Chapter 19: Twist and Shout
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“Children!” Aurelius shouted over the wind that now sounded like an on-coming train. “Get your boats turned around and head for shore—split up!”
“No!” Loo shook his head frantically. “We’ll never make it—it’s coming too fast!”
Aurelius glared at the boy, and then nodded, closing his eyes. When he opened them, Ryssa saw they held a look of newfound intensity. Taking out his wand, Aurelius paused for a moment to let the power build through his connection to the magic and then cast it toward the waterspout.
Ryssa watched with fascination as the pattern of magic exploded from the tip of her uncle’s wand. It formed a wall of diagonal crisscrossed lines in silver and purple. Did she detect a few strands of green running through it as well? The wall moved toward the waterspout, blocking its path.
Team Phoenix turned their skiffs around as best they could and scattered. Reggie and Meek struggled to steer their boat into a current that would take them away from the waterspout and the Black Knight who directed it. Meek lost concentration every time he looked back at the Knight. Reggie tried to control the skiff by himself, but couldn’t match his magic to the current.
Ryssa watched Aurelius. She was mesmerized by the magic he worked. Loo did his best to distance the skiff from the waterspout, but the waves kept throwing Aurelius off-balance. Loo finally gave up on his efforts in order to help elder Faery stand upright against the rocking swells.
The Black Knight took on a glowing pattern all his own, as though he were a creature of pure magic. But the lines emanating from him were like liquid black webbing, encasing him in ebony radiance. Ryssa would never have thought anything that black could glow, but the Knight did.
The magical struggle between Aurelius and the Black Knight was on a level that only Ryssa could see. Her uncle’s face was strained with the effort of keeping the wall secure, but blackness would surge from the Knight, pushing the waterspout toward the wall, searching for its weakness. First it probed, testing in various places. The spout then changed tactics and retreated, only to surge forward like a battering ram as it attempted to break through. Again and again it pounded. Each time it connected, Aurelius was thrown off-balance, as though struck by the whirling mass through his link to the wall. Only Loo’s grip around his legs kept him from toppling over.
The funnel pulled back to hover for a moment. Ryssa swore it was picking up speed. Her heart leapt into her throat as she realized what it was about to do. There was no warning she could have given that would have made a difference.
Then Aurelius’s words came to her mind—words he had spoken the day he taught them about Air magic—You can’t stop the wind—Why was he trying to? In that instant, she knew. He was trying to give the children time to get to safety. But what would it mean when the waterspout did get through?
“:He sacrifices himself to save the children,:” Darkwind said.
“:But what about Loo? He’ll be killed. He’s one of us—would Aurelius sacrifice him, too?:”
“:Better to lose one than to lose all.:”
Ryssa could hear the indifference in Darkwind’s tone, and it made her angry. She looked to Loo, whose face was filled with fear, but she could tell he was trying hard to be brave.
He knows, the thought leapt into her mind, he knows he is about to die—she felt the fear rolling off of him like a tangible line of energy calling to her heart.
Ryssa frantically looked around. The other members of Team Phoenix had not gotten far from the middle of the lake. They were panicking, and Ryssa knew that panic didn’t mix with magic. A chill of foreboding raised bumps on her skin, but at the same time, a strange calm settled over her and she suddenly felt detached from what was happening. It was like watching from a distance, only she wasn’t.
Then it happened, just as she knew it would. With a surge of tremendous force, the waterspout shot forward to the wall, propelled by the dark power of the Knight behind it.
Something inside her changed. She felt fear rolling around like a bad taste in her mouth. It wasn’t her fear—or maybe it was—but it came as much from outside of her as it did from within. Time froze, or crept by so slowly that she could see every instant from a hundred different perspectives—a thousand—but all with the same results.
“:Detach,:” Darkwind’s voice stroked her mind, and Ryssa did, without thought, without anything. She just let go.
Her body floated upward. No, she realized, looking down—her body was still there. It was in the skiff, behind Reggie and Meek, holding onto the edge of the boat for balance.
