no.” Lully began walking, and the rest followed. The going should have been easy--the slope was gradual, and the ground solid and grassy rather than shifting or overgrown. Still, though Lully strolled on easily, the three humans found themselves opposed by the elements themselves; an unseasonably cold wind blew in their faces, and seemed to knit the grass ahead of them into snares for their feet. More disturbingly, a weakness seemed to creep up from the very ground into them--they were assailed by an unreasonable fatigue, and a strange not-quite-pain like the earliest stages of an illness. A few times, Lully, unasked, cast a spell to restore their strength, but each time it slipped away quickly to leave them more depleted. First William, then the women, began to stumble under the by now familiar weight of their packs.
“Gurdjieff's teeth!”, Anne exclaimed. “Either Flynn's been stuffing junk into my pack, or those runts are gettin' us good.”
Connie smiled up at her through her own strain. “You gripe first. Wouldn't have laid odds on that.”
“Got twice the load you do, halfpint...”
Lully looked back to them gravely. “I fear that the second supposition was correct. I hoped that your endurance would see us through, but now I only see one good option...”
“What's that?”, William asked, throwing off his pack.
“Summoning,” Lully answered.
Connie suddenly looked interested. “Which Guardian?”
“None of them. Their names and natures are as old as life, but our faith gave them body.”
“So...you're going to call up what they're doing into a physical form?” William sounded as if he wasn't quite certain how this would help.
Lully, in turn, sounded apprehensive. “Yes...one that you can defeat once to disrupt the effect around you, instead of being forced to fight it at every step.”
“Good deal,” Connie said, dropping her own burden. “So what's got you worried?”
“...You might call it an all-or-nothing gamble. I can only hold the summoning for a limited time. If that time expires while the manifestation is still whole, there will be...a strong backlash.”
Anne looked at him suspiciously as her pack joined the others. “Strong. How strong?”
“Enough that nothing nearby will likely survive that is not native to Filgaia. ”
Anne looked daggers at the Elw. “Bad deal. Stupid, more like. Didn't you say it wasn't that far?”
Lully's look turned more conflicted. “We are less than halfway, and rest will not relieve you. Our only other option is to teleport away and make another attempt--although their working only grows stronger with time.”
Anne said nothing, only exhaling sharply, her expression exasperated. William began, weary feet aside, to pace, muttering about the various possibilities. After a little of this, Connie had had enough.
“Listen!” She looked sharply between the two. “Those kids get their way, and all of Filgaia ends up like this. So...we're betting us three against everybody's life. And we beat those things back in the forest. We can't fold now.”
The two stayed silent, still undecided. Connie pressed further. “It's the same damn thing we've been doing all along, right? You just can't pretend you're immortal this time.”
Anne snorted. “Kid, shouldn't I be telling you that?”
Connie couldn't help but smile. “Yeah. You should. So...”
William answered next. “As long as...Lully, can you give us a boost one more time and still hold the summoning?” The Elw nodded and repeated the chant. A wave of relief washed over the humans, although they could already feel the land's distorted will eating away at its edge.
Then he stepped away from them, and began to work an elaborate spell. Unlike what they had seen him do before, it involved circles and sigilli, although he traced them in the air with glowing energy instead of inscribing them in the earth. As he worked, a figure began to fade in inside the largest circle--something tall and spindly, vaguely humanoid and very spiky. Though its face was featureless, there was still a strong suggestion of Elw ears. It grew more solid, beginning to look as if it were made of stone and plant matter instead of being a mere thickening in the air. William couldn't help staring at its bladelike “hands”, and thinking of the overwheming power it represented. He finally turned away, towards the others. “We can't act like we're each fighting it on our own this time. We--”
“Got to work together.” Anne looked up to the sky. “Guardians, Powers, whoever...I get the damn message.” She looked back down to the younger Wanderers. “I figure I can keep it off you without those pigstickers doin' too much damage. That should let you two cut loose on it.”
Connie looked thoughtful for a moment, and turned towards William. “Hey, you're the big brain here...which Guardian'd put the biggest dent in it?”
