Storm Phase Series: Books 1-3

by Hayden, David Alastair

  Iniru sighed. “I can understand that … I guess. But if we get out of all this alive and ever have some quiet peaceful time, you’re going to cast spells on us and we’re going to have fun with magic for a change.”

  “You’re on,” he said. “Though … peaceful time … what is that exactly?”

  They all looked at one another, and surprisingly, it was Motekeru who laughed first: a rumbling, clanking bellow that Turesobei could feel as much as hear. Lu Bei rolled on the ice, cackling, and then everyone laughed until Turesobei cried tears. Not that it was that funny, but they were so stressed and were always in danger, to the point where it really had become ridiculous.

  Turesobei put his hands on Iniru’s shoulders. “You ready?”

  She took a few deep breaths, then nodded. He cast the spells on her again, and stumbled afterward from the huge drain it took to put them on someone else and then place them into stasis.

  “You’ll feel when they wear off,” he said.

  She clutched her arms close to her and fell to her knees. Her eyes clenched tight, she breathed and muttered a mantra.

  “What about me?” Kemsu asked.

  “Sorry,” Turesobei replied. “Takes too much energy for me to boost everyone without using spell strips.” Kemsu scowled. “Iniru is our best fighter, so she should be the best equipped. And I’ve got to save some energy for the spells I’m about to cast and hold for myself, and for anything unexpected that might come up.”

  Turesobei summoned the moon mirrors then cast the spell of compelling obedience and interlaced it with the spell of calming beasts, and then he put the linked spells into stasis. The draw on his internal kenja was enough to send a sharp pain through his gut, but the pain abated. He was going to need a lot of rest if he survived this. The effort now was mostly mental: it was like holding and remembering a string of thirty numbers in his head. As long as he kept the spells there without letting any parts of them out of his memory, he’d be fine.

  Iniru stood. “I’m ready. Sobei, what about your obscuration spell?”

  “Won’t help against a spirit creature,” he replied. “Everyone ready? Good. Motekeru, would you please do the honors?”

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Motekeru pushed the door open, stepped forward, and hunkered down, ready to be charged by an enemy. Nothing came. Turesobei sent the moon mirrors ahead, but dimmed them so that they could see what was ahead while not being as likely to alert anyone that they were coming. Motekeru eased forward. Lu Bei landed on his shoulders and peered around his bronze head. His batwings were poised so he could take flight in an instant. Spear held ready, Iniru crept along the wall, almost even with Motekeru. Kemsu followed along the other side. Turesobei hung back behind them, keeping the layered spell held in his mind.

  A beast roared and barreled around a bend in the cave tunnel. It was massive, like a fat denekon, but with moldy blue skin and giant horns. Motekeru charged, lowered his shoulder, and struck it head-on. The beast knocked Motekeru down and ran over him. Lu Bei blasted it in the face and darted past it. The creature didn’t even seem to notice the blast. Kemsu stabbed at it with his spear but missed. Iniru struck it hard in the flank. Her spear point went only a few inches in. The beast kept charging, and the spear snapped off at the end.

  The beast lowered its horns to strike Turesobei.

  Turesobei didn’t move. He unleashed the intertwined spells of compelling obedience and beast calming. He put everything he could afford to give into them. The beast skidded to a halt, kicking up dust and ice in the cave. Its horns stopped an inch from Turesobei’s chest. He drew in a deep breath but maintained eye contact with the kagi. He was lucky that the spell of compelling obedience depended largely on air energy, or he would never have managed that.

  Maintaining eye contact, he stepped sideways and went around the creature. The creature rotated to maintain their eye contact.

  “Everyone okay?” Turesobei asked.

  Motekeru groaned as Iniru helped him up. “Motekeru’s got some new dents,” Iniru said, “but he’s alive.”

  “I’ve gone through worse,” Motekeru said, his voice fainter than normal. He flexed. “I don’t seem to be compromised in any way.”

  “Let’s keep going,” Turesobei said. “And be careful, there are at least three more nasties ahead, and they may be worse than this one.”

  “You sure you’ve got him under control, master?” Lu Bei asked.

  Turesobei handed his spear to Iniru. “As sure as I can be.”

