The Druid and the Igniad Ch. 09

The Druid and the Igniad

Chapter 9

Together, Lu and Gern entered the high-vaulted chamber of the witch-queen's castle. It was warm, and the thin mountain air was dry. Sunlight streamed through stained crystal windows up high, and Lu recognized at once the crystals were shards of her own crystal trees, kept prisoner between veins of lead. A thick, tinny magic ran through them, tinting their facets all manner of colors.

The windows did not depict anything in particular besides shifting patterns. Evalyn was nowhere to be seen, but there was a door on every wall, as well as stairs of red obsidian sweeping up like two reaching and conjoining tentacles.

"She is hiding," Gern grated. The patterns of color in the windows shifted in unison, and became an image of Evalyn rising out of a flower of black tendrils. Suddenly, Evalyn herself stood at the top of the stairs, wearing a full dress as red as blood, but thin as shade. A dim impression of her alabaster skin showed beneath it, and her smooth tail snaked against her calf. Her spiral horns glinted with a headdress of crystals, and she smiled pleasantly down at them.

"How polite of you to knock," Evalyn said. "I heard it from all the way up here."

"Give us our daughter and face Justice!" Gern demanded. Lu knew Evalyn would not show herself if it were not a trap, so she waited and listened.

"Justice?" Evalyn said dismissively. "How would you know what 'justice' is, druid? Or 'balance', for that matter? Does your goddess tell you? Do you receive commandments from the trees or are they whispered to you on the wind, where only you can hear? The true workings of the universe are beyond your feeble superstitions."

"Truth is beyond any of us," Lu stated, preparing her mind to assert her will in magic.

"My truth becomes me, as your daughter will become me." As Evalyn spoke, the images on the windows shifted to depict Evalyn ascending from her demonic body into the darkly enshrined figure of a shapely young woman wreathed in fire.

"It is only your delusion," Lu asserted, keeping her energy grounded.

"She is stalling," Gern said quietly, hoping only Lu would hear.

"She is baiting," Lu replied in the same volume.

Gern grunted softly in begrudging agreement, eager to inflict harm on his daughter's kidnapper.

"How do you know beforehand when Gaia intends to trade one life for another?" Evalyn said, sauntering down the stairs, sliding one hand along the tentacle-like railing. "When your spear kills the meat for your meal, when the bitter blade cuts down your brothers? The drive behind each is a part of your goddess. Nature does not take sides. Nature simply gives you what you want so long as you give it what it wants in exchange. I have given much, and I have not come all this way to fail, now. I am the one who will bring balance to this world! I will live to discern and judge what is best for all even beyond the death of Gaia, and it is through me that life will survive her."

"Enough of your poison!" Gern shouted, and sprinted towards Evalyn, who had reached the bottom of the stairs.

"Gern!" Lu called, but Gern swung his staff at Evalyn with all the speed of his rage. The wood whooshed through the thin air where she stood, and at once she vanished along with the staircase going up, replaced with a staircase going down. Shadowy tendrils reached from the darkness below and seized Gern, pulling him down, where he vanished from Lu's sight.

Gern rolled to his feet and struck his staff on the floor, said: "Begone!" The loud clack of the wood and the force of his command made the shadows scatter, and he stood alone in the darkness.

"Your presence is disruptive," Labolas said in the dark, echoing chamber, his voice hanging low all around Gern.

"Lu?!" Gern called, looking for the stairs, but there was no light anywhere.

"She must contend with Evalyn. You will not interfere."

"Shining Ones," Gern chanted softly, "bring forth ever anew the sun." He struck the bottom of his staff against the floor, and a spark of daylight grew from the top. Labolas was illuminated, the bronze feathers of his wings catching the light and reflecting it onto his muscled form.

"Your paltry prayers will not avail you, human." Labolas stretched his wings high, striking a tall, imposing figure.

"Labolas!" Gern growled, and rushed in to attack. He swung his staff with power and speed, but each strike was brushed aside by sweeps of the demon's wings, the strange feathers glancing aside the enchanted wood.

Meanwhile, Lu searched for Gern, but as soon as she had lost sight of him the windows turned black as pitch, blocking out all light. The stairs and all else were gone, and she found herself alone in moonless midnight. She conjured a flame in one hand, then saw that the walls were in different places than before. Glinting gems in the woven arches of obsidian seemed to glow with a pale light above her like a field of stars, twisting above her as she ran down hallways that seemed to take her in circles.

"I told you before, dear", Evalyn said from down the corridor behind her. "What killed me in my previous life gives me power in this one."

Lu whirled around and dropped into a fighting stance, her jeweled armor articulating with a quiet clank.

"I see you have enchanted some crystals for yourself," Evalyn mused. "Very impressive. The druids taught you more than I thought possible."

"I am capable of far more than that," Lu said, and primed herself to cast a spell, visualizing her body filling with golden light.

"You think your nine crystals are a match for my thousands? Oh, but you have ten, don't you...I almost forgot about your ineffective chastity belt!"