William looked back at the solidifying being. “With what it does...I think Rigdobrite would be its natural opposite. Fengalon might help, if you don't--”
“I do.” She held up a bead made of meteoritic iron. “Don't know if I can just embody it like that, though...”
“Doesn't casting help you build up focus? Maybe you could slow it down...”
Anne checked on Lully's progress and found the summoning almost complete, the being now solid enough to press down the grass under its feet. “You ought to start now, and throw it right as the thing starts moving. Something's trying to tell me to take all the help I can get. And, William, back up. I trust your eye a lot more than your speed.”
They took up their positions--Anne close to the circle with sword drawn, Connie close behind her and a bit to the side, William farther off in the other direction. Flynn took hold of her necklace and began to call on Gurdjieff; the other two listened, eyes on the monster, letting the holy words lead them into Force.
Lully's chant finished loudly, and the main circle vanished. He fell into concentration, maintaining the working; meanwhile, the monster wasted no time in charging towards the three “aliens” in its territory. Connie finished her spell, holding the bead overhead--power swirled around and into the entity, and its advance slowed. Anne moved to meet it, jabbing it right where its face should be. It thrust both of its blade-hands at her; she dodged one and pulled her sword free in time to parry the other--but it suddenly grew longer, cutting her arm. As far into Force as she was, she did not even flinch; the pain was simply another thing in her awareness. She was also aware of hearing Connie begin to chant again as she backed off from the growing weapons, shifting her tactic to attacking the blades themselves and turning aside, bullfighter-fashion, when they sped her way.
William, though he kept his aim steady, was having trouble not letting Anne's fight occupy his mind and draw him out of Force's awareness. Again, struggling directly against it was just another distraction--after a moment, he instead focused himself on his ARM. Force returned, and with it an idea. Within the weapon, he could feel not just the one bolt ready to fire, but all of them. Something suggested that they could all be treated as one, the first's motion passed to the rest to fire a single overwhelming salvo.
Then, as his bowstring was halfway drawn and Connie's words began to take a life of their own, all hell broke loose. It did so subtly at first--a spike on the monster's neck began to sparkle with arcane energies. In her heightened awareness, Anne knew exactly whre it was aimed--directly at the entranced young girl. She turned and dove for Connie, heedless that one of the blades grazed her back. She tackled the girl aside as an enervating beam shot over them; this too brought its share of pain, as Connie's skin was by now made of star-stone. Her head was, bizarrely, growing, and the “third eye” of sorcerers' jargon becoming literal in the form of a crystal lens. Then one more feature of Rigdobrite's came into view from beneath them--a segmented tail speeding to intercept the monster's suddenly-stretching arm, wrapping around it just before its bladed end speared them both. Then the lens flared to life, and something flared into the sky. Where it shone, the images of the stars showed clearly in the blue, and a smaller beam shot from each in turn to pierce the creature, making it ripple like water.
However, its other arm had not been idle. It had stretched all the way to William, who intercepted it with his staff in a textbook block--unfortunately, with the intent to fire still in his mind. All five bolts screamed not merely upward but away from the target. For a moment, all seemed lost--but he could still feel his consciousness extending to the errant projectiles, and brought them looping back towards the enemy. They fell upon it, two pinning the absurdly extended arms to the ground, the others forming a neat triangle in the centre of its chest, still glowing. As with the star-beams, it rippled around them. It also began to weave instead of standing steady, and victory for a moment seemed imminent--but still it stood, struggling to free itself, energy again crackling over its spikes. Worse, William could see that Lully too had become unsteady on his feet from the effort of maintaining it.
Anne, back on her feet, could see too. A desperation sprang into her mind, fueled by the doubt that had haunted her since the demons in the forest--but also an anger. That she wasn't--they weren't--good enough to defeat it. That they had chosen the challenge that was looking to be their last. That a bunch of stupid superhuman brats had made it all necessary. None of this broke her awareness, though, but rather lay under it. And it was a power she could tap, with a ready target at hand. She closed with the wounded thing almost too fast to register, and slashed at it again and again, feeling as if the edge of her blade was her anger itself. Then it fell backwards, breaking away from its arms, seeming to boil away from the last few cuts. As it vanished, there was a sense of something rushing outward under her feet, pushing back the place's hostile aura. Only then did she stop slashing at the air where it had been.
