It uncoiled and slithered down the corridors, looking for an exit.
Outside the maze, standing on the frosty hillside of his world with a steaming cup of tea in his hand, Artemus waited. He glanced at the elemental that stood nearby towering over him and took a sip.
Hopefully, Justan got this over with quickly before the wyrm found its way out. If not he and the elemental would have a fight on their hands. The elemental was eager for that to happen. It was confident they would win. Artemus took another sip. He hoped they wouldn’t have to find out.
Justan breathed a sigh of relief. The wyrm’s presence was gone, but its power remained unfettered. He willed his fingers to wrap around Peace’s handle and lift the sword. He looked at his wary companions. “This is it.”
He stabbed the blade into the Mother’s partially frozen flesh. He felt nothing different at first, but as he focused his newfound power, he discovered the enormous ethereal plane that was the Mother’s vast existence.
This place wasn’t technically a mind just as it wasn’t technically filled with the Mother’s soul. It was instead a place of potential. A fluid environment within the behemoth’s massive body wherein the Mother’s mental whims could take root.
Justan pushed his thoughts into this place, aware that he would need to travel within it to find what he was looking for. Behind him trailed a silvery cord that linked back to his body.
Realizing that it could take weeks for him to find the soul in a being this massive, he reached out with the power of the rings, looking for anything that resembled thought. Finally he saw it. Mellinda was currently focused on her attack on the Axis Palace.
She was enraged at Deathclaw’s ability to burn her flesh away and disrupt her plans. Justan could see the site of the damage and the directions of Mellinda’s thoughts. There she was. Her soul was attached to the Mother’s brain.
She was so focused on her battle that she didn’t see Justan coming. He hit her with all of his mental power boosted by the rings. He ripped at the bindings tethering her to this place.
The Mother’s body convulsed and thrashed. The earth above her rippled and twisted. From his place atop the palace Deathclaw saw the swamp writhe, trees undulating before being uprooted and falling. This was cataclysmic.
The small Roo-Tan and Mer-Dan strike forces, still searching through the swamp for the Mother’s brain, were hit by a violent upheaval far worse than the one before. Some were thrown into the air. Others submerged by water. Some were crushed by falling trees and a few of them perished.
The last remaining thull village gathered at the high point of their island, holding each other fearfully. Just the day before, the Mother’s flesh had been pulled out from under them, lowering the level of the ground they lived on. Water had rushed in, covering some of the huts on the lower parts of the island. This new upheaval affected them less, but still they shivered and called out to the stars as they watched the destruction in the swampland east of them.
Mellinda reeled at the sudden intensity of Sir Edge’s attack. He very nearly tore her free in that first moment. But ever the survivor, she lashed back. Mellinda used her centuries of experience to pry at his grasp, fighting him by using their mental proximity to distract him with horrible, lurid, and gruesome images.
Justan had not expected such tactics, but he brushed them away, letting her send him what images she wished while he focused on tearing her spirit free.
It was then that Mellinda knew she was outmatched. The sheer mental and magical power of Sir Edge was too much for her. Then she noticed the silvery cord that trailed from him and smiled inwardly. He had left his body completely, leaving himself open.
Laughing, she let him pull her free, giving him complete control of the behemoth as she latched on to the silvery line and followed it back to his body. The closer she came, the more glorious the opportunity seemed.
Sir Edge was a bonding wizard, twice named at the Bowl of Souls with powerful bonded and weapons. Even better, he was actually wearing Stardeon’s rings. How had he come across them? The idea was unfathomable.
No matter. This was the best situation she could have hoped for. Once she inhabited his body and cut his soul free, she would be truly back in the world where she belonged.
The first thing she would do is fill the corridor with fire and destroy the fools hiding there. Then she would use the age-old techniques David had shown her and sever the Creator’s influence over the bond. It would be so easy to suck his bonded free of all their power before cutting them loose.
With the rings turned inward, she would manipulate Edge’s body, transforming it into her old form and then she would emerge from KhanzaRoo and march on the Grove, the Dark Goddess reborn, using his bonding talent to drain anyone of interest along the way before absorbing the power of the Grove itself.
With that holy site gone, the world would be overcome with sickness and she would rise as the most powerful being in the Known Lands or beyond. She would then travel to each holy site remaining and drain them of power, breaking every protection that this world had until she was able to reach her true goal and face the Creator himself.
Finally, she would get the revenge she craved above all else. She would repay him for what his bonds did to her. How they twisted her. How they hurt her bonded. Poor Gregory and Dixie. All the suffering they had endured at her hand and every single bit of it was the Creator’s fault!
Justan’s triumph at pulling Mellinda free was short-lived. As soon as she left, the awesome size of the Mother’s body struck him. The vastness of it and the alienness of its nature was an enormous weight on his mind. How could he comprehend how to make such a thing move or form itself into shapes?
He grappled with the problem and only his innate talent to manage multiple lines of thought saved him. Where had Mellinda gone? Had she not given up too easily?
He realized his mistake as he looked down the silvery line that connected him to his body and saw Mellinda’s soul nearing the exit. This was one of the things all students were taught in the Mage School even when spirit magic was outlawed. Leaving your body left you extremely vulnerable. This was the same kind of arrogant disregard that had been Ewzad Vriil’s downfall.
