Awakened, page 42
“Let’s get to work then, shall we?”
Avryn nodded grimly as a sword of Light flashed into his hand and he charged forward. Shrell followed slightly behind and the two ran into the fray, immediately overwhelming a black robed figure that was lobbing Light conjures at a few of their allies. Pulling out daggers of her own, she scanned the scene before her and tried to calculate where she’d be most helpful in this chaotic battle.
A sense of something behind her made her duck, rolling forward just as the sound of a blade whooshed through the air where she’d been a moment before. Kicking herself into the air, she spun around to see Prost, looking angry.
“You can’t win this battle, wench. You may have lasted this long, but that will come quickly to an end.”
Whipping her hand forward, Janis slashed out with her long dagger, aiming for Prost’s neck. He of course stepped backwards, leaning out of the path of the knife. Without a moment’s hesitation, she flew into a windfury of attacks, striking left and right, moving through the motions that Macks had taught her so thoroughly years before.
Prost was fast. He managed to dodge each and every attack she launched at him and still managed to attack here and there himself. Determined, she increased the pace of the attacks hoping to get the better of the bulky man, but his stature and appearance did not match the uncanny speed that he was displaying now.
Frustrated, Janis moved closer and made motions to stab with her smaller dagger held in her left hand. He, of course, raised his own sword to parry her attack, but just before their blades would have collided, Janis let it slip out of her hands and she seized his arm by the wrist, holding it tight. This caused the reaction she’d hoped for, and he instinctively reached for it with his other hand. In that moment, she slashed her long dagger forward across his stomach and she ripped a gash in the flesh there. It wasn’t the final blow that she’d hoped it would be, but it still felt satisfying.
Gasping, Prost jumped backwards and held his sword ready. He cursed and rushed Janis once again, swinging his sword in an arc overhead.
Knowing that Prost was much stronger than she was herself, Janis didn’t attempt to block the blow with her own knives, but instead dashed to the side, letting his sword swing through empty air.
Janis grinned, feeling confident. This man had no powers, much like herself. For some reason, she felt the need to make up for all their past engagements, particularly the first they’d had seemingly ages ago.
It’s time to bring down that ego of his, she thought.
Spinning around, Janis made to dig her dagger into Prost’s back, but he easily danced out of her reach, moving safely to another position. A flash of Light flew between them and exploded the ground, shooting debris and dirt at their faces and knocking them back. Each, however, took this as an opportunity to best the other, and they dove directly into the dust that had come with the explosion. Slashing, stabbing, ducking, spinning, moving so fast that Janis was shocked at his ability to keep up with her.
Prost came in for a side cut with his sword, aiming for her midsection. Janis, knowing that once again the brute force from the blow would win out against her own, crossed her blades and used the intersection to catch his own sword. Applying the right amount of pressure and speed, she twisted the sword out of his hands.
Burning pain blossomed in her arm and she inhaled sharply at the feeling. Unexpectedly, Prost had procured a small dagger and had stabbed her in the upper arm, the knife almost going through her arm entirely. The dagger that she held there fell to the ground with a thud as her arm gave out to the pain.
Prost bared his teeth into an evil looking grin.
Foggin’ hidden blades! How does he move so fast for his size?!
Janis disengaged by jumping backwards while kicking out with her foot, which collided with his crotch. Grunting, he bent forward slightly at the pain, but recovered quickly. All at once, Janis felt pain blossom randomly in her abdomen and she felt nauseous. Sure, the wound that she’d just received was pretty serious, but they had never made her feel nauseous in the past, she merely ignored them. Something felt off. The nausea was combined with an intensifying pain in her gut that just felt wrong.
On top of that, there wasn’t much time before her arm would bleed too much, weakening her. This engagement couldn’t last much longer if she expected to live.
* * *
“Come, Marric. I think it’s best if you rest a little bit. You seem very tired.”
“No, ma’am,” he said, then he looked down, embarrassed. “I mean, yes, I’ll rest, but I actually would like to start training if you wouldn’t mind. I’m not sure I could sleep with all that’s going on and, well. . . . ”
Magness smiled slightly, but nodded.
“I quite agree. Rest is indeed pointless if one cannot rest. Now, tell me, what class are you?”
When he’d told her about his three Lightbearing powers, she didn’t appear taken aback at all. She merely nodded thoughtfully. She then said as he’d already been delving into his Seeing powers quite readily, that perhaps they should start there. If he was being honest, it was the power that he was least excited to learn, though it had proven quite useful so far.
The rush and hustle of the caves and tunnels around them continued only for a short time before coming to a rest. As they passed through different tunnels, Marric saw doorways to small bedrooms, the mess hall, privies, and even some market-type areas. It seemed to never end. The walls were made of gray stone, smoothed in some places by who knows what, while other bits were jagged and rough. He’d looked to the side at one point for too long and scraped his elbow on one of these, learning that paying attention was important so as to not injure himself.
They ultimately ended up at a small cave with a simple wooden door. There he was left with Tynvel, their former head Seer. The woman seemed too old to still be living, her face riddled with deep set wrinkles and age. Her hair was long, down to her ankles, and it was of the purest white. She was missing a majority of her teeth, so understanding her was quite a feat. Magness stayed only for an introduction, then promptly left.
