Returning to street level, I had a little bit of time to think to myself about what was about to happen.
Few people can ever say they’ve witnessed what you’re about to. You’re about to watch Sheena take one of the most powerful magical constructs ever created and use it to wipe the Ivory Palace out of existence. Emerging from the Academy, Alverd, Alicia, and I put as much distance between us and the building as possible.
Even several stories up with solid rock and metal between me and where the Calamity was powering up, I could feel the distortions in the magical energy around me. To me, a magically-sensitive individual, the Calamity was like an open furnace eagerly consuming whatever energy it could get its mitts on while throwing off heat in every direction. It’s almost like it’s alive. Like it hungers. That’s not natural.
In the center of that roiling heat was a single speck of magic that I knew was Sheena. Like a shard of ice, she remained solitary in the middle of that seething mass of magical energy, unfazed by it. I hope she can handle this. It’s not like we have any idea what we’re doing. Then again, when do we ever?
Years of dust shifted from the upper parts of the Academy as the shaking intensified. The pillars holding up the building began to crack. Windows shattered. The three of us moved further away from the Academy when the cobblestone surrounding it began to collapse in on itself. When the quaking became so strong I could barely stand, the Calamity emerged.
The entire structure caved in on itself, the ground beneath it no longer able to support it. Even as it fell, the shining copper skin of the Calamity rose up through the rubble, like some horrid creature birthing itself from a stone egg. Its arms came up and through, pushing aside the two halves of the Academy as it climbed out of its resting place.
It was equal parts awe-inspiring and terrifying to watch. I was rooted in place, unable to turn my eyes away. How could anything so breathtaking be so horrifying at the same time? I almost forgot that this was a weapon of war. In the maelstrom of magic force, I could sense Sheena, directing the magic as it swirled around her.
What surprised me was the way it responded to her. To make the legs move, she had to focus her will to put magic into the legs, to move the joints so that the monstrosity would walk. To move the arms, she had to move her own arms in similar motions to “relay” the action to the Calamity. Energy then flowed to the arms to carry out the action, returning back to the central “heart” to await further instruction.
For all intents and purposes, Sheena was the heart of the Calamity. Oddly, it’s fitting. She’s the emotional core of an emotionless machine. Two halves of a whole working in tandem. As the last of the Academy’s walls crumbled to the ground, it drew itself to its full height, one hundred feet of pure destruction awaiting the command to unleash its power.
The Ivory Palace was visible in the distance like a shining beacon in the midday sun. It stood high above the tops of the buildings surrounding it, the gleaming spires seeming to dare the Witch-Queen to turn her wrath against them. The Calamity’s right foot raised, and with a thunderous sound the giant golem took the first step towards the Palace.
The impact of the foot against the ground sent a shockwave that didn’t just physically ripple through the area. I could feel magical reverberations, the very fabric of reality seeming to bend beneath the weight of the Calamity, straining not to break. The existence of it was an affront against the natural order, and to stand in its shadow evoked dread in me I hadn’t felt since the Arena back in Ishmar.
It felt strange for there to be no response as the Calamity closed the distance to the Palace. There were no throngs of screaming people fleeing for their lives, no guards rushing to defend against the invader. The entire city is dead, most likely. Gods only know if there are any survivors and where they might be. Somehow, I’m not sure Sheena cares at this point. The Calamity took another step, passing through a city plaza.
The plaza had several small statues in it, built to honor famous wizards and witches of eras past. The Calamity swept them aside like a wave crashing against sand castles. A three-story building collapsed as the golem brushed against it, taking out most of an entire wall with barely any contact.
As the building density increased, so did the amount of wanton destruction. Sheena had no patience to maneuver the golem delicately through the maze of buildings that barely came up to the height of the Calamity’s waist. She bulldozed through several more. I’m not sure if I should be impressed or disturbed by how single minded she is. I wouldn’t have pegged her for an “at any cost” kind of person.
She was about two hundred yards away from the Palace when the ground began to shake even more violently. Two of the spires flanking the Palace toppled as the ground gave way, and from the dust and rubble came two familiar shapes. Not unlike Sheena’s version, the other Calamities had vaguely humanoid shapes with carved human faces, although both of them only stood half as tall.
She raised the arms of her Calamity, pointing at both of her aggressors. With a loud mechanical whirring, the gauntlets on the arms opened, elongated and exposed their inner workings, drawing in power as they prepared to fire. Again, I could feel a sense of cold hunger as the armlets greedily sucked what energy they could into them, and I thanked my stars I wasn’t closer.
