Chapter 49
The Atranox
The first thing Connie noticed when she, Theo, and Tristana exited the main entrance to the monastery was the stillness in the air. This was in greater contrast to the howling wind of the nights before. Moreover, there was no sign of the thrakes.
“I don’t like it,” Theo said.
“Yes, I sense it, too. Something isn’t right here,” Connie added.
They paused and looked around.
“Do you hear anything?” Theo asked Tristana, who returned only a blank look.
Connie went over to the edge of the rocky cliff that they’d scaled the day before. Her leather shoes crunched loudly in the deafening silence. She surveyed the mountains in the distance beneath the clear green sky. There was not even the slight hint of breeze, and the air felt particularly dense. She felt as though she were standing in a room. She cautiously moved to the edge of the cliff and looked down.
“By the gods!” she cried out.
She quickly turned and ran back to Theo and Tristana, who had moved to the east wall of the monastery, against which stood a partially collapsed stable.
“What’s wrong?” Theo asked.
“Chaos.” Connie said simply, partially out of breath.
“Where?”
“On the cliff.”
“Are you sure?”
“There’s this thick gray cloud rising up the wall of the cliff. What else do you think it could be?”
“How far up is it?”
“I’d say about halfway.”
He sighed. “Well, that explains where the thrakes went.”
“From where it’s moving, it’ll spill over the edge of the cliff soon.”
“We need to tell Rahl and Snow.”
“Theo, how far is the Atranox from here?”
“You can see for yourself?” He pointed a faint, thin line of green light that beamed straight up into the sky. “How far do you think that is?”
“Theo, we can’t go back for Rahl and Snow. We must go now.”
“We can’t leave them there for the Chaos to take.”
“Look, if we go back up there to get them, the Chaos will have already surrounded the monastery before we get out. And then there’s Snow’s injury. We won’t be able to make good time if we have to carry her.”
“You see?” he asked, smirking. “You should have let me take her humors. We could have used them to save our lives and finish this quest. She’s as good as dead now, and we received no benefit from it.”
“You’re upset because you won’t benefit from her death? Don’t be an ass.”
He frowned at her.
“Look, Theo—all is not lost. We did the right thing by leaving them there up in the tower. That will at least buy them some time while we head to the Atranox. But we have to hurry. Let’s go now.”
They moved quickly toward the beam of light. The terrain was rough and uneven, and slippery patches of ice made it hazardous to traverse. Twenty minutes passed, they scaled another ridge, and the Atranox still was not in sight.
“Theo! Where is it? Is it really that far away?
“Your guess is as good as mine,” he shot back.
At once, the silent air was pierced by an eerie cry. It sounded like a thrake, but then again, it didn’t.
“What was that?” Connie asked.
The cry came again. They looked back the way they came.
“It sounds like it came from the area of the monastery. The Chaos must have reached it.”
The eerie howling came again, this time a bit louder.
“The Chaos must have gotten to some of the thrakes. It sounds like it has completely changed their form.”
“That’s great.”
“You do? I don’t think so.”
“I was being facetious.”
Connie bit her lower lip as she stared back toward the monastery. “Rahl and Snow had better keep that door shut and barricaded. Who knows what’s going to be coming up those stairs for them?
Theo let out a bitter laugh. “You’re worried about Rahl and Snow? You should be worried about yourself. Those thrakes have probably caught our scent and are now on our trail.”
The thrake’s cry came again. It was closer, and now it sounded as though there were more than one. Tristana looked back toward the sound, her axe clutched tightly in her hands, ready to battle them.
“No, Tristana,” Theo said to her. “We cannot fight them. We must avoid them.”
They continued moving forward over the rough ground, occasionally slipping on the ice and receiving a few bruises for it. The insane howls of the thrakes came closer. They crossed another ridge. A deep gully separated them from the next ridge. Although the beam of light from the Atranox remained visible, the Atranox itself was still not in view. It then became apparent to them that some sort of fog or illusion blocked their view of the structure. There was no telling how far they were from the structure.
“Theo,” Connie called out to him, nearly out of breath. “Don’t you have a spell that can help us here? Maybe something to speed us up a little? Because, frankly, I don’t think we’re going to make it.”
“If I had a spell, don’t you think I would have cast it already?”
Connie looked at Tristana. “How are you doing?”
Tristana gazed back at her without any visible response.
