Her lungs seared, and she looked around the room, but it was just that, a room. There weren’t any exit points or air pockets. She panicked and the water plunged in temperature due to her emotions, but before the black spots in her vision got worse, the water level vanished below her.
Karena dropped onto dry ground. Now that she could breathe, she heaved for air, choking for it to replenish her lungs. Water shadows rippled across the ground. She looked up. Like an inverted swimming pool, water was held suspended above her. She stood and reached upwards to it. Her fingertips grazed its bottom, and water trickled down her hand. What had happened? What was going on? But some part of her knew. The worst fear associated with water was the fear of drowning. For a Water elemental, it was the fear of being abandoned and betrayed by their own element.
What was she supposed to do now? The room was bare. She walked around, and pressed on the walls, but nothing happened. She didn’t see an activation switch anywhere, and nor could she see anything that indicated what she should do next. Frustrated, she sat down. And then, it hit her. Her mind was the activation switch!
Karena closed her eyes and returned her thoughts to the Fire district and what she had seen. A siren’s song floated through her head. It was both haunting and beautiful at the same time. Karena simultaneously concentrated on it and on the urgency of the crisis at hand. Then she realized that an erhu and ocarina were playing in the siren’s song. They cascaded over each other. The notes rose and fell like summits and steep drops. They were being played in a way that belied the instruments’ naturally soothing character. The erhu and ocarina tugged at her heart and feet. The song chased each other and pushed at her back, urging her to help those in need, begging her to travel north. Her feet tingled, wanting to run, and her adrenaline spiked in anticipation of charging into danger.
Then her eyes shot open. The song wasn’t just playing around her; it was playing above her as well. The statue had been activated. She scrambled to her feet, and looked to the archway. It was now open and devoid of water, allowing her safe passage back to the surface. She took a step forward and noticed that her shoes didn’t squelch. She was dry, as though she hadn’t taken a swim.
Excited, she raced up the stairs, and into the night of the park. She looked up at the sky as she listened to the erhu and ocarina resonating through the air, calling everyone to arms. Though they were water associated instruments, and were supposed to be gentle and smooth like water, they played out a heavy, warring tune. Up and down they went, in sync with each other, complementing the other.
Before her feet, the statue reformed, becoming whole again, and slowly rose into the air. Rays of purple and blue light shot out from it. They were the colors of the Water district, or rather, the colors that represented the Water elementals. The ocarina and erhu, which had once been resting by the mermaid’s side, now floated next to her stone form. The statue rose until it was higher than the trees and the houses. The right arm of the mermaid pointed to the north, to the Fire district. The rays directed themselves that way, rolling like ocean waves in the sky and pulsating to the music.
A loud crash caught her attention, and she noticed the charred ground. Before she could worry, her dad stumbled towards her. Behind him lay the severed remains of Mark, and the weaponry that he had blasted apart into long splinters of metal. She rushed to him and hugged him.
“You’re alive and unhurt,” Karena said and pulled away from him.
Her dad said, “I guess I can take down a vampire. I never thought that I would have to in my lifetime,” and paused for a second, as though shocked by his own words. He continued, “You did a great job. You activated the statue.”
“I had to swim underwater to do so,” she said.
He frowned. “You did?”
“Yeah, but it worked.”
“Most of the documents pertaining to the statues have been lost, so even my knowledge about the statues is limited. The vampires, like Mark here, must’ve been behind the destruction of those documents. Everything I know came from word of mouth from one generation to the next, and thank goodness for that because otherwise, no one would even know where the main statues are or what they can do,” he said.
“You never mentioned that.”
“I didn’t want to get your hopes down. This statue quite possibly could’ve been the wrong one, but it wasn’t. Luckily, the Fires and Airs seemed to have figured out what to do. The Earths should be able to activate one of their own main statues if the rest of us managed to,” he said.
