Then an unusual warmth spread throughout her body from deep inside as though a pulsar radiated from her soul, igniting every nerve ending like electricity—and so powerful! It filled her with a sense of awe indescribable.
Panicked shouts rose up in the distance and drew her attention. Splendid flashes of blue light danced like spirits out of control, circling and flaring with brilliant intensity. From the center of it emerged two figures. Even from his distance Sonya could make out the tall form of Haldorum in the eerie light, but the second man he supported slumped as though unable to stand.
“Oh no!” she gasped.
Sonya leaped from the ground and ran without finishing her next thought.
“Someone take the Emperor to the medical tent!” Haldorum shouted even as he emerged from the storming, swirling magic.
Two soldiers immediately took the aged man by either arm Haldorum had literally dragged from the wild swirling magic behind him. The light flashed painfully bright and they turned their heads from it as they led their Emperor away. Every remaining inhabitant of Shallow’s Crag converged on their location, drawn by the disturbance, and their gathering formed a wide half circle around the strange, violent magic as they waited to lend aid where needed.
“Stay back!” Haldorum shouted.
Scott and Kurella appeared then as the wizard turned to face his supernatural creation with arms outstretched. At a single word from the great magus, the winds of the world hit them all with fierce intensity, appearing with such suddenness all but the wizard fell back several paces against its gale.
“What is happening?” Kurella shouted.
“I don’t know,” Scott shouted back. “Something must have gone wrong.”
The tempest of wild magic responded like a defiant beast but bent to Haldorum’s will, glowing with variant shades of blue and becoming an almost solid shaft of light soaring upward into the sky with a frightening shriek. Tents all around buffeted against the ferocious winds, and were it not for the soldiers, stable boys, squires, and countless others diving on the ropes and bracing the poles they would surely have torn their stakes from the ground and flown away.
The portal’s light intensified and then dimmed slightly, revealing a cloudy picture of another place on the other side. There, chaos reigned as battle raged; two sides locked in a savage combat. The view turned and moved like the lens of a telescope searching for a target, and then centered on three warriors. Haze, Lojur and Rabal faced the inhuman fury of two giant Jalkoras, backed up by a score and more of Azinon’s black-clad guards. Haldorum made a sudden pulling motion in the air with both hands and the three Resistance warriors flew forth from the portal together as though hurled. As they touched ground only Haze managed to keep his feet. The scene shifted again and then Lurin flew forth from the pillar of light, followed next by Kamarine, who somersaulted once in the air to land nimbly just as Kayliss’s massive form leaped out behind him.
“Haze!” Haldorum shouted. “You have got to catch him! He is wounded!”
The burly warrior immediately shed himself of weapons as he moved in front of the shrieking portal with arms held at the ready. The scene in the shaft of light swept over the entire room in its search until finally finding its mark: the slowly crawling form of a young man, inching his way across the floor, an arrowhead protruding from his back.
Alarm flashed on Scott’s face. “Steve!” he cried.
In the next instant the young wizard vanished from the scene and flew backward from the pillar of light like a discarded rag doll. Compensating for the young man’s momentum, Haze took a step back as he caught Steve out of the air and turned to carry him away.
“Behind you!” someone shouted.
The maddened screamed of the Jalkora filled the air as it emerged from the swirling magic and struck Haze in the back, eliciting a shower of sparks off his armor and knocking both the warrior and his charge to the ground. Steve landed face down, the shaft of the arrow driving completely through as he struck the earth. Before he could even scream the pain blacked him out and he went still.
Haldorum knew he had to seal the portal before anything else found its way through, but the Jalkora’s unexpected passage disrupted the already wild magic and now would take too much time to close by normal means. There was only one choice left.
“Get down!” he bellowed, making a broad downward motion with his hands. Not even seconds after, he changed the energy of his wizardry and moved the entrance of the portal directly over the exit. The portal flared like a fiery red star and then detonated with such force even the fearsome Jalkora staggered forward under the concussive blast.
Haze’s ears rang, deadening all other sounds as he forced himself to his knees and picked up Steve’s limp form once more.
The Jalkora bellowed with fury and pain. Hot, green blood flowed from the ear cavities in its head, and its four arms thrashed wildly in the air like deadly wheat scythes. A soldier sprang to his feet with sword in hand and charged the beast even as its maddened eyes centered on Haze and Steven. The soldier’s battle cry drew the Jalkora’s attention away, and the monster deflected the falling sword strike with the hard carapace of one of its arms. A second arm lashed out as it turned and lacerated the brave man’s arm as he dived to the side.
“Die, beast!”
Kurella’s startling transformation had happened in a matter of seconds. She leaped into the circle of combat with a terrifying roar, smashing her fist into the Jalkora’s breastplate. The hulking, four-armed beast screamed in agony as its armor cracked under the impact, but Kurella did not stop. She slipped left and seized one of the pincers at the wrist, ducking under this and wrenching hard as she herself turned. Green blood sprayed the air as muscles tore and tendons ripped, the shoulder of the beast rotating 360 degrees before the arm suddenly pulled free of its socket with a sickening tear. The other men and women of the Resistance watched in macabre fascination at the wicked efficiency of the lupine woman.
