The Book of Deacon: Book 03 - The Battle of Verril (31 page)

A wave of red and a searing heat erupted from
Ivy as she shifted suddenly to anger. The force was such that the
nearmen nearest to her were thrown aside. As before, the gems soon
drank away the power, but it was enough. Myranda sprinted to the
nearest of the fallen mystics, the soldiers behind her at her
heels. She wrestled the wand from the spell caster. No sooner was
the item in her hand than its operation became clear to her. The
wand itself contained both the spells and the power to cast them.
It took the merest thought to set them free. It stood to reason, as
the merest thought was typically the best the nearmen could manage.
A spray of destructive black magic launched itself from the weapon,
bringing the soldiers to a very swift and somewhat messy end.
Myranda turned and leveled the weapon at the mystics, but the wand
was spent.

Myranda dropped to the ground as a new wave
of magic swept toward her. It splashed against the bars of the
cage, buckling and peeling back a handful of them, though not
severing any of the chains. Myranda took up one of the bars that
was broken free and scrambled to her feet. A swing of the makeshift
weapon, dripping with a brutality the young wizard hadn't thought
herself capable of, destroyed the nearest mystic. The fallen wand
made quick work of the rest. The room filled with a brief burst of
golden light as Ivy's mood shifted again.

“It is all right, Ivy, I'm here now. I am
going to get you out of this,” Myranda assured her as she
approached the anchor point of the first chain.

She raised the bar and brought its end down.
The link, little more than brittle crystal, shattered after a
second and third blow in a tiny burst of raw magic. As the chain
fell limp, Myranda moved down to the second. One by one the
restraints fell, each giving Ivy more and more room to struggle.
Before long the jerking chains were yanking themselves free, too
weak to restrain the desperate creature. When the last of them
shattered, Myranda squeezed through the break in the bars to help
her friend. With some difficulty, she pried the shackle clamped
like a muzzle about Ivy's mouth.

“Thank the gods you are here! I knew you
would come!” Ivy said, almost too happy to speak. “You have to get
this off of me! Quick!”

She tugged madly at an amulet affixed to the
neck shackle. It shone with the gold color of her aura, only
magnified. As she tore at it, it made a perceptible shift to
orange.

“Quick, quick, quick!” she cried with growing
desperation. “It makes me happy then mad then happy and if you
can't get it off then . . . augh . . .
Get away from
me!
”

The ranting creature pushed Myranda
forcefully through the gap in the bars and then held tight to them.
The gold was washed away in a torrent of red that mixed with
screams of Ivy's anger.

“I'll kill them! I'll kill them for doing
this to me!” she howled, an anger that was not her own surging
though her.

Myranda could feel the raw power washing over
her, and the anger prodded at her, trying to force itself into her
mind. She shook it away. The poor creature was lost in a torrent of
emotion, no doubt spared the full transformation that usually
accompanied such rage by the crystals that still tore hungrily at
her. Ivy released the bars and took the amulet firmly in her grasp.
The thin chain that held it in place snapped like a piece of twine.
She threw it to the ground and crushed it to powder beneath her
heel. The storm of emotions abated instantly.

Struggling to catch her breath, Ivy crawled
through the gap in the cage. Behind her she dragged easily her own
weight in crystal chains, tripping, tugging and pulling at them to
get them untangled from the bars. Myranda rushed to her and helped
her to her feet. The poor creature looked beyond weary, but the joy
and relief gave her strength enough to stand.

“I knew you'd come! Thank you so much for
saving me,” Ivy said. “Where are the others?”

“Still captured. I haven't found them yet,”
Myranda explained, guiding Ivy toward the door.

“You came to find me first! I knew you liked
me better than Ether. Do . . . do you hear that?” Ivy asked
suddenly.

Myranda stopped, prompting Ivy to do the
same. With the cacophony of jangling crystalline chains halted,
Myranda could hear a rhythmic pounding far ahead of them. The
nearmen outside were trying to get in. They had to hurry.

“Quickly. They are beating on the doors. We
need to reach . . . “ Myranda began, but Ivy interrupted.

