Analindë (The Chronicles of Lóresse) (55 page)

She couldn’t touch the amulets, but she wondered if she could place a shield around them to keep the Humans from getting strength? She cautiously extended a thread power out toward the amulets, exploring for the place they linked with the Humans. She felt power begin to rise within the amulet again. She quickly retracted the tendril and had barely raised the solid granite shields around her when,
thwack,
the bolt hit her shields again.

This time the tone was louder and reverberated longer.

Not only was it was getting quicker, but it recognized her. She lowered her shields again and saw a flicker of movement.

She looked closely, switched back to her magesight, and saw it. A slip of dark grey mist slithered along the floor. It frightened her as nothing else had; without thought, she began to spin a tendril of Energy out. The grey mist reached Sintriel first and started to crawl up her leg, attacking as a leech everywhere it touched. Sintriel immediately faltered, her foe’s blade caught her on the arm and a sword clattered to the ground, leaving her with only one blade.

Analindë cringed. She sent her tendril of Energy toward Sintriel, hoping that the amulet wouldn’t attack.

Sintriel regained her footing and continued to fend off the man with her other blade, using her limited powers to stop the mist where it was.

Analindë joined her energies with Sintriel’s and formed a shield deep within Sintriel’s leg, then pushed it outward, making it grow stronger and larger as it moved. Slowly she pushed the mist off of Sintriel. It didn’t want to let go, so she pried each little hook of shadow out of her new friend’s leg, then forced the shield to expand, preventing it from latching on again.

Analindë caught sight of another movement out of the corner of her eye and quickly threw a shield around Arandur before it could latch onto him. She then turned back to Sintriel and finished prying the leech-like snake of mist off the swordswoman’s leg.

A cry of frustration reverberated out of the book room just as Analindë expanded the shield for the last time. The Human wizard stormed out of the room, his brown robes flapping around him. Unbelievably, the man was pouting while he surveyed the scene.

“Now what do we have here?” He studied her friends like they were shiny new prizes for his collection. “Trouble my pets?” He turned his attention to his associates.

Sintriel, with a slight limp and blood dripping down her hanging left arm, fought admirably. Arandur had managed to wound his opponent in a number of places, and only sported a shallow cut above his right eyebrow.

With a flick of the wrist gold sparks shot from the wizard toward the two scouts. Analindë reinforced their shielding, and the sparks bounced harmlessly off of the shields as they continued to fight the wizard’s lackeys.

“What?” The wizard spun around, searching. “Ah, come out my dear, I won’t hurt you . . . yet.” He chuckled just before he sent a stunning spell her way.

This time Analindë wove a shield like the one that guarded Master Therin’s tower. The strike hit the shield, crackling before it fell apart.

“Come now, how are we supposed to play later if you won’t participate now.” Red jets shot out of his hands; they circled her shield round and round again, searching for entrance. Finding none, they struck her shielding at random. She fed more Energy to the shield as the strikes drained power away.

Giving up, the wizard directed the red strikes to attack the scouts. Seeing his intent in the way he moved his arms, Analindë cried out, “No!” and flung mutated tower shielding around the scouts.

The red steaks bounced harmlessly off her shields but struck the grizzled man. His shrieks of pain echoed down the hall before he crumpled to the floor. He did not move again.

Sintriel froze in shock where she was, then turned her head to look back at Analindë. She nodded, then looked down at her arm, cursed, then quickly bound it up with a strip of cloth she produced from somewhere. Moments later, she ran to assist Arandur.

Meanwhile, the wizard advanced on Analindë, “Now that wasn’t very nice, was it? Look at what you made me do. Henry, brute that he was, was very useful to me.” He made a tsking sound and shook his head as power crackled in his hands. She didn’t answer the wizard, just kept watch on her scouts and watched for signs of that power sparking from the wizard’s hands to mutate into an attack. No use angering him into using his spell when she had no way to defend against it. Speaking of which, where was Andulmaion?

He advanced on her again and she scuttled back. When she became trapped between a pillar and the wall and couldn’t move away further, he stopped to look back at the scouts.

