Reality's Plaything

by Will Greenway

  Bannor felt the emotion churning in him. If anything, when it came to words Wren was worse than Sarai. Sarai only turned the words around. Wren could take something that she did wrong and make it sound like it was his fault.

  Go right ahead. It was a mockery and she knew it. He needed her as badly as she needed him. It wasn’t as if he could simply turn his back and hope to walk away from this alien place. Is that what inspired her truthfulness? Now that he couldn’t tell her to go eat dragon feathers.

  He turned his gaze to Sarai. His mate stared back. There was a fierce set to her jaw. The bare hint of a smile turned up the corners of her mouth as if Wren’s words had vindicated her convictions against the savant.

  Bannor clenched his fists and turned his attention back to Wren. “This is it for me, Wren. There won’t be any more need to know evasions. If we’re going to be in it. If I’m your weapon, and we both know I am. Then we are together, equal; no leading, no following. Just us against them.” He gestured to the sky. “Yes?”

  Wren stared at him for a moment, blue eyes flashing. She appeared ready to respond with a scathing remark then appeared to change her mind. She narrowed her eyes. When she spoke, her voice was low and slow. “Fair enough. Partners in war, Bannor. Learning your power is another thing. I won’t teach you unless you’re my pupil in every sense of the word, otherwise we can just hope somebody finds us before the avatars do.”

  Sarai pulled away from him and stood. She kept her gaze trained on Wren. “A pact changes nothing, my One. Color it any shade, it still comes out black.”

  Wren stared at Sarai. The two women locked eyes, unblinking. Bannor’s heart raced, he recognized the stiffness in Sarai’s back, the way her chin was thrust forward. That was the Sarai he’d come to know over the last week. The many faceted Arminwen that was both familiar and strange. With each word she was coming back.

  “What does it take to convince you?” Wren let out in exasperation. “It’s for the best. You have to know that.”

  Sarai’s eyes were slits. “Heard what was best for me all my life. Always ended up better for everyone but me. This is no different. You’ll sacrifice us and anyone else to get revenge on the gods. We want no part of your war. We have fights of our own.”

  “You must see that you can’t run away.”

  “Yes?” Sarai glanced at Bannor. Her violet eyes were slits now. “You didn’t hear me say ‘no’. I know necessity when I see it.” She paused. “I don’t have to like it.” She turned away and started out the door.

  Bannor felt dizzy. “Sarai!”

  When she stopped, he stumbled across the room and grabbed her in a hug.

  “My One?”

  “You’re back!”

  She gave him a blank look. “Did I leave?”

  “In a way, you haven’t been acting yourself.”

  Sarai rubbed her forehead. She searched his face as if hoping to find the meaning of his words there. “Things have been—funny—” She closed her eyes. “Fuzzy, I mean.”

  “You remember everything that’s happened?”

  “Of course I—” she paused and swallowed. The light in her eyes dimmed. “The cliff and Nystruul—I crushed…” Her voice trailed off. “It’s like I was there, but—” She bent her head back and squeezed her eyes shut. “Bannor, what’s happening to me? I feel … fading again.”

  His stomach knotted and he gripped her shoulders. “The stone power, it’s stronger here. You have to fight it.”

  Sarai clenched her fists. “There’s nothing to fight. I feel it—pulling.” She shuddered.

  Bannor wasn’t aware Wren had moved. The savant simply appeared at his shoulder. “Sarai, you’re fighting yourself. The stone power is rooted in your own desire.”

  Sarai drew a breath. A spasm went through her form. Bannor felt a pang of empathy in his chest. Her battle with the stone power would be much like his own with the Nola and probably no less demanding.

  He felt the hairs on the back of his neck stiffen as a glow flickered around Sarai’s limbs. The ground quaked and the structure overhead groaned.

  Wren glanced at the roof and a worried expression crossed her features. A stone elemental was at war with itself and they were inside something constructed by that same creature’s power.

  Another shudder went through the rock around them. Wren took a breath and pointed outside.

