Conflict

by Pedro Urvi

  Finally only the accursed Tracker remained alive. And his end was near. From their hiding place she could not see the figure that was ending the life of their enemy and pursuer, but she was sure it was some kind of ancestral spirit with arcane power. The Tracker appeared to be drowning, as if the sea were swallowing him, filling his lungs with salt water. He was doomed, his death was only instants away. Iruki’s heart smiled. One Norghanian less, and this one represented her own personal nightmare.

  And at that moment the unthinkable happened. For some reason she could not grasp, the Assassin abandoned the safety of their hiding place in the shadows, launching himself at an incredible speed in the direction of the sinister figure. Iruki found it hard to believe, it was on the point of taking the life of the Tracker!

  “Let him die! Don’t save him!” was what Iruki wanted to yell, but she kept silent in case the sinister spirit noticed the Assassin approaching, stealthily and at great speed. Nervously, she took a step forward and watched the Tracker fall to the ground, clutching his throat. He was dying. Iruki’s gaze followed the distortion in space in which the Assassin’s silhouette was barely visible. Using one of his dark skills, one which Iruki had already seen in action, he disappeared from her sight completely in a phenomenal leap that took him to the middle of the island in the lake, where moments before the horrifying sea serpents had reposed in the shape of statues of ice. He moved again at that supernatural speed and disappeared once more, to cross the lagoon and reappear at the other end in front of the spirit.

  Before the Assassin could deal a lethal blow with his daggers, the figure waved his staff while he uttered several words. As a result the Assassin was thrown back violently and fell backwards onto the rock floor several paces away. Stretched out on the ground, he clutched at his chest with obvious pain. His black robes were white with frost. Iruki’s heart sank, and unconsciously she took a couple of steps towards the edge of the lagoon, driven by tension and danger. Her heart was in her throat.

  With a nimble leap, the Assassin recovered and was once again ready to attack. Iruki felt a pang of pure anxiety at the imminent combat; this spirit was clearly very powerful, and the Assassin’s life was in serious danger. Suddenly a cone of ice issued forth from the mage’s staff in the direction of the Assassin. Using his cat-like skill he rolled across the ground and at the last moment avoided the impact of the frozen missile.

  Iruki, realizing the kind of spells the spirit was using, cried out a warning to the Assassin.

  “Watch out! He uses water as the element for his spells”

  Her words attracted the attention of the sinister being. Pointing his staff at her, he murmured a few words and threw a spell in her direction. Iruki imitated her companion by instinct and leapt aside as a bluish javelin of pure ice rushed past her. It grazed her, and she felt an intense icy pain. She held her right arm to look at the cut, which was deep and bleeding. It was the second time she had been wounded in those caves, and she was frightened. The trap in the foggy corridor had almost killed her. Thanks to the prodigious reflexes of the Assassin, who had pushed her away from the trajectory of the projectile at the last moment, she had been saved, but the ice pike had given her a deep cut in her shoulder. With her basic knowledge of healing she had cleaned and bandaged the wound, but it was still painful. She tore a piece from her shirt and bandaged the cut so that she would not lose more blood.

  A crimson flash enveloped the Assassin, who with a whip-like movement of his right wrist hurled a small projectile towards the spirit, hitting him in the arm he had raised to protect his face. This made him retreat a few steps hesitantly. The attack had apparently surprised him.

  The Tracker, lying on the ground behind Iruki, began to cough compulsively, freed from the evil spell which had been drowning him. Iruki guessed that the Assassin’s attack had momentarily broken the concentration of the malign spirit. The Tracker tried to stand immediately but was forced to stay on his knees, deprived of air, finding it seriously difficult to breathe. The spirit concentrated his attention on the Assassin, who rolled quickly across the floor and advanced on him with his daggers ready for the final blow. A series of strange words came from the spirit, and his body began to shine with great intensity. The Assassin leapt in the air towards his victim and in an unlikely pirouette thrust both daggers into the mage’s heart.

