Choice

by Gary Stringer

  Phaer dropped down to one knee to check on the dazed sumorityl. “Are you alright?” Angry and scared, dazed and confused, she hissed at him, jumping up and pulling away, the defences of her vampire heritage on full alert. She had committed to an act of extreme violence to kill Z'rcona before Z'rcona killed her, but the moment hadn't happened and she was finding it hard to reassert her self control.

  Phaer had some experience of this from when she'd tried to use magic against the basilisk. They'd spent quite a bit of time together, and he thought he was beginning to understand her better as a result. Drawing on that experience, then, Phaer grabbed her by the shoulders, looked her in the eyes and demanded, “Come back to us, Bernice Ardra! This isn't the real you! You’re better than this! You’re worth more than this!”

  She struggled and fought against him far more than the last time and it was taking all of his strength to keep her from getting away. For a moment, Phaer was worried it wasn’t going to work, but at last she began to calm down, breathing deeper, more steadily, and her beautiful human features returned.

  “That's better,” he encouraged her, softly. “Are you OK now?”

  She nodded, going limp in his hands, eyes glistening. “Damn I hate doing that,” she said, miserably. “I hate that she made me lose control of myself to save my life.”

  “But doing what you have to do to protect your life is not wrong, it’s a rational action,” Eilidh assured her.

  “I know that makes sense, but I still hate it!”

  “This war is forcing all of us to do things we hate,” Toli put in.

  Eilidh hugged her friend. Her heart went out to her. She couldn’t imagine what it had taken for the kind hearted hobbit to kill Granite.

  “You're right,” Bunny agreed. “I just...I just don't want to be a vampire. I want to be...well, I want to be me!”

  “Well that's lucky,” Phaer told her, “because you're no more a vampire than I am a dark elf.”

  Bunny regarded him curiously. “You're half a dark elf,” she pointed out.

  “No, I'm not,” he insisted. “Dark elf isn't a race of people. Despite their claims, they're no different to other elves. Dark elf is a choice.”

  “Absolutely,” Eilidh nodded. “We are what we choose to be. It's our choices that define us.”

  “But it’s different for me. I'm a sumorityl.I was created from a vampire.” “And in a manner of speaking, I was created from a dark elf,” Phaer countered. “Doesn't mean I have to be one, even if I use some of their skills.” He tapped the longbow slung across his shoulder. Bernice nodded, accepting the notion. “You’re right. I was created from a vampire, but that doesn't mean I'm one myself, even if I use some of their abilities.” She paused, letting that sink in for a moment. Then she smiled. Not her customary smile of mischief or petulance, but one that was filled with genuine warmth.

  She used to say she was searching for salvation - she now realised that was nonsense. She didn't need salvation - there was nothing from which she needed to be saved. What she really wanted - what anyone wanted, she supposed - was acceptance. For the first time in her life, she felt like she had found a place in the world. She had found acceptance from her friends and that enabled her to accept herself, or at least begin to. She didn't need labels like vampire or sumorityl or artificial. The only label she needed was her name: Bernice Ardra and she’d chosen that for herself. She supposed that in time, she might even drop the label `Bunny` but that time wasn't yet. Before that, there were important things to be done and in some strange way, she felt she needed `Bunny` to face them.

  “Thank you,” said Bernice, with total sincerity.

  * * * * * The Fire Rage burned inside Loric like never before. He recognised this man who pretended to be a Dark Knight. They had fought before. He was the leader of the party that tried to use Sara - a traumatised girl who didn't know she was a dragon - as a sacrificial lamb in order to kill the obsidian. They had met again in the Marina Fells mine but he had scampered back to Niltsiar with Z’rcona. Now he was here, standing there alive when he had no right to be - while poor Sara lay buried with the dead in that slaughtered village. He didn't care about Z'rcona anymore - it looked like she was going to get hers anyway as Drizdar gained the advantage and pressed it home.

