by Gabi Moore
“Don’t!” Dion barked at him. “You’ll be killed for sure. The only thing keeping her alive out there is the armor.”
The fire began to spill smoke into the kitchen. This level of the tower had some ventilation, but not enough to allow the black smoke to leave the room they were inside. Dion knew there was only one thing he could do, even if it meant using another one of his elemental reserves.
There was a swirling in the room and six of the water nymphs appeared in front of them. They seemed surprised and were still in their swim team tracksuits. Dion saw Cynae from the days before turn to his direction. He could tell she didn’t like relocating to a burning tower, but he desperately needed her and the other water nymph elementals help.
“What is it this time?” she sighed to him.
“Protect the woman in the armor,” he told her. “Put out the fire. And get those things back up to the stairs. All the way to the top if you can manage it.”
“Can we return after that’s done or will you need more help?” Cynae asked him, her blond hair shimmering in the light.
“Just do it and go!” he ordered her.
There was a loud concussion as the windows of the kitchen level blew open. Most of the tower windows were small, since a window was a possible target for an arrow launched from the ground when the tower was built a thousand years ago. However, the family who leased it from the kingdom rebuilt the kitchen level to make it function better. This included larger windows near the stoves. The sound Dion heard was the glass blowing inside from a vast wave of water, which appeared inside the tower.
When the windows blew inside, more water, all generated from the storm, flowed into the tower and extinguished the fires. The nymphs had the water under control and used it to push the Azuroth back to the door. Huge waves battered against them as they howled in pain. Kiley Mahen was still on the floor, her armor soaked by the rain that poured into the kitchen level.
This time when Miles ran out to her, Dion didn’t stop him. The Azuroth were under assault by one wave of water after another which materialized out of the center of the room. He pulled her back, even though she was protesting all the way.
“I haven’t gacked a single one of them!” she yelled. “Let go of me, Miles! As regent of the tower I order you to release me right now.”
“As your trusted employee,” Miles told her while her armor rang across the floor, “I don’t have to listen to you. You can fire me later, but I won’t stand here and watch you bleed to death.” The blood flowed freely from the inside of her helmet. The Azuroth had struck her with combined force the last time.
Two more guards helped Miles with her when she reached the stairs. They helped him take Kiley down to the great hall. Rudy was down there and had enough medical training to take care of her until they could get Kiley better help.
Dion saw the spear in the middle of the floor and ran to grab it. He didn’t have a clue on how to use one, but it would give the Azuroth second thoughts if they tried to get through the waterfalls, which pounded them.
He looked up once the spear was in his hands and saw no signs of the furry creatures. The intense pressure of the water from the nymphs, which had equaled a combination of fire hoses, sent them back up into the tower. For the moment, they were gone.
However, this allowed their queen to emerge from the shadows and into the fray.
She had chalk white skin, black hair and eyes to match. Queen Lilith stood at the doorframe vacated by the Azuroth and filled it. She was a big woman, if woman could be used for her. In each hand was a weapon and she wore a leather scale armor on her body. She looked starved, more of a walking dead person than anything else. Dion knew it was this time circle’s approximation of her true form. The real appearance of Queen Lilith could not be shown on in this world without changing the fundamental state of matter, so what he saw was the sum of his, and everyone else’s, fear.
He didn’t want to use the fire elementals. They were hard to control and could cremate anything in range. He didn’t know how she would respond to fire salamanders, but he doubted they alone could stop her. Queen Lilith flexed her arms and starred down at Dion. She didn’t say a word because she didn’t have to say anything.
A rock from behind him sailed across the room and struck her. Dion turned around and saw one of the guards holding some blocks of masonry. He tried to warn him, but he sent two more stones at her, which struck seconds later.
For a few seconds they appeared to do nothing. The stones bounced away and landed to the sides of the walls of the tower. Queen Lilith smiled, which was terrifying enough. Dion knew something was about to happen.
“Put that down!” Dion yelled as another guard raised a stone. “We don’t know if it does anything and you’ll just make her mad.”
Queen Lilith took one of her weapons she carried, a scythe, and cut a chunk out of what remained of the doorframe. He folded her arms around herself and concentrated.
The next second she increased in size. Dion watched in horror as she grew another six inches. And then he realized something which had he should have known from the beginning.
“Don’t throw anything at her!” he yelled to the guards. “It only makes her stronger. She absorbs the energy from any strike and uses it grow bigger.”
“What do we do?” one of the other guards asked him, the fear visible in his eyes.
“Get out of here,” Dion said as he began to push everyone to the stairs. “Now!”
Chapter 18
Almost a minute later, Dion and all the guards were on the other side of the door to the stairwell. They shut and locked it, although it probably wouldn’t slow down what was on the other side. Queen Lilith stood and watched them in their retreat as they managed to get out of the kitchen level. Why did she have to hurry? There was no place else for them to go.
