She sat there then, cradling the dried-out husk of what had been The Defiler, seeming to luxuriate in the afterglow of her effort. She sprawled on the ruined wooden door like a courtesan on her bed, oblivious to the splintered edges gouging her skin. The remnants of her uniform were merely singed tatters that did nothing to preserve her modesty, but he could see that the badge remained affixed to the last remnants of her tunic. Neither the Demon nor the lord-commander had any words for the moment, one threat ended—but the future left uncertain. The destabilized vortex of energies swirled with magical violence above, and the tines of the three forked spires groaned audibly while lightning flashed overhead. Zizzy shoved the desiccated corpse to the side, flowing up to her feet with a graceful flick of her wings. Decency was restored as her demonic glamour regrew the image of her uniform around her.
“Don’t look at me like that,” she said to Terrick. “I’m still me, even unbound.”
He grinned back at her, lurching to his feet and dusting himself off. “You never can tell. You’re a Warden yourself; you know what I’m thinking.”
Before she could respond, a pair of robed figures came rushing out of Stormbreak Hold, stepping across the rubble to approach Terrick and the constable. mana crystals floated around the Storm Breakers inside the building, and coruscating ribbons of power circled the team controlling the Array.
“The array is destabilizing, Lord-Commander! We don’t have enough power to keep it under control!” said one of the wizards, the golden brooch with the broken storm emblem gleaming on her collar. “The arch-master and the rest of us will hold it as long as we can, but you need to evacuate the island. The city, at the very least; when we lose the array, it’ll take the whole mountaintop with it!”
“Someone needs to send word to the mainland, if anyone survives,” continued her male counterpart, his face ashen with fear. “He must have damaged one of the southern nodes, and the backlash from blowing the wall didn’t help, either. But we don’t have enough power to be sure—when it blows, it’s just as likely to make the storm worse as it is to split it up.”
Zizzy had simply stood there, staring up at the vortex while the mages gave their report to Terrick. She seemed unfazed by the dread news, while his heart twinged in fear for the people of the island. And the mainland, too; the Mana-Storm was worse than any in living memory, rivalled only by dim legend. The only reason he hadn’t already taken off running was that there simply was no time. Not for an evacuation, even if the Breakers could hold the Array for an entire day. If there were a Wavecutter from the Swiftwater Guild at the docks, he could possibly at least get a message out. But one ship could never take enough people to make a difference in the coming destruction. Terrick opened his mouth, not entirely sure what his next orders—his last orders—would be.
He was saved, however, by a sensuous voice. “If you had more power, would it work?”
Terrick and both mages turned to look at Zizzy as she spoke. She never looked away from the vortex, her wings rustling gently while her tail flicked back and forth, much like a cat’s.
“You said you don’t have enough power to fire it. It’s destabilized, and gonna blow the island, right? So…if you had enough power, everything would be alright?”
“Uh…Yes, that’s technically true,” said the woman, “but there aren’t enough Mana Potions or crystal wells and other artifacts on the entire Island to make a difference.”
The constable shook her wings and stretched languorously before turning to face Terrick. “It’s just a matter of time before the council has me banished, you know. They won’t risk an Unbound, and I won’t fight them.”
“What do you mean? You’ve earned your place here! Saved so many!” The words scraped their way out of his throat, and he’d crossed half the distance before she rose into the air and out of his reach.
“I did save a lot. My kind have no children, Terrick…but I have hundreds.” Her face looked serene, voice calm and relaxed as she spoke. “I hope all of you remember me. Demons don’t get Stories. And no one would remember me if all of you die.”
Before he could say another word, Zizzy shot upward, great beats of her fiery wings bearing her skyward, level with the tips of the spires, and then higher still. She hung there a moment, with Stormbreak Isle spread below her.
Then she heeled over and dove between the spires, a red aura wrapping around her and granting her a comet-like tail as she plunged into the vortex’s heart. The golden bands writhed and changed color to a deep red, before brightening to a hellish crimson.
