Hilda - The Challenge (56 page)

The great sorcerer made his wand disappear.
His face displayed anger. "Let's get this started then, and let's
get it over with. I do not want to be here."

William held back another remark. He had
prodded the feelings of the man enough, and it was obvious to him
that Hilda did not feel good about this.

The two judges asked Hilda and William if
they were ready also, and they confirmed that. "Very well. We will
proceed to the gates."

The small group started walking. As they
approached the solid iron gates, the two doors started opening. It
was amazing to see them move, without a sound, as if an invisible
giant were opening them.

The judges had their brooms brought to them.
"We officially announce the challenge that the great sorcerer
Lamador has called against Grimhilda, the witch. As Lamador has
agreed, the man William will be allowed to enter the challenge as
well, at the side of Grimhilda. Are there questions about
this?"

Nobody raised a hand or a voice.

"The challenge will go on to the death. This
is mentioned in the original challenge. The Great Lamador has
graciously stated to spare the life of the man William."

The three challenge-fighters did not twitch a
muscle.

"The people in the challenge are not allowed
to carry their brooms inside the walls of the labyrinth. There are
no other rules. If all this is clear, the people in the challenge
will now enter the labyrinth. The judges will take position over
the labyrinth. As soon as the judges are ready, a red flash will
signify the start of the challenge."

That was all that had to be said. Bregan and
Nultos mounted their brooms and lifted off, as the three
contestants slowly walked into the area that made up the
labyrinth.

It did not look anything like the previous
times that Hilda and William had visited.

Lamador started running away from them, down
the corridor that was straight ahead.

Hilda took William's hand and they walked to
the left, which was the only alternative. They kept their eye on
the sky as far as that was visible. The red flash would tell them
the challenge was on. Hilda popped up her wand. William followed
her example.

"Sweetwitch, I love you."

"I love you too, William."

Then there was a bright flash that set the
entire labyrinth aflame for a moment. The challenge had
started.

Lamador did not waste time. That was
something that became clear to Hilda and William very quickly. Big
rainclouds formed over the labyrinth and a solid wall of water was
streaming down. They quickly cast protection around themselves so
they did not get soaked, but the water around them was rising at an
alarming rate.

William waved his wand and a small rubber
boat came into existence. He lifted Hilda into it. "Sit and don't
do funny things unless you want to fall out." He got into the boat
himself.

Hilda stared at the dinghy and touched it.
"This is shiny! This is something from your crazy world, isn't
it?"

"It is. There's something good everywhere,"
he grinned. "Now, what will we do next? We'll have to find Lamador
before he finds us."

Hilda nodded. "Let's first see if we can play
a bit here." She looked at the flood of water that was lifting them
higher and higher. "Right..."

William had no clue what was right in their
situation, but he trusted Hilda.

The wicked witch had located the side of
their boat where the water was rising slower. She was convinced
that was the side where Lamador would be to keep dry. "How do you
move this thing? That way."

William used his wand to make the boat move,
as Hilda gave him directions. Unfortunately their path was suddenly
blocked by a wall that had moved itself.

"Crappedy crap," Hilda muttered. "That is not
good." She threw magic around and all the water disappeared, making
their boat flop down to the ground.

"Holy Bejeebus," William said as they got up.
"You can do that?!" He was seriously shocked at the amount of water
that had vanished. This cast an entirely new light on the powers of
the witch.

From somewhere an explosion sounded, and that
somewhere wasn't even very far away.

"Looks like we are not far away from
Lamador," William remarked.

"True," Hilda nodded, "but with this
everywhere" -she patted the wall- "it makes little difference."

A wall started moving. The couple turned to
see what was revealing itself in the new corridor. To their
surprise they saw Lamador standing there, his back towards them. He
was obviously oblivious of the wall moving. Through the bond, Hilda
managed to orchestrate a mutual action. Raising their wands, a ball
of vicious energy and fire emerged and shot at Lamador.

Tremendous blasts and fireworks flew as the
ball hit the shielding that the sorcerer erected around himself at
the last moment. The impact of the ball was so huge though, that it
threw him to the ground and made him roll over a few times. As the
sparkles of the ball dissipated, Lamador got up and looked at the
two who still had their wands aimed at him. For a moment he looked
as if he did not understand what his eyes told his brain. Then it
dawned on the great sorcerer. "You..."

Lightning fast he drew his wand and started
weaving a giant spiderweb between himself and the magical couple,
his piece de resistance being a nine foot spider that crawled from
the web and started its run towards Hilda and William.

William tried to destroy the web, but Lamador
had the advantage of experience, he was just too fast in spouting
his magic.

Hilda fired at the spider. She slowed it down
but was unable to stop the approach of the beast. It had long extra
arms protruding from its ugly skull-like head. At the end of the
arms were big, sharp hooks that moved independently from each
other. A slash of either one of them would leave very uncomfortable
marks. It would also make for cut off limbs.

William joined Hilda in firing at the animal,
which then at least stopped it. "Make a pit!", he yelled at Hilda,
who reacted immediately. She aimed her wand at the rocky floor in
front of them and magicked a pit twenty feet deep and twenty feet
wide. William then stopped blocking the spider's approach. The
beast shot forward as there was no more resisting force and skidded
into the pit. As it was still falling, William aimed his wand and
made large steel spears stick up from the bottom. The spider was
impaled on at least a dozen of them.

By the time Hilda had slashed through the
spider's web, Lamador had disappeared from the corridor already.
The end of the corridor had sealed itself off by that time, so
there was no other option for the couple than to turn back.

"I think this is the moment where we should
try to bring our brooms in, Hilda."