“She doesn’t even look tired,” Connie said. “Where does she get her energy?”
The howling came again. It sounded as though the thrakes were just behind the ridge they’d just overcome.
“How far do you think they are?”
“Not far.”
“Let’s go.”
They descended the gully. At the bottom was a solid sheet of ice. They walked over it slowly, carefully, to avoid slipping. Just as they began climbing the steep incline on the other side of the gully, a thrake—or something that resembled a thrake—appeared at the top of the gully behind them. At a glance, it was notably larger than the thrakes they had encountered earlier—as if the original ones weren’t bad enough.
“Watch out!” Connie shouted.
The thrake began descending the ridge toward the gully. The three began climbing the next ridge in haste. They were halfway to the top when the thrake reached the bottom of the gully. As luck would have it, in its frantic pursuit of them, it seemed to have trouble making across the sheet of ice because of its oversized, Chaos-distorted claws. It continually slipped and fell heavily as it tried to make it across, snarling viciously as it went.
“Why does everything that comes from Chaos look so ugly and horrible?” Connie asked, taking a moment to catch her breath.
“That’s just the nature of it,” Theo replied grimly.
At that moment, two more thrakes on the other side of the gully.
“Look over there! We’re doomed!” he cried out.
“Not yet,” Connie shot back. “Keep moving!”
At last, they reached the crest of the other side of the gully. There, they saw what appeared to be a wall of white fog like a thick cloud. The beam of light from the Atranox was no longer visible from where they stood.
“What is that?” Theo asked Connie.
“You’re asking me?”
“What should we do?”
“Go forward?”
“Into the fog? Who knows what awaits us in there?”
“What choice do we have, Theo? Come on. Let’s go.”
She began walking toward the fog. Tristana followed, but the spirit mage did not. Connie turned to him.
“Theo!”
With heavy reluctance, he moved forward toward the fog, albeit slowly.
“Hurry! The thrakes are coming!”
The three passed through the fog. They walked for what seemed like a hundred paces. All at once, the fog around them vanished, and they found themselves in clear air. They paused, finding themselves standing at the edge of a vast circular plain. There, at its center, stood a lone structure—a massive, white, four-sided pyramid at least thirty stories high. Its walls reflected the green light of the sky, and from its apex shone a faint red beam of light. Notably, for all the ice they’d just covered, the circular area surrounding the structure was completely void of ice, lying bare a bed of rocky soil.
“That thing is huge. I never imagined it to look this way,” Connie said, gazing at it.
“It was built to last forever.”
She laughed. “That’s not what I mean. It looks like the Luxor in Las Vegas on steroids. Yes! I came all this way just to find myself in Vegas! Can you imagine that?”
“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” Theo said. “Moreover, I fail to see the mirth in this situation.”
Then, from within the fog came some snarling noises. Connie spun around and drew Maltokken’s sword, which she had recovered from his partially eaten corpse on their way out of the monastery.
“Back off, Theo. Tristana! Let’s take care of this beast.”
“Can you really use that sword?” Theo asked Connie.
“Not really, but I’m sure as hell going to try.”
She cast a double-strength Keeness on the weapon. The node expired. It was her last metal node. She cursed at the realization she would not be able to cast Temper on the weapon as she’d planned. She hoped it wouldn’t be necessary.
A chaos thrake emerged from the wall of fog. Connie and Tristana stood about three paces apart.
“Listen,” Connie said to her. “It can only attack you or me, but not both. Once it attacks one of us, the other goes for its flank. Got it?”
She nodded.
The thrake was upon them a few seconds later. It was far more massive than the thrakes they’d fought earlier, and its claws were something that a bear would have. Madness burned in its eyes. The thrake went for Tristana and nary a hint of hesitation.
The thrake leaped at her. She swung her axe, hitting the thrake in the shoulder. The head of the weapon sank deep into its flesh. At that moment, Connie thrust her sword deep into the ribcage of the thrake. The chaos-cursed creature let out a loud yowl and quickly turned to her and caught her at the top of her right shoulder, easily biting through her leather armor. Tristana swung her axe again and struck the thrake over the back of the neck, nearly cleaving its head off. The huge animal fell with hardly a whimper.