Wow, Ryssa thought with an idle touch of personal scrutiny, my hair’s a mess.
The waterspout burst through the wall and she saw the lines of magic that formed the barrier snap at the point of impact. With nothing to hold them together, the lines lashied about like downed power lines seeking a place to ground.
Aurelius reeled with the momentum of the force. If Loo hadn’t been there, he would have toppled into the water. As it was, Loo did everything he could to let Aurelius’s weight carry them both to the bottom of the skiff instead of over its edge.
Ryssa heard screams, and looked for the source. She couldn’t see anyone screaming, and yet they came from the skiffs below. Team Phoenix was only marginally separated by open spaces of water. They were far enough apart that the waterspout couldn’t hit them all at once—but still not far enough. If the waterspout were to hit any of them directly, the others would face the danger of being swept into the twisting wall of wind and water. But the funnel seemed to have chosen its path—it was heading directly for the skiff that held her, Reggie, and Meek.
Looking across the expanse of water below, Ryssa saw everything at once. She saw Team Phoenix struggling to get away. Aurelius still sat dazed in Loo’s arms. The waterspout moved closer and closer, dodging the whipping lines of magic that had not disconnected from her uncle. And she saw the Black Knight—the evil creature who was behind it all.
It’s funny, Ryssa thought. Looking down at my own body. I wonder—if I die when the waterspout hits me, will this part of me survive, or will it die with the rest of my body?
She absently noticed new lines of power, different from the ones she was accustomed to seeing. Stretching outward from the children below, the lines were flailing around. All were thick and in various shades of deep, grayish-white. When a line from one child lashed across another, Ryssa felt a state of heightened fear, and the first line would increase in size and intensity.
I wonder what those are, Ryssa speculated with idle curiosity.
“:It is their fear.:” Darkwind said.
“:A person can’t see emotions.:”
“:You obviously can.:”
“:But emotions are just—:” She frowned, trying to think of a word. “:They’re just emotions.:”
“:Emotions are power. It is emotions that fuel the magic without a wand. And often emotions, more than anything else, determine whether magic is light or dark—not the magic itself.:”
“:Oh. Aurelius never taught us that.:”
“:Didn’t he? Isn’t that what he’s been teaching you all along?:”
“:What do you mean?:”
“:What does he have you do before you work with any magic?:”
“:Empty our minds of all thought.:” It hit her. “:That’s why he does it—if we aren’t thinking of anything, then we can’t get all emotional about it before we work with the magic.:”
“:Exactly. Why do you think your magic is so intense?:”
“:Because I have such a hard time clearing my mind?:”
“:Yes. You are a creature of almost pure emotion. You let your emotions, rather than thought, guide the majority of your actions.:”
“:That’s what my foster mother says. She always said Reggie is the head and I am the heart.:”
“:It happens that way with twins sometimes.:”
Ryssa looked down again and her heart stopped. Wel
l, it would have, maybe, if she’d been in her body. The waterspout was almost on top of them. She could see Reggie’s fear lashing out from him like a whip. Meek’s intertwined with Reggie’s, making it appear stronger and larger. Then the full brunt of their emotional energies swept across Ryssa’s body in the skiff.
The power of it coiled through her. She could now see another thin line of energy, silver in color, secured between her physical self and her floating self. It was like an anchor keeping her in place. The power of the boys’ fear traveled up that line, flooding her with its intensity.
Without thinking, she grabbed the end of the intertwined projection of their fear and held onto it. It poured into her and she rocked with the realization that the waterspout was about to strike.
“:No!:” she screamed, and heard the echo of her cry reverberate around her. All the lines coming from the children below froze for a second, and Ryssa became aware of her teammates looking around as though they had heard her.
Once again, Ryssa didn’t think—she acted out of pure instinct. Her floating body dropped closer to her physical form and she grabbed the lines of fear from the others, pulling them together.
Then she understood, if only in a small way, the phrase so many in Faery used—time has no meaning—because for her, in that moment, it didn’t. It seemed to take an eternity to gather those lines to her, and yet the waterspout had barely moved.