Off in the distance the two Calamities raised their own arms, armlets activating on each. Time to find out if size really does matter, I mused as the energy gathering in Sheena’s weapons reached their peak. The armlets cycled the energy between their three rings, amplifying and magnifying the power the way a blacksmith folded the steel of a sword, reinforcing it with each pass. Oh man. This is going to hurt.
When Sheena discharged her weapons, I thought I had gone blind at first. The blue beam of light that shot forth from both of her Calamity’s arms took up the whole of my vision, searing my eyes so badly that I could see the light even with them squeezed shut. It felt like being on the surface of the sun; there was a sensation on my skin of simultaneous prickliness and burning, as though someone were lightly pricking me with dozens of needles.
A cacophonous sound like a million trumpets heralded the firing of the weapons, assaulting my ear drums and making me go weak in the knees. An invisible wave of magical force washed over me like a summer heat blast, raising every hair on my body and making me feel hot and cold at the same time. I was in a state of such intense sensory overload that I couldn’t tell if Alverd and Alicia were suffering the same as I was.
Then the sensation passed, and I became aware that I had sunk to my hands and knees, I was breathing heavily, and that I had a massive headache. Alicia, apparently not affected as heavily as I was, hooked her arm under my chest and hauled me to my feet. “Get up, spellslinger! Now’s not the time to have a nap.”
Looking up, I saw the aftermath of Sheena’s attack. Deep ruts had been furrowed in the ground leading all the way to the Palace, any infrastructure unlucky enough to be in the way gone. The sheer heat of the attack left glowing scorch marks in its wake, smoke lazily wafting into the air. The only things standing were the two opposing Calamities, which had thrown up barriers made of shimmering blue light.
Not unlike a standard shield spell, but cranked up to a magnitude of about a thousand. Maybe even ten thousand. And those are the smaller Calamities, too. The Palace was still standing, having been fortunate enough to be positioned behind where the two constructs had stood their ground. If the other Calamities are still beneath the Palace, then that means the Magisters know that if it falls then the golems will be buried beneath the rubble. It would take months to excavate them, which is time they don’t have.
The pieces were in place, the lines had been drawn. All Sheena has to do is destroy the Palace before the Magisters take her Calamity out, and even then destroying her construct just puts them at a disadvantage. Nice to see that the odds are stacked in our favor for once. Both of the enemy constructs then let loose with their own attacks, shifting out of defense and into offense by funneling the energy from their shields into their own focusing armlets.
Four beams of blue light shot forward, streaking toward Sheena with a sound reminiscent of the shrieks of the damned. Crossing her Calamity’s arms, she threw up her own barrier, a kaleidoscopic array of multicolored lights solidifying into a convex shape. The angled surface of the shield deflected the attacks rather than blocked them entirely, causing several of the beams to go off in unpredictable directions.
One such beam came within ten feet of our position. I was again blinded by the proximity of the light, and I almost lost my footing as the blast wave slammed into the three of us. I was knocked into Alicia, who was able to somehow steady me and keep her balance at the same time.
“Mother Evros. How did we ever think we could defeat the Algrustians?” Her face had an incredulous look.
“You can’t. Magic doesn’t play by the rules that barbarians think it should.” I glanced over at Alverd to see if he was okay. He’d taken a stray bit of debris to the head and was now bleeding from a minor cut above his right eye, but otherwise he was unharmed. “Magic rarely plays by the rules wizards think it should too. Fact is, magic doesn’t require mortals to define its limitations.”
The two opposing golems marched forward, taking up a position in front of the Palace. The jig was up; the Magisters had to know that Sheena was willing to do whatever it took to collapse the Palace to bury the other Calamities. Standing close together, the two constructs were able to focus their individual shields into a much larger, thicker one that covered the entire front of the Palace, daring her to strike.
Sheena drew energy into her armlets again, preparing for another attack. “The truth is that mortals think they can define what magic is to be used for, and this is what they conjure up,” I continued. “End of the day? The best we can come up with is ways to kill each other.” I let out a sarcastic laugh. “I guess mages and barbarians aren’t so different in that way.”
Alicia gave me a weary look. “It shouldn’t have to be like that.”
The best I could muster in response was “I know.”