Connie examined her wound. The skin was torn. Blood ran freely down her arm and dripped onto the ice. She found she could move her left arm, so at least the wound wasn’t deep. Still, it bled profusely. She cast a Cauterize spell in it. She also saw blood on the right side of Tristana’s rib cage, where the thrake had managed to rake her with its huge claw. She did not seem fazed by the wound, even though it looked as though it was painful. She cast a Cauterize spell on Tristana’s wound to stop the bleeding. For some reason, the spell didn’t work, so she cast it again. This time, the spell worked, but the node was lost.
Two more thrakes came out of the fog. These two were similar in size and appearance to the one they’d just killed. They paused momentarily, snarling at the party, perhaps hesitating on seeing the dead thrake at their feet. Theo drew his dagger.
“Theo! What are you doing?”
“I can’t let you two fight the thrakes alone.”
“Don’t be a fool! Get back!”
The two thrakes were approaching at the same time. Connie and Tristana wouldn’t be able to try the same move twice.
“All right,” she said. “You can help either one of us. Just don’t get yourself killed.”
“I’ll try not to.”
The two thrones were upon them in seconds. Again, a thrake leaped at Tristana. This time she moved deftly aside and struck the thrake hard in the flank with her battleaxe. It let out a bloodcurdling howl.
Connie’s thrake charged her straight on, baring its fangs. She held out her sword and thrust it deeply into its chest. The force of the running thrake knocked her over on to her back. The thrake was on top of her, but she still held the hilt of the sword in her hand and thrust it even deeper. The thrake howled and writhed. Suddenly, her sword snapped off at the hilt—but the thrake still wasn’t dead. It raked her with its paws and continued snapping at her face. Unable to roll away from it, she raised her arm to protect her face. The thrake bit down, crushing the bones in her arm instantly. She cried out from the pain.
Is this it? she wondered. Is this the moment of my death?
The thrake, not biting down hard, yanked on her arm, seemingly with the intent to tear it off. Suddenly, the thrake let go of her arm and fell dead on top of her. She opened her eyes to see Theo pulling his dagger out of the beast.
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She looked to her right. Tristana’s thrake was dead. Fortunately, this time, Tristana did not look worse for wear. Theo and Tristana shoved the thrake off of Connie.
“Thank you, Theo. I owe you one. Wait a minute—that little dagger killed the thrake? How is that possible?”
“It had a spirit enchantment—a spell called ‘Death.’ It instantly slays any living being.”
“That’s a very useful weapon in troubled times like these.”
“Yes—provided you can get close enough to plunge the blade without getting killed yourself. I saw the opportunity, and so I used it.”
“Keep it handy.”
“Well, it only works once until I renew the enchantment. So we’d better not meet any more like him.”
Connie saw that Theo himself had a slight head wound, caused when one of the thrakes raked his scalp, destroying the thin, padded leather helmet he wore. Indeed, the helmet had probably saved his life. Connie offered to cast a Cauterize spell on the wound, but he refused.
“Suit yourself,” she said.
She sat up and stared at her arm ruefully. It looked like a compound fracture, and it hurt like hell. Theo examined the wound.
“The bone is broken.”
“I can see that.”
“If not for the leather padding you wore, the thrake would have injured you more,” he said, carefully removing the pad.
“Well, I’m thankful for that.”
She held out her hand to Tristana, who took it and tried to help her up. When Connie tried to rise, she felt a sharp pain in her right ankle. “Ouch! Ouch!” She let go of Tristana and fell back to the ground.
“What’s wrong?” Theo asked.
“My right ankle. It must have happened when the thrake knocked me over.”
Connie lay flat on the ground, staring up at the featureless green sky, while Theo checked her ankle.
“Ouch!” she cried out when he manipulated it.
“It doesn’t appear broken,” he said finally. “Likely, it is a sprain,” he asked her. “You can at least cast a Boneheal on your arm.”
“I don’t have enough node power of Wood to cast it, unfortunately. I used my last high-power node to help Snow.”
“Oh, that’s bad.”
“Thanks for pointing that out,” she said. “Help me sit up.”
He did as he was told, and she sat on the stony ground for a while, thinking about what to do next. She gazed out at the Atranox and let out a sigh.
“Now we have to do what we came here for. Fetch me my backpack, please.”
Theo brought over her backpack. She reached inside, pulled out the Stellarad Marax, and held it up. The artifact glistened in the weak light of the distant sun.
She pointed to the great pyramid. “It’s time to take this over there.”