Terrick could only watch, mouth agape, as the vortex howled like the demon who had just fed it, bolts of crimson lashing between all three forks. It stopped wobbling, holding steady and pulsing like a great and terrible heart. Its spin stabilized, growing faster with each passing moment.
The Storm Breakers around the table stood straighter, galvanized by the sudden infusion. “It’s working!” one of them called from her position. Terrick could barely hear her, but evidence of her words was abundant as traces of sulphurous light crawled up the tines, the underlying array saturated with hellfire.
As the vortex shrank, the mages raised their arms in unison, the arch-master’s cowl falling back to reveal a shock of yellow-grey hair atop intensely focused eyes. A silver sphere grew into existence between his hands, covered in thousands of tiny runes which glowed to match the fires of the constable’s sacrifice. He floated it over the table, positioning it above one particular section of the grey, stormy mass.
“Targeting is set!” he called, voice partially muffled by the wind. “Make ready to fire the Array!” Power thrummed beneath the mages, and before Terrick had a chance to shield his eyes, night turned to day.
The vortex squeezed tighter still, then shot away like a great lance, shattering the acoustic enchantments and setting the entire island to shuddering. A solid, red-gold blade of light sliced its way through the air, rocketing toward the west to banish the darkness.
The sound of the Array’s firing had been as a physical blow, and it had flattened the lord-commander and the two mages unfortunate enough to be outside the hold. Terrick clambered back to his feet, ears ringing. The spires above Stormbreak Hold had already begun to fade into dormancy, the magic returning to the subterranean ley lines now that its purpose had been fulfilled. Inside the hall, the arch-master leaned against the table, the other mages variously sitting or lying on the ground and trying to catch their breath. The man seemed older than Terrick had ever seen him, the effort wizening him. His hearing had recovered just enough to make out the man’s words as he spoke, surveying the table:
“It is done,” he said in wonder. “We’re not out of the woods…but the Worldstorm has been broken.”
As if that had been what he was waiting for, the arch-master collapsed to the ground.
Terrick, Lord-Commander of the Stormbreak Wardens, grieved in silence.
Chapter 29: Bounty of the Wilds
Morgan Mackenzie, flush with pride at her latest accomplishment, was eating honey. In addition to being delicious, the honey also carried medicinal properties, which ended up being a happy discovery after she’d fought a swarm of [Sting-Flinger Bees] to claim her prize. Welts adorned her left flank and backside, and while her healing abilities meant the wounds wouldn’t be life-threatening, the toxins had proven persistent—and quite itchy. The itching was the worst, and unfortunately, the System was quiet on the subject of resistances, so it seemed Morgan would have to simply grin and bear it.
The honey had shone with a golden light when she passed it in the forest, her [Primal Instinct] lighting it in stark contrast to the greens and browns that most often colored the woodlands, giving it the appearance of so many glittering jewels. With honey came bees, Morgan knew, so her time-granted confidence was tempered with a certain amount of caution as she approached: she’d encountered the bees before, and knew that even a single fist-sized bee, with its burst-fire ranged attack and powerful sting, could prove troubl
esome.
It wasn’t just one, however. The first scout became five, and five quickly became dozens. The sweet honey was such a welcome break from her too-savory diet of meats and nuts that Morgan dispatched the scouts with an almost-negligent blast of flame before reaching out with both arms to snap off a section of honeycomb for later.
She’d just managed to prise off a piece bigger than her head when she began to hear an unearthly roar rise from the forest around her, as seemingly thousands of angered insects boiled out from the trees. Her shields had failed under the furious assault almost before she managed to store the honeycomb in one of her runes—each individual impact barely caused her shield to flicker, but thousands in the space of moments overwhelmed her. With a panicked yelp, she’d loosed her fire, but this time she kept it within inches of her skin. For several reasons, she had no desire to annihilate the hive: for one thing, the bees were simply obeying their instincts and trying to drive out an intruder. For another (and more saliently, Morgan admitted), she wanted to be able to return in the future and claim more honey now that she knew where to find it. The [Skyclad Sorceress] had shimmied down the trunk and ran out along one of the larger branches, trying to get away from the bees before she took enough impacts to actually become a problem.