Sheena’s next attack blazed through the air, twin lances of azure energy slamming against her enemies’ joint barrier. The barrier was strong, but not enough to fully withstand the full force of her attack, with sections of it cracking like glass as it struggled to maintain itself. I doubt it can take another hit. Sheena has them beat in terms of raw firepower, but it’s still two against one.
Four arms began to draw in more power. The Magisters were going to concentrate their counterattack, hoping to down Sheena before she could take the Palace out. There’s nothing we can do. I can’t do anything. What can I possibly hope to do against something like that?
As I looked on, I felt something stir in the Staff of Farewells. Glancing at the ruby on its tip, I felt a power pulsing within it. Opening my awareness to the staff, I tried to ascertain the nature of the power; to my surprise, I discovered that the ruby housed a truly massive repository of magical power within it, like a waterskin full to bursting.
Why didn’t I notice this earlier? The staff was still a mystery to me. Deotra had said it was up to me to unravel its secrets, but I couldn’t help but feel like it was convenient that only now was I being made aware of this extra power. I don’t want to jump to any ridiculous conclusions, but it’s almost like the damn thing wants me to know it had this power, and waited for this moment to reveal it to me. But, that’s a dangerous rabbit hole to tumble down, there’s the possibility that this thing is alive and aware. I shuddered at the thought of Drache, wielding Deotra like a puppet on a string, her eyes full of gleeful malice.
I found myself drawn to the interior of the ruby. The flawless gemstone was cut beautifully, nestled securely in its brass mooring like a dragon egg in its mother’s lair. I couldn’t tell if the inside was sparkling because of the refraction of light through it or because it had some inner fire burning inside of it. The visual effect was mesmerizing. I couldn’t turn my eyes away from it. It seemed to pull me deeper into it, whispering not in words but in feelings how much power it held, and how I could use it. By intuition rather than actual understanding I felt an image surface in my mind, that of myself standing upon a stone dais in a dark, starry void, clad in a resplendent robe, holding the staff as I pulled cosmic forces together to weave into creation itself.
Everything around me melted away until the vision became all-consuming. The feeling of absolute power was intoxicating. I held a star in my hand, a little blazing ball of primal fire that held power beyond my wildest dreams. It was mine to wield, to command. I span the star in my hands, marveling at the infinite possibilities.
“It could all be yours, you know. I’m curious to see what you would do with that power.” I spun around to see Deotra standing behind me, her arms crossed behind her back, watching me with a gentle smile on her face. “It’s why we gave it to you. I believe you’ll do great things with the Staff of Farewells.”
“But why would you think that?” I asked her. She paused, then put her finger up to her chin. “Let me put it this way. The true test of a person is to give them power. One who has never had real power their entire life is destined to react in one of two ways.” She held up her palms, and two small globes of blue fire appeared in them.
In the ball on her left hand, there was an image of me in a fine gold and white cloak, surrounded by adoring people who were showering me with praise as I sat in a finely furnished throne room, a crown of wrought silver upon my head. “You could either respect the power you’re given, use it wisely, become a paragon of magekind, and be remembered for all time as a benevolent figure.” In the other ball, however, I saw a version of myself clad in a black and red robe, sitting on a pile of corpses, watching and laughing as I rained fire on an entire kingdom, watching as all burned beneath me. “Or, you might abuse that power as those who victimized you did, lording over those weaker than you as you go down in history as a notorious tyrant.”
Then she waved her hands and both flames guttered out, and she placed them on her hips. “I’m hoping you turn out like the former. I just have a very good feeling about you.” She came over and wrapped her arms around me, burying her head into my chest, nuzzling her fuzzy ears against my chin.
“If you were the kind of person to do what you did to that boy to save a helpless animal, I know you’re the kind of person who’d wield this power the way it was meant to. Sometimes you have a heavy hand, but not without mercy or restraint. When you’re at the height of your power, something like the Calamity won’t be able to touch you.”
Before me, the scene I’d left behind swirled into view in the empty black space. Four beams of energy slammed into Sheena’s Calamity, tearing through her shield and burning into the dormicite skin. She was still standing, but the damage was noticeable. Her shield was failing and would likely not protect her from the next exchange. I was transfixed until Deotra gently pulled my face down to meet her gaze. She was still smiling, but I couldn’t help but shiver at how cold and obsessed her eyes looked.
“It’s my job to get you there. To protect you. To stand by you as you become who you were meant to be.”
