Chapter Forty-Seven
Harmony
Carter ran to Michael’s side as they followed Rose across the forum. “Here, before I forget, I’ve got something for you.”
As they moved toward the Forges, Michael watched Carter pull a stone the size of a halved apple from his pocket. It was flat on its cut side, displaying a beautiful pattern of azure layers.
Michael took it to find it was rather lighter than he thought it would be.
“It’s called a Kosadi, or a Speaking Stone. You’ll need this too, or something like it.” Carter produced a steel rod with a narrowed end, like a pure metal pencil, small enough to fit in a breast-pocket. “Legacies use these to stay in touch over long distances.”
Michael ran his thumb across the gemstone’s surface. It was cool and smooth. “How does it work?”
“Write something on it. Not too hard, though, the surface softens to the touch of metal.”
Michael took him at his word and gently touched the metal to its surface, which was difficult to do mid-stride. As soon as he applied pressure, it glowed with a faint blue light.
Michael smiled and scratched the word Hi into the stone’s flat surface. After nothing happened, he looked at Carter to find the young Ahuran had pulled out his own Kosadi, seemingly the other half of the same one, and on its face, was the same word in the exact same handwriting.
Carter watched his face light up and chuckled. “Neat, huh?”
Michael felt his childlike awe fill him as he nodded.
“Okay, now take the scribing-pen- see how its square-bodied, not cylindrical like most pencils?” Carter then took his own pen and used one of the long edges to scrape away the surface of his Kosadi like it was dried candlewax.
Michael watched the light on his Speaking Stone fade, and Carter smiled. “Now you know I’ve read it, so you can clear yours too.”
They arrived at the entrance to the Forges and Rose hurriedly lead them across the great chamber and through the doors to the Conjurement stairwell.
Sarah frowned and yelled ahead, “Should I grab someone to come run the illusions? We can’t fight and summon at the same- man, she’s just not slowing down, okay.”
They all barrelled after her into the command room as Rose scooped up an armload of random scrolls from the central table and stepped sharply through the doors and out onto the battle floor..
James laughed as she lightly manoeuvred away and said, “We’re not supposed to take spells from the command room!”
Rose turned to the group of Legacies as they trailed in after her, all confused and slightly hesitant. “Ready?” she asked, quite amused with herself.
Michael watched as the others either laughed or said “No!” as she began reading spell-words from their scrolls as fast as possible, throwing them to the ground after she finished with each.
“Are you going to conjure all of those?” asked Aroha, halfway between laughter and disbelief.
Around them, swirling magical vortexes began to creep up from the ground, like dark plumes of shadowy wind. In the far shadows, footsteps moved and chattering noises echoed.
Rose pulled out her wand, which now that Michael had a moment look at it, was extremely intricate, like a series of braided, pale twigs, almost the colour of bone.
Rose cast down the last scroll to the stone floor and turned to the others. “I call this game, Pot-Luck. Jack hates it,” she said, as the sound of the enchantments flowed about the room. As each spell culminated, it was like a layer of whispering breath was added to the cavernous hall.
Suddenly colours erupted into the space like an abstract artist had spilled their reality.
Michael couldn’t help but be amazed as illusions folded over the top of one-another. The dark, stone walls melted away and after a moment, they were surrounded by the sands of a bright, sun-stricken island surrounded on all sides by water. Suddenly a growling thunder coiled in the distance and rain began showering over them all as a weather spell came to fruition.
Carter began chuckling as his sweeping, dark hair stuck to his face and James gave a heavy sigh. “Damn, I could’ve used a beach day.”
“Head’s up!” yelled Rose.
James turned just in time to see an enormous, bear-like creature clad in white scales, blue eyes, and pointed horns come rampaging over the sandy hill.
James leapt back as it swung out two muscled arms with bone-white claws attached at its knuckles, missing his face by a fraction of an inch.
Two of Carter’s knives sailed past James, slamming into the creature, stopping it dead in his tracks as it snarled and roared, shaking off the pain. Somewhere beyond the magic, they heard the clatter of the two daggers in fact hitting the far wall, despite what the illusion portrayed.
The Legacies all drew weapons and lined up shoulder-to-shoulder when a racket of screeches came blaring from behind.
Michael turned as a dozen or more parrot-sized birds came fluttering into view, each completely ablaze with multi-coloured fire alongside talons and beaks which seemed extra long and extra sharp.
Aroha looked at Carter smugly, “Crimson Wings, right?”
Carter trilled his lips and said, “Knew I shouldn’t have told that story.”
The scaled bear lowered its horns and scraped them along the floor menacingly as it began to circle the company.
Michael looked from the bear to the flaming birds as they all circled in a viscous attacked formation, and yelled out, “Everyone spread out! Archers take the birds, warriors, you take the...”
Oliver whispered, “It’s called a Crystal Sea Bear-”
“-I don’t care just kill it!”
The flock of flaming birds came roaring in, talons out and screeching in a pitched call.
The Legacies all tore in different directions.