“I can try.”
“No, Theo.”
“Why not?”
“That’s what the Kn’all-ba-tasalb talisman was for. According to Calicus, you won’t be able to approach the Atranox without it.”
“Perhaps the spell that protects the Atranox has diminished over the millennia, and it can now be approached safely. It is possible for such a thing to occur.”
“Are you willing to take that chance?”
“What do you think would happen if I did?”
“I have no idea, but Calicus said that something bad would happen to anyone who approaches the Atranox without the talisman. Being the great wizard that he is, I assume he knows what he’s talking about.”
He looked down at Connie. “I don’t understand. What was the point of coming out here then? If I can’t approach it, that means you can’t either.”
“You’re right.”
“So, what’s the plan?”
Connie pointed to Tristana. “We send her.”
Theo frowned. “And what will happen to her if she goes?”
“Without the talisman? I don’t know. But Snow seems to think that she can survive in it longer than one of us.”
“No, I will not send her.”
“Theo, you have to send her. If you don’t, then our whole quest and everything we have suffered through have been for nothing. You understand? Then you will die, I will die, she will die, Chaos will take over, and everyone else will die, and nobody will have a happy ending. Is that what you want?”
“I don’t want to send her to her death.”
“In her death, everyone will live.”
“I can go along with her. She’ll be safer with me.”
“No, Theo, you can’t go. You must send her alone.”
Connie saw tears well up in his eyes. She never thought she would see such a thing from him. Everyone has their soft spot, I suppose, she thought, bemused.
“Get a hold of yourself!” Connie shouted at him in an attempt to jolt him back into the reality of the situation. She held up the Stellarad Marax. “Give this to her, and send her on her way.”
“How will she know what to do with it?”
“Snow has already explained everything to her.”
“No, I won’t send her,” he said resolutely.
“Damn you!” She tried to rise to her feet again, but again she couldn’t. “Theo, we don’t have much time. Chaos is coming for us. Or would you prefer the thrakes got you first? By the way, you’ll have to fight the next bunch yourself, because I’m finished here.” She paused. “Now give her the Stellarad Marax!”
“No.”
“Theodan Parsas of Esamane! As the leader of our group, I’m commanding you!”
He met her stare, and they glared at each other for some seconds. Then, perhaps suspecting she was about to cast some punitive spell on him, he took the artifact from Connie’s hands.
“What about the bracelet?”
“Tristana already has it.”
Theo narrowed his eyes at her on hearing this. “What?”
“Snow made me give it to her.”
“Why?”
“I don’t know. Maybe she thought it would be safer with Tristana than with me. Considering my current condition compared to hers at this moment, I’d say it was a good call.”
Theo glared down at Connie for a few seconds. Finally, he turned and walked over to Tristana.
“Give me the bracelet.”
Tristana dutifully removed the bracelet from her wrist, which she had kept hidden from plain view. Theo put it on.
“Hey! What do you think you’re doing?” Connie asked him.
“Let’s go, Tristana,” he said, ignoring her.
He began heading down the broad slope toward the Atranox.
“Theo! No!”
“You just wait there,” he shouted back to her. “We will come back for you.”
Connie tried to rise to her feet but quickly found that it was both futile and extremely painful on account of her sprained ankle. “Damn!”
Theo started down the ridge. He’d gone about ten paces when he stopped and turned around. Tristana hadn’t followed him. She stood watching him, not having taken a single step.
“Why are you still there? Come with me. We will do this together.”
Tristana remained still and only stared at Theo without visible emotion, her battle axe hanging loose at her side.
“You see, Theo? Even she knows you can’t go.”
“Tristana!”
“Don’t you see? She’s protecting you.”
“Tristana! I command you to come with me.”
Now, seeming with heavy reluctance, Tristana followed Theo down into the broad parabola toward the Atranox.
“Theo! Come back!”
The spirit mage steadfastly tread onward with Tristana trailing him by a few paces. Connie followed their progress, every so often looking back toward the wall of fog behind them to make sure no more thrakes were coming.
Theo and Tristana walked steadily toward the pyramid. As they approached, the true scale of the structure became more visible to Connie. The two of them looked tiny by comparison. The Atranox was taller than what she’d estimated at first. Theo and Tristana had walked almost a third of the way to the structure when Theo stopped. Tristana stood by him. He took a few more steps toward the structure. Suddenly, he staggered and fell to the ground. Tristana stood next to him, looking down at him.
