Jepaul

by Katy Winter

CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR

  Quon and Knellen coalesced together in northern Shalah where their combined call echoed about a shallow valley. The response was an eerie keening cry that echoed back at them before they saw a dark cloud that blotted out the horizon and almost briefly blackened the sky. A mass approached then hovered or settled above and about the twosome. Quon and Knellen remained quite still. Lesul spat but neither man backed nor flinched.

  “What now, Earth? We answer your call as we said we would.” Lesul’s beady eyes met Quon’s raised to hers. She then eyed Knellen measuringly before adding, “So you find your own, Varen Knellen.” Knellen acknowledged the comment with an inclination of the head. “Who halted your transformation?”

  “Time on the Island,” answered Knellen.

  “And your farsight with premonition?”

  “Mostly under control.”

  “And you, Earth? Answer me!”

  “The final battle approaches, Lesul.”

  “Why should we care?”

  “It is a final battle this time, not as before.”

  “And?”

  “Sh’Bane brought you here.”

  “So?”

  “He brought the metalans and the Nedru.”

  Lesul spat venomously.

  “It wasn’t he who used them against us.”

  “No, that’s true. But you can’t deny he encouraged the Sabbiths to enforce your cooperation and obedience to his and their wills by using them. He didn’t protect you in any way.”

  Angry spits rained down about the two men.

  “We’ve repaid our debt to you Doms for their removal.”

  “But the Sabbiths promised you’d go with them if the battle didn’t go all Sh’Bane’s way.”

  Angry growls greeted this remark and the flapping of enormous wings created a gale that buffeted Quon and Knellen.

  “So they said. We were to return home. They abused us and abandoned us here in desolation for aeons. We are doomed here and eternally trapped.”

  “It may be possible to alter that, Lesul. I said that once before.”

  “Not possible,” mocked Lesul bitterly, a spit barely missing Quon. “We don’t trust you either, even though we said we’d come.”

  “How many times must I tell you we never betrayed you nor abandoned you, though you fought us for so long and with such vigour?”

  “So you say, Earth. Words are easy. Deeds speak more eloquently.”

  “Did we actually harm you?”

  “No.”

  “Did we neutralise then destroy the metalans?”

  “Yes,” came grudgingly.

  “Did we ask you to go into isolation here? And didn’t we try to reach you, many times in the early days, to tell you we meant no harm?”

  “Maybe.”

  “Would you listen?” There was no answer. “Lesul, did we even blame you for your unholy descent on Shalah or for the harm you caused?”

  “Enough, Earth. Our exile here is adequate punishment.”

  “The battle has begun, Lesul.”

  “You made us promise not to harm Shalah again. We’ve kept our promise.”

  “We know and respect that, but now, Lesul, you may no longer need to keep the promise in totality.”

  “You allow us to attack you again? I thought, when he of the Progenitor’s line brought us to you, it was to be in the defence of Shalah. Is that changed?”

  “No, we still ask you to fight with us.”

  “For what? For more of what we’ve endured here for aeons? We’ve had time to reconsider our options, Earth. Maybe you should have asked for our help sooner.”

  “No, Lesul, not to endure more of the same. For the right to go back to where you belong among your own.”

  “You can’t promise that, Earth,” laughed Lesul.

  “I believe we can,” returned Quon. He looked up again, challengingly, and held the beady eyes with a long look of his own. “Sh’Bane’s at the gate. We have already issued the challenge. Battle has begun at Baron/Kelt.”

  “What?”

  “And with him are the Sabbiths, Lesul. They’re back. Now will you believe me?”

  An echoing bellow rang round the valley.

  “The Sabbiths are back?”

  “They’ll soon be on Shalah, yes.”

  “With metalans?”

  “I can’t answer that.”

  “And if we align ourselves with the Elementals of Shalah, what then?”

  “We make you our solemn promise, under an oath if you demand it, that we will try with everything we have to let you through the gate the Sabbiths closed on you. We offered it before. We do, again.”

  “And if you lose?”

  “We die.”

  “And us?”

  “Where you were before.”

  “Sh’Bane will make the Sabbiths punish us.”

  “Is what you now endure any worse?”

  “You play with words at your peril, Earth.”

  “I don’t, Lesul. How could the guardians of Shalah be so foolish?”

  “What then do you ask of us at this moment?”

  “That you come to Baron/Kelt as you did before.”

  “Now?”

  “When we call and that is very, very soon.”

  “We haven’t heard a Maquat call in aeons, Dom. It’ll be a novel experience after so long.”

  “We’re at the gates, Lesul.”

