The water stream lifted about six feet into the air, before collapsing back in on itself and splashing down into a two-tiered bowl, and though that base was also made of ice, it seemed impervious to the warm flow.
“This is his source of power,” Milkeila stated, moving closer and lifting her hand to feel the splash and spray. “This is where Ancient Badden connects to his earthly power.”
“You can feel it?” Cormack asked, and Milkeila’s expression showed clearly that she was surprised that he could not.
“I can, as well,” Bransen said. “It is not so unlike the emanations of your gemstones. It teems with energy, with ki-chi-kree.“
Cormack rubbed his face and looked over at Brother Jond, who sat silent and expressionless. What Bransen had just said, the comparison of Samhaist magic to Abellican, would be considered heretical to the leaders of the Abellican Church, but Jond seemed not to mind, nor to disagree.
And Cormack certainly didn’t. Adding the fact that Bransen had also included his own mystical powers, this strange concept of chi, only reinforced to Cormack that he was right in this, that all the Churches and magical powers were in fact pieces of the same god and same godly magic.
As he considered that, he felt an acute sting, a memory of his whipping, across his torn back.
Bransen closed his eyes and stepped up to the fountain, then washed his bare arm through it.
“If that is Badden’s source of power, can we, too, use it?” Cormack asked. “Perhaps to counter the Ancient?”
“We cannot use it as he uses it,” Milkeila replied. “The powers he garners from it are … beyond me.”
“This magic is not focused and stable, as with the Abellican gemstones,” said Bransen. “It is fluid and ever-changing, and we cannot access it as Badden does—certainly not in the time we have.”
“What, then?” Cormack asked.
“Despoil it,” both Jond and Milkeila suggested together.
“I will weave spells into it, to divert it from whatever course Badden has fashioned,” the barbarian shaman explained, and she stepped right up and began softly chanting, singing, an ancient rhythm of an ancient blessing.
Similarly, Bransen held his arm in the flow and sent his chi into it, trying to stagger the infusions and twist them in a wild attempt to somehow alter the magic within the water.
And most straightforward of all came the powries, all four. “Ye heard her, boys,” said Mcwigik. “Put a bit o’ the dwarf into it!” They lined up around the bowl, unbuckled their heavy belts and dropped their britches, and began their own special and to-the-point method of despoiling the magical water.
“Hope he’s not drinking it,” Bikelbrin noted with a snicker.
“Yach, but I hope he is,” Pergwick added. “We’ll give him a taste o’ the powries he’s not to forget, what!”
He soared over their line with impunity, roaring and breathing forth lines of fire, ignoring their feeble spears thrown by their weak, mortal muscles. He was Badden, Ancient of the Samhaists, the voice of the ancient gods, who blessed him with the power of immortals, in this case, the strength of a true dragon.
He pondered that if he killed enough of them up here, he might not even need to drop the front off of the glacier and flood the lake. It was a fleeting thought, though, for after the contamination these heathens had brought, the lake would be better off for the purification, in any event! Besides, he would enjoy it. As he enjoyed this slaughter of unbelievers. He raked the line; he roared with divine joy.
A spear dug deep into his side.
Ancient Badden’s roar changed in timbre. More spears reached up and stung him profoundly. He answered with another gout of fiery breath, and indeed, those nearest barbarians shied away from the flames. But those flames were not nearly as intense as the previous.
Badden’s serpentine neck swiveled to offer him a view of his distant castle. Something was wrong here, he knew. Something was interrupting the flow and strength of his magic. Another spear pierced him, shooting lines of hot pain. The dragon roared and beat his long and leathery wings, propelling him across the barbarian ranks and beyond.
The barbarians cheered behind him and threw more spears and clubs and rocks—anything to sting the defeated beast. Then they threw taunts, and more than one noted that the dragon seemed as if it had diminished in actual size.
Feeling the painful sting of a dozen wounds, and feeling even more acutely a sudden distance to the power that fed his draconian form, Badden knew those observations to be more than illusion.
There was little for Cormack to do as the other six, in their own special ways, despoiled Badden’s fountain conduit. Too late, he thought to take the gemstone necklace from Milkeila, for now he did not dare interrupt her concentrated efforts.
Nor did he want the gemstones at that time, the former Abellican monk had to admit, to himself at least. The sense of betrayal was too raw and too sharp. His communion with the gemstones had always before elicited a feeling of kinship to Blessed Abelle, the man who had founded the Church less than a century before. But now, clearly, the representatives of that dead prophet considered Cormack’s worldview as heretical.
If he used the gemstones in this tremendous battle, would he feel the consternation of the spirit of Abelle?
He considered that perhaps he was making too much of it all, was allowing his anger and disappointment to overrule his judgment. He looked over at Milkeila and could see the strain on her face from her continuing efforts. The magic she battled was tangible, and formidable.