They watched the hovering statue in the sky, and listened to the combined notes from the three districts. She couldn’t deny what sung in her heart and danced in her veins. The call to fight was strong.
When the Earth district answered the call to arms, the Fire district would add the cello to complete its song, and the Air district, its harps, because they would no longer be in distress. But until the Earth district answered, they would remain playing what she was currently hearing, which were the drums and flutes. For now, the Water district was the only one playing their primary and secondary instruments.
“I’m going over there,” Karena said. She braced herself for the inevitable objection from her dad.
He started to say something, but stopped, and put a hand on her shoulder. “We should,” he said.
She startled. It was a night of firsts for a lot of things. But he was serious, he wasn’t going to try to prevent her from heading off into danger.
They jogged out of the park. She hated to think what a nasty surprise it would be for the unprepared person who came into the park in the morning and saw the bloody remains of Mark like that. However, there wasn’t time to dispose of the body.
“How did you kill him?” she asked. Her eyes searched the shadows as they headed for his car. She was paranoid that there could be more like Mark under the loom of the trees.
Her dad said, “I used his weapons against him. He forgot that the cross guard on the hilt of the sword isn’t infused with magic. One twist and turn of it, and it sliced right through him. Getting a hold of it from a distance was the tricky part.”
When they arrived at his car, they both stopped. Across from the park, in the line of houses, front doors opened up and shut. People walked out of their houses to gaze up at the sky where the luminescent blue and purple waves washed towards the Fire district. The men and women went back inside to tell their children and elderly parents living with them to stay put. They came back out with weapons and either drove away, used a magical object to fly away, or shapeshifted. Broomsticks, umbrellas, and flying rugs were popular methods of transportation amongst magical folks.
Her dad opened up the trunk of his car. He pulled out two curved boards, which somehow he had fit into the trunk. They almost looked like ironing boards, except that they were wider in the middle. He handed her one.
“I’ve been working on this for some time. It’s called a surf board. It’s traditionally used for riding ocean waves,” her dad said. His moustache twitched as he tried hopelessly to repress a proud smile.
“I can’t use one. I’m not a witch or sorceress.”
“I made it so that anyone can use it.”
Karena eyed him in disbelief, but despite this, she set the board on the ground and stepped onto it. Her blood rushed in her veins. Ride the wind. Surf it. It becomes an extension of us. We will connect to it and power it.
The board lifted off the ground by a few inches. She shouted and her arms waved, but her feet were glued to it. She didn’t wobble or have to flail her arms around to stay upright. The surfboard absorbed her elemental powers, and consequently, she could manipulate the board and its magically imbued flying ability as though it was an extension of herself. It was like she had an extra ability now. Ice covered the board, whereas with her dad’s, a ghostly energy field surrounded it.
“Isn’t it awesome?” her dad shouted over to her.
“I have to say that it is,” she said, flashing him a nervous, but
elated smile. She had had enough of heights, but perhaps she could make an exception if it meant getting to the Fire district quicker.
Just as the statue had, they rose upwards into the air on their boards. Her fear of heights began to diminish because it was being numbed by her determination to help the Fire district. They ascended above the rooftops and hovered there. Now she knew what it was like to be a bird, or Evelyn, and see the ground as a temporary roost.
“Telepathically command it to move forward,” her dad said to her. He was at ease on his board. It was obvious that he had practiced flying on it a lot.
Karena mentally willed the board to move forward. It responded by doing so. It was propelled by her thoughts and her elemental powers working seamlessly with the magic in it. It was like driving a car, except that the controls and steam engine were in her head.
With her dad beside her, she charged towards the Fire district, leaving an ice wake behind her, which powdered and fell to the ground. Other people rose into the air and headed for the Fire district too, all heeding the call without questioning about why they should. Hundreds of people dotted the sky and more were showing up every second. The sky pounded out the call for battle, and no one could turn a deaf ear to it. Below them, cars maneuvered through the streets. They were like one moving mass, a tsunami about to crash on their enemies, however many there were.