Now what? she wondered as she held the lines.
A moment of indecision passed, and the children’s fear rushed through the lines again, flowing over and through her, making their fear her own.
Borne by the desperation of their fear, Ryssa frantically grabbed for the lines still pouring from Aurelius’s wand. The additional intensity almost made her drop everything. Before she could lose complete control, she lashed out with the twin-bond.
“:Reggie—help me!:” She could see him almost knocked over by the despair that surged into him through the bond.
“:Ryss?:” She heard the shakiness in his voice. “:What—?:”
“:No time! Just help me.:”
“:Help you what?
Reggie was bewildered. Ryssa could tell the instant he joined her floating point of view above the scene.
“:Ryss, what’s going on? Is that my body—? Wow—your hair is really a mess:!”
“:No time,:” Ryssa repeated with irritation. “:Help me pull these together into a wall—that’s what Aurelius was doing—we have to tie them off.:”
Reggie quickly took in the situation and worked to help her weave the flows together, trusting that they were doing the right thing. Ryssa spotted another line of magic, bright and emerald green. Remembering the flash of green in the wall Aurelius had created, she grabbed the line to add to the wall she and Reggie were weaving.
Ryssa froze. The line emitted power filled with despair and something else—was it anger? It was a line of pure emotion, yet somehow it seemed more solid than the others that she held. She traced the line back to its source—Meek.
Looking at the boy, she saw that two lines were coming from him—one like the lines from the other children—and then this one. The first line was already woven into the pattern she and Reggie were creating. The other one, the line of green, pulsated in her hands, throbbing and surging with power. Without being told, she knew it was throbbing to the steady rhythm of Meek’s heartbeat. The tempo was a strong, fast, pounding force—like the galloping hooves of a horse.
Ryssa felt the power in that single line, and as she did, Meek turned his head to look directly at her. Not at her physical body in the skiff, but at her, the floating essence above them all—the part of her that held the green line in her non-physical hands.
She suddenly recognized what it was that she held. A look of understanding passed between them, and she knew what she had to do. Swiftly, she took the green line and thrust it into the center of the woven wall, adding the line to the pattern, straight up the middle. The green line snaked into place, finishing the weave, strengthening it.
And it held. The waterspout stopped in place, no longer moving toward the children. The outer edges of the funnel sat only yards from where the boats bobbed, riding the swells that assaulted them.
While the waves of water battered the physical Ryssa, another wave beat at her floating essence above the water. Blackness rolled in, seeping through the weaves of the magical wall. Nausea roiled through her stomach, the darkness clinging to her, suffocating and weakening her defenses in order to weaken the wall. She knew then that it was the essence of the Black Knight, come to fight her directly.
Despair washed over her. He was so strong—how could she ever hope to defeat him? Her hold on the ties weakened and she gave a sob of dismay that coiled outward through the lines, touching the children below. She could feel their fear intermingled with her own, and the wall weakened under their combined uncertainty.
“:Ryss!:” She felt the echo of Reggie’s voice in the lines and knew the members of Team Phoenix could hear what he said. They all stopped, as she did, like a single breath caught in the surprise of the contact between their minds. “:Don’t give over—you can do this! You’re the only one who can—without you we’re all toast!:”
A brief moment of terror overwhelmed her at the thought of the enormous responsibility—one solitary moment when the Black Knight almost succeeded in his onslaught against her. The weave of the wall widened, then weakened, and she felt the Black Knight’s triumphant certainty of victory.
The waterspout pulled back like before, gaining strength to make its final break through the wall. It lurched forward, and the wall began to unravel under the force of its attack. The terror of her teammates inundated her and she felt faint from the pressure. In that moment of terror an image flashed in her mind’s eye—an image of the deformed and broken body of Woody Landstrider cradled in the arms of his twin. It was an image of twins separated by loss—
Ryssa looked down at her own twin, the fear locked on his face as he stared at the nightmare battering its way through the wall. Through all of it, he still strove to give her the courage he didn’t feel for himself. He had always believed in her more than she had believed in herself. She grew angry—and with the anger came resolve.