  Loric hovered above the Knight-thatwasn't. “Who in the abyss are you?” he bellowed with a hurricane force. “Tell me before I drop on you and crush you like an insect!” “I'm afraid you will find that more difficult than you imagine,” he shot back. “Come on, haven't you figured it out by now? No? Let me show you then!” The false Knight's body grew and stretched and transformed into a huge red dragon, a match in size for the Elder Dragon of Fire. With one powerful stroke of his wings, he was aloft in the sky and accelerating to streak past Loric.

  On the ground, Eilidh turned as pale as her robes at this latest development. “I suggest we try to find some cover,” she said, though there was precious little to be had. The best they could do was move away from the immediate area, closer to the edge of the Maelstrom. She was worried about Rochelle and Hannah, trapped inside their fiery cage, but there was nothing she could do for them. Hannah was just starting to come around andRochelle knew her druid healing wouldn’t work on their Knight friend, but she was looking after her as best she could.

  Eilidh and her small group couldn’t help them, but at least they could try and get the unconscious Jayne out of harm’s way. Between the four of them, carrying her was no burden, but when

  they finally hunkered down behind some rocks, they realised someone was missing.

  Bunny was nowhere to be seen. “So you're a dragon,” Loric scoffed. “Am I supposed to be impressed?” “Oh I'm far more than just another dragon,” the red gloated. “Five things I have to say to you: Fire Rage, Air Flight, Water Healing, Stone Shield and...” he broke off. “Ah, but you don't know the last one yet, do you? Well guess what? I do! Been there, done that, passed the test. Do you get it now? I'm the first and only fully fledged Penta Drauka dragon! And there will never be another!”

  Having passed the final test, he had immediately thanked the last Elder Dragon by killing him. That done, he worked systematically back through his tutors to kill the Elders of Stone, Water and Air. When he returned to the Scorched Desert to re-enter the Fire Realm, however, his way was blocked by a large lizard creature that looked a bit like a dragon but wasn't - a creature that literally ate dragons for breakfast. The dragon predator of the dark elves.

  That beast was too much for him to handle, so he was forced to abandon that particular killing spree. However, the creature gave him the inspiration for another one, and he began to sniff out other dragons to kill. Particularly any that might get the idea of embarking on the Penta Drauka quest. Most recently, he had heard about this famous Black Dragon of Avidon who was in reality an obsidian. He had a strong suspicion that Loric was interested in the Penta Drauka skills and he was marked as a target.

  But then the Tech Wars started and this Niltsiar caught his attention. She was the most powerful mortal he had ever encountered in fact he wasn’t even sure she was mortal. He was afraid of her. If she viewed him as a threat she might find him and destroy him. So he kept a low profile. That was why he took the form of a renegade Dark Knight and threw the child Sara into Loric's cave that day as bait, rather than act directly. But Loric was smarter than the red dragon had given him credit for. The obsidian survived and took Sara under his wing.

  Their paths had crossed again in the Marina Fells mine. By that time, Leonis had become a fullyfledged agent of Niltsiar, deciding that if he offered his services as a gift, she would be less inclined to use her power against him. He was unable to kill Loric without using his full power and at Marina Fells, Her Divine Excellency’s rules about personal vendettas had stayed his hand. But here and now, events had forced a confrontation. Loric was after his blood and the only way he could survive was to reveal his true nature. The obsidian had completed four fifths of the Penta Drauka and it
was imperative that he not be allowed to complete the fifth. Leonis had to hold on to his advantage, but there was a catch. If he used his fifth power openly, that might be all the clue Loric needed to figure it out himself. The obsidian had already got through the quest in a fraction of the time it had taken him and he knew that Time was not as insignificant to dragons as they sometimes believed.

  The two dragons clashed in the air with a noise like a clap of thunder. They fought as they flew, each trying to gain an advantage over the other. Leonis breathed fire, while Loric spat acid, but otherwise they were evenly matched so it promised to be a long, arduous battle.

