that?"
She nodded.
Baffled, Sunny stared at the ceiling. "If I didn't know any better, I'd swear it sounded like a jet."
She snapped her head up. It did sound like a jet!
By that time, the noise had become loud enough to drown out the music. The musicians stopped playing and she glanced at the stage, but Vichnia continued dancing for some moments until it dawned on her that she performed a cappella. She ceased and looked down at them in an irritated fashion, but then she heard the roar. Her spine tingled when Vichnia jerked her head up. Though others also watched the ceiling, she was the only one to do so immediately. Then her blood ran cold when she saw that the look on Vichnia's face was not confusion, as with everyone else, but abject fear.
In the same instant, the roar cut off and an intense silence filled the room. Seconds later, a glaring beam of silver light punched through the ceiling and slammed into the floor. The concussion clapped like thunder as a shockwave burst through the room. She watched, stupefied, as tables were swept aside and patrons tossed around like bits of paper in a whirlwind, and then it crashed into them. It threw her and Sunny backwards out of their chairs, as the table lifted up, overturned, and smacked down on top of them. She felt the wind knocked out of her and she lay dazed as she caught her breath.
She felt the table shift as Sunny wriggled out from under it. She gripped the edge, pushed it off her, and sat up. She was covered with grease and pieces of meat and cheese, and soaked in beer. Looking around, she saw the entire room had been wrecked as other people started to pick themselves up. The only person who had been able to keep her feet was Vichnia, and she stood staring at the light beam. When she glanced at it, she saw a globe had formed where it touched the floor. A figure stood inside it, and when the beam cut out it became a tall, strongly-built man, dressed in a flowing robe with a spiked collar decorated in surreal designs of gaudy colors, with colored lights flashing between the spikes. The man had a bald scalp, but sported a Vandyke beard and moustache, and had bushy eyebrows. Like Vichnia, his skin and hair were steel blue and dusted with sparkles, but his cyan eyes did glow.
She stood up. So much for body paint.
The wizard (he couldn't have been anything else, she reasoned) started towards the stage. Vichnia's expression turned livid with anger. "Keep away from me!"
He didn't stop. "Enough, Vichnia." But his tone sounded stern rather than menacing. "It is over. Come back with me peacefully, and we can forget this whole sordid affair ever happened."
"Never! I will not be your chattel, to be disposed of as you please. I belong to no one; I am my own!"
"I said, enough! It is not your choice. It is the way of our people; it has been for a hundred generations. Though I love you more than my own life, I cannot break our traditions, not simply to please you."
She caught movement out of the corner of her eye. Before she could look, Sunny sprinted into sight, heading for the stage. She had her staff in her hand.
"Gaaah! Sunnyyy! What the hell are you doing?!"
She didn't answer; she just put herself between the stage and the wizard, holding her staff in both hands, ready to clobber him. "You stay away from her!!"
The wizard stopped short and glared down at her while Eile's heart pounded.
"Step aside, trollop."
Sunny gave him an angry grimace. "I'll show you trollop!" She swung the staff like a bat.
The wizard moved his left arm as if to block the blow, but he never touched the staff. Instead, it stopped as if it had hit a brick wall, then it flew out of Sunny's grasp and across the room. She stared after it with a shocked look on her face, then gave the wizard a sheepish grin.
"You were warned." He jabbed an index finger at her.
"No!" Vichnia said.
"Eeep!" Sunny squealed as she raised her left arm in front of her face, her hand clenched. A purple bolt leapt from the wizard's fingertip like an electric arc, but when it reached Sunny's arm, a yellow circle appeared. The circle absorbed the bolt, turned gray, and dissipated.
The wizard stared at her in astonishment as she threw out her right arm. "Don't!" A white flash slammed into him and threw him backwards off his feet into a pile of chairs.
She couldn't believe her eyes. Sunny had demonstrated a minor ability to work magic in the past, but nothing like that! Sunny herself looked at her hands in astonished disbelief, then over at the wizard struggling to untangle himself from the furniture.
"Uhh, sorry." She accentuated her apology with a nervous giggle.
"Aww, cripes!" She retrieved her short, thin-bladed broadsword and Sunny's slim dagger, and ran towards the stage. She had no idea what she would do, she just knew she couldn't let Sunny face the wizard alone.
Spying Tyco, she cried, "Get everyone out!"
