The Jewel of Equilibrant w-1

by Steven Frankos

  Riding a horse taken from one of his men, Vaugen's eyes went wide as he thundered out of the unnatural storm. Groathit reined in beside him, his spiky blue-grey hair seemingly untouched by the rain. The chestplated warriors all brought their mounts to sloppy halts, eyes fixed on the blonde wielding the mystical gem.

  Lightning cracked as the Jewel's glare increased.

  "You killed my father," Cyrene snarled through the downpour. "I'm going to kill you."

  The golden Jewel flared like a miniature sun.

  "Cyrene!" Logan yelled. "Don't!"

  A vengeful smile drew across the blonde's lips as the Jewel's flame strengthened and surrounded her. An agonizing shriek suddenly tore through her as the Jewel erupted, its blinding glare intensifying. Soaking-wet clothing instantly cindered, and cosmic fire obscenely caressed the blonde as she dropped to her knees. The foul odor of burning hair wafted across the strong winds as Cyrene collapsed to the muddy ground and lay sizzling in the mire.

  Anticipation sparked in the spellcaster's one good eye as Groathit eagerly leapt from his horse and grabbed the fulgu-rant Jewel, ignoring the flickering tongues of fire licking at its side.

  "Mine!" he cackled victoriously. "I have it! It's mine!"

  His face streaked with mud and rain, Logan turned mutely on Moknay and Thromar. His companions stared back, Logan's own shock and horror mirrored on their faces. The silver-chestplated Reakthi spellcaster held the incandescent Jewel in his bony hands, and Vaugen was grinning behind him in like triumph.

  Thunder shattered the firmament and the entire earth trembled below them. Fearful glances came from both Reakthi and Logan's party. Groathit looked up at the grumbling sky, a frown on his face as he wondered what dared interrupt his success.

  Logan caught his breath.

  "What is it?" Moknay questioned, his fear of the Jewel glinting in his cold, grey eyes.

  "The Wheel," the young man replied. "Cyrene's triggered off another discharge. I sensed an unbalance in the Jewel when I used it myself. Cyrene's managed to set it off. I think the Wheel might very well be tipping over on its side."

  The marshy ground shifted again beneath their feet, and a blazing white bolt of electricity screeched through the darkness. Moknay fought back his misgivings concerning magic as the gleam of the Jewel did not die down but increased.

  "Groathit!" Vaugen barked. "What's going on?"

  "The Jewel has been leaking energy," the wizard snorted back. "All I need is a little time and I can get the powers under my control."

  Marvelous, Logan grumbled to himself. The only man on hand who can halt the Jewel is the Reakthi spellcaster, but they can't let him keep it! And yet, if they attempt to steal it back, the Wheel could tip on its side and then there would be no reversing it!

  "Friend-Logan!" bellowed Thromar. "What can we do?"

  "I don't know," the young man truthfully answered. "We're stuck between a rock and a hard place!"

  "Looks more like a lot of mud and a mountainside," the fighter mumbled in confusion.

  Groathit's thin lips began to utter some inaudible incantation, but the Jewel persisted in flaring brilliantly. Wailing bolts of lightning arced across the sky more frequently as more and more energy seeped free of its prison and wreaked havoc with the natural Balance. "There will be nothing to stabilize the forces of the Wheel and act as equilibrant!" Barthol had informed them. "The Wheel will have no means to achieve equilibrium, and it will tilt until it entirely flips over and destroys us all!"

  The ground bucked below their feet as streams of golden force ejected from the Jewel.

  The mountaintop across from their path exploded, hurling rubble and silt through the clouds. A figure wearing a nimbus of unbelievable energy stood atop the destroyed peak, arms outstretched in a godlike gesture. Dark hair streaked with grey billowed in the gale, and intense fury boiled in the dark eyes.

  "You have something that belongs to me!" Zackaron boomed, the aura of power crackling to accent his charge. "I have come to take back what is mine!"

  His sunken features highlighted by the Jewel, Groathit jerked his head up to glare at the wrathful wizard. His talonlike hands closed in about the Jewel and his eye glittered his unspoken refusal.

  The Hills groaned as the earth heaved once more.

  "Friend," Moknay whispered into Logan's ear, "I was told once some very good advice which I think we all should heed: 'Never stand between dueling spellcasters.'"