A man with his teakettle under one arm, and his bathmat under his feet, rose next to Karena and cruised at the same speed as her. Ahead of her, a woman held onto her umbrella. Her cloak whipped behind her. A sorcerer with his snake looped like a scarf around his neck floated on winged, pink slippers. Despite the comical appearance, a huge aura radiated from him that was of similar strength to her dad’s.
Other statues, which had been activated by the main one she had woken up, hovered in the air. All of them pointed and threw out light towards the Fire district. She passed under a spear wielding one that was half-man and half-octopus. Like the aurora borealis, the purple and blue light rippled in the air.
In the nearing distance, fire raced across the horizon and lightning zigzagged down from the clouds. Thunder boomed from above. Debris and dust puffed into a dense mist as buildings were destroyed or toppled over. Her breathing quickened. Soon, she would be amongst the chaos. She was ready to fight for her city.
Suddenly, the long-winded, lokh horns of the Earth district sounded. Their deep bellows roared into the night. Hadrian and Evelyn had activated the main statue. They had done it. Panpipes began to play a marching tune, hooting like an owl and wobbling in a soul-felt desire to connect with their elemental brothers and sisters.
The Fire district continued to peal out a frenzied beat of drums, but in a different way. The drums altered their beat and began to hammer out a faster and more powerful one. Gone were the questioning notes of whether help would come. A cello began to strum. It strung deep and fast, as though in a belly of a volcano. Then the Air district followed, and their secondary instrument, the harp, began to pluck at a similar rate of speed.
The tunes from all four districts created a thunderous orchestra. They formed a war song of epic proportions with eight instruments. It echoed into the ancestral parts of their brains from when those instruments had been introduced to them by the elemental gods. The gods had taught them how to use them when the gods had infused their blood into theirs. They were descendants of them, and therefore, the chords frenzied her blood more than it would for someone who didn’t have it in their veins. But in Archelm City, almost everyone had some trace of elemental blood due to the high concentration of elementals living there.
The air vibrated with light and sound. She crossed over the Fire district’s boundary line. Hellish screams of vampires and vampiric pets cut the air. They were infuriated and without a doubt confused because the feud had been shattered and the city was uniting to fight a common enemy, which was them.
Karena looked behind her and to her right, towards the Earth district. The statues had risen, and green and brown ghostly lights flicked towards the Fire district like leaves set loose in a storm. She could see the speckled sky of figures heading towards the Fire district by cutting across the city in a diagonal path.
Ahead of her, people fought off vampiric creatures on the rooftops. Nargoths and other foul creatures screamed. The sonic waves blasted her, but the sound was muted by the magical folks in the vicinity. The creatures turned their attention to them. Like a wall, they all flew in a giant flock at them. However, fighting them wasn’t her battle. She had to find the vampire Elders and kill them. They were near impossible to kill and as a Chaos elemental, she was one of the few who had a chance at taking them down.
She weaved through the rancid, decaying creatures that hurdled through the air at her. Her dad narrowed the distance between them, and blasted magical attacks at the creatures that came like battering rams towards her. People toppled from the skies. Some were still locked in battle as they tumbled to the ground. Winged shapeshifters wheeled and somersaulted in the sky as they fought the aerial, vampiric army. There were ground forces too, which were being dealt with as well.
Karena focused. She couldn’t concern herself with the fighting around her and the screams of injured people. She had to find the vampire Elders, however many there were, and destroy them. They were the most dangerous out of all the vampires because they were capable of turning the tide in war. They were killing machines. She had read about them in the history books and how they were always one step ahead of everyone else. They were the leaders of the vampire race. She considered it fortunate that Mark hadn’t been an Elder because they would’ve been in a vastly different situation than they were in now in the city, and not in a good way.