As Force faded, Anne grimaced and swore, as much at her sword hand as at her wounds. She sheathed the blade and worked her fingers to diffuse the soreness, looking to first Lully, then Connie. “Either of you up to...guess not.” The Elw was breathing heavily and bracing his hands against his knees to stay upright; the girl, back to her normal shape, was still on the ground, another part-Medium forming where her right hand lay.
Anne headed back to her pack. “Tch. Magic makes you lazy...” She unslung her canteen from it, and after some rummaging turned up tape and gauze.
William, walking back to his own gear, stopped halfway and looked, disturbed, at the blood on her shirt. “I should've...” At his voice, Connie tilted her head back to look at them upside down.
Anne put the things down on top of her pack, and pulled off her gloves. “Hung back and shot it, like you did. It took all of us. Listen to yourself, you might learn something.” She turned back away, undid the flap and placket of her shirt, and pulled her arms out to let it hang from her belt. For once, William seemed too focused on her injuries to be embarrassed except for a momentary start.
The arm cut was easy--Anne washed off the wound, then folded a piece of gauze, stuck it onto a length of tape, and wrapped it around with the speed of too-frequent experience. Her back, on the other hand, would be a pain...well, a good bit higher than the ass, actually. Unless... She looked between the two irritatingly idle sets of eyes aimed at her. “One of you two want to help out, or you just want to wait and see if I take the rest off?”
Connie did her best to force a “wouldn't you like to know” smirk through the blissful exhaustion that followed Embodiment. William, on the other hand, predictably blushed, but came forward to take the tape and gauze.
The girl's voice was certainly recovered. “I wouldn't trust his hands if I was you...” William fumbled the tape, just barely catching it before it dropped to the ground. After just long enough to ensure that he absolutely wished he were never born, she clarified. “They've been shaking since he saw you got cut.”
The scholar's embarrassment faded to annoyance. “I doubt yours would be any better...if you could get up.”
Connie pulled a face, but it soon dissolved into a look of pride. “Heh, looks like, with us around, little Billy's growing up.”
Anne tipped the canteen over her shoulder, spilling more water down her back than was strictly necessary. Still, it got the job done. “I remember right, 'little Billy' was going to patch me up instead of standing there talkin'.”
“Oh. Sorry.” He set to work.
The place looked more like a fortress than a temple, William thought as they approached it. It was a low and windowless octagon of stone, and its decorations had been picked clean long ago. The air seemed to thicken to stop them as two children rushed out bearing scythes longer than they were tall; one of them was chanting. The spell stopped in a hurry as they grew closer, the fearful anger in their eyes turning to outright shock as their subtler senses registered William's blessing.
A quick exchange in Elw passed between them and Lully, its tone one of strained formality. It ended with what sounded like a grudging assent, and the children let Lully lead the three humans into their sanctum, though they walked behind with ready weapons and sharp eyes. Anne's hand kept starting to drift across towards her left hip, and it was clearly an effort of will to keep it off her blade's hilt. She turned to William and spoke quietly. “Feel to you like we just got captured?”
“Kind of,” he whispered back, “but...I don't think they'll give us too much trouble as long as Rigdobrite's guiding me.” It had not just been the guards who reacted strongly--awe and confusion appeared on the face of almost every child they passed.
Anne couldn't help noticing that many of them retained anger even so, as if it were a personal betrayal that the Guardian had chosen a human. “Better pray he keeps it up...”
“He will,” Connie chimed in, seemingly all confidence. She walked along with a carefully inoffensive bearing, hands clasped behind her back--a shirttail's thickness away from her knife.