  The rain fell harder.

  •15• Tilting

  The Hills were lit by the crackling flame of the Jewel and the sporadic bursts of lightning from above. Logan stared in awe as a third source of illumination walked upon the screaming winds and placed his foot in the rain-bespattered ground of their path. The wildness seemed burned from Zackaron's eyes by the very shield of power roaring about him, but it had been replaced by a boiling anger that made Logan cringe as the sorcerer neared. This one time, the young man was glad someone had stolen the Jewel from him.

  "You have something that is mine, Reakthi," the dark-eyed spellcaster snarled. "Return it at once."

  Groathit cocked his head to one side, and his bad eye glinted dully in Zackaron's fire. "It is mine now, madman!" he spat back. "I have labored too long for this trinket to suddenly hand it over to you!"

  The nimbus of magical force surrounding Zackaron sparkled, and furious pinpricks of energy popped in the dark air. "Are you challenging me?" he asked, a hideously confident smirk on his face.

  Groathit's fingers tightened about the Jewel.

  "Do you know who you are dealing with, Reakthi?" Zackaron asked, taking a bold step forward. "I am Zackaron. I am Master."

  The gnarled Groathit responded by flinging deathly black rays at the dark-eyed sorcerer. Zackaron threw up an arm and deflected the crackling bolt, causing it to explode against the mountainside.

  Thromar leaned toward his two companions. "Who do we root for?" he wondered.

  "We don't," retorted Moknay. The Murderer frowned as the muddy Hills bucked underneath them. "The longer those fools fight, the more energy escapes from the Jewel."

  Silenced, Logan turned back to the battling wizards. Howling quarrels of thaumaturgy cast eerie shadows across the Hills. Groathit was stumbling back, holding the glimmering Jewel in one arm while dazzling blasts of magic sprang from the other. Zackaron casually advanced, his face set in a grin of certainty. Blistering streams of enchantment shrieked from his fingers, and his aura of force blazed in happy compliance. One of the beams yowled through Groathit's defenses and knocked the chestplated wizard into the ooze.

  Vaugen and his men pulled their horses back, the Imperator raging at his warriors. He was directly in front, and the cluster of horses at his back denied him the chance of safely backing away from the blinding display of magicks before him.

  His good eye flashed his fury as Groathit pulled himself from the quag and released sanguine bolts from his palm. Zackaron's protective screen flickered as the blood-red rays struck, yet he retaliated with ruby beams of his own.

  Logan's eyes fell upon the Jewel Groathit had left within the slime. The glaring golden tongues of energy continued to waver and dance across the facets but practically went unnoticed. The wailing streaks of sorcery rocketing from the wizards' fingers nearly drowned out the constant flare of the gem.

  Those wizards were so busy fighting they probably wouldn't notice if someone crept in and took the Jewel from them, Logan mused.

  "Don't try it," Moknay advised, reading Logan's thoughts. "It would be folly to try and creep in there with those two hammering the mountainsides with their magical claptrap! Besides, if one of us could do it, we'd probably have both sorcerers on our backs!"

  "What the hell can we do?" Logan wanted to know. "The longer we wait, the more the Wheel tips!"

  "It's no use trying to explain it to those two," Thromar snorted. "Battling wizards are like drunken men: Neither wants to be disturbed and both are very indignant when they are. They'll fight one anoth
er for that Jewel until the Wheel does tilt and we all blow up!"

  Moknay gave the dueling sorcerers a glance and then turned back to Logan. "Any idea what the Smythe meant about you being able to stop the Jewel?" he questioned.

  Logan sneered. "I think he was being sarcastic," he replied. "Remember all that crap about how powerful I could be if I stayed? He was probably referring to what I'd be able to do once I was as powerful as he was."

  "Fat lot of good that'll do us!" grunted Thromar. "The Wheel isn't going to wait until you're a spellcaster."

  "It would have had a long wait 'cause I'm not going to be a spellcaster!" Logan answered. He swung his gaze to the battling magicians. "No one's going to be anything unless that Jewel isn't stopped soon."

  The horses behind the three men neighed uneasily, pawing the mud with their front hooves. The barrage of theurgy must have been unnerving them, Logan surmised. I know it's bothering the hell out of me! That stupid buzz hasn't let up once!

