I ducked to the left and rolled to come up on one knee like I’d seen Jason do, but no spell went off. I breathed easier. Heather took that moment to charge Morsca, and a flash of color erupted around them as Heather bounced off the shield. She looked dazed for a moment.
“Ohhh-kay,” I said thoughtfully.
To test out the theory I had started to form, I imagined a chainmail headpiece matching my armor on my head. I felt a weight form on my hair and saw that the edges of the hood were exactly as I imagined. Then I imagined Jason’s frost ring on my hand, and it appeared. But when I said the operating word and aimed it at Morsca, who ducked, nothing happened. I then imagined the ring on Heather’s hand, but nothing happened again.
All right, I thought to myself, we can only think of physical things that affect ourselves. So in order to get Morsca to give up the ghost, Heather was doing it right before. We’re going to have to give Morsca a beat down. And now we have a way of getting stuff to help us do that.
CHAPTER 38
“Heather! Think about your armor and your sword!” I shouted at her.
I hated to give the tip to Morsca, but since Morsca had already half figured it out by making that shield appear, she would have been ready to go before Heather if I didn’t say anything. Heather, quick on the uptake, in a flash wore the armor and weapons she’d been given when she’d come to this world. Surprisingly, she’d added a full fencing helmet.
“Great idea!” I yelled, and I imagined changing my chainmail hood into a fencing mask for me.
Unfortunately, Morsca also dressed herself in armor. She wore bronze-colored plated mail and a matching helmet similar to the one Arghen had worn, and she wielded a broadsword along with her shield. Though our swords were two to her one and our blades were longer, Morsca had more protection and a heavier blade. I wasn’t sure I liked the odds.
“Flank her!” I shouted to Heather, not caring about giving away our strategy.
Morsca had to know that I would be doing that, but I knew Heather wouldn’t know to do that without being told. The fencing that she and I knew was a linear sport. Flanking wasn’t something that came up during bouts or in class. That was something I’d learned from Arghen and had applied in battle. Heather drew the saber that was twin to mine and approached Morsca warily, no longer as confident as she had been during the school yard beat down. But then, a school yard beat down usually didn’t involve sharp, pointy objects like the ones we all had now.
“We got this, Heather,” I said encouragingly. “We’re two to her one.”
Morsca shot a glance of pure hatred at me and backed away, trying to keep an eye on us both and keeping the shield in-between her and me. The green-haired Surface-elf watched me as I edged out in a wide circle to her right, and I could see on her face that she knew that it was only a matter of time before Heather and I could close on her like the pincer of a crab. The only warning I had which made me re-think my strategy was when a look of craftiness flickered across her face. She turned and charged at Heather, broadsword at the ready and yelling like a maniac.
Instantly I cursed myself. I’d let Morsca sucker me! It didn’t matter if I ‘died’ here, because I would go back to my body, according to Auraus. But if Heather died here, then the Miscere Surface-elf won. I should have been guarding Heather, not trying fancy tactical maneuvers! I charged after Morsca. Heather, frozen for a moment by the yelling, thawed out in time to classically block Morsca’s charge at fencing’s sixte position and step aside to let the Miscere Surface-elf charge past her. Along with the previously seen chaotic slash of color around us, a musical chime sounded instead of the expected discordant clash when the two blades crossed. I wondered if it was because they were both made of magic. Morsca charged about two steps beyond and whirled around, but by that time I was at Heather’s side. Our two blades kept her at bay.
“Let me fight for you, Heather,” I said, testing Morsca’s shield with a clang from my sword. It was pretty solid.
“Like hell! This is my fight! It’s my body she’s trying to take, not yours!” Heather replied, blocking a tentative slash from Morsca.
“Exactly. And if she kills you, then this whole ritual that Auraus cooked up to get me here to you has been a waste.”
Morsca’s elvish-looking ears perked up at that. “Oh? My little birdy made a soul ritual? How marvelous! And how angry her goddess must be!” the Miscere Surface-elf said gleefully.
