by Awert, Wolf
The giant seemed to be enjoying the confrontation. He chased the considerably smaller Brolok from one place to another, feinted into thin air, playing with him like a cat with its prey. But Brolok was not running away. He was looking for an opening, and he knew he would get one. Arrogance and playfulness had no place in a real fight.
When the warrior opened his arms wide, giving Brolok a challenging sneer as if inviting him to attack his chest, Brolok struck out. He held his left, armored arm raised high to block an attack from the right dagger and leapt forward, which drew a loud laugh from his opponent. His laugh died in his throat as Brolok’s right hand, previously held loosely by his side, shot up to his head with outstretched fingers. It was a fast attack from below that received its speed from the elbow and the twisting of the arm. Only the warrior’s fast reflexes saved his eyes from being gouged out; he turned his head to the side, but Brolok’s fingers were still moving. They shot past his neck and grabbed hold of the man’s hair.
What then happened was so fast barely anyone could see it. The warrior raised his daggers to bring down onto Brolok’s back. Brolok took a tiny step back, bending his right arm and at the same time hunching over until he was almost a ball. The giant’s head shot back and Brolok exploded, expanding in all directions at once. His right foot found the warrior’s toes and nailed them to the ground. The gloved hand flew to his throat and crushed the man’s larynx. The whistling windpipe drowned out the snapping of tendons in the foot as the blow knocked the man back. The giant dropped his weapons, his hands rising to his throat as if he could mend it by sheer willpower. One more strike from Brolok, and the fight was over.
“Long hair is a disadvantage for a warrior,” Brolok said calmly as if nothing had happened, and he threw mud and a hailstorm of lead at his next attackers.
On the other side were the mages of Ringwall who were being led by the Earth mage. They found themselves trapped between Galvan’s glowing metal and white glowing lights that Morb-au-Morhg the Mighty flung at them. They reduced the light’s heat with Water which caused the boiling vapor to rise into the sky, where it formed clouds that rained sulfur down on them. Morb-au-Morhg’s light was more than just Fire and turned into a black wall of Earth and Water.
No one could quite make out what Binja and Rinja were up to, but the dustriders were having difficulty keeping their horses under control and the first salvo of burning arrows bounced back off the very shields their own sorcerers had conjured. Sergor-Don’s court sorcerers began to argue and Binja and Rinja shared an amused giggle. In spite of their aid, it was only a matter of time until the small group on the quaking island ran out of strength.
AnaNakara stepped out of Sedramon-Per’s shadow and held a beam of light above Nill in one hand and sent out the pulse of life against her declared enemy with the other. Malachiris swayed on the spot, pushed back and forth by the enormous pressure, but she kept her footing. She laughed her loud, piercing laugh and kept the ground boiling where the army from the Other World was gathering. Sedramon-Per stood impassively in the middle of all the uproar. His eyes were closed and his arms hung lankly by his side, but his eyelids twitched and told of his wildly-moving eyes.
Nill’s body swayed in the tempest of thoughts, like the grass in a storm. The violent movement was at odds with the peaceful image he saw before him. Sedramon-Per was walking silently though the corridors of Ringwall, his white hood pulled up over his head so that only his nose peeked out. Even his aura was small and almost invisible. He hurried down a set of stairs with light steps that Nill knew all too well and was suddenly in front of the gate in the Hermit’s Caves. Now he pulled his hood back and laid his hands on the door, sinking into a deep trance – or so it seemed to Nill until he noticed that Sedramon’s lips were moving constantly in a calm rhythm as though he was singing a simple song or reciting magical rhymes. Nill tried to read his lips, but the movements were too sparse and to Nill’s surprise the spring-keeper’s face kept popping out at him.
Yes, you are Perdis, Nill thought. Finally I will know why you fled Ringwall.
Sedramon fell silent as the magical seal on the door opened. The falundron hopped onto Sedramon’s forearm with a clumsy leap.
“Careful of its poison!” Nill shouted as he watched Sedramon’s aura change to an off-white gray that let no light pass.