As they passed through the building, it became harder to focus on the tense situation; the walls were adorned with spectacular, new-looking murals showing...a certain view of Filgaia's history. Only small calendrical glyphs corrected, for example, the impression that the humans' declaration of war did not follow shortly on their arrival. The peace of ten years later did not follow, but only the humans fighting, and the Elw fading, over and over again. Lully clearly found the images even more bizarre than William did, but also seemed on the edge of a bitter laughter. This rapidly became a greater source of curiosity than the skewed history on the walls, and the lop-eared guide finally delivered an answer directly to the travellers' minds. “They truly are children--they do not care that their incomplete calendars shall be highly confusing in some 1700 years...eh?”
What brought
him up short was one of the last completed murals--it appeared to depict a
truce between humans and Elw, but, according to its
glyph, only four centuries before the present.
William stopped dead to consider the oddity, and Connie cut her stride
short to avoid walking squarely into him.
Anne went one step futher than the scholar,
and turned to see just what had held him up.
Their guards separated and passed them to flank her, with a look of
suspicious impatience. After a moment,
William passed a hand over his face and shook his head. “Of course! There've always been stories that Elw brokered the peace when Adlehyde
and the
“Heroic...effort-waste,”
one of the guards piped in a thick accent, waving his scythe down the
hallway. As they started moving again,
William couldn't bring himself to argue.
Between the war's cost and their losses in the final settlement, the
Although there was a blank prepared surface visible around a corner, the images came to a bitter end with one marked to represent a century and a half before--a single infant surrounded by resigned faces, aligned with the other images' motif of the old race's decline. Valeria could not help but find this ironic--that the long barrenness before the Elw's recent revival would be lamented by those born after. Connie didn't miss this either--she looked between the image and a passing child, and pulled a face. “Some people just want their damn grudge.”
This earned her an anguished whisper of “Diplomacy!” from William, but this was forgotten as they finally entered the central chamber--and walked in on an argument. Their old “friend” Kalam was wildly gesticulating as he faced an impatient but more composed girl; every now and then an audible word would slip out, but most of the dispute was apparently going directly from mind to mind, giving the proceedings the impression of a bizarre pantomime. Several other young Elw, more than they had yet seen in one place, stood looking at them disconcertedly.
Kalam caught one glimpse of the three and ended the performance by quite nearly backing into a wall before he excused himself to another room. The girl, on the other hand, turned to look William in the eye, speaking up with little accent. “I am Emia; as close as we desperate children have to a leader. I will not lie and say you are welcome here, but I can see the Guidance about you. What would the Guardians have with us?”
For a moment, William froze. This was it--the culmination of the purpose for which he had been called, his chance to save Filgaia. Or doom it, the thought. But...the children were just beginning their work. Surely, if he failed, there would be another chance. Still, he couldn't be sure. And, more than that, it was only by Rigdobrite's favour that he had made it here. He had to reward that faith.
After what seemed to him an eternity of staring into the middle distance, his eyes met Emia's. “They've sent me...to tell you the truth. All of you. The truth a wise man wrote long ago, about the war between our peoples, and the destruction that will come if...if the planet's power is turned on any of her children.”
Emia looked back resignedly. “They sent you, so we will listen. But if that is your best eloquence, I doubt even They can win you many minds here.” Both women tensed, and, diplomacy be damned, drew sharp breaths to retort; however, they were interrupted by a growing presence. The Guardian aura surrounding William, until now not easily sensible by humans, had flared up to a point impossible to miss.
Emia spoke up, like
Now the
power did not merely surround him, but also flowed in from one
direction--Connie's. She was slowly
changing into her Rigdobrite form again, without
prayer or warning, crystal pointing straight at William. Then he spoke, the words pouring out from
deep within him, flying past his surface awareness. Some he read from the journals, some were his
own; he could feel they were truly his, not merely the Guardian speaking
through him, and for the first time knew why he was chosen--not merely for his
scholarship, but for his sincerity, his passion for truth and peace. The true story of that war long past poured
forth, of deception and desperation, and the horror of the planet's soul turned
against itself. Through it all ran a passion
to set it right,