A Clash of Fates

by Philip C. Quaintrell

  Inara held the torch high and peered between the bars. “A prison for what?”

  The answer emerged from the darkness, pushing the trio back a step. For the briefest moment, it would have been easy to believe that a monster was coming to attack them, but the horns and reptilian eyes were not those of a terrible beast. It was a Drake.

  Then more stepped out of the shadows. Soon, every opening was filling with Drakes, their fingers curling around the bars. Turning slowly on her heel, Inara took in the entire prison around them. There must have been hundreds of Drakes, maybe more. An overwhelming surge of frustration and pity knotted inside the Guardian’s heart. They were more than capable of melting the bars and reducing every Reaver to ash. They simply chose not to, avoiding any act of violence.

  “You are not like the other,” one of the Drakes announced, her voice just more than a rasp.

  “She is,” another remarked, his eyes scanning Inara from head to toe.

  “You have come to free us?” the female asked.

  “Yes,” Inara whispered. “Yes, we’re here to free you all,” she said louder.

  “How long have you all been down here?” Galanör probed, inspecting their dank living quarters beyond.

  The female glanced at her kin. “Years,” she stated, appearing somewhat broken by the answer.

  “Years?” Galanör echoed in disbelief. “That’s not possible. This entire shaft isn’t even years old.”

  The Drake turned her gaze up to the light at the top of the shaft. “Down here, the sun does not hold sway over the passage of time. Only the currents can speak the truth of what we know.” She set her sharp eyes on Galanör once more. “Many years,” she reiterated.

  Inara might not be able to read the currents of magic like a Drake, but the truth didn’t escape her, horrifying as it was. She stepped back to the edge of the stone walkway and looked up. The flames of the torch revealed her worst fears and with it a memory. The Guardian had seen this magic before, nearly twenty years ago inside The Bastion.

  “She believes,” the Drake asserted.

  Galanör turned to Inara. “What is it? What’s happening here?”

  Inara directed them to the runes carved into the stone above the bars. They ran in perfect lines all the way around, starting where the prison began. There were even some etched into the walkway and along the steps.

  Aenwyn reached up and ran her finger over one of the glyphs. “What spell is this?”

  It was easier to show them. Inara removed a small dagger from her belt and tossed it high into the air. As soon it ascended beyond stone, the dagger slowed down to a crawl, its spin barely visible anymore.

  “We’re inside a time spell,” Inara explained. “Hours and days up there are months and years down here.” She looked at the Drakes again. “I’m so sorry.” With one hand, she reached out and grasped that of the female Drake.

  Galanör moved to the edge of the walkway and looked down at the very bottom. “That’s how he did it. The doorway. He’s kept their magic trapped down here for years.”

  “It also means he’s been down here for some time,” Aenwyn concluded.

  “He sat there for many hours,” the Drake told them, gesturing to the muddy ground.

  “He just sat there?” Galanör doubted.

  “Meditating,” the Drake explained. “He entered here with injuries, but when he rose he was strong again.”

  “Alijah has had time on his side for too long,” Galanör cursed.

  “Well,” Inara declared, removing the Moonblade from the scabbard on the back of her belt, “his time’s up.”

  Bringing more light to the gloom, she raised the Moonblade to the ancient script above the bars. The opal blade glimmered with every colour over a base white, highlighting the dirt and blood on her face. With elven strength, she carved a line down and through the glyphs of the time spell. The magic within the Moonblade broke the script, ending Alijah’s hold over the lives of the Drakes.

  A moment later, Inara’s dagger - thrown high into the air - dropped back down and dug into the dirt at the bottom of the pit. “Get them out,” she instructed, handing her torch to Aenwyn.

  “Inara.” Galanör’s tone was full of warning.

  The Guardian looked back at him. “Get them out. I’ll handle Alijah.”

