by R A Oakes
“Maybe the sword needs a woman’s touch.”
“What do you mean?”
Vangalaya said nothing but pointed at Raven.
“A woman’s touch,” Dean Tenaray mused.
“Can you stand, Raven?” Vangalaya asked.
“I’ll try,” the ghost whisperer replied. But as soon as she did, she collapsed, Dynarsis catching her just before she reached the floor. Holding her in his arms, Dynarsis turned to the next table, the one where Baelfire was resting, and lay the ghost whisperer next to the sword.
“Can you grip the handle? Can you hold Baelfire by the hilt?” Vangalaya asked.
Raven tried to move her arm, tried to reach out to the sword, but couldn’t budge, couldn’t get her body to respond, all of her strength having been expended just to get this far. “I can’t,” she gasped.
“Try again,” Vangalaya whispered, putting up a cautioning hand when Dynarsis reached out to move his friend’s hand for her.
Raven looked into Vangalaya’s eyes and said, “I’m sorry, Master, I can’t. And I fear I’ll be joining you soon in ghost form because I can feel death making inroads on me. But if I die, I’m going to cross over. I’m not staying here. I’ve had enough.” As Raven began to lose consciousness, she started whispering, “I’ll cross over. I’ll cross over. I’ll cross over.” And then silence.
Vangalaya held her breath, and then it happened.
Baelfire, a lifeless entity up until only moments ago, inched her way to Raven, wiggling its way into the ghost whisperer’s hand and helping Raven tighten her fist. It seems Baelfire had heard the voice of her master, and the magic sword awoke and knew at that instant that she was home.
“Hello, Raven,” the magic sword said to the ghost whisperer, though Raven heard the voice more inside of her head than with her ears.
Gripping the golden sword as tightly as she could, Raven lifted Baelfire and placed the sword across her chest, resting it there. However, even that much movement took all of Raven’s energy and, once again, she nearly passed out.
“I’m exhausted, too,” Baelfire said, her own voice little more than a whisper.
“I’ve heard that you absorbed the essence of all of these wizards.”
“Yes, but most of all, I absorbed your spirit and your mother’s spirit. That’s why I have a feminine nature. Balzekior’s a woman, so the wizards wanted me to be a female sword. They hoped that it would help me to better anticipate her intentions, her thoughts and her feelings.”
“Does it help?”
“I’m so tired that I barely know my own thoughts and feelings, let alone hers.”
“I’m dying.”
“I know.”
“Dean Tenaray, you can’t allow yourself to be captured. You must return to the College of Wizard’s parallel universe,” Raven said, looking at the white-robed mystic.
“I’m sorry I couldn’t do more to help you.”
“It’s up to the women here to do what can be done,” Raven replied. “And you know Balzekior has a fix on your position. You’ll be quite a prize if she can capture you.”
Dean Tenaray hesitated.
“I agree with Raven. It’s time for you to go,” Baelfire whispered, her fatigue readily apparent. “And we don’t have the strength to argue.”
After seeming to pause to take a deep breath, Baelfire continued and said, “Aldwen, I need you to open the entrance to the College of Wizards.”
When Aldwen obeyed, a bright light shot out of the length of his staff, and Dean Tenaray walked into the entrance and disappeared. A moment later, the visual projections of his fellow wizards disappeared as well.
Chapter 22
“Thanks for calling to me earlier and bringing me to life,” Baelfire said to Raven telepathically, although Dynarsis, Vangalaya and Aldwen could hear the sword just as easily as the ghost whisperer.
“I wasn’t aware of doing so.”
“It was your spirit that called to me.”
“I don’t know what you mean.”
“I felt that you needed me.”
“If you’d known about the battle raging outside the forge, you might have thought twice about answering my call.”
“I won’t refuse to live just because evil’s so prevalent in the world.”
“Well, it’s just a dozen yards away,” Raven said, hearing the sounds of metal clashing against metal. “Do you have the strength to escape?”