“Theo!” Connie called. “Tristana!”
She realized that they were no longer within earshot. She then cast a WindVoice on herself with her last remaining Air node. This time, she used a slow, careful incantation to order preserve the precious source of spell power.
“Tristana,” she spoke to the conjuration after the spell was cast.
At once, Tristana looked in her direction.
“Bring him back.”
Tristana slung Theo over her neck like an oversized fur sable and started back toward Connie. Both of them were about equal in size and weight, and Connie was amazed that she could lift him even despite her injuries. Slowly, she staggered back to Connie. She laid him on the ground next to her. Connie was shocked to see that his face was red as though he’d gotten a severe sunburn. He was still breathing and awake.
“Did you enjoy your excursion?” she asked him.
“The Atranox burned me!”
“You were warned, weren’t you?
“And the ground—it’s covered with bones!”
“And that didn’t make you turn back? Theo, one thing I’ve learned about this world is that if someone tells you not to do something—don’t do it. And if it looks dangerous, it probably is. Apparently, you never learned that lesson.”
She looked up at Tristana. Judging from her appearance, she did not seem to have been affected by the Atranox, at least not outwardly. Snow’s assumption had been correct.
Connie rifled through Theo’s pack and located Tristana’s ankh amulet. She held it up for Tristana to see. Her eyes widened noticeably at the sight of it. Theo tried to take the amulet from Connie, but in his severely weakened condition, he could not.
“I have the amulet now, Tristana. Now we must go to the Atranox and do what is necessary.”
“No, Tristana.” Theo shouted. “I command you not to go.”
“Hush, Theo!”
“Don’t go, Tristana!” He struggled to get up. Connie held him down. He began to weep.
“Theo! Be a man!”
Connie looked up at Tristana. For the first time ever, she saw in Tristana a tender expression, a look that she could only interpret as pity, or maybe something more.
“Tristana! Don’t!” Theo cried.
He was openly weeping now. Tristana knelt next to him and put her hand against his cheek. Connie could only stare, flabbergasted by the scene. After a moment, Tristana stood up, her hand wet with his tear. At once, the hint of emotion she showed moments before vanished to be replaced with a steely, determined expression.
Connie removed the bracelet from Theo’s wrist and handed it back to Tristana. In Theo’s weakened state, he was hardly able to prevent her from doing this.
“You know what to do,” Connie said to the conjuration.
She turned and began heading back to the Atranox.
“Tristana!” Theo called out once again.
Connie cradled him with her one good arm. “Hush, Theo. She’s going to do some good work for us now.”
Together they watched Tristana walk slowly toward the Atranox. She stopped to pick up Stellarad Marax, which Theo had dropped there, then she continued onward.
“I’ll hate you forever for this, Connie.”
“Don’t hate me. It was Snow’s idea, after all,” she said.
“I’ll hate both of you, then.”
“Stop that, Theo,” she said, admonishing him gently. “You sound like a spoiled child.”
“I didn’t want to lose her.”
“You think I don’t know that? Let me tell you, Theo—from the way I look at it, this whole quest has been about losing things. Take Rahl, for example. He lost both Yalden and Janeda to Chaos. Snow lost her pride and the illusion of invincibility she once had. Now when I look at her, all I see is a broken, vulnerable woman. And I lost the life I loved back on Earth, thanks to Alyndia. Now your turn has come to lose. So, don’t think that nobody feels your pain. All of us have lost those things we cherished the most. Now—just maybe—we’ll get something in return.”
“Do you really think she will succeed?”
“I hope so. In any case, you can monitor her progress with this.” She pulled out Tristana’s amulet from a pouch tied to her waist and gave it to him.
“What good is this going to do me now?”
“As long as the amulet is in one piece, so is she. Right?”
He nodded.
“Don’t give up hope, Theo. Maybe she’ll be back.”
“I do hope,” he said, clutching the amulet tightly.
She squeezed his shoulder to reassure him. She turned back to the Atranox. Tristana was nearly halfway there.
“Connie, aren’t you ever afraid of anything?”
“Of course I am. I’m afraid a lot. I’ve been afraid since I came to this world.”
“Then how can you seem so brave all the time?”