  There was silence at that. The huge head swung from side to side as beady eyes continued to measure Quon speculatively.

  “For the last challenges?”

  “Yes.”

  “Who has the key?”

  “We do.”

  “And the Ariel?”

  “Likewise.”

  “And this Varen who is partly of us?”

  Quon turned his head to Knellen.

  “Show her,” he said simply.

  Knellen became a fawn almost translucent nimbus of light.

  “Earth!” boomed an astonished voice. “Is he Air?”

  “Elemental Air Master, Lesul, yes.”

  “He challenges?”

  “When Wind Dancer does, so will Knellen.”

  “Does Sh’Bane know?”

  “No.”

  “But you’re still only the Four. That’s not good odds, Earth. You lost the Fifth. We were there.”

  “As you know the Fifth is found.”

  “So you’re truly and fully the composite again?”

  “We are.”

  “With no trace of Islasahn?”

  “No. It is only with Jepaul.”

  There was a sudden raucous laugh that didn’t make Knellen or Quon feel inclined to smile in response. It was pure menace. Following the laugh was a long silence before Lesul flexed her wings.

  “We’ll be there, Earth.”

  The Grypans were gone. So were Knellen and Quon.

 

  While the Nedru assault at Baron/Kelt began, the Doms and Companions stood at the base of a winding stair, the treads high and worn, the walls of the passage damp and the roof vaulted. Very pale greenish light filtered into what was almost a tunnel that fanned out at regular intervals then narrowed again. The Doms looked at the shiny edges to the steps, each aware an ordeal they hoped never again to experience actually began. And they also knew that, having uttered the challenge, they now had to go forward and could not return after the first step was taken. They felt a qualm as they looked at Jepaul but he was preoccupied, his eyes on stairs that had haunted him for syns. And he knew, as the other Doms did, that the die was cast, the decision and outcome irrevocable.

  Nor could the Doms traverse the steps together. They had to wait for the result of the conflict at each gate before they could either advance, or retreat defeated, so they milled at the steps, their union very long before it broke. Dancer, his face graven, took the first step with Knellen beside him, Knellen’s face expressionless, his eyes steely. Quon took a deep, quavering breath. Jepaul steadied him.

  �
��I have the key in the Ariel, Quon. Believe, believe.”

  “Jepaul.” Quon’s voice was a caress. “Give them to Dancer.”

  Jepaul complied.

  “Quon,” he murmured, his arm about Quon. “Believe,” he reiterated.

  “Jepaul, young one,” came a soft murmur.

 

  The Doms and Companions watched the steady climb as the two figures became smaller and receded into the distance the higher they went. They all instantly knew the moment the gate was reached. They knew it was partly open and knew, too, the Sabbiths were now through with others from the dark abyss. The steps themselves were mutable, so to reach each gate was a trial in itself. At this time the gates only opened and shut very briefly. It allowed Sh’Bane’s minions through and gave the Nedru occasional access, but the last gate, where Sh’Bane waited expectantly, was tightly closed.

  It took Knellen and Dancer time before they climbed the last circling staircase that led to the first gate. It fluctuated as they approached. It appeared to recede before it re-emerged, sometimes solid, sometimes insubstantial. With each step the men took, the gate altered its position and almost beckoned them on. Dancer kept a firm grip on the Ariel that he now took from his robe pocket and held out. The nearer they were to the gate the more the Ariel had a life of its own, even more so when Dancer carefully stroked the book laterally. Abruptly the book opened and he could see the key.

  His fingers quivered and he breathed very hard. He and Knellen paused on a landing. They waited at the gate. Once in the lock the key turned of its own volition then fell at Dancer’s feet. It was Knellen who stooped and pocketed it. Dancer turned the leaves of the book and, as he did, runes on the page he paused at sprang into life and rose above the page. Dancer looked at Knellen, a long stare.

  “Knellen, as will others after us, I invoke the opening. Are you ready?”

  “I am ready, Dom. I will not fail you.”

  “Then be with me.”

  Dancer took Knellen’s outstretched hand and smiled affectionately at the Varen. He dropped the hand and called out in a language utterly foreign to Knellen. As Dancer spoke the Ariel pages lit up with a strange light that cast a pale fawn glow over them. Then it faded. The runes dulled. Knellen immediately took the Ariel from Dancer, replaced the key in the book and at the instant he did so, watched how the Ariel snapped shut, locked. Knellen pocketed it.