"You know nothing of chastity, only depravity!" Lu made a geometric gesture with her hands, then spoke in the ancient tongue: "I see through your masks and mirrors."

The hallway shifted minutely as Lu's eyes focused on reality, and saw that Evalyn was no illusion. She was truly standing before her in the flesh. Lu wanted to be sure before her next move.

"Was that an invocation of Bramji's Clarity?" Evalyn asked with genuine intrigue. "I didn't take you for--"

Lu snapped her fingers and barked out a word like a popping flame, and intense, white fire combusted from her breath and shot forth at Evalyn for an instant, blinding her. Lu rushed down the corridor, hoping to take Evalyn with a decisive blow. The crystals set in her leg armor made her light on her feet, and she closed on Evalyn like a hummingbird diving at a nest-robbing invader.

With a bound and a leap, she sent a roundhouse kick straight for the queen's horned head. The crystals adorning the horns sparked at contact with the steel, and Lu felt a force grab her, like she had just tried to kick a branch of one of her own crystal trees. Lu could feel them vibrate in pain.

"My armor is better than yours!" Evalyn chided as she grabbed Lu's leg and threw her like a rag doll against the wall. "Gontrazz qota esaeu!" She commanded, and darkness bloomed from Lu's shadow on the wall, seizing her with black tendrils.

Lu was sucked into the blackness, and saw Evalyn's grin and the hallway fall away into the distance. Slimy, smooth tentacles of oily blackness started to squeeze through the seams in her armor, and she felt them licking at her dark skin, trying to join with it in some sinister way that Lu could not comprehend. She remembered the spell to repel baleful shades.

"Innae fellum las esaeu!" Lu commanded, and she visualized all the light stored in her body blazing away the shadows. She glowed with bright flame and the hallway came rushing back. She was ejected out of the pool of darkness on the wall, which fled her presence.

Evalyn was startled and perturbed by Lu's sudden emergence, and flicked a golden dagger into her hand out of thin air, then lunged to strike. Lu had barely landed on her feet when she blocked the keen edge with her armored forearms, and the golden blade caught against the casing of Lu's enchanted crystals. They thrummed magically against the flashing dagger, which hummed with enchantments of its own, and Lu caught a glimpse of a wet sheen to the blade. Poison.

"I'll only paralyze you, dear," Evalyn said in a sweet voice laced with poison of its own, "I need you for later!"

"Nulut aem mina!" Lu recited, focusing on the dagger. The soft metal became softer with intense heat, and glowed orange in Evalyn's hand. The poison on the blade sizzled into vapor.

Evalyn sneered and swiftly glided away from Lu, pulled by some invisible force. The semi-molten gold did not seem to harm her hand, but she dropped it all the same, and continued to retreat down the arched hallway towards a door at the end.

Lu seemed to have her foe on the run, but considered finding Gern or her child over a pursuit. Just then, however, the door behind Evalyn opened and she heard the sound of her baby crying.

Without a further thought, she darted after Evalyn, who grinned as she glided through the doorway. The door slammed shut, but Lu kicked it down, sending hinges and splintering wood flying across the chamber. She charged in, but Awen was nowhere to be seen, nor was Evalyn. The chamber was empty, save for the hundreds of crystal shards embedded in the circular floor, walls, and ceiling.

She felt the tingle of magic, then gasped in realization. She turned and saw that the door she had just kicked down was not there, nor was the doorway. There was no way out of the room. She huffed with barely contained rage, and conjured blazing flame in her hands, ready to melt through the stone to escape the prison she had been lured into.

"Lu?" Gern asked, walking into the room out of the corner of Lu's eye.

"Gern?" She asked back. "She trapped you, too?"

"So it would seem," Gern said. "Can you get us out?"

"I think so. I'll melt through the walls, no matter how thick they are."

"Wait...Lu, maybe there's another way. What if joining with Evalyn is the best thing for our daughter?"

"What?!"

"She would become ruler of the entire world! What greater destiny could we hope for her?"

"It wouldn't be Awen, Gern! Evalyn must have put a spell on you to say such things."

"Awen wouldn't die, she would simply join Evalyn in the same mind. Her memories would be left intact."

"But she would not have free will!"

"Yes, she would."

"How can you know that?"

"I have heard of the ritual which she plans to use, from an age when enlightened masters directed empires that are spoken of in ancient myths."

"Even if that's true..." Lu said, "Awen's destiny would no longer be her own. She would never be free."

"The dignity of the individual is an outdated sentiment...." Gern muttered, turning his gaze up at the apex of the bejeweled room.

Lu narrowed her eyes at him. She knew in her heart that Gern valued freedom too highly to carry such a view. She made the necessary gesture with her hands and invoked Bramji's Clarity.

Gern shattered into uncountable images of himself, which zipped out in all directions to enter into the crystals that surrounded the chamber. Evalyn stood where Gern had been, and she lowered her gaze on Lu.