“Being brave does not mean you aren’t afraid. Sometimes there are good reasons to be afraid. Being brave is finding the power within yourself to do what must be done, even though you are afraid. At least in my book.”
“I’m afraid of dying.”
“Who isn’t?”
“Do you miss your world?”
“Sometimes I do, and sometimes I don’t. I’ve been here so long that I almost feel like I belong here. You want to know something? I detect the scent of chlorine in the air here. It’s very faint, and it’s just at the edge of my senses, but it’s unmistakable. And it smells so good to me. I wonder if I’m—”
“By the gods!” Theo shouted suddenly, interrupting her reverie.
“What is it?” Connie asked, staring out at Tristana, who had nearly reached the base of the Atranox.
“No—behind us!”
Connie turned to look. The wall of thick fog that surrounded the Atranox had thinned, making it possible to see through it. There, they saw the murky black fog of Chaos on the other side of the gully flowing into the depression like a waterfall of cotton balls. No doubt the evil was now pooling there and creeping along the bottom, rising by the moment like the water in the hull of a sinking ship.
“Our death comes,” Theo said. “We have to leave this place now,” Theo said.
“Where to? We can’t go to the Atranox.”
“Then I want you to cut my throat for me.”
“Why?”
“I don’t want Chaos Death to get me. I don’t want to feel what it’s like to be turned inside out.”
“I won’t cut your throat.”
“Connie, you can’t let it get us! We have to do something. I don’t want to suffer.”
“I will help you then.”
“How?”
“Close your eyes.”
Theo did as he was told. Connie made a few incantations and waved her hands over his face. Instantly, he fell asleep.
“Now, you are at peace,” she said to the unconscious spirit mage, who obviously could no longer hear her. “By the way, that was №234. You can thank Snow for teaching me that one.”
Not wanting to see the horror unfolding behind her, Connie returned her attention to Tristana, observing that she had nearly reached the entrance of the Atranox. She estimated they had maybe ten or fifteen minutes before Chaos Death reached her and Theo. Feeling thirsty, she retrieved the water pouch from her backpack. She took small sips from it and gazed over at the Atranox, which now struck her as mysteriously evil and foreboding—a stupid, heartless god that would not raise a finger to save its worshipers without an appeasement of innocent blood. She saw Tristana enter an opening at the base of the structure.
“Farewell, Tristana. And good luck,” she said.
It was completely dark once Tristana entered the Atranox. No light at all penetrated from the outside. The only light was the bright green glow of the Heptakon on her wrist that lit her way. The flat black walls of the Atranox absorbed all other light save that of the light from the bracelet on her wrist. She walked calmly forward. She reached a T-intersection and paused. She looked right, then left. After a few seconds, she sensed that the right passage was the correct one, so she turned right. From there, she walked ten paces to a four-way intersection. She paused again. Now the left passage seemed to beckon her. She turned left and walked fifteen paces. She had arrived at another T-intersection. A steep downward staircase on her right called out to her. She went down the stairs and came to another four-way intersection. After a few seconds, following the guide on her wrist, she chose the passage to the right…
The labyrinth was as vast as it was dark. On her seventeenth turn, she paused. She had become aware of a threat behind her. It was in another passage, maybe four or four turns back, but its existence was unmistakable, and it seemed to be following her. Guided by the bracelet, she walked down several more passages and paused again. The threat was now closer. She turned her head to the right but did not look. She waited. All was still and silent. Following the internal guide unerringly, she took five paces, went down a staircase, and made four more turns at intersections: left, left, right, left, left, downstairs, right, upstairs, downstairs, right, right, left, right. She stopped and turned. The threat was very close. She could not see it, but its proximity was palpable. She raised her battle axe. As she did so, she noticed a change in the back of her hands in the light of the bracelet. They had begun to blister. The pain was like fire. Then a kind of weakness swept over her. The battle axe was now too heavy for her to carry. She dropped it where she stood. It fell to the floor with a loud clatter. Cradling the Stellarad Marax at her breast with both hands, she continued down more passages and made another sequence of turns: left, right, right, left, left, right, then up the stairs. As she walked, the presence behind her grew closer. It seemed to be feeding on her weakness, growing stronger and more threatening by the moment. She did not stop, nor did she attempt to look back at it. Just as it seemed the presence was going to seize her, she made a final right turn and found herself inside a vast, pyramid-shaped chamber lit by an electric green light. The moment she stepped into the chamber, the presence withdrew into the shadows, just outside the light, but it did not leave; it lurked there, waiting for her.