Chapter 27
Karena dived down to below rooftop level. Her dad followed her, and expertly fended off the creatures coming at them. A building close to her collapsed, and a cloud of dust and debris flew upwards, temporarily blinding her. She cruised through it nevertheless. She flew deeper into the Fire district, searching and hoping to find a vampire Elder, but not knowing where to start looking for one.
In the middle of a neighborhood that had been crushed to its foundations and was still burning, figures whirled around and magical attacks collided. A torrent of fire was deflected upwards, and the deflector sprinted forward with a speed that wasn’t human. It dodged another set of attacks as it strove to get closer to the attacking Fire elemental. The fearlessness of the vampire caught her attention.
Karena beelined for them. When she got closer, she saw the ornate robes of the vampire, its tall height, and the dark aura around it. The vampire was an Elder.
The vampire heard her coming, even though her entrance was noiseless. Its two, self-animated whips flicked in the air. They looked like long snake tongues. The Fire elemental launched a fireball at it, but the vampire Elder cracked a whip at it, and the fireball dissolved. The vampire snapped its other whip at her. She felt the sound break close to her ears. She blew out ice, but due to the whip’s speed, the ice couldn’t freeze the moving whip. The vampire Elder was untouchable due to its weaponry.
The Fire elemental shouted at her. She looked. It was Asher! He waved at her from the other side of the fighting arena that the neighborhood street had become. She felt a tremendous amount of joy well up in her like a bubbly spring. Together, they could kill the vampire Elder.
Out of the range of the vampire’s whips, she took her dad aside while in the air. “Help the others. I’ve got this,” she said to him.
“Karena, that’s an Elder. I can tell that it is.”
“Yes, it is, and that’s Asher over there. Two Chaos elementals can defeat it. We will work together.”
Her dad nodded. His face sagged. He didn’t want to leave her. She motioned to him. When he drew close, she hugged him.
“Shred that thing to pieces,” her dad said, and gulped, trying to force down his parental protectiveness.
“I will. Don’t worry about me,” sh
e said. He would be of no use in the fight.
Her dad rose upwards and flew away on his board. She lowered to the ground, and stepped off the board. The vampire Elder stood with its left side to her and its right side to Asher.
“What’s your name?” Karena shouted.
“Larkforith the Terrible,” he growled. “You can’t win. Neither one of you know how to fight together as a team. You’re mortals with a short lifespan and an even shorter memory.”
His cruel eyes gleamed with a coldness that caused a shiver of fear to run down her spine. His skin had a greyish tinge to it. Faded designs circled around his neck. His long hair was drawn back with a leather band. Pieces of bone adorned his hair. He snarled, revealing abnormally long fangs. She quivered internally, but she refused to turn away from the coming fight.
Fire licked around Asher’s hands. The memory of when they had dueled came to mind. Her hands and body iced over. A mist collected around her in a vortex. Her powers thundered inside of her, roaring like a beast that needed to be uncaged. It was like listening to a monstrous waterfall pounding into a water pool.
Larkforith whirled his whips like a fan. Just as Asher put forward his hands, so did she. A torrent of ice sprung forth from her and a blast of fire rushed from him, both directed at the vampire Elder. Yet their attacks did little because the vampire Elder’s whips repelled both the fire and the ice. She hadn’t seen anything like it before. Her ice sprayed upwards and was even flung back at her. She leaned in, and threw everything she had into it. The whips would only be able to handle so much.
The vampire Elder jumped. Her hands parted, and the beam of ice split, and followed his path, as did the inferno of fire. Her hands traveled in the same direction as Asher’s, trying to catch Larkforith in the middle. His whip snapped at her, but her torrent of ice blew it back. Her hands weaved and caused the ice to spiral. It took an immense about of concentration for her to use both of her hands to cast a river of ice. A plan formed in her mind, and she allowed her ice to hit the ground as though she was being careless. Ice spread across the asphalt like a sneaky thief.
Gaze of Fire Page 23