“MAIOR FORTIOR!”
She struck the ground underneath her with a mighty kick – and with a force that seemed to shimmer the air around her, made a swift gathering motion with her arms that seemed to force all the energies into her embrace.
Instead of striding forward like the Dance of the Sparks to set the air or objects alight, Katherine made a precise spiral sideways, rotating her body, her battle uniform and armor billowing lightly with the whirls of her body. As she finished her turn and skidded to a stop with her right leg sweeping behind her and her left palm stretched up towards the sky as if to catch a falling sphere, a spark of orange lightning and fire burst into being just above it, sizzling the air and forcing the darkness around her to recoil. The sphere of fire which she held just beyond her palm was smaller in size compared to the fireball she made during the demonstration last summer, but this one now was characterized by occasional rumbles and long-reaching sparks that arced and zapped away at the stony floors and the pillars; combined with the radiance it shone in all directions, there was little doubt that this new flame that Katherine could muster with technique was more powerful than that which was conjured by talent alone.
Without wasting a beat, Katherine effortlessly strode into the next step along the dancephrase, sweeping, ducking, spiraling with grace that made the robes of her battle uniform and armor flare out and her sharp fringe tail along in her rotations, in what seemed to be a combination of the Dance of the Sparks with an elevated and elegant movement; all the while, the radiant sphere of orange fire gathered radius and mass, consuming the energies fed to it by Katherine, beginning to blister and roar on its own accord that began to drum on the kismets’ ears. Abrupt movements of each step of the dance seemed to shunt and force the energies of Katherine’s surroundings into the pool that Katherine was making – a pool of immutable flame – and each of the kismets noticed as the damp rivulets of dew between the cracks of stone at their feet began to freeze.
Katherine was exerting greater and greater effort now – Elwin could see the glistening drops of sweat on her forehead as it reflected the brilliance of the fire, the Apprentice’s Flame, which she imprisoned above the palm of her hand. Her battle-uniform flared and swept and cleaved the air with its folds of Celendir wool and gleaming metal, and as she gathered speed, faster, faster, and faster, repeating the dancesteps over and over to compress even more force into the flame, the air around her began to glow and shimmer with sizzling heat.
A kick downwards. An uppercut upwards. A slide to the right and center, then up again, then down, fusing the staccato-like movements of the Dance of the Sparks with rotational movements that pulled and compressed even more energy, Katherine manifested into reality the Dance of the Apprentice’s Flame, and as the rumbling ball of fire grew to the size of a colossal melon – and clawed and hissed and snapped at Katherine – she closed her palms shut and punched in the direction of the boulder.
“DESTROY!”
The mighty sphere of fire released its pent-up force sideways like a cannonshot, driving its blunt force into the mountainous pile of ancient rock. For a brief second, all was white; as the rebounded explosion issued forth, it nearly swept Elwin, Isaac, and Mirai off their feet, stumbling them backwards several yards. A sound like thunder reverberated off the pillars, the walls, and rippled across the canal-rivers of the subterranean skies of the grand central hall in the city below earth, hearkening the slumbering air to wakefulness once more.
It took around half a minute for the dust and crumbling debris to finally settle.
But...
“...Damn it,” muttered Katherine, tightening her fist.
The mountainous assemblage of rubble remained as sturdy as ever, the only difference now numerous cracks and fissures running across the faces of several boulders. They seemed to grow cartoonish pairs of arms and wag their finger at Katherine, bemused.
“All that, and I’ve only given them a facelift,” Katherine grumbled. She looked at the boulders, lips pursed, flexing her sore muscles and sputtering Quan – the Dance of the Apprentice’s Flame was formally taught next year, when students entered their Vianen, so if anything, it should have been able to conquer a measly obstacle presented to a mere Fradihta... what was worse was that she expended quite a substantial sum of strength in her demonstration just now, and if she had to do it again, she wouldn’t be able to conjure a fireball near as big enough as the one before. She had to wait at least an hour if she wanted to do so.
The kismets were not in the best of conditions. Their rations were beginning to dwindle, and the darkness combined with the stale air – on top of a dearth of proper sleep or rest – meant that each minute and hour they spent was time which took them further away from good strength and spirits. If they couldn’t handle the rubble now, then there was no guarantee they could in the coming hours or perhaps even days. Furthermore, that was discounting the high likelihood that they would also run into any of the other three squadras here searching for the same thing – Lucian’s squadra especially – as the clock ticked. Whatever technique they had, they needed to employ it here and now to open the path towards the staff.
But just how? How could they dislodge and power their way through something which exceeded the techniques of an individual Fradihta?
An individual Fradihta, Elwin wondered.