“Shut up!” I snarled at her. “What do you know about it?”
“I know enough,” Morsca purred. “Now I have even more incentive to finish the both of you off. The little birdy will be like clay in my hands when I am done with her.”
Morsca threw herself forward at Heather. I shoved Heather aside and blocked the blow with my saber. Morsca’s and my swords clashed with a slightly different musical chime but the same chaotic color bursts.
Morsca went on the offensive then, so while backing away and parrying several quick strikes from her broadsword, I said, “Seriously, Heather, let me do this fight. Could you even kill her anyway?”
I saw Heather freeze up at that thought.
“But I’ll tell you what, though,” I continued, “if I fall or go ‘poof’, then you are more than welcome to pick up wherever I’ve left off.”
“Fine! I will!” Heather said with only a slight annoyance on her face as she backed away from the fight.
Morsca snarled at seeing her prize moving out of reach, but I pressed the attack to distract her with the lights and sounds of our fight. Morsca became too busy defending herself from me to care too much about where Heather had gone. Morsca was pretty good and obviously had practiced swordplay, but it became apparent that I was the better swordswoman. I was able to direct her across the floor almost any way I wanted as long as it was to the shield side, despite her attempts to keep track of Heather. The green-haired Surface-elf was better at blocking and covering than attacking which was what kept the fight going, but the few attacks she made left her open for return strikes from me, as she didn’t quite have the knowledge of how to fight from the cover of a shield.
Soon Morsca was bleeding from several slashes on the right side parts of her body that were not protected by metal, and she was beginning to leave bloody footprints behind her as she moved. I was beginning to get dizzy from the lights and sounds of our brawl. It was one thing to fight for your life, but it was a whole other thing when everything done in the fight caused something distracting to happen. Perhaps I was tired, or perhaps dizziness caught up with me, but while maneuvering her around the floor seeking an opening that would let me finish this once and for all, I slipped on a blood patch and sat down, hard.
Morsca dropped the shield and raised her sword two-handedly above me. “Now I will send you back where you came from, you interfering little Human, and Heather’s body will be mine!”
She brought her sword sharply down towards me. I scrambled to one knee to try and brace myself to catch her blade with mine, but I knew the heavier weight of the broadsword would still crash into me. I just hoped it would stop the blow from slicing me too deeply. Out of the blue Heather’s saber joined mine as it had once before, and together we staved off Morsca’s punishing blow. Morsca shrieked and swung sideways at Heather, who dodged out of the way handily. I came up off the ground like a striking snake and lunged for the Miscere Surface-elf, spearing her through a gap in the plates of her leg. Blood fountained from the wound. Morsca screamed, swung her sword backwards at me, and I felt a searing pain followed swiftly by blackness as her sword buried itself in my neck.
CHAPTER 39
I sat upright with a gasp inside the chalk circle, my shoulders slipping out of Jason’s grip and my hands going instantly to my head to make sure it was still attached to my neck.
“Argh! I hate that!” I said.
“Lise!” said Jason, Ragar, and Auraus’ voices in unison. “What happened?”
I immediately looked over at Heather’s body. It was still in the same po
sition it had been in the last time I saw it, and I didn’t know if that was a good or bad thing. I glanced up at the sky, and it seemed to me that I had been gone maybe a degree of the sun.
“Lise!” Ragar said impatiently with a worried undertone.
“Sorry. I was just getting my bearings,” I said. I twisted up to my knees on my padded blanket to look at Ragar and Jason. “First of all, Heather is still alive in there and probably now is fighting for her life. Second, I am fine now, but I was killed there.”
“Que?!” exploded Jason, scrambling over to enfold me in his arms. “Are you sure you’re all right?” he asked, pushing me back slightly so he could look me all over with worried eyes.
“I’m okay, really I am,” I said.
I told them everything that had happened between me waking up in the Place of Soul’s Election and waking up inside the circle again. Ragar clutched Heather’s shoulders tighter.