The door, robbed of its seal and its guardian, swung loosely on its hinges until the lock found its counterpart again. Sedramon and the falundron had disappeared.
Nill saw them again, in the Sanctuary between the five elements. Sedramon sat in the green grass and the falundron crawled slowly down his arm to the ground. The grass lost its green color and grew pale and translucent beneath a field of trembling air. The Nothing had arrived in Ringwall to take its place.
The falundron returned to Sedramon.
XIX
As if from a great distance, Nill heard a drone in the air, the bang of magical discharges, battle cries from the warriors and the five elements beating the swampy ground relentlessly. Everything around him shook. The floor, the massive walls, even the air in the catacombs. And yet, this was the past. Small gusts of air brought agitated voices followed by four high-ranking mages that swept through the corridors like the first wind of a storm, stopping abruptly when they reached the seal on the door that led to the Walk of Weakness. The magon gesticulated wildly and his three companions looked around jumpily.
Nill did a double-take. He did not know this magon. But the other three mages in their gray robes were familiar indeed. Ambrosimas, his mentor, Keij-Joss, and Mah Bu. How many winters must have passed since then, Nill wondered as the image disappeared under the noise of battle around him, and reformed with different colors.
The mages undid the elemental layers of the seal and the magon lifted the falundron from the door. They opened it wide and entered the Walk of Weakness. Nill saw murmuring lips and the air condensed into streaks. It looked as though the magon and the falundron were fighting. A field opened. The ruler of Ringwall’s hand lost its strength and the falundron fell; the mages opened their mouths in a silent scream and the magon began to dissolve as he fought for form and substance. Sharp, cut-out shapes changed into frayed mists, indistinct bodies turned into fleeting phantasms and disappeared. In the end, only the falundron remained. Mah Bu ran, Keij-Joss and Ambrosimas dived at the falundron and disappeared with it in a huge magical eruption.
Ringwall shook, and following Mah Bu through the portal were the five archmages of the elements. They surrounded the magical field that was all that remained and enclosed it, stopping it from sinking into Knor-il-Ank. Nothing could leave the spell.
For a long time it was calm. After what felt like an eternity, the air in the circle regained its strength and one of the mists regained its shape. It was Keij-Joss, who had not lost his way. He was holding Ambrosimas in his arms and had the magon slung over his shoulder. Despite this, he walked upright as though the two men’s bodies weighed no more than a feather. His face was deadly serious, his hair gray, and long lines creased his face from his eyes to his tired mouth.
So that’s the heroic deed that earned Keij-Joss the title Master of Chaos, Nill thought in astonishment. He brought the magon and Ambrosimas back. He saved their lives. What a mage!
The images grew colorless. The last impression Nill had was of the motionless figures of the five archmages in the circle and the flickering that surrounded Keij-Joss and Ambrosimas. The magon’s aura was extinguished. Nill’s stomach cramped. In the distance, he felt the dull strikes of magical bolts, heard the rumbling of moving earth. He felt the flickering of bright lights more than he saw it. But the outside world and the battle were far away from the silence of the Walk of Weakness. The Sedramon-Per of the present, standing on the little swampy island, had his head raised as though harking into the Other World. He had opened his eyes.
The Falundron is the key, and its language is the one hundred and twenty-eight stories, Nill thought. Sedramon-Per nodded slowly. One hu
ndred and twenty-eight symbols were on his amulet, each the first glyph of its respective story. It had been enough to make contact with the Falundron. Their message was simple. Every symbol, every story led toward the same thing: the beginning of all things. The things that had formed from the Nothing. The one hundred and twenty-eight stories were as a mirror to the Book of Wisdom and the Falundron was the Nothing’s bearer, the keeper of the seal and the font of magic that made up the energy in the Walk of Weakness. But in the vision he had seen, the Weakness had not yet existed. Had it been born of the field the magon had made?
