by Ryk E. Spoor
Amanita started to gesture to the guards, but then I heard Ugu’s voice. “Nay, Amanita. You have parts of the circle to prepare again; the candles needs must be doused and re-prepared, other small things that only you can do. It is his death we prepare for him; at the least, I shall give him this time to mourn.”
But I barely registered any of this, all that mattered was the Faerie Princess who had brought me to wonder and now was going pale before me. “No, Poly, no, God, Polychrome, why? All that mattered to me was that you were going to live, that’s all, why did you do this, why?”
Then she smiled softly, as though she felt no pain, and answered in a voice that only I could hear. “Because I love you, Erik, and all that mattered to me was that you would live.”
“You…love me?” I repeated, and for a moment I could not imagine the meaning in those words. And then the meaning burst in and I found myself sobbing. “Oh, no, Polychrome…Poly…Oh, God, I’d have given anything, anything at all to hear you say those words…and now I’d give anything never to have heard them, if it means –”
Her hand came up and touched my lips. “Shh. Shh, Erik. I’ve been so very blind, love. You were telling me you loved me almost from the moment we met; I just didn’t hear it behind the words you used.” I tried to speak, and the fingers touched me again. “No, no, Erik, we’ve both been fools, and…” She winced. “…and we’ve wasted so very much time. Please…don’t waste the time we have left.”
Her hand rose, curled behind my head, and I felt as though my heart was about to shatter as I understood. And then we kissed.
And it lasted for an instant, and for what seemed to be beyond forever, and for just that timeless eternity I knew that she did love me, that Polychrome Glory, Daughter of the Rainbow, had somehow fallen in love with me, and that there was no other wish or desire I could imagine having.
Except for it not to come to an end, and it was over, and her lovely hand sliding down, falling, the violet-stormy eyes clouded with pain and her breath coming in quick gasps. “And…now, Erik…Please…do what we…came here…to do.”
Her hand dropped to the ground, and her eyes shut, and one last breath escaped.
I screamed again, for there was no pulse, no breathing, nothing. “Please, Poly…please…” I could barely speak, and what was the point, for there was no one left to hear. “Please, no…I can’t do it, Poly. They… They still have our other friends, Zenga, Ruggedo, Nimbus…and even if they didn’t, how could I, how, how could I do that now, when they’ve just ripped out my –”
And then I understood. For one terrible moment I hated them all, Iris, the damned Pink Bear, Nimbus, all those who must have known. A laugh escaped me, an ugly sound, and more like another sob than anything else.
“The preparations are complete,” Ugu said quietly, and looked down at me. “Come. Let us…end this.”
Oh, we’ll end this. But not the way you think.
Slowly I lowered Polychrome to the ground, feeling wetness across my chest as well as my face as I did so, and took a deep breath.
“Ozma,” I said, my voice barely a whisper, and the words came to me, as though I had known them all along, “I, a Mortal Man, bathed in the blood of my heart call to thee. Give me the power to set right what is wrong,” and I let my voice rise to its full volume, “and wipe these monsters from the face of Faerie!”
Ugu shot to his feet, shock and dawning understanding on his face. “What –”
I reached back and slammed my hand onto the face of the shining pyramid.
“COME FORTH!”
The world exploded in light. It dissolved everything around me, a seething, burning multicolored fountain of corrosive luminance so hateful that I wanted to shrink back. But I stood my ground, and the light flowed past, and shimmered more softly, and slowly, slowly, within the light, beyond the light, a figure was coming forward. I stood in an abyss of brilliance on a path of pure darkness, and the darkness rose up, radiating from me, I realized, as light from a candle, dispelling the roiling light as the sun wipes away the fog, and the figure became clearer, a girl, with hair the color of midnight and the depth of dreams, a single crimson flower twined in her hair, and a face as lovely as the one I had just laid down.
For a moment she was as stern and proud as any queen, emerging from a prison, prepared to face her enemies. But then her eyes found mine, her expression softened, her arms were held out, and I realized, somehow, that she knew me. “Oh, Erik,” she said, and her voice was as a ringing of bells, “I have seen your loss, and I grieve.”