  He’s got him! With that tunic he’s wearing, without protection or armor, he’s a dead man! Iruki rejoiced as she watched the scene, full of optimism, convinced it meant the end of the spirit. But to her dismay, the daggers struck against a thick layer of ice which now covered the figure of the fighting mage.

  “The bastard’s created an armor of ice all round his body!” cried Iruki in disbelief.

  A powerful projectile from the spirit’s staff hit the Assassin, throwing him to one side with brutal violence. Iruki turned to the Tracker for help.

  “Help him!” she yelled. “Get up and help him, he just saved your life. You owe it to him!”

  A frozen projectile caught Iruki unexpectedly in the side, throwing her against the floor with tremendous force. She felt a searing pain from the impact, which almost broke her spine in two. It left her lying face down in agony.

  The Tracker looked at her for an instant. He breathed deeply through his nose, and as he inhaled his eyes shone with a spark of hope. Immediately he lunged for his bow, nocked it at amazing speed and aimed at the powerful Spirit of Water. A cone of ice flew past him, grazing his head, but he did not flinch. With extraordinary skill the Tracker loosed three shots, they hit the mage’s ice armor which cracked under the impact.

  The Assassin, still not fully recovered from the blow he had received, charged again with an inhuman leap which ended with him driving both daggers in two of the points where the Tracker’s arrows had already found their mark. Frosty fragments fell to the floor as the ice armor began to break

  Iruki, still lying where she had fallen, sore all over, strained her eyes to see the end of the epic battle. Her heart cringed with the knowledge of the danger the Assassin was facing. Placing his hand, on his rival’s chest, the spirit cast a spell on the Assassin before he could strike again and succeed in destroying the armor completely. A freezing torrent burst from the evil Spirit of Water, freezing everything before him. To Iruki’s horror, the Assassin turned into an ice statue before her eyes.

  “Noooooo! Nooooo!” cried Iruki in despair.

  Ignoring the pain and the injuries she had sustained, she stood up and began to make her way around the lagoon in a desperate attempt to reach him. She prayed to the benign spirits of the steppes to pardon the life of one who had done so much for one of their daughters.

  The Tracker continued shooting precisely-aimed arrows which bit into the frozen armor protecting the mage. He loosed another volley of three which struck with precision; the armor was on the point of collapse. But then a cloud of dense white vapor surged from the frozen ground in front of the mage, creating a dense defensive curtain.

  “I can’t see him! Where is he? I can’t aim!” the blond Norghanian cried anxiously. “He’s creating water vapor, I can’t see where he’s gone!”

  “Keep attacking!” Iruki urged him as she continued on her way round the lagoon towards the Assassin. “Use your power, your skills! Isn’t there one of them that can help you?”

  “I can’t count on them down here,” he said. “There’s some spell in this horrible place that won’t let me use them!”

  Iruki then realized that, even though the Assassin had managed to break the spell with his own kind of power, the Tracker’s was completely different and he could not do the same. The two men’s Gifts were of very different natures.

  A whirl of icy wind hit Iruki unexpectedly. It began to gain intensity, rotating and moving rapidly across the hall. The temperature dropped abruptly, and a winter storm surged in the center of the chamber. Winds of extreme force hit the Tracker, sending him rolling on the ground. Snow, ice and stinging, freezing wind took ove
r the cavern with the brutal violence of a killer storm.

  “Come back! We’ve got to get out of here!” the Tracker shouted, trying to protect himself from the wind by holding on to a boulder so as not to be swept off his feet.

  “I’m not leaving without him!” Iruki replied as she crawled towards the frozen Assassin, who stood like a statue in the middle of the storm. She was sure he was dying.

  The storm was worsening by the moment.

  “You won’t be able to save him. Go back to the entrance or you’ll both die!” the Tracker warned her. He was already crawling back towards the entrance.