  The others advanced as before, but Turesobei walked backward. He held his hand up. “Stay,” he told the creature. It did as he commanded. They rounded a corner, and he lost eye contact with it. He paused, worried … but the creature didn’t follow. He breathed a sigh of relief.

  The tunnel opened into a domed room, large by any normal standards, but not even half as large as Satsupan’s cavern. The room gleamed as if illuminated by Avida, and was bright enough that it drowned out the moon mirrors. Turesobei let them go to reduce the drain on his kenja. Like with the eidakami-ga’s cavern, this place had a pool in the center, and the light was coming up from the bottom of the pool. Along the ceiling hung thick tangles of moon-blossom vines heavy in white blooms. Their scent was cloying and aggressive, as if they were invading Turesobei’s nostrils.

  A statue of a beautiful female nozakami-ga stood at the edge of the pool. Sapphires gleamed in the eyes of the statue.

  Something was wrong here.

  “I don’t see the other beasts,” Lu Bei said as he circled through the cavern. “Are you sure you detected more, master?”

  “I’m sure.”

  Kemsu reached toward the statue.

  “Wait!” Turesobei said, but too late.

  Kemsu’s fingertips touched the statue, and he instantly collapsed, unconscious … or worse.

  Strands of webbing, like those from the sea spider demons Turesobei had fought on the way to Wakaro, shot out from amongst the vines. Two sets of webbing, from two different beasts. The webs engulfed Motekeru, one set entangling his legs and the other locking his arms against his side.

  A beautiful woman, identical to the statue, leapt down from the vines and landed on the shore. She looked like a counterpart to Satsupan, except where he appeared to be baojendari, she possessed zaboko features. Turesobei activated the strength and leaping spells on Iniru. She charged the nozakami-ga. Two spider kagi crept out of the vines and blasted webs at Iniru, but she leapt over the shots. She stabbed downward. The nozakami-ga dodged, but Iniru knocked her down and landed on her.

  Lu Bei attempted to spark the webs off Motekeru, but webs struck him and took him down. A blast of webs came for Turesobei. He dodged to the side. He tried to cast a spell, but as he did, he could feel himself begin to lose control of the creature in the tunnel. He couldn’t let that happen. They were in bad enough shape as it was.

  The nozakami-ga wrestled out from under Iniru. With her increased strength and jumping ability, Iniru leapt over the ga’s head, spinning in midair and attempting to land behind her. But she never even hit the ground. A mass of the nozakami-ga’s vines shot down and caught her. Turesobei watched Iniru for too long. A strand of webbing pinned his arms and knocked him flat.

  Iniru couldn’t break free of the vines, despite the strength boost he’d given her, and Turesobei couldn’t even budge his arms. The nozakami-ga planted a foot on his chest and smiled.

  “You’re mine now,” she said. “And what a delectable catch you are.”

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  The spider-kagi hung them from the ceiling above the pool; all except Iniru, who was already hanging from the vines. Kemsu hung limply, but his chest heaved with breath. Turesobei kept his focus invested in the kagi beast he’d charmed in the tunnel. The nozakami-ga hadn’t said anything about the creature yet.

  The nozakami-ga paced the pool’s edge. Turesobei studied the white orb in the bottom of the pool.

  Iniru whispered to him, “Is that a moo
n —”

  He shook his head.

  “So, my love has sent me a lot this time,” the ga said at last. “Though I confess, I do not know what to do with the machine man. I cannot eat him. Maybe I can dominate him and replace my slain beast.”

  So she thought they’d killed it — that was perfect.

  “We don’t even know your name,” Turesobei said.

  “Is it important?” she replied.

  “I would prefer,” said Lu Bei, “to know the name of the one who eats me, lady.”

  Her lips curled into a self-satisfied smile. “Utotsu. Now, you can be happy when I eat you.”

  “It’s a nice game you have worked out between you and Satsupan,” Turesobei said. “But what does he get out of it?”

  “Nothing, save my everlasting love. There was a time when I could visit him … millennia ago. The world was different then. But alas, we have only shared dreams now. And gifts between us.”