How did I never realize it before? Nill wondered and he swore that, if he survived the battle, he would return to Ringwall, no matter that it was a ruin, that the Sanctuary was crushed and its magic broken. Galvan was right: Ringwall was more than simply the center of the five elements’ powers. Ringwall was also Knor-il-Ank itself. Ringwall’s foundations, the strange stones Nill had immediately noticed the first time he had wandered around the city, must have come from a different time when the magic of the five elements had not yet existed. This older Ringwall had survived King Sergor-Don’s attack. Beneath its very foundations lay the Walk of Weakness and the Hall of Light and Shadow. But first, they had to survive the battle. With a small popping in his ears, Nill was back in the present.
Malachiris was still stumbling beneath AnaNakara’s unending hits, but over and over again she leapt into the Other World and nothing could stop her from summoning more and more of the sludge creatures. Binja and Rinja attempted to push the flood of them back. Binja banished one after the other back to the Other World, but in the time it took for her to get rid of one, Malachiris had summoned two more. Rinja put all her strength into binding the creatures and immobilizing them, and had she not had the success she did, they would long since have overwhelmed the small group on the island. Yet still they moved, slowly, but in unending numbers, closer and closer.
On the other side, Galvan and his mages fought a titanic battle against Dakh-Ozz-Han. Creativity, cunning and tactical finesse faced off against the raw, brutal power of the elements. The mages combined Earth and Wood magic, mixed Fire with the Other World, hid Water inside of Metal and even did not shy away from attempting even more daring combinations. Talldal-Fug’s court sorcerers were no novices in the magical arts either, and they had a masterful control of hiding their auras’ and spells’ colors until it was too late to initiate a counterspell. Despite their recklessness, all their attacks foundered against Dakh’s flame pillars, tidal waves and stormwinds. Dakh’s magic was simple. He flung element after element at his enemies in an ever-faster cycle. Even from a great distance, they saw that the unbound magic here was roaring within itself, feeding off its own inherent power, rising to indescribable heights. It lit up the sky, made the brown mud shine violet and turned what little green remained of the unscorched plants pale yellow.
Morb-au-Morhg’s sorcery posed a particularly effective problem to the Earth mage’s group. Gray clouds of smoke and pallid bolts of lightning, walls of light shining with runes and poisoned fog that clouded the mind and brought madness and sickness all had little to do with the elemental magic. This was no magic learned in Ringwall, it was the magic of the swamps, of the Murkmoor, the Salt Marshes and the Mistwood. This was a magic Dakh-Ozz-Han detested and the mages scorned as lesser than their own, yet it was nature’s own form of magic. Untouched by arcanists, simply drawn from the world as it was. Dirty and unclean, yes, but not evil. It was like nature: wild and harsh, thoughtless and innocent, and still not free of the chaos of creation despite the unimaginable length of time that had passed.
“You never understood the wild sorcerers, mages of Ringwall,” Morhg the Mighty shouted, “and you still cling to your false belief that your magic is the world’s magic.”
“You became a mage of Ringwall of your own accord, Morb-au-Morhg,” the Earth mage retorted. “So tell me, why do you fight against your brothers rather than obeying Ringwall’s command?”
“Because it is not Ringwall’s command! Because the archmage is the last ruler of Ringwall! For Nill, for Ringwall, and for the world! Kill the traitors! Death to Galvan and death to Malachiris!” Morb roared and another cloud of muck and mud rose to bury the mages.
“For Ringwall! For Galvan!” they shouted back.
Talldal-Fug’s armored riders thought they had found a gap in the magical Fire and raced their horses forward. Dakh-Ozz-Han drew up the wet earth under their feet, causing the horses to buck and rear in blind panic. The court sorcerers hastily leapt out of the way and the riders flung themselves forward to bring their steeds’ front legs back to the ground.
“It’s time, my friend, for you to return from the dream world and give me a hand,” the druid said a little reproachfully to Sedramon-Per. “I’m getting a little too old for this kind of dance and could do with either some help or a break.”
“Your aura roars unchanged, druid. Do not make yourself smaller than you are, but I could try something my wife taught me once.”