  * * * * * Meanwhile, down below, Z'rcona stumbled and fell to her knees before Drizdar's relentless onslaught. She'd tried conventional spells - Drizdar countered them. She'd tried throwing bolts of raw magic at him - his Catalyst simply converted it to Life energy and Granted it to the War Master. She tried attacking the Catalyst - Drizdar defended her. It was perfect Mage-Catalyst symbiosis, which lay at the heart of all the Life Arts. Then she had an idea. It was dangerous, but she was forced to take the risk. She focussed her mind and mentally reached into the very heart of the Maelstrom where the raw magic was at its most concentrated, thinking to energise it and use that as a weapon. But it was like something was blocking her, forcing her magical senses back out of the Maelstrom entirely. Somehow, Drizdar was cutting her off from the source of her magic. Finally, Drizdar's power threw her to the ground and pinned her there.

  “Give it up, Z'rcona,” Drizdar told her. “Yo ur tricks won't work on me. Niltsiar used to have another favourite agent during the Tech Wars. Another dark elf known as Akar-Sel - you may have heard of him. I was his apprentice and I learned a great deal. I know exactly what you're trying to do, and frankly, you're not very good at it!”

  “Oh really?” Z'rcona shot back. “Well I've got one trick left that I bet you haven't counted on!” She pulled her teleportation device out of her pocket, but Drizdar swatted it away with his magic. What he hadn't realised, however, was that it was just a decoy. Abandoning magic for sleight of hand, she tossed something into the middle of the Maelstrom.

  “What was that?” Drizdar demanded.

  “Go to hell!” “You before me,” he returned, and then channelled microwaves into Z’rcona’s body, cooking her from the inside as she screamed. Then as a final act, he brought the power of a furnace to bear, cremating her. Z'rcona's charred remains flaked off and blew away on the wind.

  His triumph was short lived however, as chaos monsters of all types began to appear in the distance at the edge of the tree line. A dozen, a score, fifty, a hundred. Their numbers seemed to multiply with every breath until they were pouring into the clearing towards the Maelstrom.

  “Dammit!” Drizdar swore. “Eilidh!” he yelled. She ran to him she dared do nothing else. “How do we get to the Well of Life? I need to know now!”

  “I've no idea,” she admitted. “Not a clue.”

  The powerful elf rounded on her, eyes blazing. “How do I know you're telling the truth?”

  “Because I don't want to die,” she replied, evenly. “If I could get us safe, I'd do it in a heartbeat. There's too much going on, I need time to think!”

  Drizdar accepted her argument - he didn't get to be Master of Dark Magic by being a reckless fool. “Then I'll have to buy you that time.”

  His Catalyst looked nervous, as if she was working up the courage to speak up. “Master, please, be reasonable,” she broached, carefully. “Even you can't take on this many at once. We need backup.”

  “I know that, idiot!” Drizdar snapped. “I'll have to bring my force of War Mages here. I just need to be quick.”

  “But Master, it's impossible to get help here fast enough,” his Catalyst pressed, managing her tone carefully.

  Just then, however, other War Mages did appear - witches and warlocks of all three Alignments.

  The Catalyst was instantly contrite. “Master, forgive me!” she begged. “How did you do it?” “I didn't!” Drizdar admitted, quite baffled. Enforcers appeared, adding to their number and bringing with them other mages, who couldn't teleport themselves. Soon there were wizards, headed by Merlana, conjurors and magicians, sorcerers and druids, climatomagi, chronomagi and techmagi, and a thousand or more Catalysts.

  Finally, Prime Magus Gamaliel materialised and headed for Eilidh and Drizdar. “Looks like I got here just in time. You seem to be in a spot of trouble,” he observed, calmly.

  “How did you find me?” Drizdar demanded.

  Gamaliel held up a piece of paper on which was written a set of co-ordinates in Drizdar's handwriting.At first, he couldn’t understand it. He’d only written it once and he still had that in his pocket. Then he replayed the events over in his mind and remembered.

  “I spilled my glass of wine over the pad,” he realised.

  The alcohol had reacted with the ink and when he mopped up the mess with those other papers, he’d inadvertently made a copy. Drizdar glared at the paper in Gamaliel’s hand. Simple alcohol rubbing - he couldn't believe he'd been so careless.

  “Not a myth, after all,” Eilidh remarked.

