by Gage Lee
“Give up this foolish quest.” The creature’s words crashed and clattered around my ears with the sound of an entire cabinet of pots and pans tossed off a high-rise into traffic. “The Design has always been and will always be. Mortals must not tamper with the work of their betters.”
The creature punctuated its speech with thrusts and jabs from appendages that burst from its skin as needed and faded away when I parried them. The thing was fast, but it couldn’t find a way through my defenses. It howled and gnashed its mandibles when my serpents deflected its strikes and recoiled from my fusion blade’s parries.
I couldn’t let it dictate the battle’s tempo. I’d exhausted the spirit once before, and that while distracted with spiritual alchemy. For the moment, Xaophis had my full attention, and I vowed to give it everything I had. Killing the monster was probably impossible, but I could make it very sorry it had picked a fight with this mortal. Driving it off would give me the time I needed to finish the Flame’s quest.
That was the best I could hope for.
Jinsei gave me speed and strength, and I used both to fly at the creature like a superhero, fusion blade extended before me. The laws of physics were loose here in the spirit realm, which worked to my advantage.
Xaophis let out a steam engine scream as my sword slashed through its flank. It whirled after me in a cyclone of oily black muscle, milky blood spewing from the deep gash my maneuver had left behind. Spikes erupted from the inner edge of its body as it spiraled around me. My serpents blocked most of the black thorns and I cleaved more away with a sweep of my blade, but a trio of unnatural weapons sliced across my left arm before I could escape.
Jinsei gushed from the wounds in a string of molten silver. I recovered quickly and turned my injured limb away from my opponent, then lashed out with my fusion blade in a whirling series of scything blows that drove the spirit back.
“Is this a fight you can afford?” Xaophis asked, mandibles clicking around the mechanical clatter of its voice. “Even now, my allies strive to breach your defenses. And there is one of mine in your ranks, a dagger aimed at your vulnerable belly.”
The bond I shared with my clan mates showed me Xaophis was right. My people stared in horror at the cracks spreading through the spell I’d laid on the door. Force aspects had flooded our auras while I fought as Theodosia coordinated her efforts with the spirit. It wouldn’t be long before they overloaded my defenses and swarmed into the Stacks.
My only response was an all-out assault. My serpents lashed out and forced Xaophis to dodge and whirl, like a black ribbon caught in a dust devil. The fusion blade chased after it with brutal efficiency, forcing the spirit to focus all its attention on defense. I pumped force aspects into my blade, turning every near miss into a painful strike and slamming aside the creature’s parries with sledgehammer power.
Bits and pieces of the spirit exploded away from its body, filling the nothingness with sparking shards and streams of off-white blood. But the physical attack wouldn’t be enough. Only a desperate gamble could end this fight before Theodosia shattered the door and attacked my people. I was about to take a terrible risk, but didn’t see any other options.
I went on the defensive, letting the spirit think it had the upper hand while I searched the nearby Design for the mortal I needed. I found my target a few seconds later and reached out a serpent to tap him on the spiritual shoulder.
It’s your time to shine, I said. But you gotta let me in.
Fear and guilt shot through me like a bullet. The intensity of those emotions rocked me back on my spiritual heels for a moment, leaving me stunned and vulnerable.
Xaophis pounced on the opportunity. Claws of raw spiritual power dug into me, draining jinsei and vitality. A wave of pure rage slammed into me like a freight train, blasting through my defenses with such force I lost my grip on my fusion blade.
I couldn’t raise my defenses fast enough to fend off the attacks. A swarm of razor-sharp whips lashed out at me with unspeakable speed, slicing my spirit open to let even more sacred energy drain out.
I can’t, the quavering voice came into my thoughts.
You can, I insisted. It has to be you.
My core healed the spiritual wounds I’d suffered, but not fast enough. The spirit opened more injuries, costing me so much of my strength I couldn’t see how I’d ever recover. Xaophis kept up the pressure, ripping me apart, searching for my core to end my life once and for all.
