“This is it,” Golmyck says. “This is our chance! See if you can fly us over the dragon while he’s busy with the water, so I can drop the spinning rope on him.”
“Alright,” I say. “I’ll try.”
The dragon is now moving up and down, shaking his head violently, in an attempt to get rid of all the water above his neck.
“There’s no use fighting it,” Illuna tells the dragon, in a cold voice. “That water won’t go away. And you can’t burn it with your flame breath either, as long as you can’t get rid of all that water in your lungs. Stop struggling and accept your fate.”
“Hah!” Arraka says. “How do you like drowning in mid-air, Tyrath? I’m the one who taught this technique to Illuna, you know. You were blowing all that hot air just now, but in the end it turns out you can’t even defeat one of my disciples! I guess you were never a match for me after all. Aha- Ahahahahaha!”
Tyrath’s eyes start glowing bright red all of a sudden, and he looks more pissed off than ever. He now seems to be voluntarily increasing his body temperature to an alarming degree, because I’m beginning to see steam coming out from all over him. He must be trying to evaporate all the water from his body, in order to be able to breathe fire again.
While Tyrath is busy heating up his body, Golmyck and I manage to position ourselves right above the dragon, and we ready ourselves to drop the rope on him. As soon as the dragon achieves his purpose of evaporating all of the water inside him, he uses the last of his breath to exhale a large flame from his mouth, eliminating all of the water that was surrounding his head until now.
“I’m dropping the rope!” Golmyck says, as we watch the dragon gasp for air.
He then pulls on a lever to his right, and the cargo hold opens below us, dropping the rope. Just as the gnome said, the rope unfurls as it falls, and then it starts spinning by itself. The dragon is too busy catching his breath to look above him, and as soon as the rope reaches him, it ties itself around his wings, preventing him from flapping them any further. Tyrath looks shocked, as he starts falling towards the ground, and his first reaction is to try and break free from the rope by using the force of his wings. Failing that, he begins to chew on the rope with his fangs, while also attempting to cut it with his claws, but it’s no use.
As he gets closer to the ground, the dragon tries using the last of his magic energy reserves to slow down his momentum by teleporting a few dozen feet above his position a few times in a row. This does not slow down his falling speed at all, however, and eventually he hits the ground, with an extremely loud noise, creating a crater in the middle of the arena’s fighting area, and sending large clouds of dust all around him.
“The dragon is grounded!” Golmyck shouts, suddenly, to everyone in the area. “Finish him off, now!”
“Enough!” Tyrath shouts loudly, and a very powerful explosion of hot air originating from his position suddenly hits us all in the face.
Following the explosion, the dragon’s body changes completely, and it starts looking like it is now covered by molten lava, and not by regular scales anymore. He is also now emanating an intimidating fiery aura that is completely different from the one he had before. But that is not all. The magic power that I am currently sensing from him is simply insane. If I were to compare it with anything I’ve felt before, I’d say that it’s on a pretty similar level to the magical power of the golden fox. Is this seriously the true form of the red dragon, Tyrath? The one that Arraka was talking about earlier, before we began the fight? How are we even supposed to fight something like this?
The rope that was tying the dragon’s wings has already been burned into ashes by the dragon’s transformation. Tyrath now soars back into the sky, looking more menacing than ever before.
“This is all my fault,” Tyrath says, in an unusually calm tone. “I alone am to blame for having given you the illusion that you could actually stand a chance against me. I am now going to fix that mistake. Instead of continuing to fight you individually, I will simply destroy this whole city and everyone in it with a single spell. This way, there will be no more misunderstandings.”
“I’m afraid I can’t let you do that, king of all dragons,” says Eiden, who appeared out of nowhere again and is now floating right in front of the dragon, with his eyes closed, as usual.
“Eiden…” Tyrath says, in a mildly annoyed tone.