“No, no. Not that. The scratching. It is on
the ceiling,” Ivy said, turning her keen eyes upward. “There!”

Myranda squinted, a chill gripping her spine
as she was just able to make out a bat-like creature nestled in a
corner, its unnatural eyes trained on her. It was a tiny beast Lain
had called a watcher, a spy for Demont. He knew they were here.

“Quickly!” Myranda urged, running for the
door the soldiers had thrown aside.

Ivy tripped and stumbled on the chains
dangling from her every limb, trying to keep up. It was no use. The
door slammed closed of its own accord. Instantly Myranda could feel
locking spells she could not hope to break fall into place about
every door in the room. At the same time, she felt two spells that
had been in place drop away. A slow, ominous creak drew the hero's
eyes. The doors marked I and II were swinging slowly open. Myranda
tried to will them closed again, but the crystals filling the room
drank away her spells even more quickly than those in the arena
had. With no other options, she rushed to the first door and threw
herself against it.

“Go! Find the entryway! I'll . . . “ Myranda
ordered.

“No! I'm not leaving without you! We do this
together!” Ivy interrupted, throwing herself against the other
door.

Myranda's eyes darted around the room as the
door shook and rattled against her, pounding blows growing stronger
with each passing moment. Ivy's eyes wandered too, a vague look of
recognition drifting across her face as she looked upon the room
from outside the cage for the first time. Her gaze locked on the
fourth door, open toward her. A shudder went through her.

“This . . . this is where it started. This is
where . . .
this
me was born,” she said distantly.

“Then these other doors . . . they must be
the other revisions. Demont's other attempts at creating a Chosen,”
Myranda surmised.

A sudden, powerful blow threw Myranda to the
ground, whipping the door open. The creature that stepped from
inside may as well have stepped right out of Myranda's childhood
dreams. He was a man, tall and strong. His face was the picture of
divine nobility, gleaming immaculate armor covering his impossibly
perfect form. He was precisely what Myranda had imagined the Chosen
would be. At the time the thought was enchanting. Now the sight
terrified her. Before she could recover, the warrior grasped Ivy by
a handful of her chains and threw her with a strength he should not
have had. The hero sailed across the room, colliding with the far
wall and dropping to the ground in a clattering mound of glassy
chains.

The door Ivy had braced opened to reveal a
second form in every way identical to the first, though cast in a
different role. In place of the shimmering armor there was a
flowing robe, and perched atop his head was a pointed wizard's cap.
It was precisely the sort she would have expected all wizards to
wear prior to meeting dozens who wore no such thing. The warrior
took up the two-handed sword, the wizard took up the staff, and the
twin creations turned to their foes.

To an outsider, the sides of good and evil
would have seemed obvious. On one side were two Adonises, each a
picture perfect specimen of heroism, naught but courage and
nobility in their eyes. On the other, a tattered woman with
desperation and fear plastered on her face and a beast still
weighed down by the chains of imprisonment, each at the end of
their rope and seeking escape at any price. Never had the
unlikeliness of the world's heroes been drawn into so sharp a
relief.

Ivy climbed to her feet noisily, brushing
shards of broken crystal from where they had bitten into her skin.
She sneered in pain, specks of red staining her white fur. The
warrior was stalking toward her. The chains wrapped around her legs
robbed her of her footing, leaving her struggling to steady
herself. All the while the warrior was drawing closer, his sword
raised and a look of triumph already in his eyes.

Myranda rushed to attack the warrior. With
her magic all but useless here, she was not entirely sure what she
was going to do when she reached him, but she had to do something.
Suddenly she felt a will tighten around her, like a vice crushing
her from all sides. Her pained eyes turned to the wizard. His staff
was held out, a look of concentration on his face. Myranda
struggled, pushing back with her mind but quickly having any
progress wicked away. How did their spells evade the crystal's
thirst when hers did not? Her mind struggled to analyze the spell
about her, trying to work out the possibilities. The increasingly
familiar sensation of a rib snapping quickly reminded her that now
was not a time for academics. A solution came to mind and was
immediately put to work.

