Chapter 5: Revenge, Party of Seven?
The others had been in awe of the gifts that Rienna had received from the undine, a little TOO much. Rienna cursed her luck that the ‘armor’ was so beautiful and feminine. She just wasn’t used to being looked at as if she were … a woman. As frivolous as it was, she found it did guard like steel and didn’t inhibit her movement in the slightest. The men all lagged behind her and she kept sneaking a glance to see one or more of them trying to look as if they weren’t staring. She wanted to be annoyed but some secret part of her wasn’t entirely unhappy to be noticed, even if it were for something so trivial. Freesia walked beside Rienna as a sign for the others to keep their distance; Rienna was still outwardly agitated by the attention. Freesia was completely grateful that the stares for once weren’t angled at her and made a mental note to change her wardrobe at the first chance. Stage clothes weren’t built for wear and tear and left little to the imagination. Grateful but maybe a little jealous too; she had developed a fondness for the spotlight since the first night she had performed her act… Male attention was never really something she wanted though.
They reached the center of the Dryad forest and came upon a clearing there. They all spread out now (without a road, it was only natural) but Dinsch hopped into the clearing cheerfully, the others trying not to laugh at the thought of happy bunnies frolicking in forests. Even Krose’s face was twisted up, fighting the image Dinsch had unknowingly given.
Dinsch reached the center and frowned, sniffing at the air strangely. All of them gasped as gnarled roots shot up and twisted around Dinsch’s limbs, pulling him into ground that gave way like quicksand. They all scattered to reach the spot but when they fell to that spot, the ground was hard again and there was no trace of the ground having opened up at all. Rienna and Freesia exchanged a knowing look.
When Dinsch opened his eyes, he noticed wooden gauntlets on his arms and legs, carved intricately and decorated with delicate gold inlays. The new loincloth he wore now hung very low on his hips and was made from forest-green colored cashmere. It made him think of Krose’s eyes. On the tops of his arms were golden bracers set with tiny emeralds. On his head sat a garland of silk leaves. He was underground somehow, looking up to see the giant roots of trees hanging like a labyrinth blooming chaotically. Something was digging beneath where he sat, an awkward shifting that was clearly unique to his spot. Dinsch yelped a little and jumped up, just in time to see a short stocky bearded man dig up from the spot he was lying in.
The short guy wore goggles over his eyes and a sagging cloth cap on his head. He wore leather gloves but large sturdy claws poked from the tips. The man was barefoot and his feet were clawed as well. He was a grumpy-faced mole of a man with sandy clumps of dirt and roots weaving through his camel-hued beard like capillaries on bloodshot eyes. He looked at Dinsch with little interest, carrying his sack across the cave and setting it down, rummaging through it casually, as if Dinsch weren’t there.
Dinsch was stupefied.
“Are … are you Folk too?” Dinsch asked, unable to figure this out. The mole similarities were just too strong to ignore but Dinsch had never heard of mole Folk either.
The little man turned and tugged at his beard grumpily, grunting a little.
“Well, boy, YOU went and landed yourself here. Don’t you know what a gnome looks like?” the gnome growled out gruffly. Dinsch’s jaw dropped.
“A gnome?! You’re an earth spirit, right? Why did you bring me here?” Dinsch asked with awe.
The gnome grunted again, his agitation building.
“I brought you here, did I?” the gnome asked quizzically, rubbing his filthy beard, creating a small cloud of fine dust and looking up at the gnarled roots of the ceiling. “Guess I must have. Well, I forgot now so I guess you can go.”
Dinsch looked up at the ceiling.
“Well, um, sir, I don’t really know how, you know?” Dinsch started to say.
The gnome spun around angrily, stomping his foot heavily, causing the ground to quake, dirt shaking loose from the ceiling. Dinsch randomly happened to notice he smelled like pinesap and that musty, earthy smell that reminded him of the burrows of home.
“Well, dawgurnit, it ain’t my fault! And the name ain’t ‘sir,’ it’s Girdinus! Got it?” Girdinus rumbled out angrily.