“Wait...” he mumbled, recalling his Tanaar’s words during the Festival of Flowers, where they came together to cook something new. Katherine cocked her head, expectant.
Do not tremble because the spear you behold is too small to use, Professor Aionia had said. Rally instead your heart, and bring together your friends as you’ve done today. Don’t be afraid to cook.
“Hold on,” said Elwin, striking a particular memory from long ago, striding towards Katherine and the boulders. “I think – I think we’ve got it. See these fissures?” he commented, motioning his kismets closer. “It’s exactly what we need to break them.”
“How?” asked Isaac, feeling the gashes struck across the giant rocks, a few inches wide but several yards long.
“The same principle that splits giant boulders in deserts.”
“Which principle?” Isaac asked, curious.
“Water turning to ice.”
“Aha!” exclaimed Mirai, slapping her knee.
“We’re going to have to step back a lot farther this time,” declared Elwin, motioning the kismets away. “I’m going to fill each of these fissures with water. And I’m going to freeze them all instantaneously. Doing so will crack the boulders open like we’re cracking melons. Mirai, could you –”
“Already got it,” Mirai interjected, taking his side, carving out a deeper swath of fissures, her eyes closed in effort. “I can feel it. The lattices of the rocks. It’s the weakest here, here, and...” she remarked, groaning with exertion, “here. I think this should do it. This is the biggest one, and when this one cracks, all the others will tumble down and roll away. It’s not like the boulders are held together by glue.”
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“Thanks!” Elwin nodded, flexing his arms and cracking his neck. “This should work in theory. But if it doesn’t, then...”
“Then I come in,” said Katherine. “I’ve still got what it takes. I’ll hurl a ball of flame at the ices so I can trigger a phreatic explosion. It’s not going to be as big as the one before it, but it should be just enough.”
“And in this way, we put all of our Mahamastra together! Perhaps this was the solution all along!” Mirai exclaimed.
Now or never, they all thought. Elwin took his battle-stance.
“MAIOR FORTIOR!” he roared, hearkening his Quan and Asha to the voices of each other.
Help me pull, would you?
His Quan replied. Oho, been a while since you’ve spoken to me directly, hmm? Thought you’d never ask! Here goes. The disk of his Quan burst to life in a radiant cross of light.
“Rhythm of the Dewdrops!” Elwin whispered, looking for the golden weaves of ORI that he could pull taut. He reached out to the trembling vapors in the air, and lassoed them all into a thin stream overhead, splattering them into the fissures in calculated steps – holding them and forcing them all to occupy their part in the cracks between the boulders, lest they drip to gravity, Elwin gathered more and more vapor until one could see the mountainous pile of rubble streaked with paints of shimmering blue.
“Isaac,” puffed Elwin, heaving with effort to sustain his concentration upon hundreds of cracks all brimming with water, “Can you pull me back as soon as the boulders break? Wouldn’t want to become a meat pie under.”
“Already got you,” answered Isaac, his stance lowered and his Quan at the ready to yell AVAFT, the sona for ‘back!’. He was ready before Elwin had begun.
“Alright, this should be it,” said Elwin, his voice tense with the utmost exertion.
Three, he commanded to his Quan.
Two,
One,
FREEZE!
In an instant, he pulled taught the carpet of weaves that held the molecules of water, silencing them of their rhythm and locking them into lattices of ice.
A sound like a cannonshot sallied forth from the largest boulder. Then another on top, another at the bottom, another that was squashed between the sides, until the entire hall in the dark came alive in sharp cracks and bangs that seemed like whips were being thrown and metal was being struck.
But –
Still nothing, as the boulders seemed to grin at them with their icy teeth.
And before Elwin, Isaac, and Mirai registered the scene and prepared for what more must be done, Katherine’s ball of flame pierced the silence; with her Dance of the Apprentice’s Flame once more, taking care to do it far away lest she melt Elwin’s ices, she imbued the fireball with a roaring clarion cry.
“Step back,” said Katherine, as Isaac yelled AVAFT! to pull everyone back to range. Katherine hurled her sphere of flame towards the largest boulder, towards that largest fissure filled with ice – and as the sizzling boulette of air struck the frozen pinion, the ice exploded into expanding steam.
C – R – A – C – K !
With a deafening peal and scream, the boulder ripped into two; and breaking under its own weight and the mass of the rocks around it, it cracked into another half, then another half, the impact of friction and movements letting the ice of other boulders break free of their chains, crumbling them.
The entire hall seemed to shake and reverberate like under the auspices of an earthquake as the rocks and stones of numerous sizes began to roll and tumble, their mass no longer supported by the ones below.