  Bannor took Sarai’s stiff body in his arms. He carried his struggling mate out into the dark clearing, dodging elbows and heels blindly flailed about as she battled with herself. The quaking underfoot grew worse. Sharp rocks thrust out of the ground like spikes. Trees quivered and sleeping birds took flight. The trembling crescendoed to a rumble.

  Wren’s face had paled and the bluish light of her Nola licked around her body. “Stay close, Bannor, this could get a lot worse—”

  To punctuate Wren’s statement, the granite shelter imploded. The curving walls sheared into themselves, shuddering into dust as they collapsed. Even the moon appeared to shiver in the sky.

  Sarai’s thrashing had become too violent for him to control. She dropped out of his arms and fell to her knees. The grass underfoot rippled like turbulence shimmering across the surface of water.

  She clawed the ground in front of her, ripping out hunks of sod and crumbling it in her fingers. Sarai groaned as though she were grappling with a giant.

  The blood roared in Bannor’s temples. He swayed trying to stay upright. The terrain underfoot had become like the pitching deck of a ship caught in storm. “What do we do?!”

  The glow of Wren’s Nola grew bright. The ground directly beneath Wren’s feet stayed stable. The savant’s gaze focused everywhere but on him. “If Sarai wants that power and her mind she has to fight for it.”

  “She’s tearing herself apart!”

  “What can I do, Bannor?”

  Frustration sparked through him. He felt so helpless. Sarai was fighting this alone and she shouldn’t have to. Their world seemed to be falling apart around them. “Do something!” He yelled simply to be heard over the rumbling.

  Sarai let out a howl and the quaking became a roar. Trees toppled and pond water splashed in to the air. Boulders exploded out of the ground and fissures opened.

  A bolt of fear shot through him. Sarai wouldn’t give up her battle. In losing, she might take them into oblivion with her. “Wren!”

  A strange light flickered in the savant’s eyes as the landscape churned around her. She clenched her teeth and drew her sword. “One way to end this, Bannor.”

  He glanced down at his writhing mate lost in the battle with the elemental spirit in her body. He stepped in front of Sarai. “What? No!”

  “You want to die and take the rest of the universe with you, Bannor? Move!”

  What was Wren thinking? “No!”

  “Damn you! There’s no time to explain.”

  He stood his ground. Killing Sarai was not the solution he was looking for. Wren would kill to accomplish her ends. She’d admitted it.

  Guilty.

  “Stay away!” he screamed over the chaos.

  Wren surged forward.

  He hated the thought of attacking the savant, but he wouldn’t let anyone hurt Sarai, even Wren. Trying to steady himself on the bucking ground he punched at her face.

  The savant seemed to skip along the surface of the heaving turf. Bannor didn’t even see how she avoided his punch or the follow up elbow. He only felt the explosive crack of her boot against his cheek and saw the grass rushing up in his face.

  For a moment, the night’s blackness became absolute with the sounds of the tremor fading in and out. He regained his sight in time to see Wren making a swift stroke with her sword.

  Sarai screamed.

  * * *

  Blood magic is one of my favorite evocations.

  Though it is called blood sorcery, it is actually the most rudimentary of the spells that tap into the spirit and tao. The fascinating aspect of these magicks is the way they bind mortals
to demons, mortals to elementals, and mortals to each other.

  My favorite is of course the binding of mortals to those of the pantheons.

  That tasty magic we call the succorund…

  —From the Dedriad, ‘musings of an immortal’.

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  « ^ »

  Heart thundering and belly smacking the heaving ground, Bannor didn’t move quick enough to stop Wren from attacking Sarai. “Wren, no!”

  Magic blade gleaming in the darkness, the savant struck. The world exploded as Sarai screamed. Fiery pillars of molten rock reached into the night sky. Smoking fragments of magma burned glowing lines into Bannor’s vision as they arced overhead.

  “No! No! No!” Bannor fought to clear his eyesight that jumped and swayed from the ground’s palpitations and the dizziness caused by Wren’s kick. He couldn’t believe that Wren would do it: kill Sarai. “Wren!”