And then the hive queen arrived, accompanied by an escort of drones. Rather than attack, the drones formed a living barrier around the monarch. The queen, for her part, launched volley after volley of explosive projectiles at Morgan, which she was barely able to dodge in time to avoid serious damage. The branch she’d been running along fared significantly worse, and any creatures in earshot were given a vociferous, entirely involuntary education in Earth profanity as Morgan fell to the ground below.
Using [Terrakinesis], she’d pulled an earthen dome over herself, then burrowed into the ground to give herself some breathing room. The bees’ stingers had quickly given rise to itchy, painful welts just in the short span of time she’d spent escaping. Morgan had reached back and rubbed her wounds, and with her hands still sticky from the honey, she discovered its medicinal properties. As the soothing numbness settled into her flesh, she sighed in relief.
“Bet this’ll be worth quite a bit to people…if I ever find people,” she amended, her mood taking a brief turn. She resumed burrowing her way through the earth, looking to put more distance between herself and the hive—no doubt the bees were still furiously angry and searching for their attacker. While it wouldn’t take much to burn the entire hive to the ground, there was no urgent need to do so. She knew where the hive was in relation to her demesne; destroying it would force her farther afield. Her diet had, up to this point, been devoid of anything sweet other than the odd patch of berries or fruit trees she harvested as she moved, and the honey was a welcome addition to her nascent pantry.
She didn’t quite understand why she was feeling a growing urge to stockpile food and fortify her surroundings—to settle down, in other words. She did know that the storms she could see over the northern mountaintops made her very anxious, to the point of nausea; danger signals abounded when she cast her eyes northward to the snow-capped peaks. It wasn’t anything she could put into words, but her best guesses at this point were either terrible monsters, or terrible weather, neither of which she much felt like dealing with out in the open.
Her increasing caloric needs began to drive the point home when it came to stockpiling food, at least. Morgan had to eat frequently if she used her magic, and she was at the point where she used magic nearly without thinking. Her vast resources did nothing to dull the pangs of hunger that plagued her whenever she had to replenish herself, and she now spent almost as much time eating as she did experimenting with new spells. She found she even cast spells while sleeping, which had been a shock—waking up with her stone bed wrapped around her and contoured to her flesh had been one of the stranger experiences she’d had during her time on Anfealt.
She continued licking the honey off of one hand as she burrowed through the earth, refusing to waste any more on soothing her rump and side. It helped, but not entirely, and she didn’t want to squander any more. By this point she was walking upright, parting the earth ahead of her and sealing it behind her as she went. After a few hundred paces (and half her Mana reserves), she began angling her tunnel upward, sure she was far enough from danger. As she neared the topsoil, however, her [Spell Resonance] alerted her to a presence near where she intended to ascend to the surface. She took a couple steps to the side, took a breath, and emerged.
A very startled, very familiar panther leapt into the air as Morgan sprang from the ground a few feet away from where it had been feasting on its recent kill—one of the numerous deer that populated the Wildlands. It chuffed, yowling its annoyance after realizing she wasn’t a threat, and Morgan darted forward to tap it on the nose once more. It had become a running challenge between the two of them, and Morgan so rarely had the opportunity to get the drop on the titanic cat. Her hand, which still bore a coating of honey, left a sticky residue on the beast’s snout, and it nearly went cross-eyed trying to lick it away. Breaking into peals of laughter at the comedic sight, Morgan fled back into the wilderness.