  Turesobei mentally commanded the beast in the hallway to come to him and attack Utotsu at full speed. If the beast didn’t attack immediately, she’d be able to reassert her dominance over it.

  “Ah, I can see that you are about to ask me another question, but unlike my love, I find talking to my food tedious. I mean, what question could possibly matter when I’m about to eat —”

  The beast charged into the room. Utotsu spun, but too late. The beast slammed into her, and with its horns tossed her to the other side of the pool where she struck the cave wall and slumped … dazed, but not dead.

  “Motekeru!” Turesobei said. “Her heart’s the glowing orb at the bottom of the pool. She’s my enemy. You know what to do.”

  He cast the spell of unbinding the bound. The webbing peeled off Motekeru, who dropped into the water and plunged underneath before the spider-kagi could hit him with new webs.

  Lu Bei turned into a book and fell into the pool. Amidst a column of bubbles, he transformed back into a fetch and shot upward, firing sparks at the spider-kagi and drawing their fire as he darted around the room.

  Motekeru grabbed onto the orb with his claws.

  “No!” Utotsu screamed, climbing to her feet and reaching out. “I’ll let you go. I’ll give you anything you want. I swear.”

  Gazing up at Turesobei, Motekeru paused. Apparently he could hear them through the water.

  “Banish your kagi,” Turesobei said. “Then we can bargain.”

  Utotsu scowled at him. Motekeru scraped his claws against the orb.

  “Aaaaaa!” She fell to her knees. “Fine. I’ll do it.”

  She chanted. The spider-kagi disappeared. The lizard-ram-beast melted into the floor. Turesobei scanned with his kenja-sight, putting as much internal kenja into it as he could muster. Four fine threads of energy flowed out from the nozakami-ga and into the either. The creatures weren’t completely banished back into the nether reaches of the Shadowland from whence they had come. She had only pushed them into the first layer of the Shadowland. She could easily pull them back as soon as she wished.

  “Take what you want from the bottom of the pool,” Utotsu said. “There are riches: copper, jade, pearl. Take the treasure, but please, leave my heart alone.”

  Turesobei shook his head. “How many you must have eaten over the years …”

  “I did what I had to do to stay alive,” she replied. “Just as you must kill to eat, so do I …”

  “There was a better choice. You could have faded away like the others of your kind. You didn’t have to murder innocent people. And I know you’re going to attack us as soon as we let down our guard. Motekeru, end her.”

  Motekeru swallowed the white, glowing stone. The nozakami-ga screamed. Her body shattered into tiny pieces. Some of these kenja pieces dispersed; others flowed down into the water and into Motekeru. The vines released them, and they fell into the pool of icy water.

  The chamber went dark as the energies flowed into Motekeru, leaving only his dimly glowing eyes to light the room. Turesobei swam to the shore fast, terrified by the nearly pitch-black room and the icy water that sucked the air from his lungs.

  He scrambled onto the shore, shivering violently, and cast the spell of the moon mirrors. The spell failed. He focused harder, and the second cast summoned half as many mirrors as normal, dim ones at that, but it was enough light to manage.

  “That … was … cold,” Iniru said, crawling over to collapse beside him, shivering violently like he was.

  “It’s ice water,” Lu Bei said. “What did you expect?” He had pulled Kemsu to the surface and was dragging him to the shore. The cold had woken Kemsu, but he was confused.

  Iniru scowled at Lu Bei. “I meant killing the nozakami-ga.”

  Turesobei replied, “She could bring those creatures back whenever she wanted. She would’ve betrayed us. And she got what she deserved. Besides, Motekeru looked like he could use a meal.”

  “I’m not saying you didn’t do the right thing,” Iniru said. “Just that it seemed cold.”

  “This coming from an assassin,” Lu Bei said.

  Iniru frowned, but made no reply. Turesobei felt certain Iniru had never assassinated anyone before. He was fairly certain the Winter Child was only her second mission ever, and she hadn’t been able to bring herself to kill the girl. It turned out that killing her hadn’t even been possible. Which meant either the Sacred Codex of the qengai had been wrong, or it had known this would happen but didn’t want Iniru to know beforehand. That was the thing about prophecy: you could never really know for certain.

