Destiny (37 page)

“Trust me, tell the medallions to send out all their power.”

The four followed his instructions. He felt the medallion consuming all his inner energy, and at the same time exponentially multiplying it by using the Ilenian power to send it to the sphere, where it was accumulating.

“Don’t be afraid! Send me your power!”

The Bearers fell into a trance as their bodies sent the powerful energy.

Komir felt all that immense power passing through his medallion into the sphere where it was being stored. Suddenly the darkness cracked his defense. Startled, he realized they were running out of time. He watched the sphere of energy and felt that there was already an unbelievable amount of energy stored in it. He still had some power left to transfer, but there was no more time.
It’ll have to do. We’d better hurry.

He turned urgently to his companions. “Right. Now we’ve got the power of the five medallions united,” he said. He watched the sphere before them seeming to grow with each of his heartbeats and giving out sparks of uncontrollable energy. “Just like Haradin, we must cast a spell using all this power.”

“But what spell can we use, Komir?” Sonea asked. “It’s not that the elemental spells we know aren’t strong enough, it’s just that they don’t seem to be working on this creature. It looks as though it’s immune to them.”

Aliana was staring into the gloom. “We need a great Ilenian spell to counter this evil,” she said. “But without Haradin, none of us…”

“Only a spell as great as Mother Steppe will have any effect on the Death Spirit of that Sorceress,” was Iruki’s comment.

Komir was thoughtful. They were right. They had the power, but not the spell. None of them was a great Mage, still less knew any Ilenian spells. Their protective sphere shook anew under the pressure of the gloom and cracked with a sound which froze his blood. Komir was staring into the darkness, and for a moment the face of the Sorceress took shape within it; the eyes of death were looking at him with a macabre smile of triumph. She knew she had him now. A moment more and the darkness would reach him.

“We have the power,” Sonea mused. “Perhaps we don’t need an Ilenian spell. Perhaps we already have what we need…”

Komir saw his sphere beginning to give way. “Perhaps?” he repeated sharply.

“I think I have it,” Sonea said. She was looking at the blackness which was beginning to seep through the cracks in Komir’s sphere. “If I’m not mistaken, the magic this entity is drawing from is Death magic. The five elements can’t do anything against it. Essentially, they can’t hurt it.”

The gloom was creeping into Komir’s sphere. “So? What else? Quick!” he snapped.

“What’s the opposite of Death magic?” Sonea asked.

The five Bearers exchanged urgent glances.

“Magic… of Life…?” ventured Iruki.

The little librarian blinked and smiled. “Exactly! And one of us has that Gift.”

“Aliana, Life!” Asti cried.

“Now I see…” Aliana said.

“Quick!” cried Komir.

“I don’t have any energy left!”

“You don’t need it! Use the sphere!”

“I’ll try!”

The deathly entity enveloped Komir from head to foot, swallowing him up in its darkness. And it began to devour the Norriel’s life. Komir gave a cry of agony. The desperate cry of someone whose vital essence is being robbed from him.

“Komir!” Aliana cried.

“Don’t… let anything… stop you!” he muttered. His medallion flashed briefly, but the gloom swallowed that up too. He tried to fight against the evil essence, but it was too powerful. His medallion was not enough to counter it.

Beside him Aliana was trying to conjure with all she had. Her Ilenian medallion shone around her neck, using the Healer’s inner energy, drawing from her Gift. She felt the presence of the gloom beside her, as if death herself were seeking the vital energy of everyone around to use it for itself. Komir was fighting with all his remaining strength. She had to help him! He was going to die! She tried to relax and breathed in deeply, trying to gain relief by sighing so as to regulate her breathing and allow herself to concentrate.
It’s Death Magic… Sonea is right, I feel it clearly… death…

Komir screamed and writhed. “She’s robbing me… of life…”

The Dark Lady laughed, sure of her victory, while her evil essence slowly took over the life of the Marked.

Aliana was in such anguish that the pressure in her chest stopped her from breathing. Luckily nobody broke the circle. All of them remained united, like the Bearers they were, and this, the courage of her companions, their support, gave her the calm she needed. Closing her eyes again, using all her willpower, she focused on her inner energy. She managed to breathe regularly and used her Gift. Healing was Life, and Life was what they needed to fight that deathly Evil. She projected her Gift from her hand, as she always did with the sick and wounded. She guided it to the small sphere, where the entire power of the five medallions was waiting. On receiving the Healing energy, the sphere began to spin on itself dizzyingly. Suddenly it rose above their heads and spun still faster, all the time radiating sparks and flaring discharges.

Aliana yelled at the top of her voice:

“Life!”

At her command the sphere exploded in a burst of immaculate and blinding light.

Komir fell to the ground.

The Bearers covered their eyes with their arms to protect them from the blinding light of Life.

The blast was unimaginable. Everything ceased for an instant. Time stopped. Mother Nature herself seemed to stop to watch the greatest display of power for thousands of years across the continent of Tremia.

A demonstration of power worthy of an Ilenian god.

Time started again. The light of Life reached the dark spirit of death. On contact with the Magic of Life the gloom vanished, annihilated. The explosion of light spread, forming a great circular wave. As the wave advanced, the darkness was destroyed.

“Noooooooo!” the Dark Lady howled. It was a rending cry of the profoundest rage, as if her innards were being drawn out.

The darkness was destroyed.

The wave reached Yuzumi and Isuzeni.

It hit them with all the power of the five Ilenian medallions. Isuzeni’s defense did not hold. They tried to defend themselves, but it was too much even for them and their enormous power. They tumbled to the ground.

The wave of the explosion vanished, and with it all of Yuzumi’s power.

For a moment there was only silence.

Seeing the Dark Lady lying on the ground, Sonea saw their opportunity. “She’s wounded,” she said. “We must act now!”

