A huge stone flew toward Pyron, and Delminor flung an air spell to deflect it, but the rock struck his skull and knocked him unconscious. He yelled to Ramular, demanding him to pull Pyron out of harm’s way, but the bard was cowering out of sight in the tunnel and wouldn’t move.
Essalia rushed to his aid instead, launching more spells, growing wearier by the minute. She erected an earth shield around herself, but her earth skills were weak and the nearby rocktaur smashed it effortlessly. Essalia threw herself in the way of Pyron and took a blow to the stomach, collapsing and trying to catch her breath.
Delminor shifted his focus to protect his friends, but the battle looked grim. He remembered the jades had protected him before, but he didn’t know if they would do the same for the others. He had never told them how to connect themselves to the jades and it was too risky to hope for.
He stood in front of the rocktaur as it broke its own hand off, forming a small boulder to flatten Pyron completely. Delminor looked up as the statue raised its hands, and he closed his eyes, concentrating on the metal jade.
Words sputtered from his mouth and he felt his entire body tingle, starting from the jade’s location in his hand and radiating outward. The effect was fast, but he felt it happen as if time had slowed. Stabbing pains ran through his body, his fingers feeling like pinpricks. He pocketed the jades and leaped forward as the boulder came down upon him.
He crashed into the rocktaur and shattered it. The statue exploded to dust and could not recover. Still feeling the sharpness through his body, he pounced on the next rocktaur, then the next, destroying each one. Two remained and they looked in horror at what the mage had become. They stepped away.
But something compelled him. He was drawn to one of the rocktaurs with a force he couldn’t fight. He ran forward as the being tried to escape. He leaped into the air and grabbed the rocktaur, crushing it to dust. The remaining rocktaur fled the scene but Delminor felt no compulsion to pursue it.
The sharp pains ebbed, and his body weakened. He couldn’t catch his breath and eventually he succumbed to the darkness.
Chapter 53
The Final Shard
Delminor’s eyes creaked open, his body in agony. He turned his head. Pyron was conscious again, but in too much pain to move.
Essalia saw he had awakened and came over. “Are you all right?”
“I hurt all over.”
“Delminor, what happened to you?”
“I have no idea.” He spoke slowly, as talking too fast made his head pound. “I called to the metal jade for help and then I just crushed them.”
“Del… You became a sword. Of sorts, anyway. Your body turned silver and your hands and head… they looked… sharp—I don’t know how else to describe it. And then you just cut through them and destroyed them. Only one got away, but there’s been no sign of other trouble.”
“That may explain why I hurt so much. If you don’t mind, let’s keep this between us for now. I don’t feel up to discussing it.”
“Sure.”
“How’s Pyron?”
“Bad hit to the head. He said he’s dizzy and hurting, but he’ll be okay.” She tentatively put her hand on Delminor’s shoulder. “Good. You’re not sharp anymore. I was kind of nervous there.”
Delminor struggled to sit up, fire running through his veins. “I’ve never felt pain like this before.”
“Honestly, it’s like you became the jade. I’m not surprised it took a toll on you.”
“I was compelled to destroy that last one. I couldn’t stop myself.”
Essalia nodded, reaching into her pocket and pulling out the earth shard. “It’s no wonder. You were like a jade yourself and drawn to this the same way the other jades try to come together. You couldn’t stop until you were reunited.”
Delminor took the jade and turned it over in his hand. “At least we have this back.” He tried to hide the disappointment. “But I guess we still have one more jade to go.”
Essalia couldn’t control her grin. She reached into her pocket and pulled out another shard, this one exuding a faint white glow. “Nope.”
Delminor’s jaw dropped. “We have it?” He took the jade and wrapped his fist around it. But as he focused on it, he felt nothing. “This can’t be it.”
“It’s the healing jade. It has to be.”
He closed his eyes, but there was no pulse, no sensation of energy from it at all. “I can’t feel it. The others…” he echoed, turning his thoughts to the earth and metal jades. “I can’t feel them either. I don’t understand.” He looked around, lost. “Where’s Ramular?”
“Fool is sleeping, waiting for us to get moving. I’m not sure if he saw half the battle, the coward.”
“Give me a minute with this then. Go and check on Pyron. Make sure he can walk.”
When Essalia stepped away, Delminor sliced his finger and placed it on the jade. But the rush of energy did not fill him. The jade stared up at him, inert. He crushed it to his breast, his heart shattered.
Delminor made his way over to the others. He placed the healing jade in Pyron’s hand and coaxed it to help him, but nothing happened.
His voice was hollow and empty. “All this for nothing. This was supposed to be the answer. For Donya. But now…”
Pyron took the healing jade and closed his eyes. “Del’s right. I don’t feel anything.”
Essalia held the nature jade and made the same observation. “It’s like they’ve stopped.”
“We’ve come all this way,” Delminor said. “And now none of the jades function? Finding the final shard destroyed them all?”
“It can’t be.”
Pyron stood. “I’ll go wake Ramular.”
“Don’t tell him about the jade,” Delminor said. “He’ll ask too many questions.”
Pyron awoke Ramular and the bard clapped his hands. “Ah, you’re up. How did it go? Everyone going to live?”