  “I’m not leaving him!” Iruki shouted as she finally reached her unfortunate companion, fighting against the elements. She looked around for the spirit, but fortunately he had vanished; probably he had fled after conjuring up the lethal tempest, certain that it would kill his victims.

  Iruki looked towards the entrance with her heart in her throat. It was too far, she would not make it. They would die frozen in the midst of the storm before they could cross the lagoon. She looked in the opposite direction, and on the wall she noticed an ice-covered crack, big enough to crawl into.

  Making a tremendous effort, she dragged the Assassin amid hurricane-force winds, summoning up a strength she did not even know she had. With a stone and all her might she began to hit the ice that covered the crack. But her strength was waning, she would not hold out much longer. She hit the ice once more and it broke in a thousand pieces, revealing the opening in the rock wall.

  Iruki’s, limbs were beginning to stiffen, she was on the point of losing consciousness. In a final desperate effort she pushed the Assassin through the opening and went in after him. Both of them rolled down the uneven terrain.

  Iruki tried to stand up, but fainted.

  She came to after a while, without knowing where she was or why. Slowly, with the utmost difficulty, she stood up. Her whole body had been punished, and she ached all over. She looked around her. She was in a huge rectangular hall of polished white rock. The walls were decorated with strange golden symbols. This hall was no natural cavern but one fashioned by man. In the center of it a small lake with an island in the middle made the scene look unreal. A great altar presided over the island. On it was an enormous sea-blue sarcophagus covered with golden inscriptions, seeming to remain aloof from everything around it. It looked like the hall of a temple where the spirit of someone profoundly important rested in its final sleep. Iruki could not guess who it might be, but she felt the sarcophagus must belong to a king.

  The strange place left Iruki speechless. She felt completely lost and her body was stabbed through with pain. She did not understand the meaning of the place, nor the reason why the evil Spirit of Water had attacked them.

  A sudden movement at her feet brought her back to reality.

  The Assassin had moved a hand.

  He was alive!

  She knelt, overcome by worry, and looked at him tenderly. A touch of color was returning to his face, but his body was still stiff, showing clear signs of frostbite. He tried to speak, but no sound came from his purplish lips. Iruki could see the desperate effort in the Assassin’s eyes as he tried to move his limbs, without success. She stroked his face tenderly, trying to calm his pain.

  “Don’t worry, you’ll recover… don’t exert yourself in vain,” she said, trying to reassure him.

  Suddenly something struck against her mind, a fierce mental blow which nearly made her reel. She shook her head in an attempt to recover, but another blow hit her as though a migraine out of all proportions had just exploded in her head. A distant voice sounded inside her:

  Leave…

  Now…

  Or die…

  Without understanding, she looked around frantically, scared. On the island, in front of the blue sarcophagus, she saw the demonic spirit with the golden eyes and white tunic. Iruki realized that no sound was coming from his mouth. The sinister figure was sending the messages directly into her mind.

  Me, Guardian of Temple…

  Sacred Temple of Water…

  Great King rest…

  Do not bother Lord of the Water…

  Iruki glanced at the prostrate Assassin, but he was still helpless, unable to aid her against the sinister guardian of this Temple of Water.

  “We’ll leave! We want nothing from this place, please don’t hurt us!” Iruki shouted at him.

  Leave…

  Go…

  Now…

  She pointed at the helpless Assassin. “He can’t move, he’s frozen! Let him recover and then we’ll leave!”

  Death…

  Die…

  The sinister spirit raised the staff over his head. A whitish, pulsating light began to form. Seeing it, Iruki feared the worst. The spirit was preparing to deliver his final blow. The light grew in intensity, and a sphere formed and levitated beside him. Desperately, Iruki began to drag the Assassin along the floor in an attempt to escape certain death. The last of her energy vanished and she fell to her knees in tears, certain she was about to die.

  She held the Assassin close. She would die with him.

  Suddenly a figure came in through the crack in the wall behind her. In a fluid movement, the man went down on one knee, bent his bow and loosed an arrow with the skill of a master hunter. It all happened in the space of a single breath.