  Reluctantly, the ranger nodded once and turned to the cells with Aenwyn. Inara steeled herself and stepped off the walkway, jumping the remaining distance to the bottom. She slowly rose from her crouch, her eyes scanning the shadows between the sparse torches. With Firefly held high, and just a touch of magic, the crystal in the pommel brightened to dispel some of the darkness. Having seen many doorways in Drakanan, she knew exactly what to look for, but here there was nothing but dirt.

  Alijah, however, must have gone somewhere.

  Following the wall around, Inara soon came to realise her error. From their angle above, and where she had landed, the doorway was on its edge, making it thinner than a piece of parchment. Now, facing it front on, she could see right through to the realm of magic. Like some found in Drakanan, it didn’t move of its own will, but was tethered to the ground by unseen forces. It was also smaller, coming up to Inara’s neck and only just wide enough for her shoulders to fit through.

  Rather than dwell on the fact that Alijah had actually achieved what she believed to be impossible, Inara focused on the bigger problem: he was already on the other side.

  Once again, she took steps that would see her leave one world and enter another. The beauty of it hit her as if it was the first time all over again. Her eyes naturally lifted to the sky, a canvas of stalactites that glittered like stars. It was hard to say where the light came from, but nothing was in shadow. Mountains lined the horizon, their distance hard to gauge in a world so alien to her own.

  Inara walked away from the doorway, her ankles submerged beneath an endless ocean filled with shining crystals. Cutting through it all were thick roots that twisted, curved, and arched in and out of the ground. Following the roots back to their source, the Guardian of the Realm craned her neck to take in the tree. The white bark of its trunk stretched so far it was hard to see where it curved around. Much of the view above it was hidden by a mountainous canopy of red crystalline leaves.

  Captivating as it was, Inara’s gaze inevitably turned to the rising smoke. The black clouds were just visible over the tops of the distant roots on her left. Fear gripped the Guardian’s bones and set her to a speed few could attain. She skipped over roots, slid under their arches, and leapt from one to another in a bid to reach the source of the smoke.

  Sprinting between two wall-like roots, the water splashed round her before she finally bounced off one root to ascend over the adjacent one. She came down to land in more water, a patch of open space where the roots had parted long ago.

  There was Alijah, his hands outstretched to the tree. Visibly sweating, he was a hum of magic as he expelled a jet of fire worthy of Malliath. The flames extended up the white wall of the trunk and turned the bark to black. From there, the fire climbed ever higher as if it had an insidious will of its own. Soon, branches were engulfed, setting the crystalline leaves alight until they shattered.

  The sight of it enraged Inara. She buried Firefly tip down in the ground and flicked her palms out towards the tree. Responding to her magic, the water between the roots rushed forwards in a crashing tsunami. Alijah was knocked forwards, taken off his feet, and launched into the base of the trunk. Wasting no time, Inara then extended her arms to the burning tree and cast an outburst of water and sleet. It flowed from her hands in the same manner that the fire had been hurled from Alijah’s. Unlike fire, however, water didn’t have a life of its own.

  As the drain began to pinch her hands, Inara stopped. There was only so far she could project her magic and Alijah’s flames were always on the move, seeking out new branches and stretching across the trunk. In relation to its hulking size, Alijah’s fire was no bigger than a single flame, but if she cou
ldn’t stop it from growing…

  Just the thought of it boiled her blood. Inara clenched her fists, preparing another spell. If she had to give it every ounce of magic in her bones then she would. Anything else would be giving up. Anything else would mean the end for Athis.

  A blinding flash erupted from the base of the tree and caught Inara across the midriff. There was no fighting the power that threw her backwards and dropped her into the shallow water. Groaning, the Guardian quickly recovered and patted the smoking leathers over her ribs and chest. Then she set her predatory gaze on Alijah.

  He was on his feet now, a black sentinel between her and the tree. “There’s nothing you can do!” he called confidently. “It’s over, Inara!”

  Rising back to her full height, Inara looked from Alijah to Firefly. The Vi’tari blade was between them, standing proud in the ground.

  “Don’t,” Alijah warned.