“Escape is not my plan.”
“You have a plan?”
“Yes, to allow evil to get as close to us as possible.”
At that moment, there was an enormous outpouring of guttural battle cries from the meat-eating trolls as hundreds of them pushed through the vegetarian trolls’ crumbling defenses. And Zarimora and Balzekior stepped through the forge’s doorway.
“I think you’ve just gotten your wish,” Raven said, her eyes wide as she looked up at Aldwen, who was equally shocked and dismayed.
“Good,” Baelfire said, smiling grimly. “Good, then it’s time.”
“Time for what?”
“Time for our visitors.”
“Visitors?” Raven asked. “Visitors from where, we’re surrounded?”
At that moment, there was a blinding explosion followed by a loud ripping, tearing sound as the very air inside the forge split apart forming a wide gap filled with prism light, and dozens of warrior women dressed in black with swords drawn poured through the opening. Heading without the slightest hesitation for the forge’s huge double doors, they raced directly for Zarimora and Balzekior.
Leading the charge was a fearless, battle-hardened warrior woman dressed in skin-tight black leather who leapt at Zarimora like a panther. Surprised by the intensity of the counterattack, the troll queen was barely able to block the warrior woman’s sword with her own and was knocked back several steps from the sheer force of the blow.
Seeing the momentum shifting in their favor, Aldwen joined the warrior women, making Balzekior his target, and he unleashed the full force of his wizard’s staff. A brilliant white light surged ahead creating a powerful energy shield that slammed against the old crone sending her flying into a horde of meat-eating trolls directly behind her. But Balzekior still possessed considerable energy and cut loose with a stream of dark-red flames that pounded against the wizard’s shield causing Aldwen to stagger, yet he held his ground.
Knowing their very survival depended upon providing Raven and Baelfire with enough time to somehow recover their strength, Aldwen put everything he had into beating back the old witch. Holding his wizard’s staff out in front of himself horizontally with both arms fully outstretched, he drove himself with every last drop of his strength, moving forward one torturous step at a time. However, when he reached the forge’s double doors, he was stunned by what he saw.
Thousands of meat-eating trolls were now surrounding the monastery which was totally engulfed in flames, a billowing inferno unlike anything Aldwen had witnessed before. And though hundreds of the creatures were involved in the assault on the forge, it was as if the meat-eating trolls were so confident of the outcome that they hadn’t all bothered to join the attack.
“No matter how many you kill, more will just take their place,” Balzekior laughed, her twisted smile filled with scorn and derision. “The mountain is ours, and I’m going to take the humans and the vegetarian monks down into the bowels of the earth. I’ll let my demonic ghost friends there have fun with them, and I’ll give you my undivided attention.”
Suddenly, there was a huge roar from the meat- eating trolls, and a human warrior-woman’s body was hurled over the crowd, landing inside the forge where she sprawled out on the wooden floor. It was the leader of the warrior women, the ones who materialized out of nowhere, and she appeared to be dead.
The other women who’d arrived with her were stunned, never having seen their leader so severely injured before, her prowess with a sword and her skill in battle being legendary in their own time frame, in the era
from which they’d come. After seeing her cast aside by the meat-eating trolls with such irreverence, the women turned as one to face the enemy and surged ahead fighting like lions, unconcerned with their own lives, seeking only to avenge their fallen leader.
Balzekior was almost bending over with laughter, and she shouted, “You didn’t expect that, did you?” And the old crone cackled with glee.
But Aldwen refused to give in to despair and pushed ahead, the old crone retreating one step at a time, unable to stand her ground no matter how hard she tried. Aldwen noticed this weakness and realized Balzekior was more worn-down than she was willing to admit, possibly even to herself, and he pressed on with his counterattack.
And the human warrior women were holding their own against the onslaught of mindless meat-eating trolls. The humans weren’t gaining ground, but they weren’t losing any, and they’d managed to seal off the entrance even with the doors still being wide open.