“Now where the hell did I put that thing I found?” Girdinus asked himself distractedly.
That is what made gnomes dangerous, you see. Everything distracted them and when they got bored, they’d bring someone down and just, well, forget. They also had short tempers and didn’t realize their own strength.
“Girdinus, then. What would a gnome want with a Bryfolk?” Dinsch asked politely, hoping conversation would spark the forgetful creature’s memory or at least keep him from being left here. The gnome was so tiny but he made Dinsch increasingly nervous.
“The question is ‘what would a Bryfolk want with a gnome?’” Girdinus growled back. “You trying to claim this burrow for yourself?”
Dinsch wriggled up his nose now and shook his head.
“No, your burrow pulled me down here, right? My friends are waiting for me up there and I promised I’d help them out!” Dinsch explained.
“Your friends, eh?” Girdinus asked, rubbing his chin deep in thought.
“Yeah, we’re going after a bad guy, a guy that’s waiting in underground places to attack. He’s killing people in big machines!” Dinsch exclaimed. He was trying not to let hysteria build and quite frankly, he wasn’t sure what exactly they were after at the moment, but he was hoping anything would bail him out of here.
Suddenly, the gnome remembered something. His face lit up and he pointed a finger upwards.
“Ah ha! That’s it! Wait just a moment!” Girdinus cried out, digging through his bag. He pulled out a kind of gold hoop encrusted with emeralds and a needle. Dinsch freaked out and tried to run away but the gnome was incredibly quick and pierced the hoop into his ear, nodding satisfactorily at the shining thing while Dinsch panted heavily from the fear.
“You’re one of that group trying to stop that idiot. Them machines are real nightmares, tearing up trees, destroying burrows, and eating up all those mosenweeds for fuel! Precious things, them mosenweeds! Well, I’m right furious about it! Sea Star told me you was headin’ this way so I was lookin’ for a nice welcoming gift, you know, something to give you as a kind of summonin’ talisman. In case you need my aid or new armor or somethin’ of the like. That’s what that earring was for. Took a while to find it, you know, so I guess I forgot until you said somethin’,” Girdinus rambled on, finishing with a flourish of his hand. Dinsch was just relieved that the gnome had remembered.
“So that’s all, really. Do your best, kid, and get yourself on out of here,” Girdinus told him, less gruffly. “And before you say you can’t, just grab that gift I gave you and close your eyes. The magic knows your desire, see? Go on now…”
Dinsch did as told and tenderly touched the piercing and closed his eyes. When his eyes opened, his friends stood around him in a circle, shocked and relieved by his return.
“Phew!” Krose sighed loudly. “Rienna told us not to get worked up about it! Am I ever glad that she was right!”
Dinsch smiled at his friend and pulled him tightly into a hug and grinned.
“I thought I’d never come back, you know? That guy sure forgot a whole lot! Maybe Rienna’s was nice, but gnomes are pretty scary!” Dinsch exclaimed, hopping around with Krose in his arms. To be honest, Rienna silently admitted Sea Star had unnerved her as well, ever since Belias had warned that Sea Star would have been glad to recruit her into death. Even though she had pleaded with her to set Belias free, Sea Star had avoided a response.
They all laughed at the sight, but there was no time for standing around. Morgaze awaited them. They would reach the town the next afternoon if they kept pace.
Dinsch seemed to want to spend a lot more time with Rienna from that time on. It seemed meeting th
e elementals gave them a lot to talk about and they both knew it was best to keep quiet from the ones who had not received the gifts. Dinsch learned that all of them would be given some kind of test in due time and it was not for either of them to disclose. She told him of her suspicion that Melchior must know something about it to have kept them alive, but Dinsch had clammed up. Whatever happened, they hoped now that their friends would not fail. Failure, they both knew, would certainly mean death, not because the elementals were cold or cruel but because their natures were such that they had some kind of detachment to the fragility of humans. Did she really trust Sea Star that they were better not knowing? Belias had revealed Sea Star’s game and it might have been the thing to save her. She would kick herself if it were better to warn them. Dinsch did okay, but Rienna was still uncertain.
