by Rick Field
The Mage drew a new breath, she heard the Construct rampaging in its search for Milor. She was still alive, and despite her new insights and revelations, she had to get back to work.
She turned to look at the destroyed surroundings. The Construct had known Milor had disappeared from this large hall, just as she had predicted, and it had started tearing the place apart looking for the concealed passageway. Liane could see it starting to descend the stairs leading down into the bowels of Kiria, where Milor was trying to wake the Guardian.
Her hand reached out. She had to stop him, and she started constructing an earth-based spell that would seal the passageway leading down when her magic flared and closed it for her, the walls of the stairway snapping closed and up, throwing the baffled Blood Construct from its steps and back to the surface. Her heightened senses, trained for years under adverse conditions, realized that it was a mere change in the state of energy of the walls – the amount of stone had remained the same, it now merely took up more space.
The Construct turned to face her, looking shocked at her sudden revival. Liane started to crawl to her legs. Her body didn't hurt, but it was stiff after reviving from death.
She was on her feet now, and the shocked Blood Construct finally gathered its wits and attacked her. DawnBreaker was in her right hand suddenly, and met the attack on the flat of its blade. As long as DawnBreaker had magic, it would protect its bearer.
Liane felt the energy in the attack meeting the energy in the weapon. And yet, energy was energy. Why then, was she using energy to counter energy?
Her magical senses reached out to her opponent's attack, and felt it. It was directed energy, drawn from nature. In essence, a perversion of Druidism, draining power from nature as a whole and using it to direct an attack. No wonder its power was endless – based on a Noble's blood, similar in ways one contracted with the spirits of the elements, the Blood Construct had the ability to do magic like no other Construct could, and yet it had no life of its own. Instead, it drained energy from nature to sustain itself and its attacks.
She drained the energy from the attack and used it to fuel DawnBreaker. It wasn't enough, the magic she had at her disposal was insignificant when compared to a creature that practically had all of nature's energy on tap. DawnBreaker charged off the spell, and turned the energy back on itself, and still Liane could feel her weapon being overwhelmed.
Her senses reached for a sole remaining support pillar, a lonely stone column that had somehow survived the destruction of the ceiling, the subsequent battle, and the destruction of the walls by the Construct. Her magic reached, and drew the strength from the stone. The column fell apart into gravel, yet Liane felt like an immovable object, resisting against the creature's spell.
The attack finally ran out, and Liane lowered her sword. Forty-six. Forty-seven. Forty-eight.
It was time to end this, now that she still had magic, and now that it was still behaving itself. Her senses reached out, and magic pulled heat from the air. The harsh cold nipped at her nose, and she ignored the sensation in favor of watching the bolt of flame immolate her opponent. Her magical senses analyzed the attack, and the lack of response from the Construct.
She could see the hardened air safeguarding the creature, at once realizing why she was having such trouble reaching the Construct – it was using magic to literally harden the air against energy of all kinds. It was why she had met with success when using DawnBreaker; the sword was a purely physical attack. It obviously took time to reconstruct, giving her a window of opportunity.
The Blood Construct retaliated by flinging multiple bolts of magic at her, and the wind that had picked up after her fire bolt died down as she pulled on the air's speed. Enhancing herself using the energy of the air, she wove herself through the assault, her mind in overdrive and her body and magic reacting by instinct. She had already known that DawnBreaker was her sole option to open up a window in the creature's defenses, but it was good to get confirmation.
Fifty-four. Fifty-five. Fifty-six.
Her containment spell kept unraveling, and she could feel the stores of her reserves increase, despite the load she was placing upon them. Borrowing more speed from the air, her physical senses enhanced themselves subconsciously with the Warlock's acceleration spell. Thanks to the speed of the wind, her body was now able to keep up with her brain's enhanced processing speed, and she found herself in front of her opponent in scant few moments of time.
Fifty-eight. Fifty-Nine.
DawnBreaker came up, and flashed down with super-gravity-induced speed. The Construct's shield shattered under the onslaught, and Lucifer slapped a bolt of force through the gap. The Construct screamed in raw anguish, drawing more magic from the surrounding area. Immediately, Liane attempted to disenchant the creature's body, only to find her attempt broken, unraveled before it could complete. The Construct had learned from its encounter with her, and had learned how to unravel spells in progress.
Her magical senses could clearly see for the first time what she was dealing with; a Blood Construct had no mind, no soul of its own. Instead, it hated all living creatures for what it lacked, and it surely would have destroyed any to stand against it if for no other reason than Danulia had built into its very core, into the very enchantments that made a Construct, the directive to obey any and all direct command she gave it.
Liane jumped away as the creature retaliated against her breaking of its shield, and wove through repeated attacks with virtually no effort as more wind sacrificed its speed to her need.