Michael, Nichole and Aroha moved and shot, doing their best to avoid the careening fire-bombs as they came past. They picked their target and struck down the creatures whenever they stopped, but they were quick and nimble, twisting and bending every which way.
Oliver and Sarah, both with swords in-hand rushed to flank the white-scaled bear as James, Carter and Rose attempted to keep its attention on them.
Rose muttered a word beneath her breath and the wand began to twist and grow in the palm of her hand. Still pale as bone and light as the wind until it stretched to over a meter in length and thickened into the shape of her bow-staff. Nearly chest-height and covered end-to-end with its beautiful Riniglacian carvings, the weapon looked like it belonged in the hands of a mystic creator.
Carter drew two more daggers from his dark cloak and his Arcancy surged to life in his fingertips as the towering, horned bear stalked toward James, Rose, and himself.
The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.
James twisted his great sapphire-edged battleaxe out in front of him. “I should’ve stretched.”
The three warriors glanced at one another and then sprang forward.
Carter whipped his throwing knives ahead, and instantly grabbed two more.
James ducked beneath a high clawed-swipe and heaved his axe into the bear’s breast.
Rose leapt and Arcancy roared into her staff. Thorns jolted from the head of her staff as she struck the monster across its eyes as it bellowed out in pain.
Overcame with the number of attacks, the creature roared with fury and swung out wildly, clipping James by his leg, knocking him into a vicious pinwheel and messy sprawl into the sand.
Carter threw his daggers but the monster anticipated the move and turned its thicker back-scales into the blow, causing the blades the merely glance away as it rounded on James, now dazed on the ground.
Aroha, on the other side of the island, tackled Michael out the way as three birds came careening towards him at the same time. She twisted back onto her feet as they fluttered away and loosed an arrow sharply into one’s back, igniting the entire creature with a bright flash of ash and flame.
Aroha cheered, “That’s one, Nicky!”
“Only nine to go, baby!” yelled Nichole as she vaulted over a rock to avoid an attack of her own. “Wait till you have a steady line of sight and try to catch them on their blindside!”
Michael climbed to his feet and dove out the way as another screeching Crimson Wing whipped passed him. “Damn you, Slick, you made these things sound cute!” he barked to the other group whilst smacking out a smoking patch on his collar.
Too focused on his rant, another Crimson Wing ripped down towards him, narrowly missing his head and striking the quiver on his back. The force of the blow was enough to knock him over, and the pressure placed on the arrows disabled the runic magic within, spilling every single one onto the sand.
“You’ve’ to be fuckin’ kidding-” he began to say when another handful swooped down toward him. Michael twisted out of the way and they slammed into his former spot as he sprung to his feet.
Nichole and Aroha kept shooting but the Shanii birds had gotten wise and not stopped moving, making them impossible to hit.
Michael looked across the way to the other Legacies and noticed for the first time that James was only a moment away from being crushed by the bear, tightly rolling from side to side to avoid its stomping attacks.
The very sight of his friend in peril was all it took.
Light shot into his hand like lightning had piercing the ceiling of the room. It roared up his shoulder and through to his eyes and the grey blue became a sparking torrent of gold and white. Michael reached down to his bowstring, remembering Carter’s drunken voice from their breakfast on the cave’s mouth.
Maybe you could do that with arrows. Solve your quiver problem?
Michael’s blazing hand kissed the bowstring and between his hooked fingertips, a shaft of pure light beamed into existence. Upon its end, a broad-point arrowhead formed as did the flowing flights upon its tail.
Unlike the dagger he’d summoned with Carter, he could feel its weight, he knew exactly how it would fly, how it would fall and exactly how it would strike. And in that moment, he knew it was because he understood it, unlike Carter’s weapons which were so dressed in mystery to him. All he could ever conjure of them was their image.
But these arrows were his own.
Michael ripped the light-born arrow back and sighted the Crystal Sea Bear as it reared its great body high.
James raised his hands over his face. Rose tried to rush forward but the bear hit her with a dismissive back-handing paw, knocking her to the ground.
Burning pain coursed through Michael’s Arcancy-flared body as he released his breath and hand at the same moment.
The light exploded forward with such a striking bolt that he expected to hear thunder. The beam ripped through the bear’s shoulder like a flash of lightning and sending its great pale mass stumbling sideways away from James.
James scrambled to his feet, grabbing his axe as everyone shouted and yelled, “Holy shit!” in many several varieties.
Carter drew two more daggers and hollered with pride, dragging Rose back up to her feet.
Michael couldn’t believe it even after seeing it happen, but his awe was short-lived as Aroha tackled him to the ground again, sparing him from another flock of Crimson Wings.
Aroha grabbed him by the shoulders and yelled, “I’m happy for you but get your head out of your ass!”
They rose quickly to their feet and Michael summoned his Arcancy-arrows as he quick as his boiling blood would allow, filling the stormy sky with flashing white light every time he fired one.
Back on the other side of the island, James yelled, “How on Enthall do you kill something as stubborn as this thing!”