The others seemed unhappy with the secrecy and Rienna gently told Dinsch that spending too much time in each other’s company whispering secrets would worry the others and that was counterproductive. There was nothing more to talk about anyway and they had to focus on Morgaze. Dinsch had agreed and fell back to cheer up his sulky best friend.
Night walked beside Freesia but the two of them didn’t speak or look at the other. Freesia seemed to be avoiding him again but she was not about to offer the reason. Truth be told, she was still angry that he didn’t grieve for the loss of their circus ‘family,’ at least in any way she could tell. He didn’t want to talk about, told her to focus on what they were facing. Night had never really been attached to anyone; he flirted with and even got intimate with many of the women they performed with, but then he had promised to watch over her. He still fooled around with the other girls, but his frequency and ardor seemed to wane and they wondered if he was playing both sides (hence the comment she shot at Ashe earlier). He was not direct about his attraction but he was poor at hiding it. He still had his favorites but it seemed Night was trying to be more discreet. Freesia went along with it, not even wanting to admit that maybe his interest in her bordered on obsession. He was not used to refusal. When she was able to think about it, it became clear to her that none of the girls ever wanted any connection to him either. Even after she suffered so much, he would flirt then he would avoid her for a while for no apparent reason. She would get sick of his avoidance and confront him, only to be met with his casual act of pretending he just had a lot on his mind and maybe they should do lunch.
Freesia stole a glance in Night’s direction. He was looking up at the sky, longingly; he was doing that a lot lately.
So far, nothing else had occurred and it set them all on edge even more. Another night had passed, all of them quiet in their own heads (although Ashe did wink at Rienna, making her blush) and Morgaze Magic City was now a spot on the horizon. Not a single bandit waiting to ambush them, nothing at all. It seemed even the elementals were not in any great hurry to help. It was a strange feeling but each of them was wishing for some distraction from the path of their thoughts. Even Ashe and Dinsch, the most cheerful of them all, seemed to be trapped in anticipation of what was ahead. They rarely exchanged words, none wanting to volunteer any more pain or instigate some petty argument.
They approached Morgaze Magic City before long and, so far, nothing was amiss. They even began to wonder if they were correct in their assumptions at all, yet they tensed for a trap. In any case, the beauty of this city mesmerized all of them. Even its inhabitants never took it for granted.
Morgaze was a city of purple stone buildings and lush green trees that were groomed impeccably in perfect geometric shapes. Though the city was manicured and maintained to perfection there was a kind of wildness there that one couldn’t quite define. Most of the inhabitants walked the grey cobblestone streets in long velvet robes of various colors, no doubt depicting the ability ranking of the wizards wearing them. Though they stood out, a ragtag bunch with nothing in common that anyone could surmise, they certainly weren’t the only ones without robes. A minority of the crowd came from other places as well after all.
Rienna, who walked ahead of the others, stopped and held her arm up as a signal for the others to do so as well. Ahead of her, she saw some odd green cloud of smoke engulfing people. The people caught up in it were dropping like flies; more accurately, dissolving like bugs in a Venus fly trap.
“What is going on? What is that stuff?” Rienna gasped out, horrified.
She turned and looked to the others, also confused.
“Whatever it is, we need to get the hell away from it,” Ashe growled out seriously. “Everyone, start climbing whatever the hell you can get to! The gas isn’t rising so up is the only way we can go if we want to stay here!”
They began to climb and Rienna lost her grip and slipped at one point, but Ashe’s hand had gripped her wrist and he had pulled her up to a firm handhold wordlessly as they scaled the building to the top. Dinsch began to scream at the people below to run away and, suddenly the scene below grew frenzied as people sought to do just that.
Krose had a sinking feeling in his gut that the worst was yet to come.
“That cloud is swallowing up the bodies, do you see?” Krose asked, his voice quivering.
That wasn’t wholly accurate either; Night could see that the ominous cloud left nothing behind, not a single drop of blood or hair, just disintegrated them rapidly.