With these words Sedramon-Per’s eyes flickered open and he began to dismantle the enemies from Metal World by breaking the balance of their natural pulse. The first shockwaves were little more than a polite knock on the front door. It crept into their hearts and grew slower and slower and robbed them of the bloodlust coursing through their veins and in their brains. The pulse decelerated even further and grew louder and deeper until the beating was inaudible to human ears, merely felt as further shockwaves that rushed through the air. Bodies shook and, through the silence of deaf ears, a sudden scream pierced their minds. The riders dropped their reins and clapped their hands to their ears in vain while their horses trampled around in agitation. They could not hear the scream, but they felt their riders’ agony.
The court sorcerers writhed and cowered until they finally managed to block out the screams from their heads. Dakh looked over at Malachiris, who was at times clearly visible and at others no more than a whisper of a shadow.
“Malachiris!” he yelled through the noise. “Even after this battle, you will never gain Ringwall’s acceptance! You will never be a true mage! You have made all the wrong choices, and again you are mistaken!”
“Keep your empty words, druid.” Her voice cracked like a whip. “Who do you think you are to judge me, to have me justify myself to you? What do I care for Ringwall? Ringwall was no more than a tool for my revenge. My vengeance towards him. He was mine, and he just left. Without a word of thanks, much less a word of farewell. Only vengeance can wash away the wrongs he did to me!”
“Really, Malachiris?” Dakh’s voice dripped with the incredulity all druids felt when confronted with revenge as a motive. Revenge had no place in nature. “All this for a broken heart, because you didn’t get the man you wanted? Men come and go, and you’re afraid of staying alone your whole life because you missed the one you wanted?”
“Dakh-Ozz-Han, you are three times stupider than all the rest. You are a man and are too stupid to understand a woman. You are a druid and are too stupid to understand magic, and you are too old and too stupid to understand what goes on in a woman who truly knows magic. The only thing you know that I don’t is the secret of dealing with age and the constant invitations to the Other World. I’d like to know that secret.”
“Perhaps we can make a deal.”
“Not with you. Do you really think I couldn’t enchant a man? I could have dozens. Here – see my mages. They are the strongest Ringwall had. One from each lodge. Most have a higher rank than I, so why do you think they followed me, a mere mage? I will tell you. Because they are men. No, druid, all I wanted was Sedramon-Per, and maybe the son he never gave me. But what use was a child as long as he was there?
“Listen closely!” she called to the group. “I wish to make you an offer. If Nill, the archmage, promises under oath to give me everything, to serve me willingly for ten winters, or however you count time with the Oas, I will spare you all. Yes, the little fat one, the old man whose time
should have long since run out, the scum who betrayed me and the abomination he chose instead. The boy will not be harmed.”
“Never!” Sedramon-Per roared, and the riders of Metal finally lifted their hands from their heads. The shouted word had broken the spell.
“If you want to strike a deal, it will be on my terms. If you leave now and take your people with you, in the memory of what you once did to me, I will let you go without harming you and I will not hold what has happened today against you. You may go without fearing for your life every day.”
Malachiris shrieked with laughter. The sound drowned out the roaring fires and the bubbling water, which at that moment were so loud that even some spells were inaudible to those casting them.
“You are strong, Sedramon. It’s why I wanted you in the first place. You are stronger even than you realize. I would have shown you and spared you the long hunt. But for you to believe that you’re stronger than I is like a mouse believing it can defeat the roc. Behold your end.”
With a wide, swinging gesture Malachiris sliced through the barrier that kept her army back, and the gray figures walked forward unimpeded.
Galvan used the moment of Sedramon’s distraction to block the hammering Metal blows with a soft, watery shield. He now attempted to poison the small island through its roots, but Dakh beat him to it and took the life from the ground before it could be perverted.
The short figure that had come with Sedramon-Per had flung off her hood and her copper hair glowed in the red sun. A weak mist rose from the ground and surrounded Nill, growing more and more opaque until nothing except his silhouette was visible. The small blond person behind him rose.
“Takes a witch to beat one,” she muttered as she slowed the warriors who were throwing themselves at Brolok. “You remember, Brolok? We’ve done this before.” Bairne giggled.