Quest for the Moon Orb: Orbs of Rathira (54 page)

Zakiel chuckled.  “You are forgiven, Sister.  What shall we do about the ring, Karma?” 

“It is not necessary to do anything at the moment,” Karma said.  “They’ve already found us.  Besides, Kapia cannot throw your Mother’s ring into the sea.”

“If we destroy her, we destroy her magic,”
Nikura said. 

Karma repeated that bit of information to Zakiel and Karma.

“Then let us destroy her,” Kapia said.

They watched as the flying demon reached them and circled overhead, once, twice, three times, getting lower with each pass, revealing that it had hundreds of tiny legs beneath it, more like a centipede than a snake.  They tensed, wondering why Marene was taking so long. 

Karma had just decided that perhaps she’d changed her mind about taking them all on when the demon finally landed at the edge of the rock, far enough away from them to give Marene and Saigar a chance to dismount before being attacked.  As soon as the demon touched the rocks, several long, clawed arms shot up out of the water and wrapped around the back end of it.  The demon roared and began flapping it’s wings in an attempt to fly away, but Karaken’s grip was too strong, his weight too much for the demon and it slipped, scratching and screaming, into the water.

The brief struggle lasted long enough for Marene and Saigar to leap free, and for a moment they were out of sight on the far side of the demon.  When the demon went into the water, they got their first good look at Marene, and though none of them showed it, they were all stunned by her appearance.

Her once beautiful face had been transformed into a rude parody of itself.  Her skin was rough and gray, her large eyes red, her teeth long, pointed daggers that deformed her perfect mouth.  Her hands had become scaly claws that were the furthest thing from human.  Karma wondered if she were possessed by a demon to have such obvious physical changes, but a quick glance at Saigar proved that the only change in his appearance was the dead black pits of his eyes.

“She wields demon arts
,” Nikura explained. 
“She allows dark magic to reside within her.  It does not take long for that which is on the inside to show on the outside.”

“Hello, Marene,” Karma said, her voice light and casual, as though they were meeting in the palace garden instead of a barren rock in the middle of the ocean. “How...interesting...to see you.  Have you been getting enough sleep lately?  You look a bit tired.”

Marene bared her teeth and hissed.  “You,” she spat, her voice no longer soft and cultured, but harsh and gravely.  “This is your fault!  You ruined everything!”

“I’m glad to hear it,” Karma said with a smile. 

“I will destroy you, all of you,” Marene said.  “Then I will take the Moon Orb and give it to the demons.  In return, I will be Queen of Isiben.”

Karma chuckled softly.  “There are a few problems with your plan, Marene,” she said. 

“My plan is perfect,” Marene said.  “There is nothing you can do to stop me.”

“I don’t have to stop you,” Karma replied.  “You’ve already made a mess of things all by yourself.”

“What do you mean?” Marene asked, her red eyes narrowing with suspicion.

“First, you came too soon,” Karma replied.  “The Moon Orb has not been claimed, so you cannot reach it to destroy it.  Second, when your demon friends invade Rathira, they will destroy everyone who is not demon.  You will be queen of nothing.  If they let you live at all.”

While Karma and Marene had been talking, Saigar began stalking slowly toward Zakiel.  Both men held a short sword in each hand as they prepared to do battle.  Marene had been inching closer to Karma as she spoke, but she held no weapon.  Karma inched back cautiously as she wondered what Marene was up to.  Suddenly, the sea began to boil up as Karaken and the serpent demon, locked together in battle, rose to the surface for a moment before sinking back beneath the water again.

It was enough of a distraction for Marene to toss something at Nikura.  Karma saw the quick motion out of the corner of her eye, and she snapped her head around to see a bag of dust break against Nikura’s side.  The Sphin immediate froze.

“She got me with a stone spell,”
Nikura said to Karma with disgust. 
“I’m afraid it will be several minutes before I am able to throw it off.”

“Will you be all right?”
Karma asked.