Just then the Jalkora went wild. Kurella ducked and dodged on the defensive as the monster pressed in a berserker rage with repeated slashes, pushing the fight closer and closer to Steven’s unconscious form. Still holding the Jalkora’s severed arm in one hand, Kurella seized it at the bloody shoulder with both hands and used the added reach, and the beast’s own scythe, to crack its skull with a powerful overhead strike. The Jalkora staggered backward into the clear, and Haldorum—back on his feet—released a powerful azure bolt of energy that hit the creature in its damaged chest plate and blew it into a dozen pieces of charred chitin and smoking chunks of soft tissue.
The First Power of Mithal allowed himself a grim smile that faded the moment he saw the unmoving form of the Third. He rushed to the young man’s side and reached him simultaneously with Scott.
Haldorum carefully rolled the young wizard to his side. “By the heavens!” he breathed. The blood was everywhere, saturating the boy’s shirt front and back and matting the grass with a black sheen under the night sky. His breathing rasped and still more blood leaked from the corner of his mouth.
Princess Vessla appeared next, sobbing as she tried to press her way through to her fiancé. “Out of my way!” she screamed through her tears. Haldorum quickly motioned to two of the nearest soldiers and they moved to intercept her. The old wizard then turned his attention back to Steve, ignoring the princess’s infuriated cries.
“He’s going to be all right, isn’t he?” Scott asked as two field medics crowded him out. He watched them for a few seconds and then the words rushed out of him. “Haldorum, if we could get him to a hospital on Earth—”
“There is no time.”
“—they would probably be able to…”
“I said there is no time, Scott! I do not know the location, and with the blood he has already lost there would not be enough time to search. It is better not to waste what little time we have.” The wizard turned his eyes back to Steven, heavy with worry, and gave a silent prayer.
Scott winced whe
n one of the medics, with the help of two others, gripped the arrow and pulled it through. Not even a second had elapsed before two others placed ointments and bandages upon the wound.
Steve’s breathing staggered… he gasped… and then sagged limply as all breath left his body.
The whole of the camp went still, listening, stricken beyond words at what could not be. No one—least of all Haldorum—could believe it. No one spoke a word as all eyes gazed upon the still form of the young wizard. He who had come from another world; the one gifted with the healing power; destined to restore the bloodline to the throne, now still and lifeless.
He lie…dead.
Haldorum sank to his knees shaking his head, the grief in his heart etched on his face and weighing like a lead weight on his soul. How could this be? He is the Third! Why could he not save himself? he thought. It made no sense! The prophecy—the Great Wheels of Destiny—none of it made any sense! How could fate allow a young man of such courage to die when it was for others that he lived? Why?!
In her human form once more, Kurella appeared next to Scott, now naked, her clothing torn from her body with the sudden change but no one seemed to notice in the midst of their collective shock. Scott turned and embraced her, burying his face deep in her hair.
He held Kurella desperately in his grief and she held him in return with one hand cradling the back of his head.
“I am so sorry, Scott,” she whispered, her voice quaking with grief. “I am so very sorry.”
Scott raised his head and looked down at his fallen friend. “It – it doesn’t matter.” He shook his head. “It’s over. This whole thing is over.”
The camp went very still, frozen in a tableau of life in despair of death. Even the breezes ceased to blow in seeming deference for the passing of the young wizard who came to save them all.
In a plan gone horribly wrong, Haldorum lamented, the Resistance had doomed the world.
At first it was slight, the sound barely more than a whisper, but distinct. A strange, eerie song like a wind chime made of a thousand shards of glass. And then light. Tiny at first, glowing brighter with every passing second; glowing brighter and brighter as she walked forward—drawn to it. Until…
“What the…” Scott breathed as his eyes caught sight of her.
But she was there. The crowding soldiers parted as she approached, disbelief etched on every face intermingled with confusion at what stood so plainly before their eyes. Sonya approached with steady steps, her hands at her sides and a calm expression on her delicate face as she drew nearer to that which called to her. All about her, an aura of purist gold bathed her form and moved like living fire, rippling with the essence of power. She stopped before Steve’s lifeless body and then listened, her eyes focused on the blazing crystal hanging around Steve’s neck.
“Sonya, are you—” Scott began, but Haldorum cut him off with a sharp gesture, his eyes never leaving the young woman.
Sonya dropped to her knees and her breathing quickened as the other presence entered her mind. She listened as it spoke, nodding nervously every so often, quickly, and frightened by her own golden power. Her arms tensed as she concentrated and summoned the newly awakened magic. For this, her first test, she would have to commit all of her strength, all of her love, for it was the cold hand of death itself opposing her.
Sonya reached down and took Steve’s lifeless hands in her own. Immediately, her aura engulfed his lifeless form in golden flames and the crystal’s light around his neck flared white-hot. Scott lunged when Sonya cried out but, instinctively, Kurella held him back.
