by Mark Albany
“As I said, I knew that Aliana was at risk of regressing,” Abarat said with a chuckle. “Some safeguards were placed. So long as Aliana is a djinn, she will always be under my control. The curse was always meant as punishment for her betrayal, holding her to me for all time.”
That nagging sensation was back with a vengeance, which I suddenly realized was coming from Aliana. She had stopped screaming, and now that she was coming back to her feet, I could see the change in her again, back to the form that she had as a Dark Djinn, her eyes glowing red and the way her horns seemed to shine as well.
I turned back to see Abarat preparing himself, the scepter in his hand suddenly shifting its form to turn into a long-bladed spear.
He was readying for a fight. It was time for us to do the same.
23
We had a quick moment of communication, one that needed no words, and in fact seemed to be shared through our connection, giving us all the time that we needed.
Even all together, we wouldn’t be able to take Abarat and Aliana as they were standing now. I could feel the power radiating from Abarat. It was almost palpable. And with Aliana to deal with on top of that?
We needed to play some tactical games. We already knew how to bring Aliana back from that state, but I doubted that I had the time to get beaten into oblivion once more. I was willing, but we needed a better plan this time.
Norel and Braire would need to bring Aliana back. Faye could help as well, since she knew a bit about the process herself.
In the meantime, there was Abarat to keep at bay until we were back at our full strength. We didn’t have much of a choice in the matter. Lyth and I were going to need to take that gargantuan task head-on and hope to survive long enough for the others to be able to bring Aliana back to us.
Having Aliana still connected to us was an odd sensation, feeling her so full of rage and glee at the impending violence, but there was a part of her fighting to come back to the surface. That was the part that we needed to be fighting for here.
The agreement came almost instantly. We all knew what we needed to do next, almost without question. Lyth let her bow and quiver hit the ground, drawing her sword and coming to stand next to me as the others quickly circled around Aliana, who was starting to flap her wings like she intended to fly away from the throne room, her daggers flickering into existence in her hands.
My fingers curled around the sword in my hands as I turned my attention away from where I wanted to be - which was with the others, helping Aliana - and brought myself back around to face Abarat.
“I really wished that it wouldn’t have to come to this, Lyth,” Abarat said, shaking his head. “There was a time when we would have given anything to return to these halls. And it can be again, if you wish.”
“Lyth is what my friends call me,” she countered. “You can no longer call yourself such. Not after everything that you’ve done.”
“You said in this very room that we would never be parted,” Abarat said, looking around as he swung the spear in his hands, loosening his arms in preparation for the fight. “Friends until the end, no matter how bitter. Those were your words, and I couldn’t help but agree with them.”
“And I’ll forever hate you for proving me wrong,” Lyth said, moving away from me, trying to circle around to Abarat’s opposite side, still holding his full attention as he almost completely forgot that I was standing there, working with the queen.
“Well, forever is an awfully long time,” Abarat replied. “I never expected you to fully agree with my methods, but in the end, once you’ve seen the world that I built for us, you will find it in your heart to forgive me, and we could be together again. Just as we always wanted to be.”
“You never understood,” Lyth said, shaking her head. “It was never what you wanted to build that drove me away, but rather what you were willing to do to reach it. The sheer amount of death that you were willing to perpetrate just to find this utopia of yours. That was something I could never live with. And you knew that, and it broke you more than you will ever be willing to admit.”
Abarat shook his head. “I was never broken. It was the world that needed fixing. You hated that, wanting to keep everything the way that it was, thinking that peace was somehow the easier choice.”
He sounded like he was genuinely angered by her words, and I realized that Lyth was right. He had expected her to see whatever brilliance he thought that there was in his actions and accept him for it, but he knew in his heart that she was never going to forgive him for taking so many lives, including that of his own kin, to reach those ends.
Both of them were having a difficult time in accepting who the other was, and if we were in any other situation, I would have been happy to help them work their differences out, considering that I could feel the genuine anguish that Lyth felt over having lost her closest friend.
But these were not ordinary circumstances. People were dying because of this little feud of theirs, and I was going to bring an end to it.
Power rushed into the runes on my sword as I circled behind Abarat, waiting for his attention to be turned on Lyth at just the right time, and I could see the rage building up in the elf, power practically vibrating off of his body as he drew his spear back to attack her, seeing his opening.
I still didn’t think that he was going to kill her, but what he could do to injure her without killing her was almost limitless so long as he didn’t cut her head off.
The spear flew forward and Lyth raised her sword to block it. It was the opening that I needed, and I stepped in, feeling the power rushing from my body, into the sword, and letting loose a powerful blast from its edge. It lit up the whole of the throne room.
Abarat saw what was happening, realizing his mistake almost too late as his spear clashed with Lyth’s sword, and he quickly spun around, raising his weapon to counter the blast of power launched at him.
There was a blinding flash of light and it appeared as though he cut a hole in the blast, just barely allowing himself to escape unscathed. He looked surprised, shocked, and some of his hair looked singed.