“Send Lise back,” Ragar demanded of Auraus, who still stood outside the circle.
“No,” she replied regretfully. “A jolt like Lise has suffered is not good for the soul. Her soul would need at least a day’s rest to heal before I could do the ritual again.”
“And even if I could, I wouldn’t,” I said firmly.
Ragar whipped his head to look at me, his eyes almost saucer-like in wild disbelief.
“I went because it was the right thing to do an hour or so ago,” I explained. “But things have changed since then. To get Heather to agree to let me fight for her in the first place, I said that if I went ‘poof’, she was welcome to finish on her own. And she took me up on it. I won’t go back on my word.”
“Then send me there!” he growled to Auraus.
“No,” I said. “Heather has the tools and the knowledge to battle for herself now, so it really is her show. I believe in her. You should, too.”
I held a confident look on my face for Ragar, but inside I was worried. How could I not be? Heather was going up against a self-centered, egotistical maniac whose life was on the line, and the fiend would fight like the proverbial cornered rat.
All of a sudden Ragar turned and stared at Heather’s body, letting go of her shoulders and going to point like a hunting cat. I looked, too, and saw her stir. We all fell silent. Who would be waking up—Heather or Morsca?
Oh please, Caelestis, let it be Heather! I prayed.
The mental pat I received back felt somehow encouraging. I noted Auraus staring, a slight glow in her grey eyes, as Heather’s body stirred again. Heather’s black colored eyes opened, and Auraus relaxed with a smile, the glow in her pupils fading.
Ragar, seeing the Wind-rider’s smile, asked tentatively, “Heather?”
Auraus nodded as Heather sat up. She swung her head around until she spotted the mountain-cat-elf.
“Ragar!” she said happily. “Yes, it’s me; it’s really me!”
The mountain-cat-elf leapt over to her and practically crushed her in a huge furry hug, and they exchanged gentle, broken murmurs. While I smiled for their first openly demonstrated gestures of love for each other, inside I knew that heartbreak would be around the corner for them. I felt sorry for them both.
Jason whispered to me, “What’s wrong, chica? Isn’t this a good thing?”
“Yes, and no,” I whispered back. “I mean it’s good for them now, but the only way it could work out is for one of them to never go home again. If Heather stays here, her parents will always wonder what happened to her. And if Ragar tries to cross over to be with her, he’ll be arrested and sent to some military or government testing lab when he’s discovered.”
“Could he even live in our world?” asked Jason musingly. “You once told me during an argument that magic was everywhere in this world, like the air we breathe, right? Since he’s been so changed, what if the magic surrounding us is what keeps him alive?”
I remembered that conversation, which had happened just after we’d nearly been eaten by carnivorous flowers some weeks ago.
“Oh, wow,” I said. “I hadn’t thought of that. Maybe he would not even be able to live after crossing the mist gate. So he definitely has to stay on this side. It would all come down to Heather’s choice, eventually—to stay with Ragar or go home to our world. She doesn’t like her parents much, but our world has all the creature comforts we’ve become accustomed to. I wonder which way she would go?”
“Let them have what time they may now,” Auraus voice said softly as she knelt down beside Jason and me. “Let the future problems be just that—future problems.”
Jason looked at them and then made a face and glanced at me. “He’s kissing her. And she’s kissing back.”
“So?” I asked.
“Fur lips,” he said wryly.
I laughed, and it made Heather and Ragar break apart and look at us questioningly.
“Nothing, nothing, don’t mind me,” I said, waving my laugh away. “How about telling us what happened, Heather?”
Heather settled herself comfortably in Ragar’s arms. “I’d been circling around behind you both while you fought Morsca, waiting for my opportunity. When she cut off your head, I screamed—afraid that you’d been killed. But when both parts of you disappeared, I realized that that was what you’d meant about going ‘poof’. Morsca turned and came after me, but she was pretty tired and had lost a lot of blood by then, especially from your last strike. She was still pretty good and still had all that armor on, though. Then I had an idea, and I imagined a gun.”