The walls of the chamber were made of what looked like polished, white stone. At the center of a raised area, in the center of the chamber, was a crystal dais, on which stood a pedestal. On the pedestal was an artifact identical in form to the Stellarad Marax she held, only it was mostly clear. A sharply defined beam of greenish-yellow light radiated upward from the top of the artifact through a gap in the apex of the inverted pyramidal space of the room.
Tristana understood what needed to be done. She walked toward the pedestal. She was a mere five paces from it when her legs suddenly collapsed beneath her, and she fell heavily to the floor. The Stellarad Marax fell from her grasp and tumbled across the floor. She looked at her hands. The skin had nearly boiled away from her hands, exposing the muscles underneath. She no longer felt anything. The pedestal was a mere 10 paces away. Her biological body no longer seemed to want to move. Through sheer willpower, she forced the body to crawl forward until she had retrieved the Stellarad Marax. She continued crawling forward. Now she was on the dais and by the pedestal. Summoning the remaining strength in her body, she rose to her feet and, with her ragged hand, pushed the old artifact off the pedestal and slid the new one into its place. Instantly, the entire chamber exploded with a powerful green light. She let out a small cry as her body was vaporized by the enormous energy that filled the chamber. Then, for a few seconds, a long, fluttering black streak appeared within the bright yellow ray that beamed high into the stratosphere above the Atranox, and then it was gone.
* * *
“Connie!” Rahl’s voice came. “Wake up!”
Connie opened her eyes and sat up quickly. Rahl was kneeling next to her. Theo was already on his feet.
“It is done,” he said.
“What’s done?”
“Chaos! We have banished it. Look over there.”
Connie looked to where he pointed. The area was clear, with no sign of the Chaos fog anywhere. She turned to look at the Atranox. A thick, bright greenish-yellow ray of light shot from its apex into the green sky above it as far as the eye could see.
“It’s so beautiful!” she said.
“What happened to you? When I found you, I thought you were dead. I saw all these dead thrakes about, and I thought they’d killed you for sure.”
“I cast a sleep spell on myself.”
“You cast it on me, too,” Theo said. “Why?”
“Because you were afraid. And I was afraid, too.”
“And these thrakes—who killed them?”
“We did. The three of us.”
“Amazing,” Rahl said. “Maybe I should call you ‘Swordbearer’ instead of sorceress.”
“No, thanks,” Connie said. “Hand-to-hand is a grueling way to make a living. I’ll stick with magic for now. By the way, where is Snow? Is she all right?”
“She’s fine. She’s back at the monastery.”
“I’m so glad you two survived. I’d thought for sure that Chaos had gotten you.”
“She cast a protection spell on us. Fortunately, it held out long enough.”
“Where is Tristana? Did she enter the Atranox?”
“Yes. She went in there alone.”
“Snow informed me of the plan.” He turned to Theo. “And she didn’t come back?”
Theo held open his hand to show them Tristana’s shattered ankh amulet. “She died in there.”
Connie saw from his expression how he felt, and her heart went out to him.
“She didn’t die, Theo. She went back to the negative material plane where she was conjured from.”
“I didn’t want her to go back.”
“She gave herself to save our lives. You should be thankful for that. We’re all thankful.”
“You’re right, but still I cannot help but grieve.”
“Now you can find yourself a real woman, Theo,” Rahl said, “one who will not suck your humors away if you look too long into her eyes.”
“Do not mock me, Rahl! I am not in the mood for it.” He shuffled off to collect his scattered belongings.
Connie and Rahl traded smiles.
“He’ll get over her,” he said to her.
“Without a doubt,” she said.
She looked into his eyes, and in that moment, she wanted to tell him how glad she was to see him again and how his presence so near her pleased and comforted her immensely. But thinking better of it, she kept silent, despite the aching in her breast.
“Are you ready now?” he asked, seemingly completely unaware of the emotion she felt.
“Yes.”
“Prepare yourself, then. We have a long journey back, and those injuries will make your trek painful and difficult.”
“As long as you’re with me, Rahl, I can manage anything.”
The swordbearer leaned over and raised Connie to her feet. She braced herself by putting her good arm over his shoulder, and then slowly they headed back toward the monastery through a land newly liberated from Chaos.