It was beyond maddening; she finally had the power and the knowledge to destroy the creature, only to find herself with a time-limit before her magic ran out and with an opponent that knew how to cancel her spells and keep her at a distance!
Borrowing more wind speed, she charged again and again, feeling pain spread through her chest as her unconfined magic started reacting in ways it hadn't done for years. Red tinted the edge of her vision, sharpening her focus. No longer could she feel the pain; no longer did she care about herself or her country. All she knew was her opponent before her, and that she was going to end it.
The Blood Construct managed fewer and fewer attacks, forced to keep up with its defenses as her offensive barrage increase in speed and tempo. Her voice fell out of step with her lips without her knowledge.
A ball of fire surrounding a bolt of ice was incased in a sheath of lightning and slammed into the creature's supposedly-impervious shield. The magic failed to damage it, as usual, but the contradicting electric, heat, and cold charges shattered it like a tin sheet of glass. Already, Liane's magic had aimed a disenchanting spell at it. The creature cried out in anguish as its protection failed, and was too late to cancel out all of the disenchanting.
Losing its tail didn't seem to hinder it much, yet it didn't have the time necessary to build a new one as it had done with its leg. The red was encroaching the center of her vision now, and Liane shouted in glee as agony turned to ecstasy.
Seventy. She no longer heard the voice, instead registering it on some subconscious level that was eerily similar to the trance required for the Deep Secrets. Her store of power was running low, her magic limited to what she could carry within her core. Despite her unravelling containment spell releasing ever more of her full potential back into her control, she didn't have the power needed to swat the Blood Construct out of existence in a single strike.
All thoughts of merely keeping it busy until Milor had released the guardian were forgotten now. With her magic released, and with her conscious mind deep in is throes, all Liane wanted to do was to utterly annihilate her opponent.
As she charged again and again, she knew she was running out of both magic and time. With each attack, the creature learned more, gaining speed and knowledge, while she grew slower. The Warlock acceleration spell had failed for her once before, and she realized, deep down, on some hidden level, that it was going to do so again shortly. The human brain wasn't meant to run on accelerated
time for extended periods. Once again, she was going to hit her limits...
The Blood Construct blinked owlishly when a bastardized transmutation spell tried to release the bonds between the atoms in its body. It had barely managed to dispel it before the moisture in the air turned to acid. Being made from stone, it ignored the sizzling of the acid on its outer skin, and charged her. The ground turned to goop, causing it to sink up to its belly, barely managing to cancel the new trap before the ground crushed it.
It jumped, only to feel the air turn tangible, holding it. A new triple-elemental attack came racing for its face, and the Blood Construct yelped when it failed to dispel the air-trap. The attack shattered its shield and grazed its flank; three legs and one replacement spread out, the Blood Construct slid over the floor, fighting for traction. It barked two bolts of pure magic at Liane, who avoided them with airspeed grace.
A new attack from the Blood Construct was aborted when a bolt of lightning struck the floor right in front of it, the blinding light and deafening noise of the impact breaking its concentration.
Eighty.
Liane was losing her patience as the Blood Construct's speed at dispelling went up another notch, and it started to unravel the secrets to her speed. Already, she could feel its magic trying to reach out to the elements, trying to duplicate her tricks of speed and strength. She knew she would be dead the moment the creature figured it out. There was no way she could stand up to it without the advantage her new realization gave her.
They exchanged volleys of magic, the ruined palace surrounding them disintegrating further under the battle they waged. Liane knew she was running out, knew that she needed more strength, more energy, to keep going. Her vision was completely shaded in red now, the exhilarating thrall of her magic allowing her to ignore pain and exhaustion. Her containment spell was almost completely gone now.
And yet, it wasn't enough. The creature was just too fast for her, every time able to just make it away before it got killed. She needed strength and power, and lots of it, if she was to destroy the creature. She had to build a spell big enough to for it to be unable to dodge. What she needed was a siege weapon, a weapon of war.
Her mind and magic cast out, looking for energy, ignoring the awakening giant beneath her feet. Wind was fast and could allow her to dodge, but it was useless when it came to strength. Earth was strong, yet its properties lie in defense, not offense. Water could grind her enemy to dust, but it would take forever to do so. Fire... Fire was what she needed. Her magic, feeling her thoughts, touched something slumbering.
Ninety.
She stopped her attack so suddenly that the Blood Construct overbalanced and took a few moments to compose itself. Liane stared up, at the large feature that dominated Kiria.
Mount Sina. Mount Sina, the supposedly extinct volcano. The volcano that had a large pocket of magma lying beneath it, deep in the embrace of mother earth. She released her hold on DawnBreaker and Lucifer. Weapons would only hinder her now. DawnBreaker rotated at speeds beyond normal, sticking itself tip-down into what remained of the floor, while Lucifer merely floated down and lowered itself to its tip, remaining upright.