  He and Dancer waited. Then they saw the gate directly in front of them open very slowly. And there they saw Kwarel, a Rider of Aeyr, who awaited them, the Rider surrounded by bubbles and air devils that circled in masses about him. They were multi-hued but the bulk of their bodies were inky and often indistinct. Kwarel raised his staff. Dancer responded, Knellen locked with him. Both staffs blazed, Kwarel’s red, Dancer’s palest fawn. Knellen’s form came and went as the challenges rang out.

  Poisonous gas bubbles tried to absorb the two men before cloaking them in freezing fog that deliberately blinded them. They were unable to see the air devils. who descended the stairs to where the twosome stood. They attempted to crush Knellen and Dancer with their arms of long writhing tendrils that wrapped round the men to crush the breath out of them. Dancer choked and gasped as he struggled with the noisome gas bubbles, repeatedly slashing at them and deflating them at the same time as the two men felt the numbing fog creep into their bones. It so incapacitated them they were unable to detach the tendrils that wound ever more securely round them. Almost crushed and gasping Knellen suddenly remembered the Grypans. He recalled how they were partially immune to gases and wondered if he had the same ability. He withdrew into himself to create an air bubble. It instantly surrounded him. He took a choking Dancer with him. He held the Dom for long enough to allow Dancer to get his breath back, though tendrils still writhed about them.

  “Knellen,” wheezed Dancer gratefully, “I’m calling the air spirits.”

  “Do it,” advised Knellen, eying the air devils that now circled the only single and static bubble that encased he and Dancer.

  The air spirits, angry at the violent attack on their Maquat, began frenzied and infuriated attacks on the air devils. Some clawed and scratched at the gas bubbles to burst them even though they were burnt by the poisonous gases that escaped in hissing bursts. They raked at and gnawed on air devil tendrils that had to retract. Liquid oozed from them while the little sprites hurled bits of the tendrils away so Knellen and Dancer could move again. Spirits shrivelled and died. Others fell, enveloped by freezing fog that left little stiff corpses floating aimlessly in all directions.

  And still the spirits came. They met the wind demons head on. These were faint, tall wraithlike creatures with windmills for arms and breaths so powerful they could fragment anything in their whirling maddened rushes. They buffeted the bubbles that banged into each other and burst, their poisonous gases filling the air and making the chilling fog drift in swirling clouds that lost form. Air spirits clambered on the wind demons, hanging on with grim determination as arms flailed to reach and grasp them. The spirits bit them, hard. The demons became distracted and struggled to restrain little creatures that were so elusive they danced out of reach and then darted in to attack again.

  It was they and Knellen who fought the bubbles, the fog, the air devils and the wind demons in wild surges, the Varen impassively clearing first one breathing space and then another for his little helpers. Dancer, now alone, confronted Kwarel who’d stood back watching, amused.

  Their staffs responded to each other with an initial sickening distant crash, barely apart. Lightning flared about them. Clouds of vapour swept round in waves, ebbing and flowing, and steam issued from the staffs as the two figures duelled, their staffs now further apart. Runes on each blazed as they were held aloft and moved in a most intricate dance. Wind gusts rocked them both. Jagged flares of lightning drew closer to each figure where they illuminated a ghostly scene. Finally, the lightning was absorbed into the staffs. Kwarel and Dancer grimly held to their electrified staffs as the power of the lightning coursed through them. The staffs remained raised above the combatants’ heads. Hair stood on end. Dancer’s was longest and wildest as it blew round him, sometimes almost shrouding him before flung back across his shoulders.

  There was a thunderous clap as Dancer, surrounded by only a small area of air kept clear by Knellen, struck out at Kwarel. He caught the Rider just enough of a blow to make him fall back, his staff, in defence, clashing against Dancer’s. Shafts of pain surged through each at the touching of the staffs, but Dancer, his face a mask set in a grimace, still yelled out a strident incantation. In that instant of contact, it saw the surging power from his staff transfer to Kwarel’s, before Dancer’s staff was jerked back. The Dom’s hand twitched as it clung, defiantly, to the staff.

  The Rider gave a howl of pain as his hand involuntarily clenched on his staff and held there. Breathless, Dancer managed to leap back. In one swift movement he touched the point of his staff on Kwarel’s chest. Helpless, the Rider fell back, swearing. Dancer pushed him, step by step, back to the gate. Knellen was now beside the Dom. All his concentration and energy was directed to sustaining and supporting Dancer, because he sensed the Dom’s energy and life force was steadily drained by physical contact with the anti-spirit lord. Dancer weakened.

  Knellen called on the air spirits to unite with him to keep pushing. The wind demons and air devils began to retreat and the gas bubbles started to float aimlessly, all now trapped in the freezing fog that clustered in dissipating clouds about Kwarel’s figure. The gate suddenly solidified in front of Kwarel and Dancer. With his staff now blazing and with a final indomitable surge, Dancer still forced Kwarel back, the Rider hampered by his milling minions.