Behind her, in the window back to reality, I could see Alicia and Alverd fighting. One of Laspa’s zombified Isharians lurched into view, swinging an ill-maintained sword at Alicia. She easily parried the zombie’s wild swing and sent it flying away with a counterattack, but she was outnumbered and flanked on multiple sides. Alverd wasn’t faring any better, as he was trying to fend off a zombie missing its entire arm using his shield.
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Deotra’s eyes seemed to glow in the shadow cast by her bangs, and she bared her sharp incisors as her grin widened. When she spoke, it was no longer her voice but that of Drache’s dark, deeper tone. “Help them. But stay alive. We still need you, boy. And you will not fail us, not when you have so much to fight for.” She pushed me away, and I fell down and backward into the void.
Deotra, or rather Drache, had one last parting say before it all faded to black. “Remember, boy. When you have everything to fight for, you have everything to lose.”
When I snapped back into my own body, my consciousness lurching back into the solid confines of my skin, I felt Alicia smack me in the back of the head. “Look alive if you want to stay that way, Kuro!” I blinked and screamed as a zombie swung a rusted sword at my face. Alicia pulled me back and swung her maul one-handed at the dead man, sending him flying and his sword clattering to the ground.
Alverd cleanly removed the head of a zombie from its shoulders with a swipe of his sword, then kicked away the flailing corpse, which crumbled into dust, leaving only its damaged armor behind. “Kuro! Now is not the time to doze off!” He neatly parried an attack from his right by a zombie with an axe before splitting its head in two down the center with a vertical slice. “We have a necromancer to deal with.”
Off in the distance, standing in the middle of a city street intersection, was Laspa. At least, I thought it was her. The body had the same features, but looked significantly younger, as if she’d aged in reverse by about twenty years. Typical. Leave it to a necromancer to always have another flesh puppet vessel in reserve.
That explained where her soul had gone after I’d “killed” her in the cavern below the Academy. Her true body had probably expired long ago, ravaged by the continued exposure to her necromantic energy, so she’d had to cobble together secondary vessels for her soul to inhabit through vile rituals involving the use of dead flesh. The body she was inhabiting now was the product of graverobbing and sins against the natural flow of life into death.
How do you permanently kill someone who shed their mortal body? I wracked my brain to figure out what her weakness might be. As I did, Laspa pointed at us, her arm making audible creaking sounds as the “fresh” vessel resisted the action. Guess she hasn’t had time to break it in yet. She really wasn’t expecting us to get the better of her.
A stream of words in the language of demons emerged from her mouth, guttural and deep. The zombies rallied, the green fire in their eyes burning brighter as they responded to their mistress’ order. Green smoked wafted from Laspa’s mouth as she spurred her minions towards us. “You may have destroyed the zombies I had below the Academy, but I assure you I have more,” she rasped. “Now that everyone in Ethenia is dead, I have plenty more troops to raise. I will especially enjoy adding you to my collection.”
Well that’s just peachy. I bet you were the kind of kid that practiced vivisection on her dolls growing up. It would certainly explain a great deal. There were at least twenty zombies behind Laspa, and more were emerging from the alleys and streets on our flanks. The three of us found ourselves backing towards where Sheena was making her stand, keeping a wary eye on the attackers still multiplying in number by the second.
Now under the direct command of their creator, the zombies coordinated their attacks like living beings. They came after Alverd and Alicia in waves, pushing forward even as they were cut down one by one. Alverd chopped the leg off one of the zombies, only for it to stubbornly grab onto his leg. “Damn it! Unhand me!” He felled another zombie with a hasty slash before stabbing the point of his sword into the other zombie’s skull, and the creature loosened its grip and lay still as the fire in its eyes died out.
On my other side, Alicia was having similar trouble. Her maul was adept at shattering bones, but only by crushing the skulls of the zombies did they stay down for good. As they crowded her, she was struggling to swing her weapon with enough force to land killing blows. The lack of space meant that every swing was leaving her open to attack, and even with her speed it was only a matter of time before there’d be so many zombies she wouldn’t have time to wind up.
I decided to try something a little different. There was little magic that wasn’t being actively pulled towards the titanic battle between the Calamities to work with, but there was enough for my needs. With the Staff of Farewells, I concentrated air into a small ball in the middle of the zombies attacking Alicia. Then, I willed the ball to expand, rupturing it and throwing them into the air as though gravity had reversed itself.