She nodded. "Would give us the advantage of
speed, indeed. Let's try it, but not for too long. We have to keep
moving, before Lamador plays another trick on us."

They summoned their brooms, holding up their
hands. The two brooms shot up from the tent where they had been
waiting. Once they reached the walls, their speed dropped to a mere
crawl as the magic around the labyrinth was more forceful and thick
during the challenge.

The floor under their feet started
shaking.

"Crappedy crap, William, they're not coming
through. We have to do something." Hilda pointed her wand at the
floor and blasted magic into it, diverting the tremors so they were
not hindered by them. "Come, the mess is coming from there."

William followed Hilda as she ran towards the
place where the artificial earthquake seemed to originate from. The
closer they came, the more the floor behaved as a rollercoaster. It
made it almost impossible for them to walk on; it looked as if
someone was shaking the ground like a carpet.

William grabbed Hilda's arm and pulled her
into a side corridor where the ground was unaffected by the violent
shaking, even when the walls were tilting dangerously because of
the strange movement of the surface. "Brooms," he said, and they
summoned their brooms once more.

The brooms inched their way through the
almost slime-like magical layers.

"Stop!", Hilda exclaimed. The floor they were
on had started to shake also, so it was time to evacuate that
temporary shelter as well. Jumping from one spot to the other, they
left the corridor. The large area they reached was not moving.
Neither were they. Lamador had cast a spell to solidify the air
there, and the magical couple was caught inside it.

"Can you hear me?", William asked.

"I can. I wish I could move though," Hilda
replied.

"Yes. This is bad stuff." William pained his
brains, trying to remember anything from the physics books he had
read about air. "The only way I know to make air this compact is to
put it under a lot of pressure. That means he must be using a lot
of power to keep this thing in place. Which in turn means he is
quite occupied with this. I guess there are two things we can
try."

"William. What are you talking about?"

"Physics and action versus reaction."

"I would suggest that you think of a fast
reaction, because on the far end of this thing I see fire." Hilda
struggled to get her wand in position. It wore her out but she
managed it somehow. With a tremendous show of force the witch
created water that was forming a shield between William and
herself, and the blue and red flames that slowly were approaching
as they slowly ate their way through the heavily compressed
air.

"Hilda, you're brilliant!"

"I know, but you have lousy timing finding
that out now! Do something!"

"Get that waterscreen as thick as you
can."

"Oh, great, thank you for the vote of
confidence. Do you have any idea how hard this is in this
situation?"

William started to help her generate the
waterscreen, which made quite a difference. When the screen was
half a yard thick, he said: "Now let's fight fire with fire."

"What?"

"I'm starting a fire on the other side of the
waterscreen and will push that away from us. If you can spare a
push or a spark, please help me," said William as he ignited the
air beyond the waterscreen.

"Be careful, William, please, don't boil my
screen unless you want to cook us!"

William fought the pressure of the air as the
witch joined forces with him. The fire caught and they convinced it
to head towards the fire that was coming their way. The waterscreen
started shimmering as the layer that was closest to their fire
began to heat up.

"Crappedy crap, William, I love you but I am
not sure why at this moment!" Hilda sensed, through the bond, that
he was struggling.

William pushed and fed the fire, as he also
tried to generate a layer of ice on the waterscreen.

"You do the fire, I'll freeze! Great plan!",
Hilda tried to scream as she pumped magic into the waterscreen to
make it as cold as possible. It came out a loud mutter but that was
fine.

Their actions worked. The counter-fire
approached Lamador's flames that suddenly stopped burning as there
was nothing more to burn for it.

With a simple push, Hilda made the iced-over
waterscreen fall away. It hit the ground and shattered in one
thousand and seventy-three pieces.

The thin layer of compressed air was not a
big problem now as that was already dissolving because of the magic
they had been slamming through it, so less than a minute later they
stepped out of the also dissolving block of air.

"Hey, Lamador!", Hilda yelled out. "Nice
try!"

A few hundred yards away sat a sorcerer,
panting. He felt betrayed. The man William was not a mere ordinary.
This air-trick should have done them in. Instead it had worn him
out more than he had expected as there had been far more resistance
than he had assumed. And they had gotten out of it alive.

"Too bad that these walls block every magical
person from locating other magic," Hilda said. They were summoning
their brooms again, and again there was not much movement in these
objects as they tried to get over the wall.

"It should not be too easy, really," a voice
said. Both Hilda and William looked around to where it came
from.

"Gurthreyn??"

"At your humble service. I wonder if you
would like some tea or another refreshment."

"That's very kind of you, but we're in the
middle of a challenge to the death," Hilda said.

"Oh yes, I know. You told me a few weeks ago.
I am sure we can create enough of a diversion to make sure your
adversary will not miss you." The magician smiled and the three of
them were in the large open area again that they had been in
before. There were three chairs, a few tables laid out with all
kinds of food and drink. "Do take something and relax for a
moment."

Flabbergasted, the magical couple walked
around the table. Hilda took some fresh fruit, William settled for
tea and a small cake. Then they all sat down.

"You know, somehow this feels like cheating,"
said Hilda as she was munching on her grapes. "We should be
fighting, not sitting here."

Gurthreyn smiled. "I am sure you feel like
that, Grimhilda, but in fact you are now doing what the adversary
did constantly. He is not only using his own powers against you. He
uses the magic of at least six others also, and he is draining
them. A few of them are so far gone that they will not survive. And
there is no way to reverse this or save them after all."

In the labyrinth, Lamador was doing heavy
duty battle with two copper-coloured dragons that blocked both ways
from the corridor he was in. Nothing he did made any difference,
his magic just seemed to bounce off the two dragons that sat there,
looking at him, taunting him with their silence.