“Yes,”
Nikura replied. 
“Keep your eye on her and do not think of me.”

Karma’s eyes were already on Marene, and she was furious.  This had just become even more personal than it had been.

Karma sent more energy into the Ti-Ank, then sent it out toward Marene, trying to determine if it would see Marene as a demon and let her use the powers of Rathira.  After a few moments she realized that the Ti-Ank was not reacting to Marene as though she were a demon.  She was still too human. 

She poured energy into the Ti-Ank and directed it Marene, sending a beam of power at the other woman in an attempt to put her to sleep since that was all she could do.  Marene wavered for a moment, then threw it off.  Karma hid her surprise.  Marene’s magic was stronger than she’d suspected. 

Karma attacked, running forward the few steps between them and bringing the lower end of the staff up in a short, hard arc, slamming it hard against Marene’s ribs.  Karma heard a sharp crack as she used her momentum to bring the upper end around in a blow aimed for Marene’s head. 

Marene got one arm up in time to block the head hit, but the staff hit her arm hard enough that Karma heard a snap.  Marene barely seemed to notice as she reached out with her other hand and wrapped her long, clawed fingers around it.  Karma jerked the staff hard in an attempt to break her grip, but Marene’s new demon-like hands were too strong.  Karma tightened her own grip on the staff, dropped down into a squat, then swung one leg out and around, sweeping Marene off of her feet.  Marene refused to release the staff and fell forward over Karma.  The two women struggled against each other, Karma on her back, Marene over her, neither of them strong enough to dislodge the other’s grip on the staff.  It was a stand-off.  Whichever of them lasted the longest, would win.

When Karma attacked Marene with the staff, Kapia hurried forward, her own staff held ready.  Unfortunately she couldn’t get behind Marene without getting too close to the battle now going on between Zakiel and Saigar. 

The rapid clash of metal against metal as the two men fought caught her attention for a moment.  She had watched the Hunters spar during their journey, and knew enough about combat now to see that Saigar and Zakiel were evenly matched, though the Tigren markings on Zakiel’s face told her the Tigren was close to the surface.  She hoped that would be enough to offset any extra strength Saigar got from his demon. 

She wished she could help her brother, but knew she would only get in the way if she tried.  A quick glance at Nikura told her he was still unable to move after whatever Marene had done to him, then she turned her attention back to Karma. 

She’d looked away for no more than a couple of seconds, but when she looked back she saw that Marene had one hand on the Ti-Ank, and was over Karma who was on her back.  Kapia desperately wanted to help, but none of the moves Karma had taught her would work in a situation like this. 

Then she remembered what Karma had told her in the beginning, before she’d learned to use the staff properly.  She smiled grimly, shifted the staff in her hands so that she was holding it closer to one end, stepped forward and swung it around with all of her might directly at Marene’s head.

Kapia had become much stronger than she realized from her weeks of workouts with Karma.  The thick, solid wood of the staff hit Marene’s head so hard that it not only crushed her skull, it also broke her neck.  She was dead before she even knew she was in danger, and her body dropped like a rock on top of Karma.  Kapia lowered her staff and grabbed hold of Marene’s shoulder, pulling her off of Karma with one hard jerk.

“Thanks, Kapia,” Karma said.

“My pleasure, Sister,” Kapia said with a grin, very pleased with herself.  “You were right, this thing works really well as a big stick.”

Karma smiled and got to her feet, panting slightly as she looked around to assess the situation.  She was just in time to see one of Zakiel’s swords sink deeply into Saigar’s chest.  A fraction of a second later, the other sword parted the
cin-sahib
’s head from his neck with such force that it flew into the sea.  Zakiel turned slightly and kicked Saigar’s chest hard, freeing his sword and sending the body into the water as well. 

“How are you doing?” Karma asked Nikura.

“Almost there,”
Nikura replied, his voice sounding strained.  Zakiel turned toward Karma and Kapia, his eyes raking over both of them, searching for injuries.  Finding none, he wrapped his arms around them and held them tightly, so relieved to find them both unharmed that his knees felt weak. 

