QUARTZ 9.4: WYRMDEATH
“So it is you seek to mine your own foundation in your desperate thirst after power. Will your greed know no bounds? Taking from the walls is not enough for you! I hope the jewels you unearth make for fine points of pride, joy enough to refill your excavated soul.”
– from the Mortiforic Creed
“He went that way!”
The illusion-piercing vision bestowed upon me by my goblin eldritch wasn’t anything like that granted by my former fairy, and it had probably been augmented in unknown ways by my brother and sister despite my instructions. I should’ve spent more time training myself in its use. As it was, I currently had no way to discern between them as the immense dracolich became two immense dracoliches, one of them coiling into an attack-posture, the other plunging into the wall of the cavern. The paladins had done some good before they perished – both of the dragon’s mirror images looked to be in a right state, half of his cadaver-flesh hanging off the bone in glistening slices.
The dichotomy in his appearance was less a conundrum than a boon. I found myself instinctively disbelieving in both. I very much doubted an illusion was going to overcome my willpower and harm me during this particular confrontation.
Still – I knew which one prudence would have me tackle first, even without the dwarf’s directions.
I chased my prey straight into the stone wall, the wizard-flight granting me twice the dragon’s speed, at least until I made contact with the stone. But even then the passage through the earth made little difference – my wraith-state ensured I retained maximum velocity as I slid face-first into the rock.
My shields’ edges touched his, ranging out ahead of me through the earth. The forces felt damned real.
In fleeing me, he produced a change in me that I doubted he’d expected.
Confidence.
Not that I thought I was suddenly going to win. But even this, this little victory – he took me seriously, he took for me for a threat – this was enough to sustain me. Remind me what it was to be the archmage, the champion. How it felt, to have some of the most potent creatures ever to exist, fearing you.
I was blind here, submerged in the dense strata of stone surrounding the cavern, plunging horizontally with him ever-deeper into the solid ground. Cracks were few and far between, offering no glimpse of my enemy. Yet he was blind too. I wasn’t out of my element; I knew what I was doing. Sure, I had to hold my breath; I very much doubted my enemy needed to breathe at all, but I could hold my breath for minutes like this, I knew, even if the cracks filled with stale air were to reduce in frequency. And yes, I was slower to work the shields, slower than ever before. But their strength –
I chewed through Malas’s force-fields, hot on his tail, and it was like I was whisking the magenta energies, peeling the shields away one by one and dispersing them.
He changed his trajectory, angling downwards, perhaps not hoping to lose me, but to make me lose at least some of my momentum in the turn.
It was a foolish manoeuvre. He had to slow to adjust his own course into a descent. He had some kind of vampire-speed, but it was nowhere near enough – even before he completed the dip, my satyr-reflexes were swelling. I fixed tendril-tips to his core shielding, the stuff that would never break. And I shot past him, laying the tendrils of force over that impermeable shell.
The contact was like fire, burning up my imaginary arm, filling my stump and mind with roaring pain. I had to stifle myself to stop the fatal laughter threatening to empty my lungs, understanding what this meant. I could shift his move to my advantage, so long as I was careful.
As he moved downwards, he pulled me with him. I was attached to him now. Even better, I maintained my speed.
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I wrapped around him like a kid’s swing wrapping around the bar.
When I came to a dead stop, I dragged him about, I bringing him wheeling past me against his will in a wide arc.
I withdrew the tendrils as I hurled him straight back the way we came.
Emerging into the cavern near its floor, the blue phosphorescence of the ceilings bright enough to my eye, I caught sight of the tremendous prince of dragons, somersaulting head over tail. I let the laughter out, pursuing eagerly. The illusion of him swiped at me as I passed by; I let the talons rip right through me, ignoring them. It was more than obvious which of them was real.
“So now you come for revenge!” Malas howled, finally mastering himself and coming to a stop near the ceiling. “Do not think you are serving your own ends. It is me! It is all me!”