The spirit grew stronger by the second. It drew more and more power through its connection to the Design. Jinsei, raw and primal, flooded into its coiled body as it lashed out with wiry tentacles to seize my serpents. Its strength was irresistible, and it wrenched my supernatural appendages out to the sides, making them useless for attack or defense.
I struggled in its grip, and the spirit shook me like a terrier with a rat. I was utterly helpless.
Time’s up, I thought. It’s now or never.
Pain built within me, crushing my thoughts into a diamond of agony. Xaophis had me in its coils. It constricted around me and created razor-sharp studs of spiritual chitin to slice into me as its body tightened. Its mandibles clipped chunks of my spirit away, leaving me dizzy and dying.
“Fool,” the spirit snarled. “You should never have plotted to unravel the monumental works of the Design. Your arrogance ends here.”
The creature reared up, its jaws opening wide as it prepared to take my head off as clean as a guillotine.
I didn’t have the strength to care anymore. I’d given it my all. My only regret was that I couldn’t save my clan mates.
“No!” Byron shouted.
That single syllable echoed through the void like a cannon shot. Xaophis roared and flinched, its head reared back as my clan mate’s denial slammed into him.
“You can’t have him,” Byron said. “Let Elder Warin go!”
“Never!” Xaophis shrieked.
The thread that bound Byron to the spirit pulsed with dark light. For a moment, I saw the young man’s face superimposed over the spirit as he used the connection to fight the creature. It was working.
Byron had overcome his fear and guilt to be the hero he was always meant to become.
The coils around me went slack, just enough to let me slip free. My wounded body fell from the creature’s clutches, and my core went to work patching me back up. I could do nothing but watch as Byron put his heart and soul into the battle. No matter what happened, this valiant moment would define my young clan mate for the rest of his life.
Which, unfortunately, didn’t seem like it would be long.
Byron’s valiant attack had already faltered. Xaophis was hideously strong despite the injuries I’d inflicted on it. The spirit bled jinsei from the countless students it had infected and used the stolen sacred energy to grow ever stronger. The creature wasn’t alone in this fight.
But neither was my clan mate.
“Let me help you,” I called out to Byron. “Let us all help you.”
“Children will not stop me.” Xaophis’s voice hammered against my thoughts with the rattle of hailstones against a tin roof.
But behind its rage there was another emotion. Fear. More than anything else, Xaophis was desperate to keep me away from Byron. It knew it couldn’t fight all of us at once.
“I’m coming!” I shouted to Byron. “Keep fighting!”
The young man’s presence was already fading. The imprint of his hands pressed against the side of Xaophis, stretching the spirit’s form from the inside. I caught a glimmer of one of my clan mate’s eyes trapped in the staring, faceted orb of the insect-like monster before me.
“Help me!” Byron wailed. “I can’t hang on!”
“He is mine!” Xaophis shouted.
The spirit twisted away from me, desperate to stay out of my reach. As fast as I was, it was even faster. If I could just touch Byron, the Borrowed Core technique would do the rest. Try as I might, though, I couldn’t catch up to the retreating spirit.
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There had to be another way.
And then it hit me.
My serpents responded instantly. Their bladed tips clicked and clacked against one another like the deadliest knitting needles in the known world. A skein of jinsei threads formed between them, at first no larger than my outstretched palm, then it stretched to the size of a scarf, then a net. With a wordless cry, I hurled the spell after Xaophis, putting everything I had into it. My serpents gathered more aspects, pulled force from my aura, and drew jinsei from the borrowed cores of my clan mates. The matrix of sacred energy screamed across the void like a comet to coil around Xaophis. Snared in my spell, the spirit couldn’t defend itself.
“Show it who’s boss,” I said to Byron. “We’re with you.”
And for one moment, my clan truly was one. My spell and technique unified us as a single spirit and mind focused on the most important task in our lives.
“You can’t beat us!” Byron shouted.