  The savant’s words boomed in his mind. Her tones cut through the chaos. Even the roaring around them didn’t drown it out. Though he knew little of sorcery, he guessed it must be a magical chant.

  “Blood and stone, mind and magic, force and counter let all be one and one at peace…” Wren went on in another language Bannor didn’t understand. His vision cleared. Wren’s swing had only scored Sarai’s arm.

  Crimson rivulets ran down his mate’s wrists and onto the ground. Where the blood touched, the dirt flared and caught fire. Sarai moaned, apparently caught up in the chant. She swayed as Wren continued. The violence around them calmed. He noticed that Wren now bled from a similar cut across her arm. The drops of her blood glowed blue like her Nola. Perspiration glistened on Wren’s face.

  Still singing, the savant grabbed Sarai’s arm and shoved the cuts together. She pulled off her belt and lashed their arms together.

  Both women screamed. Bannor wavered. What to do?

  The energy around Wren wavered like a candle in a draft. As she sang, her voice grew weaker as if she were pouring her soul into the words.

  Crimson continued to trickle from their lashed arms. The phosphorescent blood ignited as it touched the soil.

  Without trying, he saw the patterns winding out of the ground into Sarai and Wren. Powerful bindings; lines similar to the ones that connected Nystruul to Hecate.

  What is Wren doing?

  The bleeding slowed. The droplets on Sarai’s skin and clothing crystallized, making her look as though covered with ruby sequins.

  The savant swayed. Her song stopped in a yell. The leather binding her arm to Sarai’s snapped. Wren collapsed onto her back gasping. Sarai threw her head back, hands palm up on her thighs. The tortured look no longer tightened her features.

  “Sarai?” He put his arms around her. The heat coming from her forced him to draw back. “Sarai?”

  She groaned. “Bannor?” Sarai’s voice cracked. “Feel—so—strange…”

  He glanced at Wren. She’d rolled over onto hands and knees. Spasms wracked the woman’s body as she heaved.

  Besides Wren’s noises and those of Sarai, all was quiet. The breeze whispered against his skin, cool but silent. Even the fires that blazed among the trees from the lava stopped at the end of Wren’s chant. He still didn’t understand what she had done.

  The grassy clearing looked pitted and burned. Fist-sized lumps of char and lava covered the ground, making it look as though covered with broken glass. Half the pond water had drained away revealing the rune-covered terrace that ran down into it. The skyline looked different. Trees lay scattered like the bodies of fallen soldiers. Hills had risen where none existed before.

  “Sarai?” he asked. “You okay?”

  “I don’t—” Sarai looked at him and paled. She clutched her stomach. Cursing, she fell onto hands and knees and vomited.

  Bannor looked away from the two women being sick to keep himself from doing the same. His stomach still felt knotted in fear. The smells of sulfur and burned vegetation only worsened the queasy sensation in his guts.

  Wren and Sarai continued to be ill for several long breaths. They choked and made noises like the morning after a long drunk.

  Wren moaned. “Ishtar, I didn’t want to do that.”

  “You witch,” Sarai coughed. “What did you do to me?”

  “Saved your life—” Wren crawled away from the spot where she’d been kneeling. She shoved some lava rocks out of the way and collapsed on her back in the singed grass. “Lords, I’ve fought battles that took less out of me.”

  Unable to stand it any more, Bannor went and put his arms around Sarai. Now cool enough to touch, she returned his embrace. “Are you all right?” he asked.

  “I—don’t—know,” Sarai answered slowly. She brushed strands of hair out of her face. Her hand trembled. “Feel odd. I can sense the stone power, but it’s different now.”

  “How?” he asked.

  “Less of it. Something new, something that I—” Sarai’s eyes widened. “Wren!”

  Only the savant’s lips moved. “Sarai?”

  “I feel—you.”

  Wren groaned. “Not exactly a perfect marriage is it?”

  Bannor felt a chill run through him. “What are you talking about?”