Back inside the forge, Raven looked at the crumpled body of the leader of the warrior women and saw that she was bleeding profusely from both her stomach and her back, having been run through with a sword. Raven knew it was a mortal wound. If their leader wasn’t dead already, she soon would be.
“Renivy and Brianuk, come here,” Raven said as loudly as she could, and the two children came running from the back-left corner of the forge where they’d been ordered to stay, being the farthest spot away from the front doors.
“Yes, Raven?” Renivy asked, crying when she once again saw the extent of her friend’s wounds.
“I need you to focus, please, and I need you to lift that warrior woman onto this table with me so I can get Baelfire closer to her. I don’t know if Baelfire can keep the both of us alive, but we have to try.”
Dynarsis was still in the forge but had stationed himself between the entrance and the table that Raven was once again lying upon. Dynarsis was now the last-ditch line of defense for when the human warrior-women’s efforts failed, for the humans and the Xao-Lin monks were facing an enemy with an enormous numerical advantage, 250 humans and vegetarian trolls against thousands.
Once Renivy and Brianuk had brought the unconscious warrior woman over to the table and lifted her up next to Raven, the ghost whisperer took Baelfire and placed the sword across the dying woman’s chest. However, as soon as Raven let go of the sword, and Baelfire’s presence was no longer with her, she once again felt faint and almost passed out. But the warrior woman’s eyelids began to flutter, and in a few moments they opened.
“Where am I?” she asked.
“In a forge surrounded by meat-eating trolls and one-step from death, as am I,” Raven replied.
“Where are my warrior women?”
“In the doorway keeping us from being overrun by meat-eating trolls, but our warriors can’t hold out much longer. It’s only a matter of time till the forge is taken. The battle is lost.”
The warrior woman clutched Baelfire to her chest, rolled onto one elbow and looked over at the wide doorway where some of the most intense fighting either she or Raven had ever seen was going on. Feigning a lack of concern, the warrior woman said, “I’ve seen worse.” However, the comment rang hollow, and both of the women knew it.
“My name’s Raven, what’s yours?”
“Chen,” the warrior woman said with a gasp, the effort to sit up having taken almost everything out of her.
“How did you get here?”
“Wait, let’s not forget the sword, especially since my explanation involves her.”
“Involves Baelfire?”
“Yes, and Baelfire, I’m Chen, and this is Raven.”
“Hello.”
“I know who the sword is, I named her,” Raven said, eager to get on with the story of how Chen arrived.
“You named her?”
“Yes.”
“What’s the name mean?”
“There’s an ancient word for woman which is ‘bael,’ and so Baelfire means ‘woman on fire.’”
“Compared to the Baelfire I know where I come from, your ‘woman on fire’ appears to be feeling poorly.”
“Yes, it’s like I’ve come out of a long, deep slumber and am only half-awake,” the magic sword sighed.
“So where do you come from, Chen?”
“From hundreds of years into your future.”
“Personally, I come from 20 years into the future.”
“That’s all, really, why so few?”
“I’m being serious.”
“So am I.”
“Hundreds of years?”
“Yes.”
“How did you get here?”
“Through the time portal over there.”
“Time portal?”
“Yes.”
“But how did you know to come here. How did you know that we needed help?” Raven asked.
“In the time frame where I come from, Baelfire had begun to evaporate. After a while, she was only half- visible, and I could put a hand right through her.”
“I’m so tired that I could evaporate now,” the magic sword sighed.
“Not a good idea. We came back in time to help insure that you were created.”
“You knew we were in serious trouble simply because I was disappearing?” Baelfire asked.
“No, after you started fading away, the problem gradually spread. Soon, everyone who got close to you began to evaporate, and whatever room you were in became less than solid. People on the floor above would actually drop through the ceiling.”
“I’m sorry,” the magic sword said.
“Eventually, it affected most of the castle and about half of the people living there. It finally dawned on us that since it began with you, Baelfire, we needed to come back in time and, hopefully, find out what’s wrong.”