Panicking, he shouted through the bond.
Mellinda was giddy as the gateway to Edge’s body came into view. It was such an exquisite specimen. How much better would it be when she was in charge of it?
The moment she reached her presence inside the opening he had left, something stopped her. His body wasn’t empty at all. It was filled with a soul huge and powerful, too large to be contained in such a small form. It was almost as if there were a hundred smaller souls shoved into that one human space. Then she understood.
The rogue horse.
Gwyrtha lashed out at her with the full brunt of her spiritual force. For Mellinda this was the mental equivalent of taking a full punch to the face. Mellinda was knocked back into the ether, reeling. She could now see the ready soul of the rogue horse waiting inside Edge’s body and knew that her momentary dream of a quick rise back to power had been crushed.
With a mental sigh, she turned away and went back to her first plan. Sir Edge was still at the Mother’s brain, still grappling with the concept of controlling her. How foolish. Now he was the one distracted.
This time she was prepared and despite his power she would overcome him. She thought of a few ancient attack techniques that were perfect for the situation. With these thoughts in mind Mellinda attacked him once more.
With Gwyrtha defending his body, Justan was able to focus on the situation at hand. He realized that he had no need to learn how to control the entirety of the Mother. He let most of it go. There was one situation that warranted his attention.
He looked at the portion of the Mother that Mellinda’s will had been bent upon. There, the exterior of the Axis Palace was wreathed in flame as the Mother’s flesh burned. He caused an eye to form in one of the tentacles waiting nearby. He saw where Deathclaw w
as in relative position to the rest of the flesh. There was one last thing to do.
When Mellinda attacked him, Justan struggled with her briefly, biding his time. Then when the moment was just right, he let go and fled back to his own body where he belonged.
Deathclaw stood within the protective shield of Star’s power and watched the behemoth undulate again. He wasn’t entirely certain what Justan was doing inside the thing, but he was distantly aware that a titanic battle had taken place and one had begun again. The first cataclysm wasn’t repeated this time however.
Instead, he watched with interest as a mound rose from the burning landscape of troll flesh that coated the pyramid. A cylindrical green stalk rose from the mound about two feet in diameter. This was quite similar to the stalk that had risen in the lake. Only this time a pulsating lump of pink flesh formed in the tip of it.
It bent towards him, ringed with clutching teeth and Deathclaw smiled.
Mellinda reattached herself to the Mother’s mind, smug in her defeat of Sir Edge, but also aware that it hadn’t been as difficult as she thought. She became aware that her brain was extended and defenseless just as Deathclaw leapt towards it, swinging his sword. All she had time for was a scream before Star struck the Mother’s mind, with combustive force, disintegrating it and blasting the stalk to shreds.
Melinda’s soul was stunned. She drifted lazily in the ether that was the Mother’s essence as the afterlife called to her once more. This time there was nothing to grab onto. No container that could hold her.
Raging impotently, she let the next world take her knowing that whatever awaited she would be ready. Her last thoughts as she faded away were that perhaps there was another realm to conquer.
Justan came back to himself as Gwyrtha climbed back to her feet, having fallen over as she had left her own body to defend him. He reached out to her and said, “Thank you, girl. You saved me.”
I love you, was her reply.
Smiling, Justan went to scratch her behind her ears only to find that his fingers were bent over backwards onto themselves. Shuddering, he hurriedly pulled off the rings and threw them to the floor.
As he did so his body filled back in, vitality returning to his flesh. At the same, he had the agonizing feeling that he had just grown much weaker. Part of him wished to put the rings right back on.
“What happened?” Jhonate asked. “You just stood there still and Gwyrtha collapsed.”
“Mellinda and I had quite the struggle,” Justan said. He sent out thoughts to his bonded, making sure that all had gone as it seemed.
Fist reported that the Troll Mother had quieted and was not moving at all. He and Maryanne and his bonded were tired, but fine. Deathclaw had landed far down the side of the pyramid and was using Star to tunnel under yards of still troll flesh. Artemus reported that the wyrm had gone missing from his garden.
Justan smiled. “Mellinda is dead and the behemoth’s mind is destroyed,” he said and Jhonate wrapped her arms around him and kissed him soundly.
There was a collective sigh of relief in the corridor, though a sadness lingered in the hearts of the trollkin. Perhaps it was a sadness that would never fade completely.
“Then She is dead,” said Xeldryn.
“I don’t think so,” said Stolz. Everyone’s attention fell on the bespectacled trollkin.
“What do you mean?” asked the First.
Stolz blinked at them. “Well, the Troll Mother is an immense organism that has never needed thought to survive. Over the centuries it has become much like say a fungus or an algae. It has no heart to pump blood, no system of nerves that feed it information. Without a mind to guide its movements, I believe it will simply lie there and absorb nutrients and produce slime as waste.”
“Not dead then?” Justan said, surprised.
Stolz shrugged. “Simply inert.”
This seemed to brighten the mood of the trollkin. Their goddess wasn’t dead. Just changed. There would be no more births, but she would also no longer swallow innocents. Even the First took some comfort in this.