  The command only served to infuriate Inara all the more. She broke into a mad dash towards the scimitar. Alijah threw up one hand then the other, each casting a spell of fire at his sister. Inara raised her hand and caught the first with a quick shielding spell, but Alijah’s magic was strong enough to shatter the shield in an explosion of light. Temporarily blinded, and determined to maintain her speed, the Guardian dived into a roll, tucking under the second ball of flames.

  Emerging from her manoeuvre on one knee, Inara’s hand grasped firmly around Firefly.

  Keeping her head down below the hilt, she threw her will into the crystal set into the pommel. The magic discharged by the crystal spread out like a disk and impacted Alijah’s hip, almost folding him in half before pushing him back into the tree with some force.

  Inara rose triumphant, dwelling on the fact that the crystal in Firefly’s pommel had been a gift from Adilandra. Alijah, however, still found the strength to get back up, his jaw set.

  “It wasn’t enough that you killed our grandmother?” Inara barked, hurling a blast of destructive magic at her brother’s waiting shield. “You had to kill magic too?” she pressed, casting another bolt. “Is there no one you won’t murder?” The Guardian advanced on him, her every question punctuated by another offensive spell. “Would you take Athis from me? Would you execute our parents too?” Now she was so close that Inara switched to slamming his shield with her Vi’tari blade. “How could you be so weak? You should have been stronger than The Crow!”

  Alijah took it all and he never let his eyes stray from hers. His shield flared with every blow, but he concealed the effort of maintaining it. For a fraction of a second, Inara thought she saw something of her brother behind his flat expression, a crack in his armour. With two hands around Firefly, she ignored the glimmer of hope and continued to swing her sword. Her emotions were beginning to get the better of her, and they would only get in the way of what needed to be done.

  “Look at you,” he said from behind his shield, his tone brimming with pity. “All that rage. All that power. You have no idea what to do with either of them. You should have joined me, Sister. I could have taught you things Gideon Thorn has nightmares about. Instead, you can only witness true power, never to be the one to harness it. Watch.”

  With one hand, he kept Inara’s attacks at bay while, with the other, he unleashed a staccato of lightning upon the tree. Every blinding bolt tore into the bark and started more fires. The Guardian screamed with rage, threw her scimitar down, and thrust both hands at Alijah’s shield. The magic she channelled was undefinable in its physical manifestation, pulsing from her palms like the sun itself. Soon, Alijah’s shield arm began to tremble.

  “That’s it!” he patronised. “Dig deep, Sister! It’s in there!”

  “I am not your sister!” she yelled in his face. “I am… the line in the ground! I… am the shield in the dark! And you are nothing… but-my-enemy!” The magic surging from her palms flickered as her bones began to ache.

  “Poetic!” Alijah shouted back. “But you’re going to need more than that to beat me!”

  Inara gritted her teeth. “How about this?” she seethed.

  Using every ounce of speed available to her, Inara ceased her magical assault, rolled backwards, and retrieved the Moonblade from her belt. Relying on skill and years of experience, she threw it clear across the gap without taking any time to line up her aim. It cut through the air until it collided with Alijah’s shield. The power of the blade instantly shattered the protective magic and continued past the half-elf, slicing the side of his face in the process.

  Shock and pain turned Alijah away, his attack on the tree brought to a swift end. By the time he had recovered and whipped his hair aside, Inara was upon him. Her last step became a leap, bringing her down on Alijah with a closed fist.

  The blow turned him around with a mouthful of blood spraying across the air. Displaying a great deal of resilience to the pain, he turned his momentum into a full spin that saw his leg fly up and connect with the side of Inara’s head.

  On the ground, her vision fractured, a boot flung up into her ribs and forced her to roll in agony across the ground. Alijah gave no quarter, yanking her back to her feet with an iron-grip around her throat.

  “You were supposed to be on my side!” he growled, followed by a punch to her gut. “We were supposed to do this together!” He laid another fist into her ribs. “You don’t just betray me, but the realm itself!” Alijah lifted his fist and thrust it towards Inara’s face.

  But he wasn’t the only one with an iron-like grip.

