Immortal Swordslinger 3

by Dante King

  “You absorbed the core of the Gonki Valley Vigorous Zone, didn’t you?” I said. “It wasn’t for the guild or Targin or your fellow Augmenting priests; it’s all gone into you.”

  “How passably observant of you,” Saruqin said. “Which is what I would expect from someone in your position.”

  In the eery quiet of this hall, I could hear the sounds of the fighting outside. The crash of weapons, the screams of pain, the desperation in the voices of my allies as they faced Saruqin’s seemingly endless horde.

  “So many have stood where you have, young Swordslinger,” he said. “Arrogant, so full of imagined power and this thing you call destiny. The dragons in your hands simply need you as a vehicle to get back to their realm. They couldn’t care less about you. And your friends, outside? They only follow you because of the power. Look at little Mahrai. She only chose you because you have power, and she wants a piece of it. Yono and Nydarth give you power, and you hand that illusion of power down to your servants. The cycle continues, over and over. You will always be a conduit, never an Immortal. A stepping stone for others to use, rather than taking the steps yourself.”

  He was so proud, so full of confidence in his own grandeur and in my weakness. His Augmenting might be powerful, but he had his limits, and I could use them against him.

  I lowered my hands and let the trident droop toward the floor. I opened my mouth as if to speak, then hesitated, frowned, and hung my head.

  “What are you doing, you fool?” Nydarth snapped. “You need to deal with him.”

  “Go forward,” Yono urged. “Raise your guard, lunge at Saruqin, finish him off.”

  “Destroy him before he can destroy you,” they said in unison.

  Saruqin gave a soft, sinister laugh. He stepped closer to me, his footsteps barely audible. The smell of him was all around me, as was that deep, hypnotic voice. I had to look away, not let myself see the mask and the eyes flickering behind it, to avoid being drawn in despite everything that I knew.

  “Yes, young Swordslinger,” he said. “Now, you see the futility of the Wandering Path. Its weakness, its circularity. There is no escape from it.”

  He stepped closer, only a few inches away from me.

  “Well, Swordslinger? What do you have to say for yourself?”

  “Nothing,” I replied. “At least not in words.”

  The Vigor flowed through me, then through my feet and into the ground. It burst back up beneath Saruqin as a Mud Geyser that erupted right beneath his feet.

  The mud drenched Saruqin and spattered me as it sprayed from the floor and came raining down all across the hall. I’d expected the force of it to knock Saruqin flying, but apparently, surprise wasn’t enough to overcome his magical defenses, and he whirled around with his hand out, like a child catching rain.

  I channeled Crashing Wave and used it to reshape the mud. I slammed it into Saruqin, hitting him with an eight-foot-tall wall of muck. This time, he staggered back, slipping across the mud-slicked ground, but managed to brace himself and remain upright.

  He laughed, the same hollow, joyless sound I’d heard before.

  “I’m impressed,” he said. “You’ve learned a lot in your travels.”

  “You talk too much,” I replied.

  As the mud splashed down, I raised my hand and launched an Untamed Torch. The ground opened beneath Saruqin, and he vanished into a Hidden Burrow while the flames shot past where his head had been.

  I looked around the room, watching to see where he would reappear. He could be anywhere, could come at me from any angle.

  The ground by my left foot shifted. Saruqin burst up from it, too close for me to strike him with the trident, a long dagger in his hand. I jerked back and instinctively lashed out with my own techniques. I created a Mud Entrapment beneath both our feet, and his dagger flashed out, its point striking for my exposed throat. I called on Hidden Burrow and started to sink, even as the dagger hit me. There was a searing moment of pain as the blade sliced my cheek, and I vanished into darkness.

  The blood was hot and sticky as it ran down my face, but the earth around me was cool and refreshing. I ignored my injury and completed the Hidden Burrow to launch myself back into the room, drawing the Sundered Heart.

  I burst from the ground right by Saruqin’s feet, as he had appeared by mine a moment before. I lashed out with my sword and sliced through the backs of his legs, severing the hamstrings before I shot out onto the packed earth.