“Let’s put an end to the demon!” Iruki said.

“Yes!” cried Asti.

On her knees, exhausted, Aliana turned to Komir. It was as though her heart had been torn out of her chest. Komir was lying beside her, lost to consciousness, almost consumed, his hair completely white.

“Komir!” she cried in despair, and dropped to the ground beside him. The sight of his worn-out face broke her heart. She thought he was dead. Beyond all help.

The three other Bearers looked at them and wondered.

“We can’t do anything for him,” Sonea said. “Aliana is the only one who can. Let’s finish off the Sorceress before she recovers and it’s impossible. This is our only chance.”

“Komir…” Asti whispered. Her eyes were moist.

Iruki indicated the Dark Lady, who was already getting back on her feet. “We’ll all end up like him if we don’t hurry. Mother Steppe doesn’t give second chances.”

Asti nodded. They formed themselves into a line in front of Aliana and Komir, then put their hands to their medallions to cast a spell on the Dark Lady, who was already standing. There was blood in the corner of her mouth. Isuzeni stood with difficulty and stumbled, obviously hurt. The explosion had not killed them, but it had certainly damaged them and weakened their power considerably.

“All at once,” Sonea urged. “Hit her with all you’ve got! Now! Now!”

Iruki conjured a winter blizzard of lethal winds.

Asti conjured infernal flames which burnt everything.

Sonea conjured a storm of deadly thunder and lightning.

Aliana put her hands on Komir’s cheeks. She looked into his green eyes in his gaunt face and amid tears she realized then that the sharp pang she felt in her chest was not for the loss of a friend, nor for that of a companion. It was much more intense and heartrending: it was for the loss of the one her soul loved.

“Noooooooo!” she cried in despair. “You can’t die! You can’t leave me now!”

Frantically she gave him her last drops of Healing Power. She could not let him leave, not without trying to save him. Her remaining Healing energy entered Komir’s body.

She whispered in his ear: “I won’t let you leave. You sacrificed yourself for us, and I’ll do the same for you.” Aware of what she intended to do, she prayed to Mother Helaun and began to imbue Komir with her own vital energy. For him she would cross the line, break the Healers’ prohibition on using their own vital essence. “For you,” she murmured sweetly as she kissed his cracked lips.

The defensive barrier which protected the Dark Lady shone intensely. It was repelling the attacks.

“The Sorcerer has strengthened the barrier again,” Sonea pointed out. “He’s very powerful. We must keep up the pressure. His energy must be finite. He won’t be able to keep it up forever.”

“Ours is finite too, and it’s nearly spent.” Iruki pointed out.

“He’s hurt, he won’t hold out,” Sonea said confidently.

Iruki nodded. “It’s all or nothing. Hit them with everything, right down to the last drop of power! We have to empty out our souls, now or never! Come on!”

Like vengeful goddesses, righteous daughters of Mother Nature, the three bearers kept up their devastating spells against Yuzumi and Isuzeni, releasing the elements in all their elemental power: Fire, Air and Water in their most devastating form fell on the two sorcerers.

“I shall kill you all! Insignificant worms!” the Dark Lady screamed. She tried to conjure.

Suddenly the defensive barrier shone strongly. The Dark Lady turned and looked at Isuzeni with her eyes staring from their sockets.

“Isuzeni! No! No!” she cried desperately.

Isuzeni had stepped back and drawn the barrier on himself, leaving the Dark Lady unprotected.

“Betrayal! Noooooooo!”

The spells of the medallions fell directly on her and destroyed her last defenses. The Dark Lady gave a wail of infinite rage and hurt, then fell to the ground. Defeated.

Sonea raised her arm, and the three Bearers stopped their spells.

Isuzeni hobbled up to the wounded Dark Lady and took the Skull of Destiny from her hand. He looked her in the eye and said:

“Now I shall be the owner of my own destiny. I will never fear for my life again. Nor will I ever envy anybody else’s power.”

“You… serve… me…” mumbled Yuzumi with burning eyes. One half of her body was burnt, the other frozen.

“No longer. The power of destiny is mine now.”

“I shall… take…. over… your soul…”

“Let the Premonition come to pass! Let the Destiny of Death be fulfilled!”

The Sorcerer glanced at the Bearers, bowed, turned and went into the woods without looking back.

Suddenly all the living-dead which were feeding on the Dark Lady’s Power crumpled to the ground, never to rise again.

“We… we… did it…” Iruki stammered.

“I can’t believe it…” Sonea whispered. “We had practically no chance of surviving…”

“We live!” Asti cried triumphantly.

Cries of joy and victory burst out among the Rogdonian soldiers and Norriel warriors behind them.

The three turned, and it was then that they noticed something was wrong, very wrong.

Komir was kneeling beside Aliana. The Healer was lying on the ground with her eyes closed and her head on one side. Komir was shaking her by the shoulders, but she was not responding.

“Come back, Aliana! You can’t leave me now!” he was telling her. “You saved me! You can’t go!”

“No wake up?” Asti cried, frightened at Aliana’s lack of response.

Iruki knelt beside them. “By the steppes! Whatever happened?”

“She saved me… she brought me back when the darkness was taking me,” Komir murmured with moist eyes and trembling voice, “and by doing that, in her effort to put life back into me, her own life, she’s gone. She opened her eyes and at the same moment she swooned. I can’t wake her… I can’t… I don’t know what to do…”

“She… alive?” Asti asked. There were tears in her eyes.

Iruki examined her body in the way she had learned from the Medicine Woman of the Blue Clouds and discovered with horror that she could find no signs of life there.

“No, no, for heaven’s sake, it can’t be…” She checked a second time and shook her head.

“No understand… what happen?”

Sonea swallowed hard and watched Komir, whose gaunt face had recovered some vitality.