I slapped my forehead. Of course! Why hadn’t I thought of that? Everything in the Place of Souls’ Election was built on imagination—why, I could have imagined a lightsaber, or a vibroknife or a laser blaster, or–or anything!
“I shot her in the legs to keep her from coming after me with her weapons. She tried to dream up the same thing, but she couldn’t for some reason,” Heather meanwhile continued.
“Probably she needed to have a working knowledge of it,” I guessed. “You know about guns, but they aren’t known over here.”
“So after she wasn’t able to come after me anymore, I just stayed away from her. I didn’t want to leave the area in case the only way to get out of there was somehow connected to where we were. She imagined lots of knives, but they wouldn’t throw themselves, so I did a lot of dodging from her as she ran out of juice.”
Ragar looked puzzled at the unfamiliar term, but Jason and I nodded.
“When she realized what my plan was, Morsca tried to make an all-out attack on me. She got me good a couple of times in the arms and legs, but her all-out attack just made her lose blood all the faster. Finally she dropped her knives to the floor and collapsed slowly beside them. She started cursing me, and …”
I sat up straight, alarmed. “No! She didn’t! She couldn’t! What did she say?” I asked urgently.
“Mostly just swear words, and they kept getting fainter until she stopped speaking all together. But I’ve seen enough horror movies to know about the dangers of getting in close if you’re not sure about someone, and I kept my distance. It was a good thing, too, because in a minute or two she lifted her head and glared at me, like she’d expected me to come over and check out if she was dead or something. Then–then she vanished, and I woke up in the circle.”
I sighed with relief. Heather had managed to save herself without having to kill Morsca directly. I hoped that her battle there would not be part of what would haunt her dreams in years to come.
I stood up. “Come on, let’s go get something to eat. I don’t know about you, but I’m hungry.”
Heather’s stomach rumbled. “Yes, please. I’m famished,” she said.
Jason and Ragar stood up as well, but Auraus remained kneeling. “You go,” she said. “I have to clean up. This cannot be allowed to remain.”
“Save it for later,” I said. “Come and eat now.”
“No, no, I have a need to take care of this. I will join you when I am done,” Auraus said firmly, waving us to the stairs.
We were long done eating, and I was just beginning to think that I should check in on Auraus when the Wind-rider appeared. She looked wan and tired. I handed her a bowl of stew.
“You okay?” I asked her with concern.
“It just takes a lot out of you—the ritual and then the cleaning up afterwards,” she said, exhaustion thick in her voice, as well as a little something else that I couldn’t pin down.
She started eating, but it was plain to see it was more by rote than anything else.
“I would have helped,” I protested, but she waved me silent.
“It was my penance,” she said, putting down the bowl, still mostly uneaten.
I sighed. Penance—as if she’d done something wrong. I was frustrated that all my talking to her hadn’t changed her mind one bit. Then I remembered something that Morsca had said about Caelestis being angry.
“Do you mean to say that Caelestis gave you a penance for helping Heather after we left?” I asked, shocked.
That got the other three’s attention.
“No, no,” she said hurriedly. “It was just me on my own, to me.”
Heather came over to where the Wind-rider stood and took up both of her hands.
“You saved me,” she said gently. “Why would you need to do a penance for saving my soul if you’ve never had to do one for saving my body?”
Auraus smiled waveringly. “I–guess not,” she said.
I frowned. Auraus’ words seemed odd somehow, but it wasn’t anything I could put a finger on. But it must have seemed fine to Heather, because she hugged the Wind-rider.
“Thank you,” Heather said into her shoulder.
Auraus hugged her back, folding her white and gold wings around them. Ragar started purring and went over and hugged the two of them, also thanking Auraus.
Jason pulled me down onto one of the divans and put an arm around me. “All’s well that ends well, mi amor,” he said with a grin, looking at the three of them.
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