Tyco turned to a bouncer. "You heard her. Move!" The bouncers and barmaids began scurrying about, collecting and guiding patrons towards the doors.
The wizard threw off the chairs as he rose off the ground, his whole body engulfed in an eldritch blue glow. "You, a mere girl, dare to challenge the Chromatic Lord?! For that insult, I will boil you in oil, grill you over a bed of coals, flay the flesh from your bones, and then get nasty!!"
"Ahh, can't we talk this over?" Sunny appeared on the verge of panic.
In reply, the Chromatic wizard pounded his fists together, and a tongue of blue flame shot towards her.
"Eieieyah!" Sunny crossed both arms in front of her as she ducked her head. An orange hemisphere formed between her and the wizard. When the flame struck, both turned gray and dissipated, but both were continually replenished.
"Eile! Help!!"
She skidded to a halt. She could no longer get near Sunny, and the wizard lord flosted too high for her to reach. She looked around, and saw a chair had been tossed onto the stage. Hiking her skirt, she leapt up, grabbed the chair, and flung it at the color wizard. He didn't spot it until the last minute, and when he tried to raise a hand, it struck him full in the chest, driving him towards the back wall, spinning out of control. Before he hit it, however, he stabilized himself, landed on his feet, and pushed himself away back towards the middle of the room.
"You stay out of this!" He clapped his hands once. The sharp note echoed through the air, followed by numerous pops, as a dozen or more bipedal reptilian monsters appeared out of nowhere. They locked their eyes on her and swarmed towards the stage.
"Sweet Jesus!" She retreated to its center.
Sunny lost her temper. "You leave her alone!" She pointed at the Chromatic Lord and a beam of green light lanced towards him. He presented a hand and a red square formed, blocking the beam. He returned fire with a green beam of his own. Sunny imitated him and formed her own protective square.
Eile saw they were stalemated. Relieved, she got distracted and ran into Vichnia.
"Watch where you are going, you clumsy--"
"Shaddup!" She swung her sword and cleaved a lizard-thing in half. It vanished in a dazzling polychromatic flash.
"How dare you--!"
She whipped around to give her a blazing retort, when she saw a reptile-monster about to grab her from behind.
"Look out!" She stabbed past Vichnia's head into the creature's mouth, and it also vanished in a flash.
The dancer gave her an astonished look, as if she couldn't believe anyone would risk her own life to defend hers. She didn't care. She wasn't even sure why she had saved her. She'd be very happy to see the wizard take her away, but Sunny had elected to protect her, and she would do anything to keep Sunny safe. If that meant protecting Vichnia, so be it.
"Stick close to me." She turned to confront the monsters.
"Why are you doing this?"
"I'm not doing this for you, but for her." She pointed at Sunny with the dagger. She and the Chromatic Lord were still locked in their duel, only they had given up any pretense of defense. They shot massive beams of colored light from both hands, the wizard's green, Sunny's red. The beams collided between them, throw
ing off great clouds of gray sparks, and the intersection point moved back and forth as one or the other momentarily weakened.
A trio of reptile-creatures rushed them. She retreated to give herself room, swinging her sword to ward them off, when she tripped on the hem of her dress. She lost her balance and fell back, and the creatures pressed their attack. Vichnia caught her in her arms and pushed her upright into their midst. The sudden reversal surprised the lizard-monsters: they broke formation and scattered, but she slashed one across the chest before it could get away.
She turned on Vichnia, for a moment furious, before it dawned on her that the dancer just saved her butt. She didn't feel happy about it, considering how much she resented her, but she nonetheless felt grateful.
She shoved the dagger into her hands. "Cut it off." She grabbed the skirt. "I can't move around in this thing."
Vichnia knelt, took hold of the dress, and sliced through the fabric just below her hips. Meanwhile, she tried to fend off the reptile-things as best as she could without moving. Fortunately, the loss of two of their number made the rest more cautious, and she just needed to keep moving the sword to hold them back. One, however, tried to rush in on a blind side, and she had to twist to slash at it. At the same time, she felt the dagger point stick her in the rear.
"Oww! Be careful!"
"Don't move!"
"Tell them that!" Two rushed her at the same time. She swung in a wide arc in a desperate attempt to cover them both. She decapitated one, but the
The Adventure of the Steel Gazelle Page 4