  "Groathit!" Vaugen shouted. "Not toward me, you fool!"

  The Reakthi spellcaster glared over his shoulder as he was forced to retreat. Vaugen frantically fought to pull his horse away while the men behind him struggled likewise. The cluster of hooves and unstableness of the ground worked against the Reakthi, and Vaugen remained exactly where he was, Groathit stanced in front of him.

  "Have you had enough, Reakthi?" Zackaron jeered.

  Groathit kept one foot near the glaring Jewel. "You shall rue the day you dared combat me, madman!" he warned.

  There was an eruption of flame that almost scorched Vaugen's mount, and Groathit was devoured. In his place stood a grotesque mockery of the human form. It was some hybrid between human and crocodile, and it pointed an iron-clawed hand in Zackaron's direction. Thundering blasts of magic knocked the dark-eyed wizard to one side, and his halo of energy winked out.

  A smile drew across the demonic Groathit's face, revealing needle-sharp fangs. His eyes both glistened red, but the right was brighter than the left.

  Zackaron pulled himself from the mire and glared at his opponent. "You like to change shapes, do you?" he snarled, and spittle trickled down his chin. "You face one who is the Macrocosm! And I would like to see you change again!"

  Intricate patterns of light formed in the dark air before Zackaron as lightning speared the black clouds. The marshy ground continued to groan, tilting sympathetically with the unseen Wheel. As if suddenly unbalanced by the shifting hills, Groathit toppled to his knees, a scream tearing from his throat. His demonic form was forcibly ripped from him by Zackaron's dazzling conjurations, and the Reakthi spellcaster could feel his very flesh churn and bubble under the dark-eyed wizard's commands. His gnarled limbs fused together, and folds of flesh covered the magician's mouth and eyes. When the sparks of light diminished around Zackaron, a titanic maggot writhed through the sludge where Groathit had been.

  Revulsion shook Vaugen by the shoulders as he gaped at his mutated spellcaster. There was another flash of fire from Zackaron's hands, and Groathit bulged and shifted like the very Hills themselves. A grotesque hue of brown spread across the disproportioned maggot, and its flesh turned as mucous as the mud around it. Excrement's foul odor stabbed through the gale as Zackaron transformed Groathit into a massive mound of dung, but flickers of magic sprouted from the wizard's hands once more, and Groathit underwent another change.

  Amusing himself, Zackaron drew a hand upward, and the pliant blob of protoplasm that was Groathit obeyed. The pinkish substance bubbled skyward, stretching like what Logan thought resembled Silly Putty. A mouth suddenly materialized in the pulp, and an agonized scream shredded through the mountains. The shriek was answered by a crackling shaft of lightning as the Jewel pulsed brighter.

  The mounts of the Reakthi troop nickered, their eyes glazed as they nervously glanced around them.

  Zackaron brought his hands together and Groathit re-formed in a bellow of sorcery. Overcome by unbearable pain, the Reakthi spellcaster slumped to the mud, his chest heaving in his effort to breath.

  "Next time," Zackaron warned, "do not challenge one who controls the very forces of the multiverse."

  The wizard arrogantly strode through the rain and muck to lift the Jewel that lay beside Groathit's twitching foot. Logan's horse suddenly snorted behind the young man, and Moknay's horse also jerked its head up fearfully.

  "Wait a minute," Logan whispered to himself. "The horses…"

  In question, Moknay and Thromar turned to look at the nervous mounts as Zackaron faced Vaugen and his troop. "Do any of you wish to battle me for what is already mine?" he queried smugly.

  Even Vaugen's grey eyes were aglow with fear.

  Zackaron seemed distraught. "Pity," he sighed as madness trickled into his voice. "Pity me." He swung on Logan and his friends. "Any of you?" he demanded. When neither of the three responded, a sad frown came to Zackaron's lips. "What good is this game unless someone will play, hmmm? If no one will play, I shall take my Jewel and my leave."

  How badly can things go? Logan asked himself. The damn Wheel was probably going over on its side and the Jewel still hasn't been placed in check. Not only that, Zackaron had gotten the Jewel away from Groathit but seemed to be slipping into his usual insanity. Pretty soon he'll be more interested in making things from clay rather than checking the Jewel. The whole world will go up in flames while Zackaron tries his hand at making someone!