  Iruki followed the trajectory of the arrow with her eyes.

  It hit the guardian spirit of that temple squarely in the heart. He took a step back, teetering, and hurled the sphere of intense light at the archer. It was then that Iruki recognized the Tracker. He had come back. The Norghanian sidestepped as the sphere crashed against the floor, exploding in a thousand fragments of crystallized water in the shape of sharp stars with cutting edges.

  Iruki fell into a swoon.

  An impertinent drip of cold water on her head awoke the aching Masig. She sat up and looked around, sore and bewildered. Where am I? What happened? She held her head in her hands and tried to remember, to puzzle out where she was: the image of a silhouette in white with golden eyes came into her mind. The guardian spirit of the temple! She leapt to her feet and looked around, afraid. All she saw was the Assassin beside her, unconscious and still half-frozen, although his color seemed more normal. She checked his pulse, found it strong and sighed in relief.

  But then another memory came to her mind: the Tracker! She looked around the chamber, but he had disappeared. How strange, he was right here, he killed the Spirit of Water. Where could he have gone? Hastily she turned back to the Assassin, who was recovering his body warmth little by little, melting away the unlikely cloak of ice which still covered him. Iruki was convinced the Assassin was still alive, thanks most surely to his Gift. An ordinary man would not have survived.

  “Keep fighting, don’t give up, you’ll soon be free of this ice prison and your body will move again. It’s Iruki, I’m here with you! I’ll take care of you! Fight! Don’t give up! Fight!” she kept murmuring.

  On the little island the sinister spirit lay stretched out on the ground. Iruki knew he must be dead, but curiosity was eating at her. She needed to see for herself. She wanted to make sure the nightmare was over and that they were free from any other evil tricks from that being. Let it be, she said to herself, he’s dead, you don’t need any more proof. But curiosity got the better of her, and armed with her hunting knife, she went over to the lagoon and waded across to where the fallen guardian lay. Surprisingly, the water was no more than ankle-deep, although it created the optical illusion of being much deeper. She crossed warily and looked down at the lifeless body of the guardian spirit. He was dead, there was no doubt about it, with the arrow driven deep into his chest. Iruki looked at him and wondered at how dry and shriveled his body appeared, as if the last drop of liquid had left that body a thousand years ago. He was dead, there was no doubt about it. They were free! Iruki felt an enormous sense of relief. She knelt and released all her pent-up anxiety in a fit of uncontr
ollable sobbing.

  She soon recovered, though. She was about to go back to the Assassin when a blue flash from the unusual sarcophagus caught her attention. She stepped up to it warily; the strange beauty of the sarcophagus with its polished surface of impenetrable blue entranced her. Without stopping to think, she pushed at the half-opened lid and saw the mummified body of the late King of the Water resting inside. The vision scared her. She took a step back, nearly falling off the altar. She lost her knife in her efforts to stay upright. She recovered her balance and looked inside once again. That being had been dead for a long time. The thought quieted her. Lord of the Water or not, he would never reign again, of that she was sure. Another, similar, blue flash reached her eyes. What was the origin of that mysterious radiance?

  And then she saw it: around the King’s neck there hung a long silver chain with a round silver medallion attached. An enormous gem in its center, as intense a blue as that of the sacred lake of her people, shone vividly. That medallion was the most beautiful thing Iruki had ever seen, an unbelievable treasure, the size of her palm. She could not resist its splendor, and on a sudden impulse she took it and put it around her own neck.

  I must go back to the Assassin and get out of this accursed place, she thought. But before leaving the island she looked into the sarcophagus again, and on one side discovered a silver short-sword of exceptional beauty. The blade was engraved with golden symbols all along the edge, which must be runes of some kind. The pommel, intensely silver, bore an oval gem, the same blue as the one in the medallion. This will help me defend myself, she thought. She grabbed the magnificent weapon and went back to the Assassin.