Ten zombies lurched skyward as the miniature explosion went off. The spell sent them flying in every direction. One unlucky zombie flew over Alicia and towards where Sheena’s Calamity was standing. It landed in a heap, but it was still intact. It started to crawl back to us, but then the focusing armlets realigned and started to draw in magic power.
The armlets sucked the necromantic energy away from the zombie like oxygen from a fire. The zombie’s eyes guttered out and the corpse let out a raspy sigh as its power was drawn from its body, green fire drawn out and into the armlets along with everything else. Without its animating force, the zombie turned to dust.
That’s it. “Alicia, Alverd! Get close to me. Keep those zombies off of me as long as you can!” Pointing the Staff of Farewells at the Calamity, I opened my mind’s eye to the flow of power within the golem. Like before, I saw Sheena’s pod as the heart, but I was searching for something else. After a moment, I found what I was looking for.
Located just below Sheena’s position and tucked behind a solid mass of dormicite plating was the true heart of the golem, a massive crystal infused with magical force. With the Staff of Farewells I homed in on the crystal, seeking to create a bridge between the ruby affixed to it and the Calamity’s power source. It took a second to concentrate but I felt the invisible connection snap into place. The Staff was now a conduit for the crystal’s power.
Conduits flow both ways. Sheena needs more power and Laspa looks like she’s got plenty to spare. In my mage sight, Laspa was cloaked in a haze of green necromantic magic, emanating from her like steam. Maybe we can take that and put it towards a better use. Focusing the Staff toward the energy she was radiating, I began the task of creating the conduit.
In order to create the link and leech Laspa’s power, I had to navigate past her thralls and avoid accidentally linking to them instead of her. Obviously this would be something that could be more easily accomplished without distractions, but that’s not a luxury I can afford. It’s up to Alverd and Alicia now. Through my staff, I envisioned a thread of green light extending towards Laspa, the manifestation of the bridge I was creating between us.
Behind me, the Magisters took their next shot at Sheena. Thanks to my connection to the Calamity, I almost felt the beams of light cut through her barrier and into the golem itself. The beams gouged through the legs and torso of the Calamity, tearing out the delicate innards and forcing it to its knees. Sheena cried out even as she tried desperately to prevent the monstrosity from tipping over, a feat she managed only by slamming its right hand on the ground to catch itself.
Time’s running out. Sheena can’t hold up against the Magisters. I need to make sure her next shot has enough juice to get through to the Palace or we’re sunk. In front of me, Alverd and Alicia were carving up and knocking down the undead, weapons swinging. Alicia grimaced as a zombie slammed a mace across her face, then swept her maul across his hard enough to remove his head from his neck.
“Whatever you’re doing, do it faster, Kuro!” She cross-checked two zombies with her maul’s handle to establish spacing. “We can’t hold them off forever!” Alverd swept his shield left and clobbered a row of three zombies, knocking them away but not out of the fight. He parried another zombie’s swing of its sword then ran said zombie through the face. “
What’s the play here, Kuro?” He yelled. “We’re running out of space here!”
I felt the magic weave past six more zombies, arcing like a drunken firefly as it drifted towards Laspa. Finally, the thread made it to the necromancer. Like a snake, it coiled around her leg, then shot upward to tangle itself around her body. She recoiled in fury, slapping her arms and legs as though trying to swat a rat climbing up the inside of her robe. That would probably look hilarious to anyone not able to see what’s actually happening. Too bad we don’t have time to appreciate the humor of it.
The thread whipped and writhed until it was thoroughly woven around her, who snarled angrily as she tried to remove the charm. “What is this? You’re trying to bind me? A Magister? Do you not have any inkling of who I am?!” She made eye contact with me, and I heard the focusing armlets on Sheena’s golem slide into position to draw power into them again. I aimed the Staff at Laspa and grinned wickedly.
“Yeah. A dead woman walking.”
The thread snapped taut, turning from green to red, locking itself into place around both Laspa and the crystal heart of the Calamity. As the focusing armlets drew in power, the crystal did the same, the furnace-like sensation clawing at the connection to the necromancer greedily. She howled as her magic was torn from her as though she were tied to a wagon tumbling downhill at breakneck speed; the green haze was sucked away like a fire caught in a tornado.
As the necromantic energy was siphoned out of her body, it aged rapidly, the skin rotting away at unnatural speed. Soft tissue decayed in seconds, exposing bleached bones that quickly turned black and then crumbled to dust. Laspa screamed, but even that was mercifully short-lived; in the space of only about six seconds, all that was left of her was a pile of black dust, still giving off a faint whiff of green smoke.