The crystals tore the power from her spells
moments after they were released, but the results of the spells
would surely remain. All she had to do was start something the
crystals couldn't stop. A short, focused burst of concentration
coupled with a muttered arcane phrase conjured a short lived,
intense flash of flame. A moment later, the cloak of the wizard was
aflame. The will holding her in place wavered while he attempted to
extinguish himself, but it was enough. Myranda broke free from his
grip and launched herself toward him. The pair tumbled to the floor
with enough force to send the staff sliding across the room.

Ivy was trying to back away from the warrior,
but the long chains that still clung to her limbs and tail tripped
her relentlessly. They were at once underfoot, wrapped around
pillars, twisted around her legs, and entangling her arms. The fear
welled up inside of her, bringing with it a sense of panic that
further hampered her efforts. One of the chains attached to her
wrist had found its way beneath her feet. She struggled with
increasing desperation to free her hand. A moment later she took a
step to gain better footing, inadvertently releasing the chain. Her
arm snapped back with remarkable speed, trailing behind it the
length of crystal chain. It coiled through the air and lashed
across the warrior's face like a whip, shattering its endmost link
against his cheek. A few drops of black blood trickled from the
resulting wound, and a more stern look came to the warrior's face.
The ramifications of the event slowly worked their way into the
frightened creature's mind. The blue aura began to fade. A devilish
grin replaced it.

Ivy worked her arm in slow circles, drawing
more and more of the chain into the air. Each time the warrior
stepped near enough, she widened the circle briefly and a lash of
jagged crystal pushed him back. Now her other arm did the same.
Long tendrils of brilliantly glowing chain drew intricate designs
in the air. As she worked more and more of the chain into carefully
timed circles, those that remained became less tangled. This was a
rhythm. This she could understand. Minute, graceful movements
tugged and pulled chains from her legs, tail, and neck into the
air. Now she was an indistinct white form in the center of a
radiant blur of chains, bending, twisting, spinning, leaping. It
could only be described as a dance. The complex pattern of motion
that moved the whole of her body finally managed to keep every last
link of chain airborne, hissing through the air fully extended and
somehow not clashing or tangling.

Myranda scrambled for the staff, ignoring the
sharp pain in her abdomen. This was a nearman, and thus the staff
was his source of power. She had to keep it from him. He grasped at
her, catching her ankle in a punishing grip, but it was too late.
Her fingers closed around the weapon. Instantly the many
enchantments of the staff seemed to insinuate themselves into her
mind, forcing her to become aware of them. Spells that did not so
much need to be cast as selected. Most were harsh and excessive by
Myranda's standards, but desperate times have a way of adjusting
one's standards. She unleashed the same vicious, vice-like spell
that had been used against her, instantly rendering the wizard
immobile and struggling for breath. With virtually no will to
resist with, the wizard was at her mercy.

Victory was at hand, but unfortunately, a
sudden and rather terrifying realization made it an afterthought.
The gems that had been leeching away all of her strength had been
treated to a veritable feast since Myranda's arrival, and many were
full nearly to bursting. Deep black scars on Bagu's face and a
large jagged hole in the hallway of the arena stood as evidence of
the destructive potential of
one
of these gems, and now
there were dozens. The light was growing more intense by the
moment. Myranda thrust the struggling wizard with all of the
spell's might. In her hands, it was considerable. As she hurried to
the most threatening of the gems his form collided with the bars of
the cage and dropped motionlessly, but not lifelessly, to the
ground.

A healthy dose of golden light was shining
out from the swirl of brilliant blue chains, feeding their
radiance. Ivy's flawless motions propelled the azure tendrils with
astounding speed and accuracy. She advanced slowly at first,
bringing the tips of the chains into striking distance link by
link. The warrior raised his sword defensively. The overfilled
crystals burst on contact, showering him with faintly glowing
shards and scalding him with intense energy. As the chains grew
shorter, and she grew more bold, Ivy swept closer still. The
strikes became stronger and more frequent. Now the warrior was
backing away.