His fist exploded from the spirit’s side, tearing open a hole in its body. His face appeared through the gap, a drowning man surfacing for a desperate gasp of air. He dragged himself clear of the spirit’s carcass, ripping and tearing at its spiritual form, leaving behind a gaping crater that would’ve been a mortal injury on a lesser being.
“You can’t stop the Shadow Phoenixes!” Byron howled. “We always rise again.”
With that, Byron thrust both hands forward and unleashed a bolt of jinsei wrapped in layers of woven force aspects. The attack blasted Xaophis away from us, sending it spiraling off into the void.
“We did it,” Byron gasped, his words echoing in all our thoughts. “Finish this for all of us.”
In that last second of the spell, I saw the damage Theodosia had done to the door. It was cracked and warped, the spell nearly torn apart. Whatever was out there was more powerful than I’d imagined. Our time was almost up.
The orichalcum I’d created was still tied to me, just as Krieger had warned. Three small threads spiraled off into the distance, each one tied to a brick I’d given away. But a much thicker bundle of cords led to the orichalcum shell. I concentrated on it, and that gold-and-copper sphere loomed in my thoughts like a miniature sun. All that remained was to move the power within me into its new home. Once that was complete, all this would end. Xaophis wouldn’t be able to stand against the power within the Flame. The architect of reality could put things back the way they were supposed to be.
As if awakened by my attention, the Flame stirred inside my core. It was a strange sensation, as if every part of me had been simultaneously torn apart and then rebuilt. The Flame’s full might stretched my core to its limits, filling me with a combination of pain and exhilaration I’d never experienced before.
“It’s time,” I said. “Get in there.”
The Flame didn’t move. It churned uncertainly, then went still.
“This is no time for games,” I snapped. “I did everything I was supposed to do. Go, now. Save my people.”
But the Flame remained lodged in me like a burning ember nestled against my heart.
Desperate to get it out, I lashed Threads of Fate between it and the core I’d created. I pulled on them, tighter and tighter, desperate to transplant this power to create the new Empyrean Flame.
To stop the madness.
But even as I wove with furious intensity, even as my serpents lashed out to help me bind the Flame to its new home, it resisted my efforts.
Pure, golden fire sliced through the threads I’d woven into it.
“Please!” I shouted. “I don’t understand.”
The Flame’s only answer was utter silence.
I’d done something wrong, but I didn’t know what. Trying to move the Flame was like trying to shift the position of the sun with only my thoughts.
It was impossible.
I snapped out of my meditation, rose from my corner of the Stacks, and marched to where my students waited at the door.
Theodosia had nearly breached our fortress. My students had encased themselves in strands of stolen force aspects, and I followed suit.
“What do we do?” Byron asked, his eyes clear and bright. It was good to see him back on his feet, even if it probably wouldn’t last. Our enemies were coming, and we didn’t have the trump card I’d expected.
The Flame had refused to help me.
“We’re on our own,” I said. “We do the only thing we can. Fight.”
The Dead
THEODOSIA’S WRECKING crew slammed into the door again. Force aspects flashed away from my mangled spell, surrounding me and my clan in a sparking red haze. The barrier remained, but the damage to my spell was irreversible. Many of the jinsei threads were frayed, and others had split in half, releasing sparks of sacred energy into the air.
“Use those aspects,” I said to my clan. “Wrap them around your fusion blades. Whatever comes through that door, we’ll hit it. Hard.”
Because, really, we were out of other options.
I held no delusions about fighting our way to freedom and making a daring escape. The seers who had found me would find me even quicker next time. But I’d seen a way out of this mess, at least for the poor kids who’d followed me. If I played my cards right, I might even get out of here long enough to figure out where I’d gone wrong and finish the quest.
“Steady,” I called after another thunderous crash snapped more of my spell’s threads. “Listen carefully. We’re not fighting to kill anyone. Wound them, take them out of the fight if you can, but do your best to avoid killing people. Buy me some time, that’s all I ask.”
Ferundo cocked an eyebrow in my direction. “You’re still working on the Flame?”