Minutes later, they tumbled into the great hall. The guest room level was still between the great hall and the kitchen, but it wouldn’t slow Queen Lilith and her horde down much. The poured into the hall, Dion still holding the spear he’d retrieved.
“What happened?” his mother asked as she ran up to him. “Did you have to summon more elementals?”
“Yes I did,” Dion responded, panting from the run down the tower. “I had to use the water nymphs and this means I only have one set of elementals left. Fire. Or at least until the Aether Elemental Grandmaster finally shows up. But what is worse, I saw Queen Lilith up there.”
“What’s she like?” his mother asked.
Dion described her while the guards tried to recover. He briefly described their encounter with her.
“She absorbs blows,” he told his mother. “Every time you try and strike her, it only makes her stronger. I saw her grow six inches just from three rocks that struck her.”
“What are you going to do about her?”
“Not much I can do until the grandmaster arrives. We have to wait until then.”
“Why would she get taller every time she’s struck by something?” his mother asked him.
“She absorbs offensive energy and uses it,” Dion explained. “It’s one of the signs something comes from the abyss. Normal rules of physics no longer apply to them. They can bend the fundamental matter of the universe around to their own needs. I know it happen before, just not in the last few years.”
“I don’t recall anything like this ever taking place,” his father told him. “Are you talking when we were back in California?”
“One of the nursemaids told me a story,” he continued. “This was long before my real father’s wife tried to have me killed. But I do remember it well. She told me about a huge battle which raged between an Olympian and a monster. It lasted for thousands of years. The monster couldn’t be killed by ordinary weapons. Every time the Olympian tried to destroy the monster, more monsters were created by the blood, which spilled on the ground. The Olympian came up with a way to send it back to the abyss. I can’t remember how it got rid of the monster, but that is
the story she told me.”
“And you think this Queen Lilith works the same way,” his father concluded.
“It’s the only explanation I have,” Dion told him. “We can’t mount a full assault on Queen Lilith without her becoming too powerful.”
“Unless….” Dion said as he began to fade off in thought. His parents waited to hear what he had to say.
As he tried to figure out a new plan of action, the servants and guards moved the chairs and tables from the great hall to the stairwell to block the entrance. The secured the door again, but it had failed to stop the Azuroth from penetrating lower and there was no guarantee it stop them this time. The storm was still in progress outside, so at least they had it to keep the Azuroth from leaping down the tower and joining forces with the other group outside it.
There was no possibility of communication with the kingdom in this storm. The weather made the messenger bats useless and the tower didn’t have the new radio equipment that would have made it possible to contact the nearest city.
“Why did my uncle stockpile the rifles downstairs if he knew they would be of no use against Queen Lilith?” Dion finally left his trance and spoke. “He could’ve used them at will against the Azuroth or anyone else in the tower, but they would’ve been useless against her. Firing a fully automatic weapon at Queen Lilith would only y make her stronger than anyone could imagine.”
‘Maybe he didn’t know what she could do,” his father suggested. “I could see my brother striking all kinds of deals with creatures who intended to turn on him later.”
“He had another use for those guns,” Dion concluded. “Once Queen Lilith secured the tower, he could use it as a base of operations. The guns were for the advance guard of his troops. The kingdoms don’t use projectile weapons; they would be defenseless against them. Once his base was secure, he had some way to send her and the Azuroth somewhere else and consolidate his rule here.”
Dion starred off into space and ignored the chaos around him. “I should have seen this, but I didn’t.”
Kiley Mahen was recovered to some extent. Rudy removed her helmet the moment she was brought in by the guards and examined the wound. He managed to get a clean bandage over her head and checked her vital signs. After a few minutes, she came around and called for her sisters.
Dion noted her sisters had changed into armor, which matched the color of the clothes she wore. Loris was decked out in golden body armor and Susan had on armor that was green. Their armor looked clean and free from any kind of scratches. This told Dion the armor had seen little use. If it had experience combat, the armor would have borne the signs of repair and resurfacing. The three women were experienced in theoretical combat, but didn’t seem to have any actual experience. It didn’t surprise him since the tower was remote and hadn’t been threatened in hundreds of years.
“We have to get the people out of here,” she told her sisters. “That barricade won’t hold them very long. None of them has held Queen Lilith back so far. If they start a determined push to get control of the entire tower, we’ll be the only thing in their way.”
“So far,” Susan Mahen spoke up, “we are still in control of the tower.”
“Only because we have the bottom levels,” Loris pointed out. She seemed to find her armor comfortable and carried an axe in her left hand. “Once they push down here, we’ll have to make a run for it.”
“Can we get to the bus?” Kiley said to them. “There’s not enough room in it for everyone, but it might be able to take people back and forth to the gate while we hold off the Azuroth.”
“You forget there are more Azuroth out there,” Susan said to her. “You’ll have to do something about them.”
“They seem afraid of the storm,” Kiley brought up. “They retreated because of the lighting strikes.”