The shock quickly turned to anger however, as it looked like Lyth needed a moment to recover for herself.
“That was rude,” Abarat pointed out.
“What can I say?” I replied, tilting my head. “I’m just a rude, simple human, after all.”
He roared in anger, jumping forward and stabbing his blade towards my chest. It was quickly parried and pushed to the side by the flat of my sword as I twisted my wrist, angling the blade towards Abarat’s neck, hoping to catch him off-guard and off-balance. But he quickly recovered, pulling away from the slash and angling his spear towards me again.
I blocked once more, although the power behind the strike had me stumbling back a few steps, which he refused to concede. Abarat was on me again quickly, striking with the tip and butt of the spear in quick succession, trying to find an opening as I, in turn, quickly backpedaled, blocking those strikes that I could and dodging those I couldn’t.
Even so, by the end of the flurry of blows, I could see a couple of bruises and light cuts along my shoulders and arms. It wasn’t pleasant, but then, surviving this kind of attack from Abarat was still something to feel proud of.
Or at least to boost my confidence a bit.
Lyth came closer to help, but I shook my head, pointing her to where the others were having their own troubles dealing with Aliana.
She nodded, quickly sprinting to the other side of the throne room.
“Sending them all off to fight me on your own?” Abarat asked. “How gutless.”
I raise an eyebrow. “Gutless? Are you that unsure of your own abilities?”
“No,” Abarat replied, smiling. “Suicide is the coward’s way out. That or you’re inordinately confident in your own abilities, puny human.”
“That or I’m just a sucker for punishment,” I said, watching him raising his weapon, the runes on it flickering a brilliant red as he swept th
e spear forward.
I was far enough away from the strike to dodge, but he wasn’t attacking me with the spear, but rather the power that he had stored within. I could see a tongue of flame jumping clear of the weapon, extending the spear’s length by ten feet, which I was easily inside of.
A quick jump back didn’t pull me far enough away from the strike, and so I fell backward, watching the tongue lightly flash above me as I landed on my back.
It was gone a moment later, and using the impulse to throw my legs back, I launched them forward again, regaining my feet before even a second had passed.
Abarat wasn’t one to stand around enjoying the show, and quickly jumped forward, pressing his attack, pushing me back step by step as I struggled to contain his advances. On my own, I wasn’t going to stand for much longer, of course. I was playing for time, trying to avoid engaging Abarat directly and instead goading him while staying as far away as I could from that spear of his.
It wasn’t a tactic that was going to last forever, but it kept me alive and mostly unscathed for the moment, and that was all I really could hope for from this encounter.
I could see the others working to help Aliana, although it was a little more aggressive than most help would have been. There was no time to study precisely what they were doing, but it appeared as though Braire was trying to incapacitate the djinn with a bit of help from Faye, as Norel worked some magic to help.
There wasn’t time for me to watch, dodging away from Abarat as I was, but through the connection, I could feel the pain that the others were suffering from, none more than Aliana, who appeared to be fighting a battle inside her own self, struggling to contain the side of her that would help us in the fight against Abarat.
Whether it was going well or not didn’t really matter, but what did matter was that they needed to pick up the damn pace, as I was looking at getting cut up into pieces over the next few minutes.
I still managed to evade and avoid Abarat and as the elf grew more and more irate, I was using every trick I knew to keep the maniac at bay, hoping, just hoping, that the others would find a way to do something that would save me.
There was a sudden burst of sensation, some pain but not solely, that brought my attention away from Abarat for a moment, looking over to where the others were working with Aliana as the djinn suddenly screamed, her red eyes suddenly going out as the power that was surging through her body suddenly disappeared, and she dropped to the ground, unconscious.
I couldn’t tell if she was still alive, and I wanted to ask, but just as I moved to see what had happened, my distraction caught up with me and a blast powerful enough to knock the air from my lungs sent me to the ground, sliding across the smooth surface.
“Fucking hell,” I heard Abarat say. “Seems like I’ll have to do this myself.”
I sucked in a deep breath, slowly pushing myself back to my feet, glad that Abarat was distracted by Aliana’s state as well.
The elf suddenly turned and faced me, pointing his spear in my direction. “You. I’m going to kill you first.”
“Seems like you’ve been trying to do that for a while,” I said, noting that they still needed more time to care for Ali. “I’d appreciate it if you started trying a little harder.”
24
I wasn’t sure what was going to come next. Abarat’s sudden rage was something that I had been anticipating, and it seemed like he had been looking for ways to finish me - the puny, almost insignificant human - off as quickly as possible so that he would be able to turn his attention to those more deserving of it.
Now, from the look in his eyes, it seemed as though he was going to make this a personal vendetta. No resource was going to be spared. I was no longer an obstacle that he wanted out of the way.
I was someone that he wanted to murder and he had every intention of doing precisely that.