"The best dignity you can hope for is to accept your fate," Evalyn said. Lu ran at her, but Evalyn snapped her fingers.

At the sound, Lu felt herself pulled toward the center of the chamber. She tried to brace herself against it, but her armor carried her along, and all the crystals in the room glowed violet. The force pulled at the metal that encased her, and its strength increased rapidly.

Lu became suspended in the air at the center, hovering between the floor and ceiling. Lu struggled against the pulling force, but her arms and legs splayed out. The floor fractured where Evalyn stood, and she began to sit down. A throne of clinking obsidian scales grew out of the floor to meet her. She seemed to sit comfortably on the razor-sharp obsidian shards. She crossed her legs under her thin dress, and the throne rose her up until she was directly in front of Lu.

"I would take your body for my own if I could, dear." Evalyn said, appraising her catch.

"Damn you!" Lu spat. "What's wrong with the body you have?"

Evalyn laughed, the sound echoing in the chamber. She took a breath, flicked her tail into her hands, then said: "I have become quite fond of the way I was remade, but alas, this body comes with certain...attachments. I cannot attain mastery over the world if I do not have mastery over myself."

Lu took a breath, and prepared to say the name Labolas had told her. Before she could utter a sound, however, Evalyn flicked a gesture with her hand and said: "Zichrya." Lu found her throat voiceless, and no matter how much air she pushed past her lips, they were silent. Evalyn reached out and placed her hand over Lu's pelvic armor, feeling the contour of the iron, then following the seams at the waist and thighs with her fingers. Lu squirmed at her unbearable vulnerability.

"Mastery is something you lack, my dear," Evalyn chided. "In this focusing chamber, I can break any enchantment. Shape any spell. Like this one, for example: Nulut...aem...mina."

Where Evalyn touched the iron, it groaned and turned red hot. Evalyn continued chanting under her breath, stringing together words in the ancient tongue. The heat crept over the armor, and though it could not harm Lu's skin, it glowed hotter and began to melt the metal. Lu tried to sound out a counter-spell, but the magic would not work if it could not be heard, and Lu tensed her rear as she felt the molten iron drip from her cheeks and dribble down her thighs, undoing all the tender care that Gern had put into her armor.

Her armor languidly smeared away from her pelvis in all directions, still pulled by the magnetic magic that imprisoned her, until it dribbled upward from her nipples. The embedded crystal shard at her solar plexus glowed brightly, absorbing the magic and letting the metal cool. What remained of the breastplate framed her breasts, but exposed her below the nipples. Below, the crystals at Lu's legs stopped the armor from melting past mid-thigh, but only her pelvic crystal remained to protect her core.

"Among things I have mastery over," Evalyn said, "my favorite, as you well know, is sex magic, and the most energy I ever got from it was with you, my dear. I'm going to use your own natural magic to imprison you here until the time is right to sacrifice you to my pet demon."

Lu tried to cry out, but she could not find her voice. She tried to remain calm, and silently repeated a mantra in her mind, gathering her strength. Evalyn grabbed Lu's crystal protector, and it sparked at her touch, repelling her hand.

"It's fiercely loyal," Evalyn mused. "Seems it needs some persuasion."

Evalyn tucked her legs up, then stood on her throne, coming eye to eye with Lu. She came very close, almost close enough for Lu to bite her, and gazed into Lu's eyes with admiration and dire intentions.

Lu felt the brush of the thin fabric of Evelyn's dress against her thighs, and she channeled her elemental power. The red dress caught fire and blazed into wispy motes of ash, fluttering into nothingness and leaving Evalyn bare. Red glyphs were tattooed on the smooth skin around her pink nether lips, and she caressed them with her fingers, smiling to let Lu know that she was not upset in the slightest about losing her dress. Evalyn plucked a large crystal from the center of her headdress, kissed it, then brought it down and pressed it between her puckered nether lips, whispering a secret incantation.

"You know better than most that crystals like to grow," Evalyn cooed. "All they need is energy."

Evalyn began to rub the crystal back and forth along her slit, then pushed it up inside of her. Evalyn gasped in sudden pleasure, and removed her finger. Lu's eyes widened as she saw the crystal emerge, growing into the shape of a man's erection. Evalyn smiled with arousal as the crystal phallus pushed itself out of her sex and curved up, statuesque in its sculpted perfection.

Evalyn stepped onto a shelf of obsidian that shot out from the edge of her throne, and caressed Lu's exposed skin with admiring hands. She pressed the tip of the phallus against Lu's glowing pelvic protector, which sparked violet at the touch, but the magic reverberated into the courting crystal, and vibrations thrummed against Lu's sex.

Lu tried to resist, but Evalyn sang spells of lust under her breath, and she cupped her milky breasts, lifting them to rub her excited pink nipples against Lu's iron-pebbled breasts peeking from under her melted breastplate. Evalyn's tail stroked between Lu's legs and nudged up between her thighs, wriggling rhythmically. Lu let out a silent cry of defiance, and tried to maintain her control, but she began to grow wet, despite herself.

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