“See, if you’d kept fighting in your other, weaker form,” Eiden says, “I might have been tempted to continue ignoring your gross violation of our pact, but now you’ve driven things to a point where even I can no longer gloss this over…”
“What are you babbling about?” Tyrath says. “What pact?”
“Why, the pact that you, I and the golden fox have signed several hundred years ago, of course,” Eiden says. “Have you already forgotten? According to the pact, none of us are allowed to directly attack any of the other’s followers. This is to avoid a fight breaking out between any of the three signing parties, because a fight between any two of us would have the potential of destroying the entire island before reaching its conclusion, and none of us would want that. As such, any and all conflicts between the three of us are to be resolved indirectly through our followers, and not through any direct means, whatsoever.”
“Ridiculous,” Tyrath says. “That old pact has long ago lost its meaning. The only reason why we signed the pact in the first place was because our powers used to be comparable. That has no longer been the case for more than a hundred years. Ever since you left the continent, you’ve only grown weaker, and now you are but an empty shell of your former self. If you didn’t always resort to petty tricks, I would have killed you a century ago. You are no longer a threat, stillwater, and therefore, our pact is now void.”
“Is it?” Eiden asks, with a wide smile. “Well, let us declare a new pact, then!”
All of a sudden, the air all around us starts to feel like it’s weighing heavily on our shoulders, and the world itself seems like it is trembling. It’s almost as if there was now an earthquake in the middle of the air, instead of the earth below, and the blue sky looks as if it is ready to crack any minute, under the pressure. I realize immediately that this is the direct result of Eiden unleashing his magical aura, and that this may well not even be the true extent of his power.
“Well, well,” I hear Arraka talking from somewhere behind us. “I see that Eiden has finally decided to get a little bit serious.”
“A little bit?” Illuna shouts at her, in disbelief.
“We never really got to name our old pact,” Eiden tells Tyrath, “but we could call this new one ‘The pact of the Creator’s return’. What do you say, old friend? Will our words be enough this time, or should I get a pen and paper?”
Tyrath looks at Eiden for a while, measuring him up and down, with a thoughtful look on his face.
“Perhaps I was wrong,” Tyrath says. “Perhaps your travels have not made you nearly as weak as I would have liked to believe…”
He pauses.
“I do not intend to destroy the whole continent while fighting with you, stillwater,” Tyrath says. “I will honor the pact, and won’t interfere any longer. But know that my purpose remains unchanged. If I cannot destroy all the human cities myself, then my armies will just have to do it for me. I will not rest until every single one of these cities is burned down, whether that takes me weeks or years to accomplish. The next time you will be seeing me will be after I’ve destroyed everything that you’ve once loved and cherished in this godforsaken world. Remember this.”
As Tyrath turns to leave, Eiden calls out to him one last time.
“Oh, I forgot to mention,” Eiden says, with a polite smile. “The mages that have joined the tournament will also temporarily be classified as my followers under the terms of our pact. They are our esteemed guests after all. Therefore, you are not to bring harm to any of them until the end of the tournament, unless, of course, they attack you first.”
“Hmph,” Tyrath says. “I w
ill keep that in mind.”
The dragon then soars higher into the skies, and he flies away from us, in the same direction that he came from when he first attacked us.
“Farewell, king of all dragons,” Eiden says, as the dragon leaves.
“Eiden!” we hear a girl’s voice coming from one of the empty sides of the spectator seats. “Hey, Eiden, do you hear me?”
I look towards the coliseum, and I see that there is a young girl in her late teens standing all alone in the middle of the deserted spectator seats, and she has been shouting Eiden’s name for a while now.
“Damn it!” the girl says. “Don’t you dare ignore me!”
Eiden makes a bored hand wave in the general direction of the girl, and suddenly, none of the words she is speaking are reaching us anymore, although the girl doesn’t seem to have realized it herself, and she still appears to be shouting louder than ever. Did Eiden just cast a silencing spell?
The stillwater then turns towards the soldiers from the king’s army, who are all looking at him as if they’ve seen a ghost. Eiden’s smile widens when he sees them, and he decides to give them a parting message before he leaves.