The panther had become a welcome sight during Morgan’s frequent foraging expeditions. It seemed to have staked its own territory somewhere north of hers, and while she was almost certain she could find its lair, given enough time, she would rather not risk intruding on its territory and escalating their encounters beyond their current level. At the moment, it seemed to see her as a cross between a friendly rival and a meal ticket, and it was tolerant enough of her antics. The bare-skinned spellcaster thought that was sufficient for the moment.
The mountains’ shadows had grown long, casting an eerie penumbra over the land by the time she finally reentered her own territory. The path she took followed a winding mountain ledge that ran alongside a gorge cut by a glacial stream that flowed down the mountain. She ducked underneath a tree root that made for a convenient and obvious marker; as she passed, she felt a surge of Mana rise up before the magical ward recognized its mistress and subsided. Anyone or anything that had approached without being Morgan would have received a highly energetic response. As much as she might like to, Morgan had no idea how to make her wards more discriminating; she hadn’t as yet needed to, given how everything she encountered (that wasn’t the panther) was either trying to eat her, or avoid being eaten themselves.
I wish I had people to help me , she mourned.
As impressive as they might have been, the defensive wards were but the least of her magical workings in the valley. The massive spire of gleaming stone that stood in the middle of the valley lake stood as proof positive of her advancements in magical understanding. Sculpted crystal was striated alongside stone worked smoother than the most advanced tooling could manage, and it plunged into the earth to an even greater extent than the two hundred paces that raked the sky. As Morgan walked deeper into her domain, her Mana reserves began to rapidly replenish, the spire acting as a conduit, tapping the deep, slow-flowing river of Mana she’d felt the day she settled in this valley. Here she was free to use her Mana, not entirely without cost, but close. Throughout the Wildlands, the ambient Mana was appropriately wild—raw, primal, and difficult for her to affect. Here, she could use it as if it were her own, her spire reaching down and claiming it on her behalf.
That wasn’t her current destination, however. She skirted the edge of the lake and made her way over a hardened stone bridge that spanned one of the streams that led out of the valley. A short walk through a copse of trees brought her to the place that had inspired her to settle here: a spring-fed pond, uphill and on one side of the valley relative to the central lake. It was a hot spring, too, heated both by geothermal activity and the Mana pooling beneath it, which had given her the idea for her spire. Her [Spell Resonance] had let her sense the edges of it from miles away, and closer examination had revealed its source: ley lines buried deep underground. Far deeper than she wo
uld normally be able to tap, but her spire allowed her to reach down and grasp it.
Next to the small pond stood Morgan’s house. Far more intricately detailed than any of the temporary stone hutches she’d left in her wake, the modest two-story stone edifice seemed to grow right out of the ground as though it were a natural formation. The stone itself was a lighter grey than the surrounding boulders; she’d found this material a day’s walk to the north. Finding it calming and easy to look at, she’d spent a period of several days dragging tons of it back to the pond. Definitely worth it, she thought as she let her eyes roam over it once again.
Trilling wurbles and excited purring could be heard as she approached the door, and when she opened it, she was nearly bowled over by a very energetic, basketball-sized loofah. Morgan laughed and rubbed Lulu, trying to push her off.
“Hey! I missed you too!” she exclaimed. “But I’m home now, and I found honey!”
This excited Lulu even more, and she wurbled with glee as she found the honey, cleaning it off of Morgan’s hands. As the loofah circled Morgan, however, it grew agitated when it saw the welts and rashes covering her flank. But what the honey hadn’t managed to fix, Lulu did in short order, with a brisk exfoliation and its own brand of magic. So attended, Lulu subsided to let Morgan inside. The Sorceress had long since learned to take Lulu in stride, no longer wasting energy trying to figure out just how it did what it did. She continued into her house, [Candleflame Runes] igniting in stone embrasures as she passed from room to room. Toward the rear of the house stood a stone double door, and a brief push of her will and a gesture had the doors opening far quieter than their construction would indicate, as if they hung on perfectly oiled hinges.
Skyclad (Fate's Anvil Book 1) Page 43