The Druid and the Igniad Pt. 06

At once she knew where Awenn was. She was up at the top, in or near the castle, as Lu had expected. Lu increased her pace, and began running up the slope. Gern, Arkis, Gartham, and the hundreds of other warriors that stood shoulder to shoulder increased their pace to match.

Lu heard Vorris' voice whispering all around her, weaving a spell. Suddenly, the snowy, sloping field of volcanic rock quivered with cold, and ice crystals congealed instantly out of the air in a flash freeze. The ice stuck to her armor, and she was stopped cold in her tracks. Her allies suffered the same fate, some toppling forward as the ice trapped their feet.

She focused her power into her legs, and her armor radiated heat that melted the ice around her into steam. Though she was free, her allies struggled, some chipping away at the ice around their feet with their weapons, but the ice congealed anew as soon as it was broken. She looked up, and saw a swarm of arrows flying toward them. Gern did not have a shield, and many who did were distracted trying to free themselves. She did not hesitate.

Lu blurted an invocation of flame as she leapt towards Gern and his warriors, and channeled elemental fire into the ground as she came down next to him, enveloping everyone around her in rushing flames. She knew they would not be harmed, for they wore the enchanted crystals that warded against her element. Lu drew heat from the heart of the volcanic mountain and channeled it through her magic. Her crystal trees sang in unison, for they felt their connection to Lu once more, and communed with the volcano on her behalf.

The ice and all the snow evaporated not just around her, but all over the mountain, and the air rippled from the heat wave. Lu quickly recovered from the magical exertion, but the arrows came down on them, and she did not have time to burn them. The warriors hurried to protect themselves with their shields, and Gern twirled his staff faster than the eye could follow, knocking arrows aside.

Lu shielded herself with her armored forearms, and she heard the ping of an iron arrowhead deflecting against the thick iron wrapping. Gern strafed towards her and extended his defensive range to include her.

"I'll take care of those archers!" Lu called to Gern over the din of the hailing arrows.

"Go get them!" Gern called back, focused on maintaining his maneuvers, "I'll catch up!"

There were too many arrows coming down to jump for it, so Lu wove her way through the warriors huddled under their shields. She had to squeeze between denser huddles, her armor scrapping against theirs. The warriors took heart as they recognized her.

"We're pinned down!" One warrior complained.

"We are with you, Gaia-child," an older warrior said.

"I'll clear the way," Lu announced as she came to the front line.

"Good luck!" A young warrior beamed next to her, showing a few missing teeth in his smile.

Lu darted out from the cover of their shields, and grabbed towards particular arrows in flight, burning them to cinders with gesticulations of her hands and an incantation under her breath. She cleared her path as she ran, and soon outpaced their ability to aim with her zig-zagging course.

Ranks of black-tattooed warrior fanatics advanced down the slope towards flanking positions that would catch her allies in a pincer attack once the arrows halted, but she had to take out the archers first. She could not fight them all at once.

She ran between the enemy formations and leapt over the warriors who ran out to intercept her. She came to the wall, and threw up a wave of fire at the archers atop it. They were protected from the flames by the magic of their ward crystals they wore about their necks, and they shot arrows down at her.

Lu tried to jump up onto the wall, but she was heavier with her armor than she was used to. She adjusted herself in time to land softly against the face of the wall, then scraped down to the ground. She rolled away from the spot at once, and several arrows stuck into the ground where she had landed.

She dashed toward a nearby gatehouse, which was the mouth of a dirt road that had been carved into the mountainside. "Nulut aem mina!", she recited, and gestured at the wrought-iron gate. The metal groaned and glowed cherry-red. She bolted toward it and made a crossing motion with her arms as she willed the heat in the metal to gather in two lines, mimicking the "X" she made with her arms. The concentrated energy melted the iron white-hot along the lines, and the gate was severed into four pieces that clattered into a heap.

Lu ran through the gatehouse and leapt up steps that brought her to the top of the wall. She kicked two soldiers down to the gravel with her iron-clad feet, then cleared some room down the wall, sending archers tumbling off as she charged. She ran all the way around the mountain peak on the circular wall, encountering little resistance on the far side. Lu could feel spells being woven against her from the castle, and she chanted counters to their malice, wildfire threatening in her every breath as she smashed ribcages with her iron kick.

She came back to the gatehouse and sent another foe tumbling off the wall, then saw that a horde of armored enemies was marshaling out of the mining tunnels carved in the mountain. They glinted with enchanted crystal shards.

Black-tattooed fanatics charged her with their weapons tined to strike, and she whirled this way and that, deflecting their strikes against her armored forearms as her legs swept low, toppling them as they came.