  Inara caught his fist mid-air and held it steady. Her free hand wrapped around Alijah’s thumb, currently digging into her neck, and prised it away.

  “I’m going to kill you,” she croaked.

  A student of the Mag’dereth, Inara called upon her knowledge of form five to untangle herself from Alijah. It also came with a flat-handed attack to the side of his neck, a hammer-fist to his jaw, and strong elbow to the eyebrow. Each successive blow staggered the would-be king until there was enough distance between them for Inara to deliver a push kick to his chest.

  His back impacted the ground, splashing water into the air. He was slow to rise, her attack designed to discombobulate. Inara used what precious time she had to focus her magic, drawing on it from her core, and harnessing it in her hands. As her power reached its apex, stymied by her fatigue, Alijah was back on his feet with a face full of rage.

  Something close to a war cry burst forth from Inara’s lips as she unleashed her magic, a combination of spells capable of reducing a man to ash. Alijah met her attack with outstretched arms and a new shield.

  The light between them was blinding and the heat being generated sent ripples through the air. Theirs wasn’t simply a battle of wills, however, but a battle of power. Alijah’s power was built upon knowledge, a knowledge of which Inara could not boast.

  “Gideon taught you a lot!” he yelled over the maelstrom of magic. “But he couldn’t teach you what he didn’t know!”

  Alijah slowly pulled his arms back before pushing his hands into the back of the shield. It quickly expanded, forcing Inara’s spell back on her.

  For a second, the world went black. The next thing Inara knew, she was lying on her back, the water covering her ears. She could see Alijah casting more spells over the tree, the sound of his magic dulled by the water, but her mind struggled to comprehend anything.

  A low branch, the size of a city street, gave in to the fire and impacted the ground with a violent earthquake. There was a part of Inara’s mind that knew she needed to get up, to fight, to do anything. But everything hurt. Her muscles weren’t responding and her bones felt so heavy she feared they had been bolted to the ground. More than that, though, her mind had been fractured by the blast.

  After what felt like a lifetime, Alijah came to tower over her. His eyes, mirrors of her own, looked down at Inara. After a few seconds, he crouched down and used a small leather pouch, taken from his belt, to scoop up a handful of water and a crystal with it. Then, without a word, he
stood up again and continued to observe his sister. His fingers twitched, though whether that was due to the volume of magic he had expelled or his temptation to draw his blade remained a mystery. He didn’t say anything. Killing her would be easy now and Inara knew it.

  As the realm of magic came down around them, brother and sister held a silent moment. Then he was gone. Inara remained on her back, her eyes fixed on the starry stalactites above. She could see the flames rising higher and higher up the tree. Every inch it lost was a portion of magic taken from the world.

  Lost felt like the right word to Inara. That’s exactly what they had done. Lost. All because she didn’t have the power or the will to kill a single man. That thought brought some of her anger back and with it the power to move her hands and feet. Eventually, she was able to lift her head out of the water and even begin to sit up.

  “Inara!” The familiar voice drew her to Galanör, who was dropping down from a tall root. “Inara!” he called again as he came to her aid.

  By her side, he quickly checked the half-elf over before looking back at the burning tree. Most of the tree was untouched by the flames, but the fire’s reach was high and beyond either of them now. Not far away, another branch lost its grip and fell to the ground. Everything shuddered beneath them.

  “There’s nothing we can do now,” Galanör told her, his eyes roaming over the devastation rising up the tree. “We must consult Ilargo and Athis. Their wisdom will guide us.”

  “Did you see him?” Inara rasped. “Did you see Alijah?”

  Galanör looked around. “We must have passed each other,” he lamented. “The roots are tall here; it’s like a maze.”

  Inara found her feet again, but Galanör was needed to steady her. “I failed,” she whispered, her eyes reflecting the flames. “I tried…” She couldn’t bring herself to relive the event, her energy on the verge of abandoning her altogether.

  A light rain of red dust showered the pair, the remnants of the crystal leaves. “Come,” Galanör bade, helping her up. “We need to go.”