“Why did we bring you with us?” Delminor asked, his voice heavy.
“For entertainment and so I could craft a mighty ballad. Ah, the ballad of Delminor, the mage who brazenly slew a host of stony men.”
Delminor’s voice was stern. “No. You may never tell this story. As you said, you will never reveal that we traveled together.”
“Uh… yes, but…”
“You saw what we did to the rocktaurs.”
Ramular took the threat. “Very well. But can I speak of it if I change some details? No jades, no stone men? Just a decisive battle?”
“Fine.”
The bard slapped his knee. “Great! The ballad of Ushral, destroyer of ursalors.”
Pyron rolled his eyes. “I’d like to be call Perton.”
“There’s usually only one hero…”
Essalia chimed in. “And I will be known as Callisse.”
The bard hesitated and shrugged. “Teams are heroic, too.”
Delminor smiled. “Indeed, they are. Now where will you head from here, Ramular?”
“With you until you complete your quest, of course.”
“No. Our paths split here.”
“We’re close to Kallisor,” Essalia said. “Maybe it would be a good time to visit your son?”
Ramular frowned. “I suppose I could. But Ramsha’s wife is a real monster.” He leaned in conspiratorially. “She’s a part of the Mage Underground.”
“The what?” Pyron asked.
The bard clapped his hands. “Oh, you don’t know? There are mages in Kallisor, of course. She is but one of them. They hide their craft, but it’s there.”
“I’m surprised Kannilon hasn’t rooted them out yet,” Essalia said.
“I’d be more surprised if he wasn’t using them somehow,” Delminor guessed. “Every advantage, even if you don’t like the source.”
“So, what of your quest, Delminor?” the bard asked. “Surely you aren’t quitting after all of this?”
He kept a straight face. “I am. For now, anyway. I need to petition the king for a la
rger contingent of fighters and mages. The three of us can’t handle this on our own.”
“I disagree after what I’ve seen.”
“You have no idea how much pain I’m in,” he said. “No, I’ll be lucky to make it home.”
“Bones broken? Bleeding inside?”
“You can imagine whatever injuries you like. Just leave—what was it, Ushral—with all his limbs. I’m sure you’ll have other stories to tell about him.”
Ramular sighed. “Are you sure your quest ends here?”
“We all nearly died, you included. I know when I’m in over my head. No, I need more help. Unless you’d like to take up a sword?”
The bard held up his hands. “I need these intact.” He realized they were serious. “Fine. Now let’s see… If I’m heading there, then—ah, that’s right. I’m a general of the Kallisorian army, advisor to the king himself.”
“You’re what?” Essalia asked.
“Oh, no one ever checks those things. It’s the only thing that impresses my son’s wife so she allows me to stay.” He smiled. “See? You could have a general with you… Oh, very well. It seems we part ways this day.”
Essalia cleared her throat. “But surely you could entertain us with a meal first? I love watching you cook.”
Chapter 54
Detour
“I can’t go home,” Delminor declared. “Not with the jades like this. I can’t return with this failure.”
“It’s not a failure,” Pyron said. “We got the shard, Del. We’ll figure what went wrong.”
“I need to talk to an old friend. She always helped me to see things I couldn’t. Let’s get out of here, but we’re not heading home just yet.”
Essalia put her hand on his back. “If that’s what you need, we’re with you.”
Pyron shook his head. “I can’t. I need to return to Magehaven. I’ve already been gone for too long.”
“Will you be okay on your own?”
He smiled. “I’ll be fine. I’m not a neophyte anymore. But if it’s all the same to you, I’ll take the beast jade with me.”
Delminor frowned. “Not that it will do you any good.”
Pyron shrugged. “We’ll figure it out.”
They traveled west together until Pyron needed to turn south to head toward Magehaven, while Delminor and Essalia continued west.
“Ess, it’s kind of strange.”
“What’s that?”
“There are fewer beasts than we encountered on the way here.”
She looked at him curiously. “We defeated a host of them on the way out. It could be they’re just gone.”
His voice lowered to a whisper. “That, or maybe it’s because the jades are failing.”
“I’ll take it. I’d rather not be slinging spells at rodia right now. I’m exhausted from the rocktaurs; I might end up flipping over the little critters and tickling their bellies.”
Delminor chuckled despite himself. “Thanks.”
“Anything for you,” she said, then blushed. Then quickly, to change the subject, said, “Do you think the rocktaurs had anything to do with it? The jades, I mean?”
He shrugged. “They had the earth and healing jades. Using them together, it makes sense they were able to repair themselves, but I don’t see how that would drain all the others. I’ve used the powers of the jades before and that never happened.”
“Have you ever become one of them before?”
He shook his head. “I still hurt from it. The jades have protected me before, but nothing like that.”
“Then that has to be the answer, Del. That has to be why they’re not responding.”
“But why all of them?”
“I don’t know…”
* * *
Delminor guided them further west, skirting around Verrithon and heading northwest to Jerrona. He led Essalia through the streets, pointing out various shops along the way, eventually ending up on Nivvek Street and the bookshop where Leesha worked.