“Come on, lad,” Haze whispered. He gripped the pommel of his sword so tightly the whites of his knuckles stood out.
Endless minutes passed; every man, woman, and child watched with apprehensive expressions, until…
“Look!” someone cried pointing.
A slight twitch. Then a glimmer of movement. The young man’s eyes slowly rolled open like the ponderous yawning of a drawbridge, and breath returned to his body with a swelling of his chest.
The other presence then retreated from Sonya’s mind, leaving her with one final instruction. Nodding once, she lulled Steven into a deep sleep; the light of the crystal fading away as her aura slowly dispersed.
And then, confused and frightened, she lowered her head to his chest…and wept.
Chapter XIX
Azinon staggered along the corridor clutching his chest with his right hand, his breath rasping in his throat with every step.
It is not possible! This cannot be! The world turned upside down and the sorcerer stumbled to one knee. Cursing through his pain, he regained his feet and pressed onward. The marble floor echoed his clumsy footfalls noisily, a mocking reminder of his failure to control and contain the situation in his own house.
This cannot be!
When he reached the heavy oak door banded in wrought iron, he was careful to speak the arcane word of opening in a low voice despite the fact he was alone in the passage. The door swung aside and he then continued down the staircase beyond. Here, the stench of evil filled the darkened corridor like cloying incense, and Azinon inhaled its scent as though it were sweet perfume. The sacrifices his deity demanded gave the sorcerer great pleasure to offer. And then, when the rites were finished and the hearts of his victims lay unbeating on the altar, he would then sacrifice the Shangee who brought the victims into this unholy place. None but he ever emerged from the sanctum alive.
The sorcerer went to the brass-hinged doors at the end of the staircase and muttered another word of the arcane language of the necromancer. So many centuries had passed since the last of their kind walked the world, and now their knowledge and art was his to command. The doors swung aside and Azinon slowly, painfully, entered the chamber. The odor of his own charred flesh reached his nostrils and his lips curled into a snarl. Gradually, he made his way across the dimly lighted chamber, and dropped to his knees before the altar with a groan. With an unsteady hand, he touched the ancient symbol at the base of the altar and felt a tremble in the air throughout the room as a dark presence answered the summons. A draft blew in from somewhere unseen; and rather than go out, the candle flames emitted a sibilant whisper and grew more intense, changing from soft white to an angry crimson.
“You fought this night,” came a growling, resonant voice.
Azinon knew the sound of it; recognized exactly who and what it was – better even than his own. The beast called Namanughan, a devil of the highest order, second only to the Prince of Darkness himself. “I have, lord,” Azinon replied. His jaw tightened as he tried to put the pain of his injuries out his mind.
“You fared poorly.”
The sorcerer’s brow furrowed, his jaw tightening with shame and anger. “But the Emperor is with them now, and all will proceed as I have planned. Soon all of Mithal will bow down to me, and to you I will offer up the hearts of the First and Third powers as sacrifice.”
“Perhaps.” It was an ominous reply.
That single word bothered the sorcerer more so than any rebuke. It lingered on his mind and left him feeling confused to be so doubted. “It will be as I have said,” he insisted. “In five days the Resistance will be no more!”
Several moments passed, and then finally, “I felt the pull of your soul this night, Azinon. Are you so eager to join the Morning Star in the kingdom of fire?”
“I was caught unawares,” the sorcerer confessed ashamed. “It will not happen again.”
“See it does not,” Namanughan growled menacingly. “Your success, or failure, will determine your eternity.”
The looming oppression of evil slowly lifted as the devil departed the chamber. The candles returned to their natural glow and Azinon was left alone before the altar of his deity.
The sorcerer raised his head, his expression like that of a thundercloud, his eyes like ice. Heedless of the pain, he lashed out, sweeping aside the ritual bowls and the hearts they contained to a clattering, meat-sloshing mess on the
floor. He balled his hands into fists then and closed his eyes as he breathed, resuming some measure of his previous forbearance he expected of himself as the future emperor over all Mithal. He opened his eyes slowly then, his anger seething but in control.
“There will be a reckoning.”
Chapter XX
“Anything yet?”
“Not since this morning. He started to mumble a few things but quit before you could be sent for.”
“And it seems as though my luck is still holding out.”
“Relax, Haldorum, he’s doing fine. I don’t see why you’re stressing yourself out so much. The worst of it is over. Sonya saw to that.”
“Scott, this is hardly an everyday occurrence. He came back from the dead. I only wish to make sure there are no complications; so please, make sure I am notified if there are… Did you see that?”
“See what?”
“He moved. I saw him move.”
“He’s been doing that since yesterday. What’s the big deal?”
“Since yesterday? And I was not told?”
“His muscles are twitching, for crying out loud! Everybody does that in their sleep.”
“Look at his face, Scott. I think he can hear us. Steven? Steven, are you listening? Can you hea…
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