  Kemsu crawled along the shore and joined them. He looked around, still dazed. “I’m guessing we won.”

  “Yes,” Iniru replied, “though I think we’re going to freeze to death now.”

  Turesobei tried a fire spell, but as cold as he was and with the energies available to him, he couldn’t manage anything.

  Motekeru stalked out of the pool with strong, heavy steps that didn’t lend to the least bit of creaking in his joints. His body gleamed as if newly polished. The injuries that had piled up on him were healed. The nicks in the wood of his frame had disappeared. The dents were gone from his bronze head, and his flattened nose had been restored. The fire in his eyes burned brighter. Even his claws looked refreshed, as if they’d been sharpened.

  Lu Bei hovered in front of him. “I haven’t seen you looking this strong in … five centuries. Good to see you back to your old self. Actually, I’ve never seen you look this good.”

  Motekeru flexed. “That was the best meal I’ve ever had.” He pointed at Lu Bei. “You just said something nice, and you have not snarked at me in weeks. We understand one another now, yes?”

  Lu Bei looked at Turesobei and said, “We are good, Motekeru. Because everything is different now.”

  Motekeru nodded. “Yes, I like him … I like the way things are now. And I do not wish to see anything change.”

  “I don’t really know what you two are discussing,” Turesobei said, teeth chattering, “but it doesn’t matter, because we are going to freeze to death soon.”

  Motekeru drew a ball of fire from his mouth as he’d done in the Lair of the Deadly Twelve. “Use this. I have more than enough now.”

  Motekeru placed the flaming orb on the floor, and Turesobei cast the fire spell onto it with the barest whisper. Almost instantly, they had a roaring fire to heat and light the room. Motekeru went outside and brought their sonoke in.

  Lu Bei examined Kemsu. He held up a finger and asked him to track it with his eyes. Kemsu managed that. Lu Bei sparked him.

  “Ow! What’d you do that for?”

  “Reflexes are normal,” Lu Bei pronounced. He turned to Turesobei. “He’s fine, master. Just a sleep spell. Doesn’t seem to have improved him, though. Unfortunate, that. I’m going to take a rest now.”

  Turesobei sighed. Apparently, Lu Bei didn’t like Kemsu now, probably because his master didn’t anymore. Lu Bei placed himself near the fire and turned into a book. Not that he was close enough that Turesobei was
worried about it, but could Lu Bei catch fire? He was waterproof, so maybe he was fireproof, too. Turesobei would have to ask him later.

  “Why doesn’t he like me?” Kemsu asked, still shivering.

  “The fetch hates everyone,” Iniru said, “except his master and Enashoma.”

  Smiling, Turesobei told Iniru to take the first turn stripping down to warm herself and dry out her clothes.

  She drew her spare shirt from the pack on her sonoke. “That’s a lame idea.” She pulled out one of the blankets. “We strip down and lay on the blankets, on opposite sides of the fire from one another. You two can face away from the fire while I face it, then we’ll switch. Once we’re dry, we can wrap up in the furs while our clothes dry.”

  “Good plan,” Turesobei said.

  “Our clothes are water-resistant, and we were only in a short time,” Kemsu said. “They’ll dry pretty fast with all this heat.”

  “We can spend the night here,” Motekeru said. “It’s safe. The clothes will be dry by morning, then we can return.”

  Iniru let them face the fire first, since Kemsu was the coldest. A few more minutes, and he might have died. Turesobei stared longingly at the supple muscles and ripples of fur on her back, the smooth curve of her spine. Her hair fanned out across her shoulders. It was only when they rotated and faced the wall that he could think straight again.

  “I have a plan,” he announced.

  “I was hoping you would,” Iniru said.

  “It’s risky, but I’m pretty sure it’ll work. Motekeru and I will need to coordinate our actions over a distance, but I think it can be done.”

  Motekeru climbed out of the pool with his large hands full of copper, jade, and ivory coins, as well as rubies and emeralds. He piled them on the bank with the rest that he had brought up. It was an incredible fortune. Whatever money they didn’t need along their way, they would send back to the goronku tribe if possible, to repay them for what they had done.