“What’s happening here? Were they killed or just transported somewhere? I don’t get it…” Freesia gasped out, her heart thundering now. Night didn’t have time to explain, already forming a plan.
The wizards below them were trying to cast spells, some simply to teleport, others seeking to dispel the mysterious cloud, but their magic was not working.
It was Night that spoke up now.
“It’s antimatter. It disintegrates every living matter it touches and nullifies magic. You’d think the wizards here would know it when they see it,” Night softly told them, no doubt in his voice whatsoever, as he frowned and moved for the edge of the building as the cloud neared.
“How do you know that?” Freesia asked, somewhat accusingly.
“I’ve seen it before. In books left in my bassinet. I was from this city a long time ago,” Night answered expressionlessly. He then looked at Rienna and Dinsch.
“Don’t even bother bringing those elementals here. Antimatter can destroy them too,” Night now warned them.
“So what do we do then?” Rienna asked anxiously.
“This isn’t Melchior’s doing. Only a specific kind of person can summon the antimatter…” Night replied, something odd in his voice. He suddenly turned to face them.
“The one responsible is inside that thing. Stay here and trust me…”
They all watched in horror as Night dove from the building, heading into the now visible black and purple core of the thing below. He wasn’t sure how he knew what to do, but something called to him. The core was an unusual component here— it was a thing of magic but the great cloud was not devouring it. Freesia made a move towards Night’s falling figure but Ashe took hold of her arm and shook his head at her frightened look. Night disappeared into the dark center.
Night was not quite expecting to see this. He had learned about the odd force of dark magic; this wasn’t it. He wondered how this elemental had managed to hide in a Void…
Night was in a room of inverted color. His colorful silk robes were now black and edged with the random squiggling of a kind of glowing transparent element and they were no longer robes at all but tight wrappings of silk, hugging to every muscle of his body, the loose ends flowing around him like seaweed in the ocean. He watched them, fascinated. The loose silks seemed to have no definable width, becoming string-thin and then as tall as himself. He merely thought of retracting them and they wrapped about his limbs immediately. He controlled them completely! He watched as the silk wound and unwound from around his body, exposing and concealing his arms and legs, his torso remaining covered. Around his neck was a black silk ribbon holding a purple crystal. His hair was now p
ulled up onto the back of head, dangling down but wrapped in black silk ribbons. Oddly enough, he thought he smelled a kind of sweet yet musky incense, something foreign and exotic and old. Had he not been blindsided by this amazing situation, he might have realized then he was under the elemental’s protection awaiting a test of sorts.
Night jumped back in horror noticing a dark face with glowing red eyes was merely inches in front of his own. He tried to strike out with the fluid scarves but they would not attack. The voice of the thing was deep and raspy, cackling now.
“Where am I and who or what are you?” Night demanded angrily, his heart pounding wildly.
“Who and what is the answer… I am Erised, a Shade, you understand? The elemental of Dark. Ironic, no, given your name? I whispered your name into that woman’s ear, gave her to you, gave you all the women you could want, your life you owe to me,” Erised hissed out, amused. “You are home now. Foolish boy, diving to your death like that. But then darkness is never as afraid of itself as it should be.”
Night frowned coldly at the shapeless thing.
“You’re being purposely enigmatic. I’m trying to stop this Void you’re camping in— it’s destroying Morgaze. My friends are counting on me,” Night spat out, ignoring its claims. He wouldn’t let it know how it had unnerved him when he said that the woman who named him was “given to him.” She had kept her word never to tell and he hadn’t either. She was much older and married besides.
Erised cackled again.
“Your friends are all right here, didn’t you know? Look how many friends you’ve made!” Erised laughed cruelly at the joke, shadows flickering about teasingly. “Never mind it, boy, you have no reason to go back. No one to return to, no one who cares that you have gone, you don’t even care about losing what you had. Your place is here now. You should feel honored, really. Only the truly lost can come here. You are a true loner indeed.”
The Truth about Heroes: Complete Trilogy (Heroes Trilogy) Page 8