I gave him a grave nod, though that wasn’t exactly true. The Flame had turned its back on me, and now I was returning the favor. All that mattered was getting my clan mates somewhere safe. Even if Theodosia captured me, I could negotiate for their safety. Trade information about the Flame for sending them back to Shambala.
It wasn’t much of a plan, but sometimes you’ve got to stick with what you’ve got.
The next impact cracked the door and splintered the surrounding walls. My spell gave up the ghost, its lattice shattered by the tremendous force Theodosia had brought to bear. I was more than a little curious about exactly what she had out there, because it sounded like an elephant stomping around.
“Here it comes,” I said. “Byron, I’m bringing you into the Borrowed Core, if you don’t mind.”
The young man looked at me like I was the King of England about to knight him.
“I am honored,” he said, taking time for a deep and formal bow despite the looming threats. His gesture showed me how much being included meant to him.
I reached out and extended the technique to include Byron. I didn’t care if Xaophis still had its hooks in the kid, or whether he might turn on me. He’d almost killed himself to save me. He’d proven his loyalty.
A final explosive blow destroyed the door and most of the stone frame that surrounded it. My clan mates threw their arms up to protect their faces from the splinters of wood and chunks of stone that got past the piles of books and tables they’d stacked in front of the door. A blazing form wrapped in a field of sparking jinsei charged through the gaping hole in the wall and plowed into what was left of the book barrier.
“Pull left!” I shouted to my clan.
The maneuver saved my clan from a storm of books that flew out ahead of the Golden Warden who’d crashed through the door. Four more of the Consul Triad’s personal soldiers followed the leader into the room, their halberds flashing as they flooded the scrivened blades with jinsei.
“Two groups!” I shouted, and followed it up with, “Attack the rear of their column!”
I was the most powerful warrior in my clan, but the rest of its members weren’t anything to sneeze at. Especially when I helped guide their attacks through the Borrowed Core. The clan split into two groups and plowed into the back of the line of Golden W
ardens. Their fusion blades flashed and crackled with jinsei wrapped in force aspects, and they hacked at our enemies’ armor with a flurry of powerful blows.
Meanwhile, I tested the chops of the soldier who’d led the charge. He cleverly avoided my first feint, parried a backhanded swipe, and rolled under a flurry of strikes from my serpents. Big, armored, and fast.
Not my favorite combination.
The jinsei glyphs scrivened on the Golden Wardens’ armor sizzled and hissed as they deflected every one of my clan mates’ attacks. The amount of sacred energy that required was enormous, and I wondered where it had all come from.
The Golden Wardens had beaten back our initial attack and formed up into a concave semicircle facing me. They’d decided my clan mates were unworthy as threats and focused all their attention on the scary Eclipse Warrior.
That was fine with me. If they were laser-focused on me, they wouldn’t hurt any of the kids in my clan. I used the Vision of the Design to look for some opening I could exploit, but it was still on the fritz. These were bigger, stronger, and faster versions of the Wardens I’d met before, so maybe the Consul had installed some upgrades to mess with me.
Or maybe Xaophis had done something to me during our last fight. I’d worry about that later. First, I had to take these golden show-offs down a few pegs.
“Lay down your weapons and surrender,” Theodosia called from the doorway. She waved her hand to clear the dust in the air and stifled a sneeze. “The Scaled Council has dispatched reinforcements to help apprehend you. You’re not leaving this place a free man, Elder Warin.”
The rest of the quorum was nowhere to be seen, which raised my hackles. The only reason I could think Theodosia would show up without her lapdogs was that she didn’t want witnesses. Were the dragons so angry they’d help the Consul Triad assassinate me?
Maybe.
At least Theodosia was talking. That would buy me some time while I searched for the way out of this mess. I shifted my sight into the spiritual world to check on the new recruits, who were still safely tied up and blindfolded where we’d left them. While I continued looking for the right threads of fate, I tossed Theodosia a tidbit to chew on.