“Then we can leave now?” asked Bluth. The thull was quite tired of this place he would much rather be somewhere under the stars.
“Yes,” Justan said. Then he scratched his head as he thought of the mess the swamps had been left in. “But the journey back to Roo-Tan’lan is going to be ugly.”
Chapter Thirty
Justan stood in his rooms in Roo-Tan’lan and looked at the mirror that leaned up against the wall. He adjusted the shirt that Jhonate’s mother had sent him and frowned. It was an unnaturally bright green and had been embroidered with yellow bananas.
“Ugly,” Esmine observed, sitting on the edge of his bed and swinging her legs as she talked. The elf child had been there most of the morning teasing him and making comments about the upcoming wedding festivities. He had done his best to ignore her up to this point, but this time he agreed.
“Why bananas?” he wondered bitterly.
“Old Roo-Tan wedding joke,” Esmine said and he realized that the ribbons in her hair were black with small bananas on them. “They find out what you hate and make you wear it.”
Justan shrugged. “Better than what they do in Reneul,” he said, referring to the custom of standing outside the home of the newly married and singing bawdy songs late into the night.
He opened the next box and grimaced as he pulled out the vest that he was supposed to wear over the shirt. It was pink with more embroidery. This time brown trees. Many of them. Broken trees.
“Ooh. That’ll be extra ugly,” she said, nodding approvingly.
He sighed as he put it on and buttoned it up. This was their way of teasing him for the destruction in the Troll Swamps during his fight with Mellinda. He didn’t think it was all that funny, even if it was two months in the past.
After all, people had died in that destruction and the journey back had been a nightmare. Sometimes he didn’t understand Roo-Tan humor. He took comfort in the fact that it would be their eyes that would hurt looking at him during the wedding procession.
At least he liked the way his hair looked. He was getting used to braiding his hair in the Roo-Tan way. Today as part of the ceremony Jhonate would take the red ribbons out of his braids and put her green ones in. The thought of it made him grin broadly.
“You should probably paint your teeth green to match your shirt,” Esmine suggested.
“Why aren’t you over in Jhonate’s room bothering her?” he wondered, then realized that she could very well be doing so.
“Tolynn told me not to,” Esmine said with a shrug. “She says that only the men are allowed to be humiliated on their wedding day. By the way, do you want me to tell you when your guests arrive?”
“Yes,” Justan said.
That was one way that having the tormenting child could be useful. The Mage School wagon was supposed to arrive that morning. The Mage School and Academy councils were supposed to be arriving via Valtrek’s mirror along with several other close friends.
“Okay,” Esmine said. “It got here over an hour ago. Your mom is about to knock on your door . . . now.” There was a knock. “She looks beautiful. Make sure you tell her she looks beautiful.”
Justan smiled as he rushed to the door and threw it open. “Mother!”
Darlan’s eyes widened at his appearance, but she pulled him in for a long embrace. “Justan, dear!”
“I’ve missed you!” said Justan. “It’s been so long.”
She pulled back. “So long you’ve forgotten how to dress yourself, evidently.”
“I didn’t pick it out. It’s a Roo-Tan custom,” he explained embarrassedly. “You look beautiful though.”
Darlan looked ageless as ever. The set of flame red robes she was wearing with gold sleeves set off the jeweled clip she wore in her hair. Justan wondered if she would ever let herself grow old.
“I suppose I should introduce you to everyone as Mistress Diane now,” he added.
“Just so y
ou don’t start calling me that,” she said with a sigh and held out her left hand palm up so that he could see it. It was so strange for Justan to see that rune on her hand. It seemed like just yesterday that he had found out she was a wizardess.
They spoke for a while, catching up on things from the possible new members of the Mage School High Council to the ins and outs of daily life in Malaroo. Then Esmine popped into existence again to tell them that the procession would soon start.
Justan led his mother down the hallway and outside to the training area where the guests would be lining up. They arrived there just in time to witness a scene that Justan had known was an inevitability. Mistress Sarine was standing in front of Fist and Maryanne, her eyes wide with outrage. Old Bill and Sir Kyrkon were next to her sharing disbelieving looks.
“Fish and a red mark?” the old wizardess was saying loudly. “Fish and a red mark??”
“That is the sign they say to look for,” Maryanne replied calmly.
“Is that a better sign than a growing pot belly?” Old Bill wondered and Maryanne shot him a glare.
“This is ridiculous!” said the woman.
“Now is not the right time to get shrill, Sarine,” Maryanne said. Two months after the war, her belly was starting to show signs of the pregnancy and with Sarine coming in person, the gnome had known it wouldn’t be possible to keep it from her anymore.
“Shrill!” Sarine shrieked. “Me!”
Justan looked at his mother expecting a similar outburst. She was just shaking her head at her grandmother’s reaction. “You aren’t surprised.”
Darlan patted his arm. “Oh, Fist sent me a letter a month ago explaining. It was so sweet. He is going to be a wonderful father, don’t you think?”
Sarine stammered. “How is this . . . physically possible? You and Fist?”
Behemoth (The Jharro Grove Saga Book 6) Page 44