“We did good,” Karma said, patting her husband gently as she shared a smile with Kapia that he couldn’t see.  “And Nikura can move again.”

They turned to look at Nikura who shook his head and sat down, then raised one paw to his mouth and began licking it. 

“Nikura, I thought that Marene’s magic would end with her death,” Kapia said as she watched him.

Nikura froze, his startled eyes flying to Karma’s. 

“Crap,” Karma said softly as she glanced down at Marene’s body.  The woman was dead.  Absolutely and completely dead.  There was no mistaking that.

“What then?” she asked Nikura.

At that moment the serpent demon shot out of the water, pulling itself free from one last orange tentacle.  It had numerous deep wounds all over its long, sinuous body, but it was alive.  Worse, it no longer had the same snakelike head they had seen when it arrived.  Now, it had a gigantic, green, scaly version of Marene’s head with red eyes, long sharp teeth, and dozens of writhing snakes on its head in place of hair.

“Okay, that’s just nasty,” Karma said as they all watched the thing struggle to fly with one broken wing, and one that was torn nearly off.  Its thrashing got it closer to the island, and from there it wiggled its way onto the rocks with help from it’s thousands of tiny legs.

“She has possessed the demon,”
Nikura said, thoroughly shocked for once. 

“That’s a new one huh?” Karma asked as she sent energy into the Ti-Ank, building it as fast as she could.

“I never imagined such an abomination to be possible,”
Nikura replied.

“You really need to learn to look on the bright side of things,” Karma said lightly as she stepped away from Zakiel and Kapia so that she had a clear path to the Marene demon...thing.

“Bright side?” Zakiel asked as he pulled Kapia further back from the thrashing horror.  “And what, my darling wife, is the bright side here?”

“There are actually two bright sides,” Karma said.  “First, Marene is still trying to get used to her new body, so she’s a bit distracted at the moment.  And second, the Ti-Ank sees
this
version of Marene as wholly demon.”

Karma had built the energy into the Ti-Ank until she could no longer contain it.  Then she aimed it at Marene and released it. 

A blinding flash of light shot from the Ti-Ank and fully encompassed the Marene demon for a long, endless moment.  Marene froze, her blood red eyes fixed on Karma, wide with fear and hatred.  She opened her mouth, displaying hundreds of teeth and a black forked tongue that vibrated with the force of her scream.  Then the Marene demon exploded from within, sending bits of flesh, blood and bone flying high into the air and out over the sea.

“Yuck,” Kapia said after the remains of the demon stopped raining down on them.  “Disgusting.”

“Look on the bright side, Sister,” Zakiel said with a grin.

Kapia glanced down at herself with a grimace, then arched a brow at her brother.  “Which is?”

“Karma was right about there being a bright side.”

Kapia laughed, then threw her arms around Zakiel in a quick hug before turning to Karma and hugging her as well. 

“Let’s go to the other side of this rock and see if the water over there is clean enough for us to rinse off in,” Karma suggested. 

“Good idea,”
Nikura said and took off at once.  They heard a splash as he leapt into the water long before they reached the far side.  They all joined him without hesitation, anxious to rid themselves of the remains of the demon Marene.

“What about Karaken?” Zakiel asked as they climbed out of the water a few minutes later.

Karma paused for a moment to listen, but heard nothing.  “Nikura?” she asked.

“He’s all right, mostly,”
the Sphin replied. 
“Marene stunned him with some dark magic, forcing him to release her.  It’s probably one reason she was so slow to react once she escaped.”

“Why won’t Karaken answer me then?” Karma asked.

“I’m sure I don’t know,”
Nikura said. 
“He’s a fish, remember?  In general, I prefer to eat fish, not talk to them.”

Karma rolled her eyes and turned to Kapia.  “I guess the next thing we need to do is get the Moon Orb.”

Kapia nodded.  “At the top?”