My feet were moving me back, away from the man almost before I could think about what I was doing. While getting away from Abarat seemed to be the smartest thing to do, giving him the space he needed to build up his attack just didn’t feel right in my mind.
A lot of fears and horrors that I had managed to push aside over the past few minutes suddenly swamped my mind, making me suddenly realize what I was doing, who I was doing it against, and just how little of a chance I had now that his full intent was to tear me apart, limb from limb.
The sudden panic that I felt rushing through me was keeping me from being able to defend myself, or even start running away again, like I had before. There wasn’t much that I would be able to do against the elf, so why try anyways?
Seeing the flicker of power coming from his spear told me that a blast of fire was coming, and I wasn’t going to be able to get out of the way again as I was struggling to walk at the moment, and seeing the rage in his eyes, I knew that it was going to be powerful enough to rip me in half.
I wondered if closing my eyes was the right thing to do. Not seeing it coming, just feeling it end, would be a more peaceful way to go, and the girls would be able to hold him, break his control of the horde, and bring peace back to the empire.
The spear moved in what felt like half the speed that it should have, and it made me wonder if this was the moment that I was going to be seeing my life flashing before my eyes as was stated in all the books that I had read, but no, all I could see was fire lancing out towards me from the spear.
And suddenly, I realized that the spear was moving slower because there was something acting against it. Abarat roared in pain, and I could see an arrow jutting from his forearm. Lyth, not ten yards away, had managed to collect her bow and fire her shot to give Abarat pause.
Even so, the flames were coming towards me. They were more than hot enough to cook me alive, but just as they came close enough that I could feel the heat singing my skin, they stopped, rushing into the air and crashing into the ceiling harmlessly.
Well, there was some stonework falling down, but that was too far away from me to strike.
And I realized that it was Norel that had just saved my life, putting up a pair of shields to keep the flames away from me.
“I won’t stand for this anymore!” Abarat screamed, looking around to all of us as we approached him, circling around him. “I wanted to leave those that I cared for alive, but no, you wished for death instead. And I’ll give it to you!”
The power that I could feel rushing from him was more than enough to be a challenge, even for the five of us. But it was still better than facing him alone. The panic that had gripped me not seconds before was suddenly dissipating as I found myself with renewed energy and purpose.
Wait, there were only four of us.
I looked over to Faye, who had remained near Aliana, although not only to make sure that she was all right. Her sword was transformed into a spear, and she hefted it before smoothly tossing it across the room. Not at Abarat, but at the familiars that were still flooding him with power.
The elf seemed suddenly aware of his peril and raised his hand, but it didn’t do anything to stop the weapon from impaling him through the chest.
It was a damn good throw, I had to admit, and I could feel the power radiating from Abarat suddenly weaken. Not by much, but it was enough to take his attention from the four of us and make him look back to the elves that were giving him their power, and the fae that was charging at them.
“No!” he cried, trying to reach them. “You can’t!”
Lyth quickly stepped in his way, sword in hand again. “I have a sword that says otherwise.”
Abarat didn’t bother coming up with a response, as he tried to strike at her to get her out of his way, but Norel was quick to throw up a shield that would protect the queen, and Braire promptly threw her pebbles out, the wolf and serpent jumping forward into the fight.
Working together had never felt quick this smooth or natural, watching as Abarat’s attacks were being quickly defended and countered against. We weren’t going to be pressing our luck or pushing too far
. We knew Abarat well enough to know that a single mistake would end this battle poorly for us, and while time was of the essence as the battle continued to rage in the south, getting ourselves killed before we could help was going to assist nobody.
Taking our time, we pushed Abarat back slowly as Faye quickly did away with the familiars, chipping away at Abarat’s power, even in the throne room that was supposed to empower him, would be how we were going to win this battle.
Abarat knew that he was weakening and understood that he needed to do something here and now to finish the fight off, but Norel knew everything that he would try, quickly throwing shields up to block his strikes. It gave me the opening I needed, coming in closer to the elf as he swung his spear around to attack me.
I ducked under, throwing my shoulder forward into his chest and bringing my sword up between him and his spear. With a shove, I knocked the weapon out of his hands, sending it clattering to the ground.
There was no connection between us, and yet I could still feel the sudden burst of desperation that came from him as his weapon fell away.
The others knew what to do, and quickly closed in on him again, this time for the kill. I backed away as a blast of flame was just barely blocked by Norel for me, as Braire’s serpent quickly slithered in, wrapping its thick, sinuous body around Abarat’s legs and squeezing as the elf screamed in pain and frustration. The wolf was quick to respond to protect its friend, barreling forward into Abarat’s chest, knocking him off of his feet and clamping its jaw around the elf’s hand, pinning it to the ground.
I could hear my heart hammering in my chest, telling me that it was now or never.
Faye and Braire had finished off the last of the familiars, but Abarat managed to raise one hand in a last-ditch effort. Maybe not for success as we bore down on him, but maybe to take one of us with him.
There were runes branded into his hand, just like mine and I could see them glowing red in his effort to put in one last attack.