She blew out the breath she had been holding, and slid back into her body. The waterspout loomed before her, larger than life. Ryssa stood in the skiff, immediately feeling Reggie and Meek’s hands holding her steady. Her left hand was clenched, and the lines of power flowed through the grasp she had on them. She could tell by the faces around her that because of her connection to them, they could see what she saw—the energy, the wall, and the nearing success of the Black Knight.
Sheer defiance blocked out the fear and turned it to determination. Ryssa pulled the wand from her pocket with her free hand, and held both high, allowing the defiance to give her strength. At the last possible instant, she gathered all the energy available to her fingertips and channeled it through the wand pointed at the waterspout.
Power shot from Darkwind’s glowing crystal—no lines—just a solid core of power that struck the wall where the lines of green held the last defense against the Black Knight’s attack. The green was energized, and Ryssa felt Meek’s grip on her tighten as his body jerked with the power fed into his own. The green glowed bright, spreading its color across the lines of emotional power coming from the other children and the lines of magic that still flowed from Aurelius’s wand, changing all the energy to green in the wake of its growth.
When the power reached the outer edges of the wall the outer edges of the wall it solidified. No longer was it just a weave of multi-colored lines—now it was a solid wall of green that blocked the waterspout from view. The green flared, blinding all who looked at it.
Ryssa blinked rapidly, trying to make the tears blurring her vision go away. The lines she held in her hand were suddenly wrenched from her grasp, leaving her fingers cramped from the tightness used to hold them in place for so long.
She fell back into Reggie and Meek, who caught and held her between them.
The spots before her eyes dissipated, and Ryssa, along with the others around her, watched in amazement as a Green Knight appeared before them, riding his horse atop the waves. As tall as the waterspout, he pulled out his sword and hacked at it, disrupting the flows of air and water. The spinning slowed as the funnel’s solidity was interrupted and began to disperse.
All at once the waterspout vanished, the wind dying out to leave the water hanging for a single moment in the air, before it dropped with force back into the lake. A gigantic wave splashed over the members of Team Phoenix, creating a rocking swell that pushed them away from where the Black Knight stood.
The blackness of the Black Knight’s power was still a tangible force, but he fought a losing battle against that of the Green Knight. Inch by inch the darkness retreated toward the Black Knight and the Green Knight followed, hacking and slashing as he drove it further from the children.
Suddenly, the darkness pulled back into the Black Knight, and was sucked into his form like a vacuum. The Green Knight galloped toward him, his mount picking up speed across the open lake to the distant shore. The Black Knight spun his horse around and took off at a run, trying to escape into the tree-lined edge of the water. The Green Knight followed him into the trees, head and shoulders above the canopy of the woods. At last both were lost from sight.
Team Phoenix sat numbly in the skiffs, the waves dying down around them as the winds and clouds disappeared. Aurelius stared at Ryssa with a strange expression on his face that slipped back under his mask when he saw her regarding him. He sat up in the skiff, with the help of Loo to steady him.
“Back to shore, children.” Aurelius avoided looking directly at any of them.
A shocked and bewildered Team Phoenix did as their Counselor bade and worked their way back to land. There was little talking amongst them. Meek refused to look at Ryssa, although she tried to catch his eye. She wasn’t sure how much the others had seen or whether they had noticed that the green line, the core that formed the Green Knight, had come from Meek, and she didn’t want to draw attention to the silent boy.
They pulled to shore. A group of elders in both purple and white, and purple and black robes hurried up to Aurelius. They spoke to him in low voices, outside the range of the children’s hearing. Ryssa flushed with annoyance and embarrassment as their sidelong glances repeatedly fell upon her. When they stepped back from her uncle, Aurelius turned his emotionless gaze to her.
“Team, return to your quarters until further notice. Ryssa, Reggie. You come with me.” He turned and headed off, expecting them to follow.