  Dancer’s voice, weak now but reinforced by Knellen’s powerful bass, chanted hoarsely until they saw the gate begin to swing back. Kwarel struggled to stay beyond it, his staff red hot to the eye. Knellen saw Dancer momentarily falter. Instantly, he wrenched the staff from the Dom, grasped it and on a cry of dee
p pain thrust hard. It impaled Kwarel. It was for long enough to make him fall back so Knellen could yank the staff free on an even deeper cry of agony. He dropped the staff at his feet. The Varen sagged as the gate clanged shut.

  Dancer fell winded to his knees, his hands curling round the staff. His whole body trembled with effort and exhaustion. The air spirits clustered about him, trying to sustain him. Knellen, grey-faced and drawn, went to his knees beside the Dom to cradle him, the Dom held in shaking arms. Then they all winked out and the stairs were gone.

  The Doms and Companions saw them materialise, the two men barely recognisable and the air spirits gone. Both looked ravaged. They shivered uncontrollably from the touches of anti-spirit, but it was their expressions that spoke for them. It was Ebon who gently eased Dancer back and took the Ariel from Knellen’s pocket. He nodded at Belika and Jepaul.

  “Can you still see the stairs, Jepaul, young one?’

  Jepaul cast a troubled look at Dancer and Knellen, then nodded, his expression bleak.

  “Can you direct us to it?”

  As she spoke Belika’s hand gently and tenderly caressed Jepaul.

  “I can see the second gate, Belika.” Jepaul put his arms about her to hold her close, his grip strong. “Belika!” he whispered, tears in his eyes.

  “Believe, Jepaul. Isn’t that what you said?”

  “Aye,” he answered in an anguished tone.

  “Then, Jepaul -.”

  Belika didn’t finish. She returned his hug, kissed him and then stood back. Jepaul, swallowing a large lump in his throat, responded to Ebon’s gesture and brought the stairs back into sharp focus. As the Dom and Belika began the ascent he had to look away. Quon, watching him, suddenly called him and distracted him by telling him what to do to help Dancer and Knellen who were both still prostrate.

 

  As Kwarel awaited Wind Dancer, so Hadem awaited Ebon. The same procedure as Knellen and Dancer went through at the first gate was repeated, then the challenges were tossed at each other and staffs were raised in defensive positions. This conflict was fought through ashes, smoke, tongues of fire and burning flares of intense heat through creatures so hot they peeled skin raw.

  Smoke Wraiths blocked visibility and filled the senses. They clogged nostrils, blinded eyes and tried to suffocate by choking throats. Ebon’s and Belika’s rasping breaths could be heard as they tried to parry tongues of fire flung at them by ash grems, little creatures that also clung to the skin and burned to the touch, their little, gripping hands like molten claws. The fire spirits attacked back. In turn they deliberately became hot and skewered the grems. Shrieking with rage and pain the grems fell back, their hands and bodies burned; they combusted in myriad sparks that lit up the area around them with a reddish hue. The spirits hounded them.

  Other fire spirits chased down the rampaging tongues of fire. They utilised them instead, brandishing them as they attacked the smoke Wraiths and forced them back towards Hadem who’d urged them on. He became distracted by the Wraiths confusedly curling round him and both occasionally blinding and choking him. The fire spirits encouraged this. The spirits and Wraiths now went into a death battle.

  Belika, her skin seared, braced Ebon who slowly began to get his breath back as the smoke receded, one hand at his throat and the other rubbing at eyes that wept but could now see through the dense air. They repeatedly coughed with congested lungs. Through a gap in the clogged ashy atmosphere, Hadem sighted Ebon. He charged the Dom. Ebon was knocked to the ground but as he fell he raised his staff, only to have it gripped by Belika. She stooped, grasped it and held it challengingly aloft as it blazed. It was dimmed by the smoke but Hadem was quick to take a step back.

  “Who are you?”

  “I’m Belika.”

  “You’re a fool! You can’t confront or best a Rider of Aeyr.”

  “We can but try, Hadem.”

  “You know my name.”

  “Yes.”

  “What are you?”

  As he spoke Hadem bore down on Belika and struck her extremely hard with his staff. She cried out as she slipped, but she quickly regained her balance and raised the staff again in defiance. A hand curled round hers as she felt herself eased back. Giddy as she was from the blow, she realised it was Ebon. He removed the staff from her charred fingers.

  “Gather in the spirits, Belika.”