  The flaring Jewel suddenly spiraled out of Zackaron's hands and landed in the slosh, spraying filth as it hit. A thunderclap accented its splash, and twin quarrels of electricity slashed the sky.

  Illuminated by the lightning, a wet and bedraggled figure crouched on the hillside, spiderlike. "No," the newcomer informed. "You cannot take what is his! You must not leave with what is Pembroke's!"

  A childish smile played upon Zackaron's lean face. "You wish to challenge me for what is mine?" the wizard asked, ignoring the fallen Jewel.

  "Pembroke will," Pembroke replied, snarling. "Child is his!"

  Thromar jerked his head so sharply that water hurled from his soaked hair. "Brolark!" he cursed. "I don't understand. I thought Pembroke worked for Zackaron!"

  "For many years," Moknay replied with a curious grin. "For too many. I'd guess Pembroke thinks the Jewel is his. He doesn't even recognize his master."

  Servant-boy, Logan's mind hissed. Servant-boy.

  Pembroke scuttled like a lizard down the hill and into the mud. He eagerly grabbed the blazing Jewel and unsheathed his Triblade, facing his dark-eyed master. Both men ignored the lightning and the shifting earth as they peered at one another through the tempest.

  "Who are you?" questioned Zackaron.

  "He is Pembroke!" the lithe servant replied. "Pembroke is father of this Child. Infant of Pembroke and the multiverse, she is!"

  Logan glanced back at his horse that pawed at the sodden path. Pembroke had been lurking nearby all this time! the young man realized. It had been the servant's radiation of fear that had been affecting the horses-not the magical duel or the unnatural storm.

  "I still don't get it," Thromar mumbled beside him.

  Logan ignored the fighter and turned his gaze toward the sky. The black clouds were churning and boiling like an angry sea, and lightning constantly pierced the darkness. They were wasting precious time, he noted. The Wheel was tilting farther and farther with each passing second as more and more energy escaped from the Jewel.

  "Return what you have taken!" Zackaron commanded Pembroke. "It is mine."

  "No! No! Mine!" the servant spat. "My Jewel!"

  The bedraggled servant's shriek stabbed through Logan's mind, and all the horses skittered backwards nervously. The mountains also quivered in fear as the ground continued its gradual shift.

  A yowling bolt of magic vomited from Zackaron's fingertips. Silver glinted in the downpour as Pembroke knocked the mystical blow aside with his Triblade. There was an abrupt shout amidst the chaos and Groathit flung himself at Pembroke. The wiry servant screamed i
n rage and surprise as they splashed into the mire.

  You must remember, a rasping, disembodied voice whispered, Pembroke was Zackaron's servant-boy.

  Logan wheeled toward the source of the voice, and his blue eyes locked on his yellow-and-green mount shaking its head in the rain. A sudden daze sunk its fangs into the young man's neck, and all the blood drained out of his face.

  "Friend," Moknay asked, noticing him go pale, "are you all right?"

  Still dazed, Logan's lips said, "We need the Jewel."

  Moknay raised an eyebrow at the entranced young man. "Huh?"

  Logan broke free of his trance and grabbed Moknay by the front of his shirt. "We need the Jewel!" he shouted frantically. "The Wheel is tilting!"

  "We know that, friend-Logan," Thromar said, trying to soothe him, "but we're powerless to prevent it."

  Mud squished underfoot as Logan turned on the fighter. "I've had the ability all along!" he yelled. "We need the goddamn Jewel!"

  The heavens screamed as if torn apart.

  Moknay fixed his steel-grey eyes on the forms struggling through the storm. Cataracts of mud spilled from the mountain peaks, and precariously set boulders began to sway as the Hills shuddered.

  "You need the Jewel?" he asked.

  Logan nodded his head desperately.

  Moknay took a cautious step forward. "I'll do what I can."

  Groathit ducked under the jagged point of the Triblade and reached for the mud-concealed Jewel. "The Deils take you, Vaugen!" he cursed. "Order your men to help!"

  "Order your men to help!" parroted Zackaron, sliding further into his madness as he grappled for the blazing gemstone.

  The black-chestplated Imperator swung on his men. "You heard him!" he barked. "You four! Aid the spellcaster! Get that Jewel at all costs!"