Sarah and Oliver both leapt in, slashed, and ducked away as the beast swiped around at them with a wild buck of its horns.
Oliver yelled, “Looks like it has a soft underbelly!”
Sarah laughed without meaning to and said, “Carter and James, you two scratch behind its ears, when it rolls over and starts to purr, me and Oliver will-”
“Be serious, damn-it!” James tried to bark, but his voice was too full of laughter.
Rose dug into her pocket and cracked her neck, readying herself. “Get ready to dog-pile on this guy, I’m goin to cheat a little!”
Carter ducked another vicious swipe of its horns so narrowly that his cloak was thrown up in the whip of wind. “Please cheat quickly!”
Rose sprinted into the centre, yelling and waving her hands.
The great lumbering beast stared her down and let out a cavern-trembling roar.
Rose ran forward in a sudden sprint. Her friends shouted out in panic and Rose dropped into a slide, avoiding its swiping claw before she came to a stop, right beneath its head, looking straight up into the monster’s eyes.
Rose smiled. “Hey handsome.”
The Crystal Sea Bear reared its head to clamp its jaws around her skull, and Rose she pitched a handful of small dark objects at its open, roaring maw, sending several down its throat.
The beast’s bellow was cut short as it blinked and barked out a confused sound, mixed in with a scraggily cough.
The creature paused for a moment too long, and as it looked back toward her, it found the wavy-haired blonde glowing with green pulsing Arcancy. Her eyes, her throat, her hands and smile, all alive with the emerald magic.
“No hard feelings. Good effort, though.” Rose then gave a terrible roar and threw her hands out in a wide arc. And following her exact movements, a fully matured oak tree jutted and erupted from within the beast’s neck. Its head disconnected into dark sand as Rose rolled out and away, and watched as the tree toppled over backwards on top of the bear’s massive, scaled body, crushing it and exploding with a plume of dark essence.
Aroha and Nichole managed to tag the last few Crimson Wings as Michael shook with magical pain, bent over at the waist. He looked up to the scene which had unfolded behind his back, opened his mouth to ask, then decided his curiosity did not burn as deeply as his Arcancy did.
*****
The next two days went by rather pleasantly. The seven warriors spent all their time training from sun-up until sundown and slowly they came to learn the intricate things which people do when they spend an intimate amount of time together. The small oddities and funny quirks which made people truly different from one-another. Sarah didn’t enjoy being called “Lady”, though she wouldn’t get into why. Aroha had a coin-sized tattoo of two Northern Forest Eagles on her left shoulder-blade. Oliver was shockingly good at needle work. Nichole preferred being called “Nicky”, even ‘Nick’, but only by people close to her. Carter had a secondary Arcancy, seemingly giving him control over small feats of luck, like dice-rolls or coin-tosses. James was a wonderful singer when he tried to be, though this wasn’t news to Michael or Carter.
It was late in the day when the collection of Legacies finally ambled out of another Arena fight. They made their way to the dining area, aching and filled with laughter, to find that sundown had long since drawn itself over the stronghold.
In the distance, the sound of blacksmiths producing arrows and swords could be heard by the faint tings and hsss of stricken metal and quenching flame. The bronze braziers glittered lightly in the dark, casting dancing shadows against the grass.
Michael had been listening to Carter tell a story when all of a sudden the Ahuran gentleman stopped speaking and stood straight from his chair, holding his coffee mug aloft. “It just occurred to me that we glossed over something today.”
The group all stopped as they watched his display in amusement.
James played the part of the dutiful audience and asked, “What’s that, hun?”
“Michael showing us what an early Legacy should look like.”
Rose raised her cup first, smiling. “Agreed.”
“Right until you showed me up...” Michael said humbly, “but frankly, it was a team effort-”
Groans filled the table and Michael was pelted with small pieces of breadcrust.
“Hey now, I’m serious!” he smiled, narrowly defending himself. The bread-throwing stopped and he maintained his sincerity. “Without you all, I would simply never…”
Michael searched for the words but they didn’t come. He blustered for a moment and looked to his friends. They didn’t awkwardly try to help him. They didn’t fumble into a different conversation. They just understood.
Michael picked up his own cup and raised it to them. “To the people I’d end the world for.”
They all raised their cups and glasses in return.
“To Michael, the Paladin of Starfire, indeed,” Oliver chimed in. “And Rose, the Guardian of Fools! And to the rest of us, for surviving their terrifying sense of competition!”
They all rose in a ruckus once more and it was only when they all settled again that Michael was able to look any of them in the face without blushing.
They all smiled at him as he reddened and he took a deep, relaxing breath, glancing slightly at Rose. “I promise to only put on a lightshow when I know for sure that… my heart knows it right. For anything else, I suppose I’ll just use the steel-points.”
“I’m sure you’ll find a balance,” Rose said as she gave him a true, toothy grin, and, after a beat of silence, idly started to hum, moving her dinner plate slowly and deliberately out of his reach.
To say ‘everybody laughed’ would be a vast understatement.