“You asked me about the heart of the champion. And you said you didn’t have a way to teach me. But I think your afterthought paid off.” I slowed my pursuit, and gestured to the stump, the free-flowing tendrils he too could surely see. “You were right. Whatever I am now, you helped shape me. Revenge? Since when do you call this revenge? If a man crafts a sword and in his haste to sharpen it slices his hand, will we call it a crime? No, no. I suppose… I suppose I came to thank you.”
The surprise in the dracolich’s gaze was brief, the eyes quickly narrowing once more to the brutal, cunning glare – but it happened. He was too gargantuan to mask the nuances of his expression without magical aid.
“Thank me?”
And he couldn’t disguise it, the naked greed in his voice when he thought there was a chance I might become his creature.
“You know.” I sent a simple wave of intention down at the force-lines and they lengthened. “Metaphorically. Show you my appreciation.” I grinned up at him, and now my barbs flexed and tensed of their own accord, both whip and spear, interchangeable. “Tell me. What do you call it when, in his haste to sharpen it, he stumbles and opens his throat on its edge? Was the sword stupid, or the guy rolling around with his head half-cut off?”
He didn’t need to be told twice. If he was faking his fear, he was damned good at it. He had none of the mettle of the champion. He flapped his wings, re-entering a wraith-state, propelling himself away from me again. The motion was swift and sharp, definitely intended for escape.
“Now!” hissed the twins from their invisible sanctuary in the corner. “Lift!“
I reached out with my force-tendrils, but it was going to be too late. He was going to withdraw into the ceiling – he wasn’t really stupid, he knew where his advantages lay –
But not the ceiling.
It wasn’t me the twins had been talking to.
The rock itself shuddered and withdrew, lifting away from him, and he couldn’t abrogate the difference in speed between us by plunging into it. I reached him in time, and latched on to his impenetrable inner shields with my sorcerous whips.
“Thanks, Orcan,” I grunted mentally.
“Hmph,” was all he said in reply, still clearly focussing on the groaning rock all around us. He wouldn’t be able to hold it for long.
I smiled all the same, reminded for a heartbeat of Dustbringer.
For few moments Malas pulled me up towards the ever-rising roof with him; then I rooted myself in place with every pound of pressure the wizard-flight could bring to bear, and tightened the tendrils.
We both froze.
The lines of blue energy had wound around the magenta egg protecting him, like decorative swirls about a glow-globe, a delicate-looking yet unbreakable net. Then, knowing just how this was going to feel, I retracted the tendrils.
Grinning through the crackling, burning sensation in my mind, I watched as the enormous dragon was yanked to heel.
“Well-leashed!” I cried, feeling the sweat beginning to drip down my hairline, despite the incorporeal substance I’d become. “Look, I don’t know why you’re trying to leave, but it’s very rude. I thought you’d be proud of me. An extended sword metaphor, and it wasn’t even a dirty joke!”
“You’re pulling the wrong levers there, Kas.”
I know! I’m trying.
Inch by inch, foot by foot, I bound him in place.
“You fool!” Malas roared, flailing uselessly with his great wings. “You cannot slay me now! Ah, no honour is there to be found in you! I see now that my grand-sire chose wrong. You are –”
“Who cares about destiny?” I growled back, reeling him in. The fake dracolich on the floor had been joined by two more, and the trio were battering at me without pause or point. “Look at you – look at the child’s tricks you try on me! It is you who has forgotten how to fight, not I, grandfather.”
“You know nothing, nothing about who I am, the things I’ve done! I could crush you in an instant if I dared –”
“You don’t understand the heart of a champion and you never did. This is it! Ah-ha-haaaah! You dare speak to me of honour, you who gassed the children in the street! Look me in the eye you piece of drop and think about how much fun it’s going to be when your saggy ass belongs to a demon-lord for all eternity. You know where you’re going, don’t you?”
That did it. Finally, that did it.
He faced me and screamed. Not in fear, but rage. He angled his wings and descended towards me of his own volition, my tendrils going slack on his shields as he plummeted.
Now. He let the illusions fall away, even exited the wraith-state.
Now, he was going to fight.
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