She saw that Gern and his warriors had immobilized the formations that had maneuvered against them with brambles of druid-conjured vegetation. Gern drove his warriors forward, leaving the entangled foes behind in favor of gaining higher ground. They came cheering triumphantly towards the broken gate, unhindered by archers.

The heavily armored enemies from the tunnels formed defensive lines at the bottleneck, and Lu leapt down off the wall to meet them. She launched herself at one with a roundhouse kick, but her blow was met by a shield that was set with a crystal shard. It absorbed the brunt of her force, though the man wielding it was pushed backward, despite digging his heels into the ground.

She unleashed a flurry of strikes as they surrounded her, but her kicks ineffectively bounced off the enchanted shields. They pressed in close around her, locking their shields together. It was all she could do to parry their spear-thrusts against her armor, and she could not protect herself from all angles. Spear-points gnawed at weak points, and she felt the bite of the blades as she suffered glancing cuts on her skin.

Gern had just reached the gatehouse, and was fighting to break through. He saw Lu surrounded, and his heart sank into fear as he lashed his staff viciously, trying to reach her through the gauntlet of armored foes.

Lu's purple eyes blazed with intensity and her hair of smoke flickered with rage. They might have been protected from fire, she thought, but that wouldn't matter if they couldn't breathe. She sang a verse in the ancient tongue that was of hearth-fire and home, then held her breath and channeled the elemental power from the fire in the earth to combust the air all around her. A plume of red flame erupted into a spreading flower, and she fed it with more and more magic, letting it grow. The armored warriors staggered in the heat, yet were not burned by it. After a few moments, however, they wobbled and collapsed from lack of breathable air, for it had all been eaten by the flames.

Lu kicked down two of the warriors who held the chokepoint of the gatehouse, and Gern struck down the third with his staff. The rest of the warriors poured through, and they gained a foothold on the other side of the wall, though the armored enemies who remained formed resistance.

Arkis took out commanders with his bow from atop the gatehouse, and Chief Gartham carved destruction with a pair of waraxes, chiseling through the enchanted armor of any who stood against him.

Gern and Lu outpaced the others by leaps and bounds, and fought their way up through the crystal grove. She felt her connection to her grove and the fire within the mountain clearer than ever before, and drew its energy up through the rocks. Fissures formed at her step, and steam vented out of the earth in her wake. They ascended freshly carved steps in the cliffs at the top of the peak, knocking down the guards stationed there. At last, they came to the double-doors of the castle, and Lu melted the hinges off. She kicked the doors in and they toppled over.

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, heavy magic ran through them, tinting their facets all manner of colors.

The windows did not depict anything in particular besides shifting patterns. Vorris 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 Vorris rising out of a flower of black tendrils. Suddenly, Vorris 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," Vorris said. "I heard it from all the way up here."

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

"Justice?" Vorris 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 Vorris spoke, the images on the windows shifted to depict Vorris 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?" Vorris said, sauntering down the stairs, sliding one hand along a railing that wasn't there. "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 Vorris, who had reached the bottom of the stairs.

"Gern!" Lu called, but Gern swung his staff at Vorris 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 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 Vorris. 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 - even the double doors she had kicked down 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 be taking her in circles.

"I told you before, dear", Vorris 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 armor articulating as gracefully as her movements.

"I see you have enchanted some crystals for yourself," Vorris 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 your ineffective chastity belt!"

"You know nothing of chastity, slut!" 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 Vorris 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?" Vorris asked with genuine intrigue. "Impressive indeed. I didn't take you for-"

Lu snapped her fingers and barked out a word like a popping flame, and intense, white fire combusted in front of Vorris for an instant, blinding her. Lu rushed down the corridor, hoping to take Vorris out with a decisive blow. The crystals set in her leg armor made her light on her feet, and she closed on Vorris 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 resisting 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!" Vorris 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 Vorris 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.

Vorris 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.

"It will only paralyze you, dear," Vorris 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 as it drooped in Vorris' hand. The poison on the blade sizzled into vapor.

Vorris sneered and swiftly slid 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 glide down the arched hallway towards a door at the end.

Lu knew a retreat when she saw one, but considered finding Gern or her child over a pursuit. Just then, however, the door behind Vorris opened and she heard the sound of her baby crying.

Without a further thought, she darted after Vorris, 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. Awenn was nowhere to be seen, nor was Vorris. 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 Vorris 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 Awenn, Gern! Vorris must have put a spell on you to say such things."

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

"How would 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, "Awenn's destiny would no longer be her own. She would not 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. Vorris stood where Gern had been, and she lowered her gaze on Lu.