  Blood flowed, and I was sure that Saruqin would fall, but some unholy energy kept him on his feet. Blood streaming through his ragged robes, he wheeled away, snarling in rage, and raised his hands.

  I felt the Vigor flowing through the world around me, earth and fire combining to form magma. Just like his ally Horix, Saruqin was the master of more than one element, and he was willing to use whatever it took to win.

  Thin streams of magma burst from Saruqin’s skin. They burned through his robes and shot out through the air, spattering the area around him. I darted back as I tried not to be hit. A droplet struck my armor and almost melted straight through the ice.

  The elements flowed again, more this time, and I felt the heat blazing from Saruqin. I called upon the power of ash to grant me Fire Immunity but wasn’t sure that would work against mixed elements, so I also drew on water to form more Frozen Armor over it.

  Magma streamed from Saruqin. It flew in every direction, an indiscriminate rain of blazing destruction. I jumped back, but it still hit me. Magma melted through my armor, cooling as it went, and water and stone tumbled to the ground. Around me, granite pillars and incense pots melted at the magma’s touch. Wall hangings, ceiling beams, and ornamentation on the altar all burst into flames. I dived back as more magma shot my way, flung myself to the ground to avoid being hit, and rolled to a stop behind the melted stump of what had once been a pillar holding up the ceiling.

  There was a creak as the roof, half its supports gone, strained under its own weight. Around us, flames spread across anything that could burn. The earthy scent of incense smoke was lost in the sharper smell of this conflagration.

  With painstakingly slow movements, I rolled over and rose to a crouch behind the stump of the pillar. When no attack came my way, I rose to my full height, one hand clutching the Depthless Dream and the other extended, ready to use my own magic to counter Saruqin’s.

  Saruqin laughed, the sound emerging hollow and distorted, warped by echoes, from behind his mask. “So, this is the mighty Swordslinger. Battered and broken, hiding from the fire of true power behind the broken remnants of the old order.”

  He was right about me being battered. None of the magma had hit me full on, but it had come close enough to leave nasty burns along my back and up one arm. The charred remnants of those parts of my robes smoldered, and the smell of scorched flesh made me gag. But I was alive, and that meant there was still hope.

  I considered using Untamed Torch to turn the ground to glass so that he couldn’t use Hidden Burrow, but the space was far too large, and I’d expend too much Vigor. Hidden Burrow was also a technique in my repertoire, and I didn’t want to cut myself off from it.

  “You chose the wrong side, Swordslinger,” Saruqin said as he strolled around the hall, admiring the sculptures lining the walls. “With all your power and potential, you could have been part of the winning army. The world was yours to dominate. Instead, you’ve chosen the path of weakness. Maybe once I kill you, we’ll get a Swordslinger with more sense.”

  He turned to me, hands raised, and a glowing ball of blazing hot magma appeared between them. I had just enough time to open up a Hidden Burrow and sink into the mud under my feet before the Magma Burst hit the space where my head had been.

  The mud I’d summoned made it easier to use the Hidden Burrow. I was starting to get a sense for what was around and above me, to direct my journey to where I wanted to be. But that same sense told me that something was wrong. The mud was heating and hardening, turning from soft ground I c
ould easily tunnel through into solid clay that would make movement impossible.

  Saruqin was using his fire powers to bake me into the ground.

  I pushed myself through the earth, rushing to get away from the hardening dirt and to somewhere I could emerge without being burned by Saruqin’s powers. But even ahead of me, parts of the ground were heating and hardening. I realized that I was being herded, directed by the power of Augmenting toward the place where Saruqin wanted me. It was a chilling realization, but no use at all. There was nothing I could do but burrow the way I was being sent and hope to get free further from him.

  At last, I reached a spot where the mud wasn’t turning solid above my head. I redirected my earth power upward, and the Hidden Burrow shot me into the open.

  I emerged behind the altar, beside the statue of the earth god. The haze from the remaining incense pot swirled around me, its dizzying scent distinctive even through the smoke of the burning building. Up close, I noticed the other items on the altar: a bloody knife, a brass bowl holding charred bones, and a pale orb. These were the artifacts Saruqin had used to summon the demons from the beyond, a darker magic than any I’d seen in my wanderings.