Isaac yelled AVAFT! again to herald the wind backwards, bringing the kismets back to a safer distance; they ducked behind the giant pillars as the rolling stones crashed into them, hewing out several intricately-carved patterns on the columns, all the while debris and smoke with the caustic scent of cordite peppered the air. The kismets held their ears to shield them from the cacophony of noise, seemingly amplified in their passage across the walls of the hall; but they wordlessly nodded to each other with relieved grins, for however great this obstacle of the professors’ making appeared at the beginning, they were utterly triumphant over it. Headmaster Astinel’s Staff would now be theirs.
Gradually, the chaos subsided under that cavernous subterranean city. The kismets peeked out from behind the pillar to assess the aftermath – apart from a few places to the sides of the gate, the entire frontal path to the gate was now adequate for traversal.
Each of the kismets clambered over the remains of basalt and debris, helping each other up by their hands, summiting the small and haphazard hill of rocks and then descending again.
The gate, composed of corrugated metal nearly two yards thick, towered before their figures. The kismets heaved it open, Quans blazing, letting the creaking of metal and ancient stone hinges carry out across the hall, signaling their entry into the final realm of all.
And as their vision adjusted to that quiet, secluded temple-chamber beyond the gate – more a crypt – their hearts sighed with relief. From afar, all of them witnessed a tall staff of crimson, with a flame, wave, spike, and gust stylized as sculpted caps adorning its tip, lodged into a sizable stone at the center in front of a circular altar, with arrows pointing in the cardinal directions.
A colossal stone statue of Consul Astinel himself stood just behind it; his wavy hair meticulously carved to look as if it was blowing in the breeze, his gaze solemn and penetrating, piercing the roof where a single ray of light shone down onto the altar.
It was no doubt the destination they’d been searching for all this time. They had walked and jogged and raced through some endless labyrinthine tunnels and passages and halls, many times having had to retrace their steps because of dead-ends; they had to clamber down and up and down the many stepped stairways, survive against Lucian’s attempt at assassinating them, cross the bridges over fathomless chasms and the winding roads in great empty caverns in divided pairs, but with the help of their barometric altimeter and in no small part to Isaac’s harmonica, had finally made it to the deepest part of the city: its heart of yore. And to cap their conquest of the dark, they triumphed over the final challenge that the professors had posed to them, with nothing short of coordination and wit. If anybody were worthy of the name of the champions, it was the kismets.
They cautiously approached the staff resting in stone.
“Who wants to pull it?”
Elwin looked to Mirai, and Mirai to Isaac, and Isaac to Katherine.
“I think you should have the honor,” Isaac assured Elwin, “since you defeated Ursus for us.”
Elwin shook his head. “I only made it this far because I was blessed to have you.”
“Non – nonsense! You are the bravest of us, and your insights helped us every step of the way in this tournament,” retorted Katherine.
“We wouldn’t be here in this final round if it wasn’t for your quick-thinking at the naval battle,” Mirai added. “When we shot up the scoreboards with your strategy.”
“And we wouldn’t have made it to the second round without your armonion machine,” replied Elwin. “And Isaac for your command up there at the ziggurat, coordinating all of us together. And Katherine for helping us every step of the way with your fire, and even just now, where your flame punched through the boulders. We made it this far and triumphed over this challenge because all of us put our heads and wits and hearts together,” he said. “You are my kismets, and I am yours too. So it is all of us who should have the honor.”
Their eyes moistened with unexpected tears. What challenges they’d gone through together, what mettle and fortitude they displayed for one another! And to have it spoken without hesitation! What would kismet mean, if not now where their fates were one and entwined more than just in name?
So the kismets stepped forward to claim the staff as one. Their hands were steady; all wondered how Astinel’s thousand-year old staff would feel.
But just as their fingers were about to grasp the red-hilted shaft of the staff, a disc of sharp ice flew past Elwin’s head and sliced strands of hair off his loose ponytail.
The kismets turned at once at the unknown assailant, Quans at the ready.
Out of the shadows of the gate emerged Lucian, his expression that of a fanatic zeal, twisted in the absolute hatred of Elwin and his visage, his squadra having silently traversed the rubble at the entrance obscured by the darkness shrouding them.
A flurry of footsteps in the dark came from behind Lucian, and both the kismets and Lucian himself turned their heads to face the new challengers – Robert and Khan, battered and bruised, clambered down the loose rubble at the gate with their teams in tow.
They had taken a longer and more arduous road than the kismets, but their endurance and will to win had brought them to the proximity of the grand central hall at the roots of the city; they heard the sounds of explosions as the rubble was destroyed by the kismets, and raced to the crypt in the nick of time.
It was as if the fates had ordained them to battle, instead of allowing the kismets to claim the staff and climb to the upper air:
It was never going to be easy.