“Sheet don, boi,” the old woman said.
Marric stood there for a moment, unsure what she just said.
Tynvel raised an eyebrow, then spoke again.
“Yeh deaf, shon? I shaid, sheet don.”
Unsure what she was saying, but unwilling to offend her, Marric just nodded. This caused the poor old woman to grumble something in an annoyed fashion before she moved behind him. He froze, not sure what to expect. However, she merely put her hands on his shoulders and pushed down heavily. Grunting under her surprising strength, Marric eventually buckled his knees and sat on the ground.
Ahhh, sit down. Blast, how does anyone understand her?
“Sheeing ish about calm, conshentrashion. Relaxsh, breef, and focush.”
Marric stared blankly at her.
She sighed again at his reaction, and instead resorted to demonstrating what she intended for him to do. The old woman sat on her backside, one knee up in the air, the other tucked beneath her. Then she closed her eyes and, in an exaggerated fashion, breathed long and deep.
Marric felt extremely awkward seeing how this woman was sitting and how loudly she was breathing, but seeing as how he couldn’t really do much else without knowing the directions in the sanctum, he opted to sit down and match what she was doing. He only attempted to sit the way that she was for a moment before realizing that it was far less comfortable than the woman made it look. Instead, he shifted so that both legs were to the side of him.
There they sat for what seemed like forever, her eyes closed completely. He breathed the way that she did, but he could only keep his eyes closed for so long before feeling bored. Wasn’t something supposed to happen?
In an attempt to get the woman’s attention, Marric cleared his throat. When that did nothing, Marric asked what he didn’t understand.
“What is supposed to happen?”
“The vishions will come. Jusht breef, focush.”
Fortunately, Marric was starting to get the hang of listening to how she spoke and he could understand her a bit more than at first.
“When? Should I be focusing on something? Someone? I’m worried about my friends, Avryn and them, perhaps if I just—”
“No!” Tynvel said harshly. “You musht firsht learn ‘owtta know when yeh Shee. Then yeh learn to focush to somethin’. Let it come. Let it be what it wantsh to be.”
He shrunk back at her reaction, and though he wanted to ask more questions, he opted not to.
Sighing, Marric closed his eyes again and matched her breathing. There they sat, eyes closed, breathing in and out slowly and deeply. Rather than clear his mind, it instead fell onto thoughts of Janis, Shrell and Harmel. Marric was worried for them, and he prayed to Lanser that Avryn and those that had gone with them had arrived in time. They had left hours ago, so perhaps that was a possibility.
A sound in front of him made Marric snap out of his thoughts and open his eyes. Tynvel’s eyes were open wide and they glowed a brilliant and intense blue Light. It looked unnatural and unnerving, so much so that he got the chills looking at her. Rather than continue staring at the odd appearance of her Seeing, he closed his eyes and breathed again. After only his third breath, it happened.
Once again, he felt as if his eyes were opening up wide, but he couldn’t see anything, just black. Before long, however, the vision coalesced into reality. The sun was coming up, revealing a partially lit forest. Flashes of Light, blue and red, prickled the air around him and he saw that this was a battle of some sort. Brown clothed figures used blue Lightbearing to fight the familiar red Lightbearers.
Avryn was among them, using his own powers and fighting alongside Shrell, each engaging the enemy in different but brilliant and skillful ways. Immediately, the vision moved quickly and landed on Janis. She was fighting someone.
Prost.
He couldn’t feel his body at the moment, but he was confident that if he could have felt anything, his skin would be crawling.
Watching the two fight was like a dance, a form of art that only the richest among them would pay to see. Looking more closely, Marric saw wet red stains on Prost’s midsection, and on Janis’s arms. It took him a moment to realize what it was.
His stomach churned.
Marric had never gotten used to seeing blood and now wasn’t any different, despite this not even being an experience that he was having in person. He turned away from that scene and observed with wonder the rest of the people. A person here was fighting with twin conjured long swords, each looked long and burdensome, made of blazing blue Light. They flicked and flashed through the air, colliding with a black robed figure’s red Light sword, each masterfully wielding their weapons. There was Shrell and Avryn, shuffling side to side and attempting to best a pair of black robed women, one Shielding the other while she threw balls of Light at them which exploded upon impact with whatever they touched. Avryn would spin with his blue Light sword and smack the Shield, dodge a red orb and the explosion of the ground, then lob his own blue orb which connected with the Shield, also exploding with a crack and a flash of Light.
The whole scene itself was mesmerizing, and Marric was having a difficult time taking it all in. He stood fairly close to Janis and Prost fighting, and suddenly a tree just to their left exploded entirely into a mass of splinter and tree pieces, much of it raining down onto them. All at once, Janis stumbled and Prost took advantage of that. He stabbed forward with his sword and it looked like it would connect with Janis’s skull, but at the last minute, she shifted her head and barely dodged the blow.