  I swept the knife from the altar and scattered the bones across the floor.

  “What are you doing, Swordslinger?” Saruqin laughed. “You think you can stop this so easily? The magic is done. The doorway to the demon realm is open. Knife, bowl, crystal. . . they are just tokens now that their work is complete. All you have done is show the extent of your ignorance.”

  I reached for the crystal orb and saw Saruqin’s eyes flicker with something like apprehension. I threw it to the ground and lifted my foot as though I were going to crush it beneath my heel. Then, Saruqin smiled, and I realized exactly what this orb was.

  I’d seen through his lies.

  Instead of stomping on the orb, I reached a hand toward it. I didn’t know what the hell I was going to do with it, but when my fingers wrapped around it, I felt my Vigor drain. It was glued to my skin, and no amount of effort could remove it. Every last ounce of my magical energy poured into the orb.

  I crouched over, my shoulders slumped. I forced my head up, expecting to see Saruqin pleased with his ploy to sap me of all my Vigor. Instead, his face was contorted with fury.

  Then, I realized what I held in my hands. The channels through the crystal were clear as day. They were robust and impassable, like the earth pathways I’d forged inside myself.

  This was the Earth Core. Saruqin had stripped it from the Vigorous Zone so he could open up the demonic gateway.

  The orb in my hand shuddered and trembled before it suddenly lit up. I lifted my other arm to ward off the blinding light as screams roared from the portal, as though it was a living creature filled with a legion of demonic forces. Another wave of demons raced out of the portal as it slowly started to reduce in size. Only a few inches at first, but it seemed to be shrinking faster by the second.

  The light from the orb subsided, and the demons who’d just come out from it were staggering, their bodies steaming and sizzling. As they lumbered toward the exit, the flesh started to melt from their bones. With each step, more oozed onto the ground, and their bones started to crack and crumble. In seconds, all that was left of them was a sulfur-like dust on the floor.

  I heard Saruqin scream.

  “What have you done!”

  As he roared, his shredded robes started to become looser, as though the body inside them was withering away. He clutched his mask and removed it, gasping for breath. His eye sockets were empty, and his flesh looked like it belonged on a 2,000-year-old mummy.

  His arm quivered as he slowly lifted it toward me. I wasn’t going to give him the chance to channel.

  I pulled my arm back, raising the Depthless Dream like a javelin. I flung the trident, and it hurtled through the air, melted water trailing behind it. The prongs gleamed with an icy sheen as it rocketed toward Saruqin’s head. The sharpened tips plunged into his face and through his skull. He was thrown from his feet and carried on the trident to the far wall before the prongs buried themselves into the stone. He hung there for a moment, twitched, and then went limp.

  “You fool,” he whispered as black smoke drifted from his mouth. “You have doomed us all. The Path of Peace is not what it claims to be.”

  As his body shriveled with rapid decay, I ripped the Depthless Dream from the wall, dropping his corpse to the ground. Before my eyes, it crumbled into a sulfur-like substance.

  Suddenly, a sound like the very earth tearing asunder ripped through the palace. The earth beneath my feet shuddered, and the portal finally slammed shut. A crack appeared in the demonic statue and ripped from its stomach to the altar beneath it. The fracture continued its pace, running toward me. I spotted the Earth Core starting to roll toward the rift in the ground and sprinted toward it. As the gap widened, I leaped across it and snatched up the core.

  As my hand wrapped around the reinvigorated orb, it morphed and changed. First, a leather-wrapped handle formed, then a pommel. Mist spiraled into the shape of warhammer with a spike on the other, so large that it was almost like a cartoon mallet. Except there was nothing comical about the weapon. It was clearly designed to crush bones with its flat surface and puncture skulls with its spiked on. The warhammer became heavy, and I had to tense my muscles to avoid letting it fall to the ground.

  “You have saved me, Swordslinger,” said a robust female voice.

  “You’re the Forgotten Memory,” I said. Even though she’d been described as a sword, I figured the stories might have gotten that element wrong.

  “No,” she said. “I am not. I was not forged by ancient hands but by you.”