I wanted nothing more than to take that embrace, and cry, and run away, take refuge from what I did not dare face, what I had just won and left behind at the same time.
And I could not do that. Not yet. And just knowing that was nearly enough to break me.
“No!” I said, and took a step back, my voice cracked and desperate. “No, Ozma. No sympathy, no pity, no comfort, none, or I’ll lose all the control I have, and all of this will be for nothing! Maybe later — if there is a ‘later’ for me. But for now,” I bared my teeth in a grin that had not a trace of humor, “finish this.”
She nodded gravely, eyes filled with crystal tears, and took my hand.
And as white-hot fire burned through me, I opened my eyes and screamed.
Chapter 51.
Ugu felt no joy in this ritual. Finally we come to the end. The powers will be bound. And then — if all goes as planned — the threat of my Queen will be ended, as will all threats to my power.
He winced as Amanita revealed Cirrus’ existence. Damn her. Now, by my word, I am bound to return them to their homes, and they will know. Not that this would entirely remove the usefulness of Cirrus’ knowledge, but it would surely blunt the effect, for Nimbus Thunderstroke would undoubtedly immediately begin the process of changing all procedures, entrances, and so on.
As Amanita proceeded, becoming more and more involved with the ritual, he caught Cirrus’ eye and nodded. The young General, still shaken from his unveiling, gave a small bow, and then departed — with an expression of relief that he would no longer have to suffer the burning regard of his old commander or — as Ugu now knew — his former fiancée.
How difficult must that be. I am glad it has not come to the final options.
And then came the penultimate moment, and a streak of rainbow light shattered all his calculations. What has happened?
But as he saw the Mortal collapse to the ground, sobbing, heard the broken tone of his voice, he felt a long-dormant part of his own heart twinge, send an echo of loss and sadness that led him to understanding; he allowed Erik Medon that time, the last he would have, and watched gravely as the dying Princess and her Hero kissed a first -- and final -- time.
But all of Amanita’s preparations were complete, and there was no more time for delay. “Come,” he said, as gently as he might manage to one he had led here to die. “Come. Let us…end it.”
The Mortal gave a last, sudden sob and was still for a moment. Then he lowered the body of Polychrome to the ground, whispering something, as Ugu gestured for the guards to restore his bonds.
And then the blond head came up, and the whispered words became a shout: “…and wipe these monsters from the face of Faerie!”
He knew something was wrong, then, but for a frozen moment of time he did not understand. And then it was too late, as Erik Medon touched his hand to the Pyramid of Imprisonment and called Ozma forth.
A tremendous detonation of power blasted outward, a shockwave that knocked all around — even Amanita’s abominable four — to the ground. Amanita’s magic protected her, brought her in a shimmer of green to his side. “Wh… what is happening?”
Ah, it is now clear. And I have been entirely out-maneuvered in this Prophecy. “He was in love with the Daughter of the Rainbow. And you, my Queen, have bathed him in the blood of his heart!”
The Music of the Spheres was gathering now, calling, calling not to Ugu or Amanita…but to a Mortal Man,
bathed in the blood of a Princess born of Faerie and perhaps the Above itself.
She stared openmouthed in shock and outraged comprehension. “He can’t do this! He swore to cooperate with the Ritual! The Powers should tear him apart, Mortal or no!”
Ugu smiled thinly. “Ah, yes. But you completed that Ritual. True, it was rather spoiled because you killed the wrong person at the end, but it did go to completion — something, again, neither of us considered.” He looked up. “And we shall pay the price for that error.”
Now the ring of light that had flown outward slowed, reversed, began to return, and as it passed over the Armies, Ugu could see from the High Seat that thousands of his troops were collapsing, falling, reverting to what they had been. Other changes were beginning to be evident, none more than in the dwindling sense of connection he and Amanita had shared for three hundred years and more.