“Well, what are you all standing there for?” Eiden asks the soldiers. “Go on, spread the news! Spread it far and wide. Rejoice, for your Creator has finally returned!”
He then disappears once more, leaving the soldiers just as confused as they were before.
“I think it’s about time we descended back to the fighting area, Barry,” Golmyck says. “Our job here is done.”
“Hey, Arraka,” I say. “Is Eiden still around, or is he gone for good, this time?”
“Nah, he’s gone,” Arraka says.
“Alright, let’s get back down,” I tell Golmyck, and then we make our way back to the fighting area of the arena.
Once we land our flying machine and get out of the cockpit, the king shakes my hand, and then he goes to meet his soldiers, telling me that we’ll see each other again, back at the palace. Not long afterwards, Daren, Kate, Hadrik and Flower all gather one by one near my plane, so we can leave the arena together. I wave to Leila, who comes to join our group as well, and as we prepare to leave, Bruce comes to say his goodbyes.
“Good fight, stillwater,” Bruce says, as he pats me hard on the shoulder. “Good fight! And the same goes for you, silver-haired princess. If we all ever get trapped in another deadly arena, I wouldn’t mind having you again as my allies. Maybe we’ll meet again, someday.”
“Who knows?” I tell him. “It’s a small continent, after all.”
Both Leila and I bid him farewell, and then we join the rest of the group. Once we’re all ready to go, the ones of us who participated in the arena go to grab our backpacks from the locker rooms, and then we meet back in the fighting area, in order to head towards one of the spectator exits.
“Come on,” Daren tells us. “I think I saw Enrique spectating us from somewhere around here, and I’m pretty sure that he left through one of these gates when the evacuation started. He must be waiting for us outside.”
We all exit through the gate, trying to find Enrique , but before we get to even look around, we are greeted by a young girl with a pleasant smile on her face. I recognize her immediately as being the same girl who was calling out to Eiden, earlier.
“Hello!” the girl says. “I hope I’m not bothering you. It’s just that I watched you fighting during the arena event, and I was very impressed! I was wondering if you all could help me out with something.”
“Sorry, kid,” Daren says, as he pats the girl on the shoulder, briefly. “We’re not giving autographs.”
He then turns his back on her and heads towards Enrique, who was waiting for us not far from the gate. The girl looks mildly irritated by Daren’s remark, but it does not seem like she’s planning to give up just yet. Taking a better look at her, I notice that her clothes, while aesthetically pleasing, do not look much different from the pajamas that they sell on the Western Continent. They remind me quite a lot of the type of clothing that Eiden likes to wear.
Wait a minute… This girl knows Eiden… And she wears similar clothing to him… So, does this mean that… No, no, no, what am I even thinking about? It’s just a coincidence. There’s no way that this girl could be a—
“Hey, Barry, are you coming?” Daren tells me.
“Oh, yeah, yeah, I’ll be right there,” I say, as I throw the young girl one last hesitant look, and then I head towards Daren.
“My friends,” Enrique says. “That was fantastic! Simply magnificent! I have no words! I thought I’d already seen everything when you were done battling those creatures in the arena, but then you went and defeated a dragon! And to top it all off, you’ve survived the encounter with barely any scratches. This calls for a celebration! Tonight, we will have a feast. I will not accept ‘no’ for an answer!”
“Um… excuse me, sir?” we hear the young girl from before, calling out to Daren from behind us.
“Listen, Enrique,” Daren says, ignoring the girl behind him, “I really appreciate all of this, but this arena event already puts us three days behind all of the other participants in the mage tournament, so I really don’t think it would be a good idea for us to be spending yet another night in Thilias.”
“Umm, sir?…” the young girl asks again, but nobody pays attention to her.
“Come on, Daren,” Hadrik says. “Don’t be a stick in the mud! They never gave us a time limit for completing the first objectives. It’s not like they’re going to disqualify us if we don’t start looking for the pine cones right away.”