He entered the store and saw a brilliant mop of red hair atop a woman helping a customer. It was an unreal hue, untamed and chaotic. He laughed to himself as he waited for her to finish.
“D!” she squealed. “It’s been a hundred years! Where have you been?”
He laughed. “It’s a long story. I wanted to thank you for sending me to Hammon. It was an interesting experience.”
“Aside from tired, you seem okay. I’m glad it worked out for you. Have you been there all this time?”
“No, no, not at all.”
She looked over Delminor’s shoulder. “And who is this beautiful lady? You really have been busy.”
Essalia turned nearly the color of Leesha’s hair but Delminor just shook his head. “It’s not like that.”
Leesha noted Essalia’s reaction but kept her comments to herself. “So, what brings you here?”
Delminor brought her to the counter and pulled out one of the shards of the Red Jade. Leesha’s eyes popped out of her head. “Is that…?”
“It is. But there’s something wrong with it now.”
“How did you ever manage to get your hands on something like this?”
“Another long story, L. But I need your help figuring out what’s wrong with this. I can’t go home with it this way. Or these.” He pulled the other jades out and encouraged Essalia to do the same. The pale crystals clustered together, their energies stifled.
Leesha sat in a chair. “Not one, but five? What even are these?”
“Earth, nature, shadow, metal, and healing. But as you can tell right now, they don’t do anything.”
She held one of them tentatively in her hand, as if expecting it to shatter. “Even still. This is remarkable.”
“I need to know how to make them work again.” He explained the battle of the rocktaurs and Essalia described what happened to Delminor.
Leesha considered and then walked over to a bookshelf and returned with a tattered tome. “The desert,” she said. “Do you know how it came about?”
All he knew was of the drought that had plagued the kingdom an era ago and that since then the land died little by little. “And it’s still dying.”
“It was also due to the jades,” Leesha said.
“What?”
“Didn’t you ever read about how Regnard died?”
He shook his head. “I always wanted to believe he lived forever.”
“Heroes never do,” Leesha said. “But here. Take this and…” She returned to the bookshelf and pulled another tome, which she handed to Essalia. “…this one. And don’t forget to buy some tea while you’re at it.”
They took the books to the sitting area and flipped through the texts, skimming around, trying to find what Leesha was hinting about.
“Here’s the drought,” Essalia said later. “It was during a famine in Kallisor. The two kingdoms were dying at the same time.”
“It’s like our fate is always to mirror each other,” he said. “What else does it say?”
“That mages came together trying to fix the lands—in Kallisor, too.”
His brows shot up. “Magic in Kallisor?”
“They tried using nature magic to end the famine, while in Hathreneir they were using water.”
“That would make sense. But why’d the desert start?”
“It wasn’t just water magic; they used earth, too. Maybe it was using both of them?”
Delminor considered. “I think Regnard was part of it. It doesn’t say it directly in here, but his scholars wrote about a time where he tried to bring life to dead soil. He employed the earth jade to great effect, but at a cost. They suggest he died from it.”
“Using the jade killed him?”
He skimmed a few pages, looking for the answer. “It was like his mind was burned out and it took his soul with it. They commented that the barren soil was not restored, that its death continued to expand.”
“They must mean the desert itself. Why didn’t they just say so?”
&nbs
p; Delminor shook his head. “It was at the beginning of it. Maybe it was only a small patch at the time.”
They sat in silence, flipping through the books some more. “Water,” Essalia said suddenly. “They were trying to restore the water. Del, how would they even think they could to that? Wouldn’t it have to be some powerful magic to allow it?”
He nodded. “The water jade. They must have had that, too. Earth and water working together, trying to restore a drying out land, but in the end it created a grander scale of what they were trying to prevent.”
“There’s no actual mention of the jades in this book,” she said. “But it’s the only thing that makes sense. And maybe they were able to channel the energy like you did. Maybe they became an aspect of the jades themselves.”
He closed his book and his eyes, trying to piece it all together. “Maybe they used up all the energy of the jades and they burned themselves out in the process. But maybe that wasn’t enough. Maybe the jades needed more power than that. They’re connected to the land, aren’t they? They govern the various elements. What if—”
Essalia caught his train of thought. “What if they created the desert and in some way they’re still draining the land? What if all the jades are pulling energy from the world?”
“Causing unrest,” he muttered. “Is that even possible? Could the jades be responsible for the war?”
“I don’t follow.”
He sat forward in his seat. “Think about it. They all have their own energies, once balanced when they were formed into the Red Jade, but it was split. Divided across the land. Each drew power from its location and offset one element or another. It caused unrest, an imbalance in nature. Something we all feed off of. Something that keeps us compelled to fight.”
She gasped. “Then maybe bringing the pieces together could put an end to the fighting.”
“We could have a world of peace.” He sat back in the chair, letting it sink in. “Imagine that. Bringing an end to the war by restoring the Red Jade. It’s crazy enough to work.”
“But for now… What do we do about the jades themselves?”
Delminor scratched his chin. “Let’s say it’s all true. That the jades were depleted as they tried to end the drought. If they were empty then… but as I’ve found them, they weren’t empty.”
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