“What do you think will happen to us if we walk outside dressed in this fashion?” Susan said as she spread her arms wide so everyone could see the plater armor on her. “We'll all be fried if any lightning strikes near us.”
“I still have on elemental in reserve I haven’t used,” Dion called to them from ten yards away. He’d listened to their conversation and decided it was time to let them know. “I’ll have the aether power that I can use against them too when the elemental grandmaster arrives as well. But I know they’ll respond to fire. Every living thing freezes in terror when faced with it.”
The moment after Dion said the words, the barricade assembled by the servants and guards exploded in a shower of wood and splinters. Something very big struck it from the other side and boards flew through the air. The guards working to secure it were tossed back and slid across the wooden floor of the great hall.
The servants ushered the women from the bus down the stairs to the warehouse below. They all went down to the next level without showing any concern. It seemed they’d expected it to happen for some reason.
Kiley and her sisters slapped on their helms and took up their weapons. Even with little combat experience, their parents had made certain they would know what to do when the time came. Susan picked up the iron mace from the floor and leaned it on her shoulder, waiting for what would come next. Her sister Loris did a few practice swipes through the air with the axe and joined the others in formation, as they stood ready against whatever came through the entrance. They formed a reverse triangle with Susan behind her two siblings.
“Let me handle this!” Dion said to them, as he pushed his way out front. He knew there was still one elemental he could summon and it might buy them all the time they needed.
Dion closed his eyes and began to focus. In the world he’d left behind, he found the elemental he needed to bring over to this side. It would only take a few minutes and he knew it was something he could manipulate. It was also the last ability he could use.
The fire salamanders appeared at the entrance to the great hall. This time they didn’t have their human form. They appeared in their natural state as living tongues of flame, about six feet in height. Dion watched as the floor began to smoke. He didn’t have any options and the salamanders could manifest their powers with minimal damage to the tower if they worked fast enough. The pillars of fire turned around and looked at the young man who’d summoned them. Through the fire, Dion could see the shape of eyes on him and knew they were awaiting his command. He could only give these elementals one order. Once executed, they would return to their former time circle.
“Creatures from the abyss are trying to get at me,” he told them. “They are at that door. Stop them and limit the damage to the background.”
The wooden barricades fell apart and the Azuroth poured through the opening. They stopped when the flame barriers appeared in front of them. The furry creatures froze in terror as the wall of fire began to advance in their direction. They backed up and jammed into the stairwell, smoke filling the great hall.
The stones around the entrance to the stairwell, which led up to, the next level began to heat up from the salamander’s gaze. The Azuroth panicked and trampled over each other as they ran back up the stairs. Some of them fled with burning fur and pushed their way back. The salamanders chased them back upstairs in the form of a whirlwind that sent them screaming in retreat. Dion watched as the fiery cloud blew through a bust window on a level above them and vanished into the sky, a light to the sky in the storm that still raged outside.
“That was amazing,” Kiley Mahen gasped as the sounds of the Azuroth horde vanished upstairs. “You scared them good.”
“It won’t last,” Dion told her. “They’ll figure out the fire wall is gone and venture back down sooner or later. If they don’t want to come down, their leader will make them do it. They’ll be back; you can rest assured of it. I’d post sentries at the stairwell.”
While they debated what to do next, one of the guards appeared out of the stairwell, which led down to the warehouse, with someone Dion hadn’t seen yet. She was an older woman dressed in a formal tunic, similar to the ones wo
rn by the retainers in the tower. The guard had a look of relief on his face when he walked her to the sisters. They still had their helms on and were faced-off against the door.
“She’s back!” he announced. “Do you want me to inform the older Mr. Bach? Where did he go?”
“That won’t be necessary,” Kiley Mahen stated through her helm. She pulled it off as her sisters did the same and placed them on the floor.
“Now that you’re here,” she said to the new women, “I hope this mess can be cleaned up and we can get on with what we were doing before it started.”
Kiley turned to Dion. “I want you to meet someone we’ve all been waiting for,” she said to him. “This is the fifth element grandmaster. You know, the one we were telling you about. The woman who told us you needed to be here so she could authorize your full use of the aether element and get these beasts out of our tower.”
“Not just in the tower,” the grandmaster told them, “but outside it as well. I had to run through a bunch of them on the other side of your moat. There’s a bus out there too. Does it belong to the women I passed by downstairs?”
“Yes it does,” Kiley confirmed. “They’re a travel group of some kind that showed up a few hours ago. You have no idea what a mess it’s been this evening. This young man made an appearance and Queen Lilith went crazy with her followers. Right now, they control everything above this level on the tower. I’m glad you’re back and can get rid of them. Did you find the help you were supposed to bring back to the tower?”
“There is no help out there at all,” she told her. “I didn’t even make it to the larger towns before I turned around and came back. What I saw outside told me all that I needed to understand. This place doesn’t function with the four elemental forces like my own time circle. There are elementals here, but they don’t line up the same way. And too much energy is wasted when you bring them across.”