  “It's always the little things that come back to bite you, isn't it, Drizdar?” said Gamaliel.

  Reading him dispassionately, as Enforcers did, the half elf added, “Actually, to be fair, I would have found you anyway.” He had received a report from an Enforcer stationed in Shakaran Castle, serving as a personal guard to Prince Garald, regarding a group teleportation he had performed for Eilidh and her friends to some coordinates deep in the Wilderness. Coupling that with another report about chaos creatures teleporting away from their locations across Mythallen, Gamaliel had a bad feeling about where they were going. “I immediately went to your office, where you were supposed to be, but you weren't there. At first glance, I might have viewed that as dereliction of duty.”

  Drizdar was seething but he knew when to keep quiet. “Fortunately,” Gamaliel continued, “upon further investigation, I discovered that you were in fact acting on information you had received that these events might happen and you came here personally to verify the facts before alerting me. When you got here, however, you found my agent and her party in trouble, so you acted in my name to defend them.”

  Eilidh was not surprised at Gamaliel's grasp of politics. The fact was he - and indeed the world needed Drizdar right now. He was offering the War Master a political solution and Drizdar accepted in full knowledge that should he attempt to challenge Gamaliel for leadership, the Prime Magus had a weapon he could not fight.

  “Well then, now that that's sorted out, I suggest we get on with the war.” Drizdar nodded and together the two most powerful mages of the Council went into battle.

  Chapter 28

  In the sky, the dragons continued their fight to the exclusion of all else. Loric was more powerful than his nemesis had given him credit for and it was proving to be something of a stalemate. Whatever one did, the other countered immediately. The red grew impatient and decided it was time to make his advantage count, but rather than use it to attack Loric, he would target the mortals below. Loric obviously had an attachment to them, and that was a weakness he could exploit. By destroying those puny things, Loric would lose control of the Fire Rage and make reckless mistakes. Then he would destroy the Black Dragon of Avidon and so remain the only dragon ever to attain the Penta Drauka.

  Anticipating such a plan, Loric had skilfully moved their battle further and further away from the Maelstrom, but from Loric's perspective, the red moved at a truly impossible speed. Much, much faster than a Haste spell. Red dragons had a high affinity for magic, so for a time, Loric had been worried about his enemy using any number of spells that the obsidian couldn't name or counter. However, the red associated such magic with mortal magic, since the Life Arts were based on modified dragon magic, and he was obsessed with proving himself to be the superior dragon. He had a pathological need to defeat Loric as a dragon with dragon skills alone. If
this was a dragon skill, however, Loric didn't know what it was. His enemy was just a blur, streaking across the heavens, returning to regular flight speed to bear down on the mortals below. There was nothing Loric could do. Even Callie, the best flyer in the world, with the most powerful Haste spell ever invented could not get anywhere close.

  Eilidh desperately looked around for better cover but she knew it was futile. Even had there been somewhere to go, she couldn’t outpace a dragon. The idea flashed through her mind of energising the Maelstrom and using Life itself as a weapon, as she had with the Great Fountain in Avidon, but there wasn’t time. Eilidh and her friends had no power to stop a dragon and the mages of the Council had their hands full against thousands upon thousands of chaos monsters. There was no doubt whatsoever in her mind: they were going to die.

  Loric cried out in despair and anguish, fury and rage...

  ...and then the world around him froze.

  * * * * * Nothing was moving - not the red dragon, not the chaos creatures and not the mages of the Council. Spells of fire and ice and lightning stood in mid-air as a snapshot of an instant of reality. Then, seemingly out of nowhere, materialised a dragon mare with scales of polished copper, opalescent pearl and purest white.

  “Brilliant!” she enthused. “Absolutely bloody brilliant! Makes me, like, practically redundant, but I don't care. That was just...brilliant!” She was grinning manically and flying circles around Loric in an explosion of positive energy. “I mean, I'm not kidding - that is, like, the single most brilliant thing I've ever seen! To just freeze Time like that, like, out of sheer need! Brilliant! It's how it's supposed to work, of course