With a snarl, he dismissed them as insignificant. He turned his attention back upon Analindë, waved his arms, and then rained blow after blow upon her shields. She fended them off as best she could, her reserves of Energy draining as she cast her shields, tailoring each to efficiently block the different strikes he sent.

He raised his arms and began to chant, then abruptly stopped in order to clutch the amulet he wore around his neck. He leaned forward, peering at her as if she was some new specimen her old biology professor had pulled out of the lake. Then he tipped back his head and roared in laughter.

She panicked. “Andulmaion!” she screamed. Where was he?

The Human Wizard bent in half, wracked with painful guffaws. Analindë pressed herself against the wall; what could he be thinking? She pushed her hands against the cool stone at her back; its solidness held her up. She looked beyond the wizard to the scouts. Her shields held; they were still fighting. The wizard finally straitened and wiped the streaming tears from his face.

Chuckling, he said, “It’s Analindë, isn’t it? Come to avenge your family?” he taunted and broke into loud guffaws again.

She shuffled side to side, but didn’t answer. «Andulmaion, where are you?» she called out to him.

“No, response? I suppose you won’t say anything, will you? What are you going to do? Attack me with a shield?” He sneered. “It seems that’s all you’re capable of conjuring.”

He turned his head sideways and studied her; a shiver of cold awoke deep inside her. “I’d heard you were new into your powers, but you show remarkable capabilities. Too bad you only know how to do the one thing.” He taunted and then began to waive his arm at her, languidly moving his wrist in circles as if writing in the air.

«Andulmaion!»

«Coming, his artery was sliced, I had to heal it or else he would be dead by now.»

«We’re out of time!»

“There is someone who would like to visit with you. Pity that–” he broke off as Andulmaion ran up beside her, melding his shields with hers. He cast a faux strike of his own to throw the wizard off balance.

«There, that should push him over the edge,» Andulmaion spoke to her mind.

The wizard jumped back as Andulmaion’s strike circled around him, crackling merrily as it pretended to eat its way through the wizard’s shield.

“Enough games.” He flung his arm out to the side, holding them high. His shielding pulsed and Andulmaion’s strike dissolved. The stone beneath the wizard smoked and turned black. The lines in his face deepened and his eyes narrowed.

“I’m done playing. Time to go join your parents Analindë.” The wizard grabbed the amulet hanging around his neck and gestured wildly with his other arm. It was so comical looking she would have laughed except for the pit of anxiety fast growing deep in her stomach. A great welling of power surged up around them.

«This is it, it’s what I felt that day!» Analindë shouted to Andulmaion.

Working quickly, Andulmaion didn’t reply. Just before the surge peaked, a red sphere of Energy shot out toward the wizard. The glowing sphere rapidly ate the Energy from the wizard more quickly than he could gather it in. The surge deflated. Andulmaion grunted beside her as the red sphere grew. His expression was fierce with concentration and sweat trickled down his face. Analindë worried about him, but turned her attention back to her one job. Maintaining the shields, she’d better check on the scouts.

The wizard shrieked in frustration; his face was strained, then a string of profanities spewed out of his mouth. He threw a death bolt toward Andulmaion. Analindë just caught it in time by changing the shields to counter the blow. It simply exploded around them. Usually she would have transmuted the shield to absorb the energy from the blow, but she’d been caught off guard. Keeping their shields up continually was quickly tiring her.

As Andulmaion’s orb continued to grow, the wizard grew desperate, throwing one thing after another at them, searching for any way to get through their shields in order to stop Andulmaion. Analindë firmly met each blow. He even flung strikes at the orb. Those simply dissipated. The surge of power around them continued to shrink, and the wizard howled in frustrated pain. His body hunched in on itself as power was ripped from him, yet he continued to throw barbed attacks at the four of them.

Analindë was tired; she wasn’t sure how much longer she could hold out. Her legs shook beneath her and her reaction times were becoming slower.

The red globe that Andulmaion now wrestled with had tripled in size. His face was strained as he struggled to maintain his hold over the spell he’d cast and keep the red ball’s focus narrowed upon the Human wizard.