With the weight of centuries of necromantic energy now funneling into the heart of the Calamity, the armlets flared bright blue, brighter than before. Sheena fired, and the beams of light that emerged from the arcane sigils conjured by the Calamity outshone the sun, forcing me to turn away for fear of burning my eyes. The sound of screeching metal filled the air as the blast wave slammed into me, and I was thrust down to the ground by the sheer force.
When I dared to look, all I could see were what remained of the two Calamities before the Palace were the legs and waists. The entire upper torsos of both golems had been burned away, but in their final moments the two had managed to shield the Palace from Sheena’s attack. The Palace was still untouched, and as the remains of her adversaries teetered and fell, Sheena cried out.
Sparks were flying out of every joint of her Calamity. The sound of metal being forcibly bent under pressure heralded the failure of its internal structure. I could feel the crystal heart fragmenting, unable to sustain itself after pushing the monstrosity far past its limit. The giant golem fell to its knees, plates of its armor falling off in droves. It lurched forward and hit the ground, and Sheena was thrown against the glass covering of her pod, which was still twenty feet off the ground.
Alverd ran over with his arms outstretched. “Jump, milady! I’ll catch you.” With great difficulty, Sheena waved her arm and the pod slid open with a lurch, and she half-crawled, half-fell out of the pod and into his waiting arms. I wanted to believe she had used magic to slow her descent just enough to land safely in his grasp, but he lost his footing and fell on his behind in the process. Alicia and I ran over to see how she was doing.
She’d sustained several injuries. A gash on her forehead was leaking blood down the bridge of her nose, her left glasses lens was cracked, she had several minor cuts on her arms and was a bit dazed. The most serious injury was the shard of glass buried in her abdomen, knocked loose from the shielding of her pod during the battle. It was protruding three inches out and I prayed to the gods that that was the longer end of it.
She took in a long, ragged breath, her hazy eyes focusing on Alverd. “Is… is it done? Did I destroy… the Palace?” He brushed her bangs from her forehead softly.
“I’m afraid not. It’s still standing. The Calamities are gone but the Palace was untouched.”
She bit back a curse, sucking in air as she winced from the immense pain she must have been in. “Shame. I had hoped to make sure that the Magisters would all perish in the blast, but it seems like they might have time to escape now. We should give chase and-” Her words were interrupted by a cough, and she spat up a wad of blood. “Oh, dear. That’s not good.” Despite her attempt to sound tough, we could all hear the fear in her trembling voice.
Alicia leaned down and grabbed hold of Sheena’s hand, squeezing it. “Don’t try to talk. Save your strength.” She nodded to Alverd. “I know it’s not a good idea to move her but we have to get out of here. Don’t pull out the shard until we can get her somewhere safe or she might bleed out. Kuro, get over here and help us.”
I was about to do so when I felt something shift in the air. The feeling of a vacuum sucking in everything around it was quite familiar by now, but it was unrestrained and out of control. Turning to look at the burnt out husk of the Calamity, I knew why. The heart was malfunctioning. In a desperate attempt to stabilize itself, it was forcibly drawing in as much magic as it could.
Problem is, without Sheena to stabilize it and distribute it, the heart can’t regulate that power. With the Calamity damaged as it is, there probably isn’t any way to distribute that power evenly to avoid a catastrophic system failure anyway. As the concentration of energy grew, I knew that it would lead to only one logical conclusion.
The godsdamned thing is going to explode, and we’re sitting right next to it.
I stood transfixed in front of the mechanical beast, watching as my death stood before me like a snake rattling its tail. There was no way to run, no way to escape. My jaw fell open as the heart gave off pulses of magic, signaling that it was getting closer and closer to its final beat.
Behind me, Sheena let out a small sob. “I wanted so much more. I don’t know if I deserved it, but I still wanted it.” She coughed heavily. “I don’t suppose you have a noble steed that could whisk us to safety, would you sir knight?”
Alverd scoffed. “Sorry, milady. I’m afraid I was always terrible at horse riding.”
I was so engrossed in the inevitability of the end that I missed it at first. Over the din of the heart sending out shockwaves, the sizzling of the air and the tortured metal, I heard it. Deotra’s voice, in the back of my mind. “This isn’t where you’re meant to be. This isn’t where your journey is supposed to end. Take the Staff and see with your mind’s eye where you wish to be.”