  “Wouldn’t let the power go; couldn’t control it. To help, I loaned her some of my Nola in trade for some of her power.” She groaned. “Not easy to do. Made me—”

  “Sick,” Sarai moaned. “I didn’t want your help—oh Carellion—my stomach.”

  “Think I feel better?” Wren said through gritted teeth. “Greedy witch, you should’ve let it go.”

  “Stop it!” Bannor yelled. “Are both of you all right?”

  “Should be,” Wren said through clenched teeth. “Takes time—to assimilate. Nola and Stone should—stabilize.”

  He bowed his head. “Please, I hope this is the end. We have enough trouble without fighting ourselves.”

  Sarai only moaned.

  Bannor picked her up and carried her to a clear spot on the far side of the clearing. He went and carried Wren to the same area. Odin only knew how long assimilations took.

  He sat between Sarai and Wren. Both of them looked pale. The moonlight made it difficult to tell how ill they might be. He hoped that their ability to talk indicated that nothing was seriously amiss.

  He held Sarai’s hand in both of his.

  She opened her eyes and smiled. “I’ll be all right, Bannor.”

  He put her fingers to his lips and kissed them. They tasted salty. He noticed the cut on her arm had scarred. “Better be. I’d hate for all that to be for nothing.”

  Sarai shuddered. The glow of her violet eyes dimmed. She turned her head and looked at Wren. Her jaw clenched and she fixed on him. “She’s a zealot, Bannor. I never realized how driven. The things the avatars did to her…” Sarai’s voice wavered. Moisture welled in her eyes. “Damn her, I didn’t want to know.”

  Bannor felt his insides constrict; so many changes. Everyone, including himself, was changing. Why wouldn’t the universe let them be? He bent and put his forehead to hers. He felt Sarai’s breath on his face. “We’ll deal with it. We can handle anything as long as we’re together.”

  She sighed. “Bannor, you’re so melodramatic.” She struggled and looped her arms around his neck. “That’s why I love you.”

  He smiled and kissed away her tears.

  The night passed. Bannor awoke stiff and sore. His cheek still ached from Wren’s kick. His damp clothes stank of ashes and sulfur. Sarai lay beside him, eyes open. She studied the sky as if seeing it for the first time.

  She looked over and squeezed his hand without saying anything. Her smile told him everything he needed to know about her condition.

  He glanced over and noticed Wren reclined with one arm behind her head. She held a chunk of stone in the other hand. She studied the rock as though the untold secrets might be contained within.

  Her intensity made him nervous. “What’s wrong?”

  Wren glanced over. “Nothing is wr
ong. The ability I borrowed from Sarai has revealed something fascinating.”

  At the word ‘borrowed’, Sarai’s hand clenched on his but she didn’t say anything.

  “What’s so special?”

  She rubbed the stone with her thumb. “If my senses are correct we aren’t as far from home as I feared.”

  Bannor frowned. “Meaning?”

  The savant sat up and hefted the rock in her hand. He rose and so did Sarai.

  Wren’s blue eyes narrowed. A muscle in her cheek twitched. She tossed the stone to Bannor. “Meaning these stones all come from our home world—Titaan.”

  * * *

  One of my peers asked me why I let a mortal like Wren Kergatha annoy me.

  ‘Forget her,’ they advise. ‘She’ll die of old age eventually.’

  Obviously they don’t understand that if that brat dies of old age, I have allowed her to win. I never was a graceful loser…

  —From the Dedriad, ‘musings of an immortal’.

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  « ^ »

  Bannor knelt by the pond splashing water on his face. Sarai knelt next to him combing out her hair. His heart thrummed. Wren’s words still ricocheted in his mind. These stones all come from our home world—Titaan. The savant had deflected the questions he and Sarai hurled at her. Asking them to let her consider it further.

  The silence had grown palpable as the savant washed her face and combed her hair. Wren moved with a deliberate slowness. She sat in the grass with great care, mouthing silent words as if looking for support to her conclusions.