“All the power we have taken from Oz is returning to its source — and through her, into him,” he said grimly, and rose to his feet, grasping his staff, calling forth all the enchantments he had prepared against this one impossible chance. “Ward thyself, Amanita; this is our moment of reckoning.”
The power funneled back into Erik Medon, an explosion in reverse, and disappeared.
For a moment — just a moment — there was silence and stillness. Nothing moved. Nothing spoke. The entirety of Faerie held its breath, to see if the Mortal would survive this final moment.
And then once-blue eyes flared open, blazing pure green fire, and Erik Medon let out a cry that shook the foundations of the Earth. It was a shriek and a roar and a growl, a scream of pain and ecstasy and fury and triumph, of loss and vengeance and betrayal, of sorrow and courage and unbending will, and the power blasted from him, kicking the few remaining guards aside like toys. A rampage of force crackled out, shattering stands, throwing Dark Elementals to the winds, and sundering the steel bonds of his friends, scattering those holding them.
The cry went on and on, and the earth danced beneath Erik Medon until it seemed that the entire Grey Castle would be brought down by his fury in the very moments it was awakened. The Spheres sang in icy precision, a rhythmic chant of ancient words:
“Ultio!
Vindicatio Vir!
Termini Tyrannorum!
Libertas!”
And suddenly it stopped, and there was only the figure standing in the ruins of the Pyramid, gazing up at him. The Mortal chuckled, a laugh on the edge of sanity, and the Chant of the Spheres remained, softer but no less grim, no less the sound of bared steel.
Ugu shook his head. “I shall give you no time to learn this power you have gained. Frozen Soul!” A blue-white bolt streaked from the staff, freezing the very air between them, racing at the speed of thought towards the once-Mortal with the glowing eyes.
The mouth quirked upward, and for a moment a phantom image surrounded him, a dark-haired man in a red shirt. “Deflector shields up, Captain!” he said, almost at the same time as Ugu’s spell, speaking in an accent that was not his own.
An insubstantial barrier intercepted the Frozen Soul, turned it to a harmless spray of frost and snow.
Ugu felt his mouth drop open. “What?”
Erik Medon’s laugh was humorless but loud. “I already know how to use it. Imagination, Will and Power. The first two I have had all my life, and now I have the third.” He clenched his fist, and it blazed like a newborn sun. “And there is nothing you can do against me now!”
“Surtur!” Amanita called. “Slay me this man!”
The titanic flame-spirit smiled and strode forward, raising a sword of flame and doom.
Erik turned and raised his arms over his head; a hint of longer gold-blond hair, a shimmer of fantastic silver-blue armor, and the arms came down, directly at Surtur. “Aurora… Execution!”
A blue-white ray, somehow akin to Ugu’s own, thundered outward, but as Surtur parried it, the monster suddenly realized that this had been a terrible mistake. Ice began to form, ice clear and hard as diamond, spreading as swiftly as frost across an icing pane of glass, hardening, sealing, extinguishing the eternal flame and leaving only blackness behind, until before them was no fiery giant, but a huge block of ice with something dead and black at the center. It teetered and slowly, slowly fell, shattering to ice chips and foul-smelling dust, and Surtur — one of Amanita’s greatest creations — was gone.
“Understand this,” Erik said, his voice echoing across the land. “This is the land of Faerie, the land that sparks the dreams of Mortals…and which is born, I think, of human dreams, human will, human imagination. And so…Imagination: whatever I can think of and imagine doing, this I can do; I need no spells, save those which raise the sense of wonder and courage within my heart, those which symbolize that which I call forth. Will: The strength I can wield is limited only by how much I am determined to do, by what I will risk. Power: I have all of Oz to draw upon.”
Light now began to radiate from his body. “My world was built on imagination, my reading was filled with it, my entertainment was nothing but imagination, and though on my world this was nothing, the life of a man who has nothing else, here it is the one and only thing that matters, the sole weapon any Mortal could hope to wield against you.”