Then an extreme mass of Light flashed near the two and Janis screamed out in pain. The glare was so blinding and intense that Marric couldn’t see anything any longer and he was pushed from the vision so forcibly that it was almost painful. He fell over in the real world, his head knocking the ground because he wasn’t prepared for it. Tynvel, still sitting across from him, curiously yelped and had the same reaction, falling to the ground.
“What wash a’t?” she muttered.
Not a moment after they’d recovered and shaken off the feeling they appeared to both have gotten, a person knocked on the door and pushed in.
“Pardon, High Seer, bu’ sometin’s jus’ ‘appened.”
“Yesh? What ish it?” Tynvel asked the newcomer.
“Umm, well,” the man looked sheepish, seeming to be considering the next words he said, “sometin’ ’appened. It looks like every Seer here was jus’ knocked over by some force.”
Marric’s skin chilled. He didn’t know what caused the disturbance, but he knew that Janis was in danger.
* * *
Prost observed the assassin’s movements and was annoyed at how easily she seemed able to block, parry and dodge his blows. She was quite a crafty woman, but it made his job all the more challenging. He growled in frustration as the pain from his stomach wound flared up, shocking him into action more than debilitating his ability to fight. He hadn’t expected this fight to be drawn out for so long, but it appeared that each was evenly matched, though she was a bit faster and he was significantly stronger. Each just played to their advantage.
As his companions fought around him, he considered his current wounds and determined that he had to come up with something fast to take Janis out. Mind reeling, he struggled slightly to continue dodging her jabs to find an opportunity to finish the fight.
Just then, Janis stumbled, likely from the unexpected arrival of the tree shrapnel which she’d taken mostly in the front. Prost grinned wickedly, simultaneously annoyed that he’d been hit by the effects of the Destroying, for if it had hit him directly, he’d have been unaffected, but also pleased that it had given him the opening. He swung his blade quickly at the woman’s face. For a moment, it looked like it would connect, but she somehow managed to wiggle her way out of the blow.
Then it happened. A blinding blue Light flashed, extremely intense and bright. Prost could not tell where it came from, but he lost all ability to see. It wasn’t a quick flash, but instead persisted, blinding him completely so that the only thing he could do was cover his eyes.
Janis screamed.
A force slammed into him, something strong and large that lifted his feet off the ground and flung him over the tree that had just exploded, eventually smashing into another large trunk that was still intact. He grunted in surprise and pain, then fell to the ground. Trying to ignore the pain, Prost struggled to his knees. Just as he had done so, another force rocked him back again and he whacked into the same tree, but rolled off the side, flying just past it onto the ground.
Fog it! What is happening?! Prost thought.
How could this be? This force was clearly the power of some Lightbearer, but he was k’alek tar’n, he couldn’t be affected by their powers. Even Riln himself couldn’t touch him with his abilities. Yet now he was being thrown about by what clearly was the power of a Mover.
He looked up, squinting at the source of the Light, still blinding, and watched as a glowing pulse emitted from the intense glow and completely disintegrated anything in its path. Fear gripped Prost as he saw men and women on both sides disappear into dust, Destroyed instantly. Nearby trees exploded into splinters and the very ground below the intense oval of blue Light broke up at its effect. Fortunately, it was a small pulse of Destruction and hadn’t reached Prost.
Finally, an even larger wall of illumination appeared around the intense blue Light and flew outward. Its lines were defined, much like a Shield would look, should a Shielder put one up. Prost attempted to rise up and escape its path, but he was weak from the previous two blows and he took the Shield directly in the front, again being thrown backwards. He felt his head hit a hard surface, then everything went black.
Epilogue
The world swirled with impossible colors, full of images that didn’t quite take shape, but suggested real world things just enough that they could be made out and understood. Janis floated in all of it, not understanding, yet at the same time feeling quite awake and aware of her surroundings.
It was obvious that she wasn’t actually awake, for she knew that the world didn’t work this way, yet here she was, experiencing the oddity that it was. What was more confusing than her current location were the events of just before she’d arrived here. She was struggling to stay alive against Prost who had benefited from one of his friend’s arrows piercing Janis’s other arm all the way through. She thought Prost was more on her level then, and Janis was confident that in a battle of speed and endurance, she would eventually win out.
Just next to her, a scene appeared out of the wispy colors and objects. Marric. He was sitting inside some small room with an old woman who looked like she was not having a good day. They were speaking, though Janis couldn’t quite understand what they were saying. It was as if they were just out of earshot. Then it was gone.
As soon as it disappeared, a new scene appeared, this one showing Shrell and Harmel fighting side by side against what Janis assumed was a Shielder, for he had covered himself and his companion with a red wall of Light that resembled a gigantic bubble. The two of them worked remarkably well together, but the Shield was holding effectively.
Once again, this faded into nothingness and to her left, another scene appeared. This was one of her, though she was a small girl, terrified, on the streets, alone, hungry and cold. She squirmed inside, remembering that day suddenly, feeling and seeing the vividness of the experience. She had become something different. Rather than fade away on its own, Janis waved her arm through the scene and it did disappear. She didn’t really know that it worked that way, but she couldn’t stand—well, float there and watch that.