The wizard was panicking now, for he kept plucking at the amulet, trying to pull it from around his neck, but he couldn’t keep hold of it. As the wizard faltered, Arandur took the opening he’d been waiting for. He flung one of his daggers through the air. Seeing the strike, Analindë threw a modified spell to go with it. “Go swift and strong, be straight and true.” It was the growing spell she’d used to strengthen the trees. She imbued the words to take on the intent in which the dagger had been thrown, giving it new life from the original.

The spell strengthened the dagger, allowing it to slice through the wizard’s weakened shields. It caught the wizard in the left eye, driving him back until he hit the wall with a thud. He slumped to the ground, dead.

Relieved, Analindë dropped her shields and sank to her knees exhausted. A fierce headache pounded behind her right eye and she winced; the light was too bright. She glanced to the scouts. Arandur had already turned away and was retying Sintriel’s bandage. Henry was where the wizard had blasted him; the woman lay slumped on the ground, not moving. The wizard was to her right; she quickly looked away, not wanting to remember the sight of him. “We won . . . we made it. I can’t believe it,” she whispered.

“Analindë.” She almost didn’t recognize the voice that said her name. “Analindë, help!” Andulmaion grunted, he shook in uncontrollable agony, his control slipping over the spell he wielded. “It’s angry, the wizard is gone, and it wants more.”

Analindë looked away from him in horror as the red orb advanced toward Arandur. Streams of light spun inward on itself, making a giant knot of power.

“Analindë, you must shield them. Now!”

Arandur had deprived the roiling red mass of the last Energy from the wizard; it now attacked Arandur in his place, just as it had attacked her in the workshop when she’d shielded the pyramid. Analindë threw a shield around the two scouts just before the brilliant ball got to them. It swirled in frustration. She shuddered as it turned upon her instead.

“Andulmaion, you must stop it.”

“I can’t Analindë, it’s grown too strong.”

“Then become stronger; find the strength from within.”

“I have no more,” he said, but his face turned resolute.

Analindë doubled her shielding; the red globe had forced its target focus wider. Instead of drawing Energy from one direction, it now drew it from all directions, as if a reverse sun. She was now shielding all of their group.

Her shields collapsed one upon another, just as quickly as she could cast them. Pain sizzled up the tendrils of Energy she sent out to form new shields. Her hands burned.

She set up the thick walled granite shield, shields colder than ice, others that would eat Energy themselves. None withstood the force that opposed her. One after another the shields dissolved and fell away. Then her arms went numb.

“Andulmaion, it gets stronger with each shield it eats. I’m giving it my strength. If you are to stop it, it must be soon else we’re all dead.”

Andulmaion twisted back and forth beside her as if wrestling some unseen force.

Sintriel called out, “We’re coming.” They had gone to collect Thalion and now hurried toward her. As they drew closer, Analindë’s shields were able to compact, making them easier to form. Thank the stars that Sintriel had known what to do. She sensed Sintriel layer a set of thick battle shields beneath her own to surround them all as they huddled close to Analindë. She glanced down at the scouts. Thalion lay slumped halfway over a sitting Sintriel as Arandur readjusted the bandage on her left arm.

“Help is on the way, but I fear they’ll not arrive in time,” said Thalion. His head rolled back and forth as he tried to sit up straight and failed. “Mallhawion,” he uttered, then passed out.

Analindë stared at Thalion’s limp form while rapidly making calculations in her head. Working quickly, she arrived at the best conclusion and turned to the swordswoman.

“Sintriel, weave me out of your shield.”

“No,” she stated.

“Do it now.” Analindë would have punched the words with power if she’d had any to spare. A moment later she felt Sintriel’s shields shift to exclude her. She sighed in relief. That would buy the others more time. In a moment, when her strength finally gave out, the orb would come after her first. She’d been working against it the longest. Analindë scraped the last bits of power out of her source. Her legs were going numb now and her chest hurt; it was difficult to draw in breath.

“Andulmaion, I have no more to give. You must find the strength to stop it while I yet have the strength to hold it at bay.”

“I can’t. I don’t know how.”

“Find a way!”

«I have no strength left myself,» he said to her mind.

«Then find it.» She shoved a memory into his mind from that day in the cave when she’d wrenched every last bit of Energy from her body to hide from the awareness. That process had left her burnt, broken and almost dead.