  In this single moment, I discovered where Nydarth and Yono had come from. I now knew what they really were. Sure, they were dragons, but that might have meant something different in this world. I assumed they had a dragon form, but their jobs on this plane had been as elemental cores. They must have once been stripped from their Vigorous Zones and made into spirit weapons. If I hadn’t just fought a cultist hellbent on leading a demonic invasion, I might have actually been able to wrap my head around it all.

  The Seven Realms had no end to strange, it seemed.

  The thoughts faded to the back of my mind as the palace shuddered and stone fragments from the ceiling crashed into the floor. I was all out of Vigor, and I could barely stand.

  “Ethan!” Vesma cried out as she ran through the entrance with Kumi beside her.

  Together, they took me under each arm. Kegohr rushed in and grabbed my new warhammer.

  “Hey, be careful with that,” I said as my vision spotted with black. “That’s Choshi.”

  He frowned at me. “Choshi?”

  “Yeah, yeah, yeah,” I said, imitating his speech pattern. “Did we win?”

  “. . . demons . . . gone. . . cultists . . . none left.”

  Kumi’s voice faded as I finally passed out.

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  When I awoke, I didn’t know how much time had passed. It was dark in the room, and when I opened the shutters. only a glimmer of starlight came in. I could hear people cheering and singing. Smells of roasting meat and incense smoke drifted in on the night wind.

  I got up, feeling refreshed and completely healed. I figured Kumi must have come while I was sleeping and used her Song of the Sea.

  My spirit weapons were lying next to the bed, the Sundered Heart and Depthless Dream placed neatly beside Choshi. As much as I wanted to wield a third spirit weapon, what I’d learned of honor necessitated I find another use for her.

  My gaze flittered over to my other two weapons. I hadn’t forgotten my questions, but I figured they could be asked later. If Nydarth and Yono had been Elemental Cores once, then the act of stripping them away must have been traumatic. I’d have to approach the subject with some degree of tact and forethought.

  I picked up the warhammer, and Choshi’s voice entered my mind.

  “You
have arisen, Master,” she said.

  “I want to return you to the Vigorous Zone here,” I said. “The people of Hyng’ohr need you far more than I do.”

  “It is not possible. I have already passed from one plane to another. I cannot be an Earth Core again.”

  I felt the weight on my shoulders get heavier. “Then I’ll give you to Lord Ganyir.”

  “I wish only to be wielded by the Swordslinger.” She paused, and I was about to argue otherwise when she continued. “Regardless, Hyng’ohr has no need of me. By reforging me, my purpose in this realm changed.”

  “How do we create a new core?” I figured if anyone knew how, it would be someone who was once one herself.

  “There is no need. An infant core has been birthed inside the Vigorous Zone. When a core passes from one plane of being to another, a new core takes its place. While inside the palace and used by those evildoers, I was lost between two planes of existence. Only by reforging me could the new core be born.”

  “Then Hyng’ohr is safe from demons and drought.”

  “Yes. The land will recover, but the process will be slow.”

  I secured my new warhammer to the harness I used for the trident. While it wasn’t perfect, it would do for now. I wanted to show the spirit weapon to my friends as soon as I found them.

  My weapons would be safe inside the room, so I headed out of the modest house. At the end of an alley, I emerged into streets crowded with people. Tables had been placed down the middle of the roads, each one piled with food and drink. The whole population of the city seemed to have come together to feast.

  When people saw me, they raised their cups and cheered. Strangers ran up and hugged me or offered me cups of wine. There was such joy in the air, I couldn’t help but be drawn in by it. Soon, I was laughing out loud as I was ushered down the street toward the market square.

  There, in front of the ruins of the palace, stood the grandest table of all. Raised up on a row of wagons, it had been made from trestles and doors to create something big enough for the heroes of the hour. Ganyir sat there with Tahlis on one side and Mahrai on the other. My traveling companions were at the table, Kegohr roaring and quaffing, Vesma laughing at his antics, Kumi smiling as she ate. The surviving Steadfast Horn initiates were there too, including Zedal, whose crutch leaned against the side of her chair.