Liane backhanded the incoming attack spell from the Blood Construct... It shattered on impact. Liane ignored the backlash of pain-pleasure coming from her core, as her magic started draining energy from the pocket of fire-energy resting beneath Kiria's Mount Sina. She also ignored the tremor going through the floor beneath her feet. It was time to get this fight over with.
The voice kept counting up, slowly. Ninety-two. Ninety-three.
She was Liane, known as the MagicWarper. Her arms reached up for the skies. She danced out of the way of another attack.
She was Liane, former assistant of Cassandra of the Storms. Ninety-four.
A second tremor went through the floor. Stronger, longer, forcing the creature to widen its stance. Ninety-six.
She was Liane, Champion of Kiria. The skies clouded over immediately. Ninety-seven.
Winds howled through the shattered ruins of the Imperial castle. A new attack from the creature was slapped down by a tentacle of stone that shot up from the ground. Ninety-eight.
She was Liane, who co-authored the book Air as a Weapon of War. A funnel of twisting air spiraled down from the clouds, and picked her up. Ninety-nine.
She could feel the power building in her attack spell, a bastardized, super-charged version of the Hammer of Thor she had once seen an opposing Warlock use during a duel. Deep below her, the Blood Construct stared up in confusion, unable to believe what its senses were telling it. Despite its minimal intelligence, it realized that this was magic on a scale that it could never match.
One Hundred. Full power, Liane knew. This was as much magic as she would ever have at her disposal, as much magic as she would have had, had her core not been shattered at a young age. The time was now.
She balled her outstretched hands into fists, and pulled them down, down toward the earth, where her opponent still stood, staring in stupefaction.
The entire cell exploded its winds into a single strike, destroying what little was left of the palace, whipping up debris into a blender that pelted the Blood Construct. As the winds died down, Liane's magical senses registered the destruction of the Blood Construct's shield and much of its body, right before the storm cell, still hovering angrily above the battlefront, released its pent-up electrical frustration into a single bolt of lightning of enormous proportions.
By the time Liane's last remaining winds had deposited her gently on the ground, the creature was nothing more than a smoldering heap of cooling dust.
Coolly, a voice started counting down. Ninety-nine. Ninety-eight. Ninety-seven. Her magic was leaving her now; she could practically feel it unraveling.
The ground shook, and Liane reached out to grab her discarded weapons, leaning on them to keep herself upright. An angry rumble permeated the air. She looked up. Smoke curled up from the top of mount Sina, and Liane could feel her blood-pressure hit rock bottom. She had caused a volcanic eruption. She'd won her battle and doomed the island.
Liane had never hated herself more than in that instant. The voice kept counting down, and Liane kept staring up at the mountain at the center of the island, her mind shattered, unable to believe what she was seeing.
Then, slowly, surely, the tremors stopped and the smoke died down. Liane breathed for the first time since touching down – the Druids had managed to stabilize the mountain. The island was safe, or would be, as soon as Milor released the sleeping guardian to restore the wards, awaken the sleepers, and punish the guilty. She looked around; the Royal Palace had been flattened. She hoped Milor would forgive her.
“I see you were victorious, My Lady,” a voice reached from behind, sending shivers down Liane's spine. No. Not now. I have nothing left!
Liane wanted to spin around and face the speaker, but barely managed an awkward shuffle. The voice of her failing spell was a whisper now. Fifty-four. Fifty-three. “My Lady Danulia,” Liane replied, trying to sound calm. Her last spell had destroyed most of the Palace, so of course it would have destroyed her improvised prison as well. Liane was too tired and weary to contemplate how Danulia had managed to survive the blast when her prison had not.
“You took on a Blood Construct and were victorious through brute force,” Danulia said, casually beholding the environment. The older Mage sounded impressed as she talked, and despite her leaking magic making her more vulnerable with each passing second, Liane wasn't inclined to resume hostilities. If she could only draw enough time for Milor to finish! Already, she could feel the stirring of the massive reservoir of energy deep beneath her.
“I was left with no alternative, My Lady,” the younger Mage replied. “The Construct was too old; it was learning too quickly.”
Danulia dipped her head into something that might be described as a 'nod'. “You've learned the secret behind all magic, then,” she stated.
Liane shrugged, wincing at the pain
shooting through her body. She leaned heavily on DawnBreaker and Lucifer. “I believe I have,” she answered, hating how weak her voice sounded, and despising how her pride in her accomplishment sounded through. She could feel a tremor beneath her, similar yet different to what had happened with Mount Sina.
“Good. I am pleased for you. Unfortunately, you will now have to die with that knowledge,” Danulia said calmly, and threw up her hand. Liane closed her eyes and hoped that it wouldn't hurt. Nothing hit her, and she slowly opened her eyes. The older Mage was staring, aghast, at her outstretched arm, where no spell had materialized. The Guardian magic had protected her, Liane realized.