Talla's Fallen Temple Ch. 31

A crack issued forth, to the stunned amazement of those gathered.

"The frame is breaking," Shanata warned, moving forward to join the others. "Prepare yourselves."

Alyss, wearing nothing but her dress, grabbed up a sword and remained at her position, preparing to seal the door to the stairway.

Talla reached out for Zhair'lo's mind and, at that point, felt his triumph at having completed his assignment, as well as his hope for survival. His desperation came through as well, the sense of emptiness in his chest, the knowledge that he might escape the roof only to die of whatever the magic had done to him over the past four days.

Knowing she had no particular martial skill that would prove useful in the melee due to ensue should the door fail, Talla remained nearest the stairs. She turned to look up to the roof and saw a golden glow reflected off the ceiling which protected the stairway from the weather.

'Have you succeeded?' she wondered. 'Did it work?'

A wave of fear struck her as Zhair'lo saw the golden wave heading for him. After a moment of terror, he flashed into unconsciousness and Talla saw the golden light come spilling down the stairway, diffusing as it went.

It struck her, washed over her entire body like a misty rain on a hot day, suffusing her body with a strange peacefullness. Tranquillity saturated her, body and soul, and she fell blissfully to her knees.

"Go," Shanata croaked.

"Whuh?" she sleepily turned toward her Mistress.

"Go to him."

"But -"

Shanata still stood, gripping her sword hilt while the tip rested on the ground and fought to remain on her feet.

"He can't take ... this," she muttered as she fell to her knees. "Up on the roof ..."

Talla wondered for a moment why Shanata showed such concern. The whole world had become so peaceful. The golden wave had washed away the terror of moments before. Even those battering at the door had ceased.

"Go to him, if you dare!" Shanata shouted before she collapsed.

Dare? What did she have to dare to do? What did Shanata expect her to do? Why had the older woman even wanted Talla along?

She looked up the stairway. Zhair'lo lay up there, somewhere.

'No one should be on the roof,' she remembered a warning muzzily.

But Zhair'lo had fallen unconscious up there, struck by the golden wave.

A crack of something like thunder echoed down the steep stairway and she felt, through her link to Zhair'lo, a second wave crash over him before it came down to her. Even passed out, the strength of its effect upon him registered painfully in her mind.

'He's in danger,' she realized.

Energized suddenly, she rose to her feet in anger, fighting through the second golden wave.

'He's in danger and they left him up there alone!'

Fighting the dizziness induced by the Goddess's Ascension, she mounted the steep, slick stairs one at a time. Slipping and falling now could spell the end of Zhair'lo's life. Everyone behind her had succumbed to the wave but she, somehow, had held out. She wondered at the source of her stamina. Did her feelings for Zhair'lo drive it, or some special property of their mental link?

She clambered up the last step on her hands and knees and saw with her own eyes what she had only seen in a confusing jumble through Zhair'lo's. Forty metres away, the triangular pavilion emanated a blazing golden glow from something in its centre. Talla knew a naked Goddess lay in that morass, enduring the torture of the completion of her Ascension, but she could see nothing through the light. Halfway between herself and the Goddess, she saw her man, laying on his back, also naked, his body grey and lifeless.

Crawling with terrible slowness, she watched as another golden wave cracked out of the pavilion, accompanied by a shower of blue sparks and a deep, bone-chilling scream. Zhair'lo's body spasmed violently as it struck him, returning to its lifeless state a moment later. Talla prepared herself, head down, as it rolled over her as well.

Receiving it like that, directly in line of sight to the Goddess, it hurt. The pain seared her nerve endings. If she remained up here, Talla knew she wouldn't survive the experience. Zhair'lo would die even sooner. And if she tried to crawl to him, given the shrinking interval between these blasts coming from the Goddess, she'd never live long enough to get there.

'That's my man, there,' she prodded herself. 'He's mine, and he's dying.'

She pulled her leg up underneath her and slammed her foot to the ground. Her body rewarded her with a numbing pain shooting up her leg to her spine, as if her foot has fallen asleep. The impact of the second foot fared no better, but she forced herself to her feet.

Dragging herself, one step after another, she moved toward Zhair'lo - she refused to say 'Zhair'lo's body' in her mind - in the hope she could do some good.

At five paces away, another golden explosion cracked across the roof, the wave which came with it reaching Talla and Zhair'lo at almost the same moment. She collapsed forward onto her knees, her legs no longer willing to hold her up. At this distance, the air throbbed with the Goddess's power, a deep hum rattling her teeth and invading her skull.

Talla reached out for Zhair'lo, stretching her hand out, and paused.

Her hand, she noted, glowed. In fact, as she looked down at the parts of her body not covered by armour, all of her skin glowed a familiar blue.

'Is this what Shanata had hoped for?'

Spurred on by this last desperate chance, she crawled to Zhair'lo and grasped his outstretched hand. As had happened so long ago, she felt their strange mesh take hold of her body. Both of them began to glow a furious azure. His body, naked and spent, glowed everywhere, whereas hers, covered in leather, only leaked blue through the gaps.

Talla pulled her man closer to her, watching the wave of blue rush out from their bodies. Their strength, however, did not compare to that of the Goddess. The field of blue stopped a few paces from their bodies, but as she lay alongside Zhair'lo, another wave of gold exploded from the pavilion, crossed over them, and failed to penetrate the tiny protective bubble they'd created.

Clutching her naked man to her chest, Talla fell before the power of her exhaustion and passed out.