I called out to her in my mind. “I don’t understand. What do you mean, where I wish to be?”
Her voice came back, full of worry. “Think of safety. Evoke the image of what safety means to you, and allow the Staff to guide you. Hurry! I can’t help you unless you give the Staff the power to do so!”
The ruby began to glow, and the inner fire swirled like a celestial body, like a nebula moving at great speed. It seemed to call out to me, the infinite potential of the cosmos, all at my fingertips, begging, pleading, to be wielded. I was bombarded with what felt like intent, the consciousness of some ancient force longing for something that I couldn’t identify.
This staff has power I could never hope to understand. But I don’t need to understand it to use it. In my head resurfaced the image of the tree in Marevar where Alverd, Laura, and I had made the best memories of our lives, us growing from children to young adults. Even as we changed, the tree remained the same save the passing of its leaves from green to brown to green again. It was the closest thing to safe that I could think of.
“There. The concept of safety, that’s what you need to focus on. Take your friends and survive, Kuro. I’ll be with you. I’m always with you.” The phantom feeling of her warm arms wrapping lingered with her words. I ran over to my companions and slammed the Staff of Farewells into the ground.
“Everyone grab on and think of the safest place you could be. Something that has significance to you. Picture it clearly in your head and focus only on that.” The three of them looked at me quizzically. “Do we look like we have time to debate this? Just do it!” I smacked the ground again with the staff, and they reluctantly took hold of it with one hand each.
“Now, don’t stop thinking of that safe place. I admit that I don’t really know what’s going to happen when this goes off.”
Alicia’s eyes widened. “What do you mean you don’t know?! Are you crazy?” A fresh shockwave buffeted into us, and she tightened her grip on the Staff as she gnashed her teeth. “If we live through this I am so going to bonk you over the head later.”
Just gonna ignore that for now. I felt the presence of my companions in the spell the Staff was already weaving around us. Once again it acts like it’s a living thing, with a will and the means to fulfill its own goals. If I live through this, I’m not going to give Deotra a break until she explains this to me. She owes me that much.
Each of us contributed to the spell, light taking the form of a sphere around us. Forming from the ground up, it spun itself in a weaving pattern of gold, blue, red and purple as it enclosed itself over our heads. When the next shockwave hit, it washed over the dome like a wave over a sand castle.
Sheena’s eyes fluttered, her gaze losing focus. “I’m sleepy… wake me when it’s over. Don’t let me oversleep… “ She closed her eyes and lay still. Alicia was about to say something when the same happened to her, and she sank to her knees and fell asleep still sitting up.
Alverd, struggling to stay awake, fixed me with a steely stare. “Kuro, I can’t stay awake. Something… whatever it is you’re doing, it’s eating away at my strength. I hope you know what you’re doing.” He had to grunt that through his grit teeth, sweat rolling down his face. “I know you won’t let me down. I trust you, Kuro. Don’t lose sight of that fact. We’re counting on you.” His head dipped, and he fell unconscious. The dome solidified into a glasslike consistency, now a true shell, sealing us all in and hopefully protecting us against the outside.
“No more distractions, Kuro. You know what you have to do.” The feeling of Deotra hugging me from behind, her slender arms clasping around my chest, became the only sensation I was aware of. “Draw from the Staff. Draw from yourself, your friends. Make desire, reality. Make thought, action. Take what the Staff gives you and make it your own.”
Make it my own. What will be the symbol of my own desire? It only took a second to come to the answer. My left hand pressed against the wall of the sphere, pushing form and thought into it. The will took the image of a golden fox, curled around the dome like a mother protecting its young, fiery eyes glinting defiantly at the dying Calamity. I felt no small amount of approval from my familiar as the golden fox wrapped its tail around us.
“And so begins the journey true, boy. I cannot wait to see what happens next.” Drache’s venomous voice dripped in my other ear. “I look forward to it with the utmost anticipation. Try not to disappoint me. You’ve finally started to prove interesting, after all.” Then, like a bird lifting from my shoulder, she was gone.
The heart of the Calamity beat once more, the metal skin glowing white hot as its innards fused together under the intense heat. The last gasp of the monster would take the remainder of Ethenia with it, and hopefully the Magisters and the remaining Calamities as well. I could only hope now. I closed my eyes, wrapped my arms around my unconscious friends, and pulled them in close.
The heart beat for the last time, and then the light consumed everything.