He looked directly into Ugu’s eyes, and that cold, emerald gaze was like looking into his own death. “I have the dreams and hopes, all the monsters and weapons and spells and powers imagined by a thousand men and women, of a dozen countries, of more books than you could read in a dozen years, all, here, in my mind, ready to answer any of your riddles with unanswerable power.”
His arms rose and came down; towards Ugu and Amanita came the same force of absolute cold that had extinguished Surtur — and his eyes narrowed as the energy faded and vanished.
“Powerful indeed, and dangerous, but you have yet to win the day, Erik Medon,” Ugu said. He was grimly aware that his words were at least half bravado. Despite all his preparations, the power of the Mortal’s sacrifice, of the Princess of Oz bound within a mortal shell, was something truly beyond any of his calculations, and Erik Medon himself was fey and dangerous, a man uncaring of his own survival, intending only destruction of those that had deprived him of things more precious than power or gold. Still… “One enchantment I prepared for decades, against the possibility I might be forced into conflict against such power.” Though it was meant for Amanita. “The Eye of the Soul watches, and sees all that you do. I cannot stop any action you may take…unless it is the same action as a prior one.
“So show us this imagination, Erik Medon. Show it well. For if once it fails, little indeed shall you have to protect you against ours.”
Chapter 52.
At that moment there was a rising shout, and both Ugu and I turned.
The Armies of Faerie were on the move.
I looked up, and realized that the half-formed wish in my mind — when Ozma had infused her power into me — had come true. Zenga, Ruggedo, and Nimbus were no longer bound, and they had regained command of the Armies. Now, with many of the powerful creatures gone from the Usurpers’ forces, they had a chance.
That knowledge, and Ugu’s unexpected and brilliant countermove, shocked me back to some form of sanity. The power was burning in me, with a sensation that could not be described. It was agony, as though my very bones were afire — and it was ecstasy, as though there was nothing I could not do. And I knew the longer it went on, the less of me there would be. How long? How long can my soul withstand the power? I have to be careful. Go too fast too soon and I’ll die before I can win. Go too slow… and they’ll kill me sure. I’m both Mortal and Faerie now, and I have to use both exactly right.
I concentrated, remembering — with a sharp and sudden pang of renewed loss — the sheer speed Polychrome had shown. Ugu can negate combat powers, probably, but I doubt his little trick can stop me from using things on myself; that’d mean he could directly affect me. I found myself streaking across the ground so fast I was leaving an arrow-straight
cloud of dust behind me. The Usurper’s forces, regrouping — with both Cirrus and Guph shouting orders — were just in front of me.
I tore into their ranks, tossing bodies aside like confetti. One of the mighty siege engines loomed up and I grasped it, hefted it like a softball, and spun around like a hammer-thrower, lofting it directly for the Usurper’s stands. With sight and hearing multiplied as well, I could see eyes widen, hear their gasps, though I stood half a mile away.
Ugu shattered it with a word and a gesture; I realized that he must have spent many, many months preparing, and even the inhuman speed I’d gained wasn’t going to be able to beat him alone. I would have to start pushing what I had…and hope it would last long enough.
Amanita cast out a handful of powder, and the ground began to erupt with stone warriors, the transformational power of Yookoohoo magic making unliving ground into real opponents. These charged towards the still re-forming ranks of the Armies, even as her other three monsters rose and came for me. “You have done well, Mortal Man, but see! I have more forces for the asking, while you — powerful though you are — are but one man. You cannot confront us and protect your friends at the same time.”
Oh, can’t I? A flash of thought, blond hair and simple headband and an unyielding will, fingers of my two hands crossing just so, and in a blaze of light and smoke there were three, five, twenty, a hundred of me. We grinned our nastiest grin at Amanita as her face went slack in astonishment. The others might not last long, but it’ll sure slow things up. And if…yep, I see ten of me keeping near each of my friends; that should keep them for a while.
“An illusion?” Ugu gestured, then frowned. “No. Truth. Perhaps all not equally powerful…”