“Damn it, Hadrik!” Daren says. “You are the last person that I want to hear this from. You don’t even care about winning the tournament! Didn’t you say that you only came here for the challenge? I bet you’re only trying to postpone this because you hate the idea of having to go search for pine cones.”
All of a sudden, Kate, Daren and I slowly begin to get raised from the ground, and as we are floating, we all get turned around, simultaneously, to face the opposite way. Standing in front of us now is the young girl in pajamas from before, smiling pleasantly at us.
“Well, then!” the girl says, while clapping her hands together. “Now that I’ve got your attention, perhaps we could have a little chat? I promise you that this won’t take any longer than a few minutes!”
Chapter 6
The girl dressed in pajamas is looking at us with a victorious smile on her face. She seems very pleased with herself for having managed to finally get our attention. Despite the fact that she is clearly the one who has magically suspended us into the air, her aura is showing no traces of magic whatsoever. Even when Kate and Flower hide their auras, you can still tell that they are mages if you inspect their auras very closely. The girl in front of us, however, seems no different from a regular human. This can mean one of two things. Either she is much better at hiding her aura than Flower and Kate, or…
“Hey, I know you!” Arraka blurts out all of a sudden. “You’re that stillwater girl that kept trailing behind Eiden and the fox during the still winter! Uh… what was the name?… Melenda? Milandra?…”
“Melindra,” the stillwater girl says, in a cold voice, and then she flicks one of her fingers, casting a wind spell that closes Arraka’s amulet.
Arraka mumbles furiously from within her amulet, but nobody is paying any attention to her. Having silenced the banshee, the stillwater girl regains her smile, and she attempts to continue her speech from where she left off.
“So, as I was saying,” Melindra says, “there is something that I would like to ask of you. The reason why I went to watch you in the arena was because I heard that you got convicted for killing a noble from Varathia, so I thought—”
“Hold on a second, there…” Hadrik interrupts her. “You’re a stillwater?”
“Why, yes…” Melindra says, confused. “I thought that much would have been obvious by now. Even Arraka said earlier that—”
“But how did you become one?” Hadrik asks. “Did you get born this way? Can women be born as stillwaters?”
“No, of course not!” Melindra says, slightly irritated. “I didn’t get born as a stillwater. I became a stillwater in the same way that everyone else did.”
“Everyone?” I ask. “Even Eiden? Is Eiden an artificial mage too? Wasn’t he born as a mage?”
“What is an artificial mage?” Melindra says, in a frustrated tone. “Eiden was born as a regular human mage. He just became a stillwater later, just like everyone else. How is this so difficult to understand?”
“But how?” I ask her. “How do you become a stillwater?”
“Listen,” Melindra says. “If you think that I’m going to just stand here and answer every single one of your questions before you even listen to what I’m—”
“How do you know Eiden?” Daren asks her. “Are you working with him?”
“No, I’m not working with Eiden!” Melindra says, visibly upset. “If I were working with Eiden, do you think I’d need to come and ask you for help? Why can’t you just shut up for ten seconds and let me finish one damn senten—”
“If you want our help, then how about letting us down first?” Kate asks her. “This is no way to treat someone whom you’re trying to ask for a favor.”
Melindra is now looking at Kate with a pouting expression on her face that could rival Flower’s, when she’s upset. After a few seconds of silence, the stillwater girl waves one of her hands, and we all slowly start to descend towards the ground.
It’s funny. This girl may well have the power to crush us with a single flick of her fingers, but her demeanor makes her feel like one of the least threatening persons I’ve met in my life. Perhaps even less threatening than Flower, or the ambassador of Ollendor.
“There!” Melindra says, once her levitation spell gets completely cancelled. “You’re all back on the ground. Now, can I continue from where I left off, or are you planning to interrupt me with even more questions?”
“Go on,” I say. “We’re all listening.”
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