“I feel bad about this,” the magic sword said, experiencing a pang of sadness. “And what’s this ache I’m feeling?”
“An ache where?” Chen asked.
“In my chest.”
“Technically, you don’t have a chest.”
“I feel like I do.”
“Well, you don’t.”
“Oh,” Baelfire said, experiencing another sense of sadness.
And Chen, ever attuned to people’s thoughts and feelings, especially when it was in her best interests to do so, asked, “Baelfire, at what stage of development are you?”
“What do you mean?”
“Where are you in your personal development?”
“Well, I absorbed the knowledge of the College of Wizards.”
“Those old busybodies, how much do they know?”
“A lot of factual information.”
“That’s a start. What else?”
“I absorbed Zorya’s inner spirit, and Raven’s, so we share a sense of soulfulness,” Baelfire said, looking over at Raven’s mother who was beginning to show signs of waking. Gradually, Zorya sat up straight and asked, “Where am I?”
“In hell, basically,” Chen replied.
“Hell?” Zorya asked in alarm, quickly looking around her.
“Well, not really, but we’re in a bit of a bind here,” Chen said. “However, it’s nothing that can’t be solved if Baelfire pulls herself together.”
“What do you mean?” the magic sword asked.
“Oh, no! The doorway’s been overrun, and here they come!” Chen shouted.
“A-h-h! A-h-h!” Baelfire screamed as she looked over at the open double-doors expecting to see meat- eating trolls pouring into the forge.
“That’s called fear,” Chen said calmly.
“What?” Baelfire asked, adrenaline coursing through her bloodstream, or at least seeming to, given that she didn’t have a body and was made of megentum. But megentum had a unique property, that of being able to absorb whatever was around it, at least while it was being forged in flames. And Baelfire had absorbed the knowledge and the sensation of what it was like to have a body. However, what the magic sword hadn’t absorbed from the scientificall
y-inclined wizards was a fully- developed sense of emotions.
Baelfire possessed the College’s knowledge and Zorya’s and Raven’s spirits but had yet to awaken fully to the world of feelings, deep feelings. Chen had decided to help the magic sword experience this realm as quickly as possible with a crash course. The warrior woman, a master strategist, knew that if Baelfire could experience the most life-giving of emotions that other feelings would follow in short succession.
How does one get a sword to experience love? Chen wondered. Yet Baelfire’s education was about to unfold in ways that were unpredictable, even for the warrior woman, ones with grave consequences if the sword didn’t learn quickly.
Looking over at the doorway again, Chen could tell that her warrior women were close to exhaustion, and her heart ached for them.
“What are you feeling?” Baelfire asked. “You’re hurting inside, and you’re worried about them. But you care more about them than you do about yourself. Why is that?”
Chen didn’t have time to answer for she noticed that Raven, having been deprived of Baelfire’s energy, was drifting into unconsciousness. Reaching out to her, Chen shouted, “Here, take back the sword. Take it back. You’ll die without it.”
“So will you, and you’re more important to the battle.”
“The sword belongs to you. It’s yours.”
“She’s yours now.”
“Am I a she or an it?” the magic sword asked, but no one was listening because Raven began coughing and gasping for breath.
Lifting Baelfire, Chen rolled onto one side and placed the magic sword back onto Raven’s chest and, instantly, life began flowing into the ghost whisperer. However, as soon as Chen relinquished the sword, she started bleeding heavily and began passing out once more, having already lost a great deal of blood. Both women were teetering on the brink, and the magic sword couldn’t save them both.
Choose! Choose! Baelfire shouted to herself, trying to make a key tactical decision, a purely scientific evaluation of which woman had the greatest chance of surviving, given the serious extent of their injuries. And just as factual, which one was of greater importance to the battle that was raging in the doorway. Then, it dawned on Baelfire that if the battle was lost, she might be taken prisoner herself.