  Belika immediately responded. She called out words Jepaul had taught her. In an instant those spirits who could, gathered round she and Ebon protectively, tongues and flares of fire kept at bay as the Dom began to advance. His staff weaved above his head. His lips moved despite the coating of ash on them and the burning of his lungs and throat. He looked spectral. Hadem swung his staff in retaliation, his smoke Wraiths and ash grems in support.

  This distant fencing with staffs went on for some time. Belika and Ebon continued to creep forward, a step at a time, sometimes having to fall back when Hadem called those about him to surround the twosome. Both continually coughed. The surging to and fro, in halos of fire, came to an abrupt halt when Ebon, his voice very powerful and echoing across the void, uttered an incantation that manifested the gate. It began to open. It would briefly close as Hadem countered with his incantation. But Ebon, his voice continuing to strengthen with Belika’s in concert, forced the gate to re-open again and again, and a little wider each time, yielding as the Dom pushed again and took longer steps. Belika was beside him, her voice still raised in unison with his, both figures glowing red.

  It became now a battle of wills. Hadem fixed Ebon with a fiery stare. Sparks shot from his eyes that fell all about the Dom, setting him alight as the Rider pointed his staff directly at Ebon. Hadem ignored Belika. Ebon ignored the fire encompassing them. He focused on the gate. Hadem concentrated on him at the same time as he urged his minions to attack once more. It was Belika who distracted him. She stepped beside Ebon, extinguished the fires about him and began to catch and throw back the tongues of fire at Hadem as well as at the smoke Wraiths and the ash grems. They were caught by surprise. To avoid them they crashed into one another, burning and burnt. The fire spirits copied her.

  The Wraiths and grems affected Hadem’s ability to see clearly. They agitatedly swirled about him, choking him in turn and setting him alight, flames beginning to lick round and burn him. Snarling with fury, he stumbled, his staff wavered and he fell backwards. Ebon took the opportunity to strike him hard. His staff, blazing with incandescent heat, fetched the Rider a stunning blow that knocked Hadem sideways. His staff clattered beyond him. Ebon saw that it fell just beyond the gate so the only way Hadem could reach it was to go back through the gate to retrieve it. Staggering in impotent rage and still hellishly alight, Hadem swung round and lunged for the staff. He heard the gate shut behind him.

  Belika collapsed. Ebon, his face rimed with ash and sweat, went to his knees, the big man smouldering with clothes still smoking. His hands were badly burned. He stayed motionless. Then with a herculean effort he gathered the unconscious Belika in his arms, hoarsely thanked and dismissed the spirits and stood, waiting, his lungs still heaving and burning.

  The Doms and Companions knelt beside them. Jepaul’s hands stroked Belika’s singed hair. Once long and glossy it was now wispy round her head and face. Quon and Sapphire poured cooling liquid over both she and Ebon, the latter lying motionless. Elixirs were tipped gently down throats to mitigate internal damage and salves were spread across almost naked bodies as the three Doms worked feverishly to alleviate the ravages and pain of fire. Jepaul obeyed commands silently, his face white and the big eyes watchful. When Quon straightened, his face set, it was Sapphire who spoke.

  “Old friend, they’ve grown very strong. It’s more than a challenge, isn’t it?” Quon nodded. He found it hard to speak. “That the Companions are needed speaks for itself.” Sapphire leaned over the smaller man, an arm about him in a comforting and reassuring gesture. “Javen and I go now, Quon.”

  “I know,” came the muted whisper.
“Unfinished business, Sapphire.”

  “Wait for me, Quon.”

  “Always, Sapphire. Always.”

  “Just remember your words to Jepaul, old friend. They’ll guide you and sustain you.”

  “I know that too.”

  “Then Salaphon care for you, Quon.”

  “And protect you, Sapphire.”

  Sapphire gave Quon a quick embrace and moved away to kneel beside Ebon. Javen and Saracen spoke quietly, Javen with an arm about the smaller man before he moved across to Sapphire. The Dom now stood with the Ariel in his hand and was looking down at it, his expression hard to read, before he looked up and gestured to Jepaul. His lips gripped tightly together, Jepaul nodded, though it took him several minutes to locate the third gate.

  “It’s moved,” he said, his throat dry. “I don’t know how far you have to go to reach it.”

  “We’ll find it.” Sapphire rested a gentle hand on Jepaul’s shoulder then said, for Jepaul alone, “My concern is Quon, young one.”

  “I’m here for him,” came the answer. “I’ll always be here for him, Sapphire.”

  “Good lad,” murmured Sapphire. “And believe, Jepaul. Believe.”

  In seconds he and Javen were gone.