With a sharp inhale, Cormack steadied himself and took a step toward her, determined to dismiss his excuses and offer whatever help he could. But he stopped before he had really even started, for through the translucent wall above and behind Milkeila came such a blossom of orange and yellow that Cormack instinctively pondered that he was seeing the birth of the colors themselves. He watched, mouth agape, unable to even call out a warning, as those colors, the fires of dragon breath, turned the icy wall to water and steam, and through the glowing cloud came the beast itself, framed in hot-glowing mist that made it seem as if it were entering through some extradimensional portal!
The powries cried out and scrambled to pull up their pants; Bransen reacted with snakelike speed and precision, diving to the side, out of the way and collecting Milkeila as he went, still deep in her trance.
Cormack could only stand there and gape as the dragon’s serpentine neck swept down and the beast rolled right over it, tucking its wings. As it came around, it was not the lower torso of a reptilian dragon that showed, but the legs of a man, feet adorned with painted toenails and vine-tied sandals. Badden continued his transformation as he completed the somersault and it was a man and not a dragon that landed on the floor before the fountain.
But not just any man; it was the Ancient of the Samhaists come calling.
He landed with such a thud that it seemed as if he must be many times his apparent weight, and the same magic that perpetuated that strange perception reached out from Badden and into his magical ice floor. Huge ripples rolled out from the man, waves of ice, as if the floor had been caught somewhere between the state of a solid and of a liquid. Those ripples rose like waves and crested sharply and with tremendous energy, throwing dwarves and humans alike into the air violently. They crashed into the walls and bounced off the fountain, handheld weapons flying wildly. Milkeila splashed down into the fountain, and with the rumbling all about her, it took her a long while to sort out which way was up and get her head above water.
She fared the best, however, for the only place in the room, other than at Badden’s feet, that was not violently rolling and crashing was within that very pool. The shaman grimaced as Mcwigik and Bikelbrin flew past her, grabbing at each other for support until they were split apart from each other by the intervening fountain tower, both ricocheting, spinning out toward the walls. She cried out in pain as her beloved Cormack flew straight up into the air, more than a dozen feet—and only his co
nsiderable training allowed him to sort himself out enough in his descent to prevent landing on his head.
She winced at watching Bransen, not flying about, but maneuvering over the solid waves as a boat might defy heavy surf, and she gasped in shock to see one wave break right over poor Ruggirs, smashing down on the dwarf with tremendous force, blowing out his breath in a great and profound groan. The ice wave blended right over him, burying him in the floor.
Not far from her, Ancient Badden cackled with enjoyment, and stamped his foot again, giving rise to another series of waves, ones that crashed into the rebounding first set and sent the whole of the room into frenzy. Even the walls began to ripple and buckle! Now all of Milkeila’s friends flopped and bounced about uncontrollably, except for buried Ruggirs and one other.
To the Jhesta Tu, Bransen’s posture was known as doan-chi-kree, the “stance of the mountain,” a place of complete balance and perfect calm, where the straight-standing mystic reached his line of life energy, his chi, below his ki, his groin, and down to doan, the floor beneath his feet. That line of life energy became the mystic’s roots, his stability, and in such a state, a Jhesta Tu could not be moved by a charging giant.
The floor rolled to Badden’s command beneath Bransen’s feet, but Bransen moved with it, his legs bending and straightening accordingly and so perfectly that his upper body remained perfectly still. He locked stares with Badden. The Ancient stomped his foot again. But Bransen would not be thrown.
Milkeila drew courage from that image and shook herself from her stupor. She reached into her magic again and thrust it into Badden’s fountain, demanding that the violence end.
She felt as if she was trying to hold back the great Mirianic Ocean itself! But she shook away her despair and pressed on, blocking out all the distractions, focusing solely on the task at hand.
The room began to quiet.
Ancient Badden broke off his stare and looked over his shoulder at the woman, feeling her intrusion into his magic as keenly as if she was reaching into his stomach and tugging at his entrails. The Samhaist roared, as much the voice of a dragon as that of a man, and stabbed his hands out to the fountain’s centering geyser. The roiling waters froze solid suddenly, encasing Milkeila’s hands and forearms in a crushing grip.
Badden whipped his arm in a sudden circle, and the icicle responded likewise, turning over itself as it rushed around, twisting Milkeila right over.
She felt her shoulders pop from their sockets, then wrenched her back as the ice stopped its swing abruptly, locking her top half fast in place while her lower body whipped around.
Waves of nausea and dizziness and floating black spots filled her gut and head and eyes, and when the ice returned again to its liquid fountain form, the helpless woman dropped into and under the water, with no sense of direction or awareness at all.
Badden chuckled as he felt his magic flow more fully once more, but he knew that the diversion of this foolish woman had cost him. For in the moment of calm, the humans and dwarves had closed.
The Ancient snapped the fabulous sword off of his back, took the hilt in both hands and sent it out to arm’s length. With a maniacal cackle, the man went up onto the ball of one foot, hooked that balance point into his magical energy and began to spin. Not to spin like a young girl at play, but to truly whirl about, gaining speed and momentum with every turn. His form blurred; he altered the angle of his blade so that there was no possible approach.
Pergwick howled in sudden pain and fell away, desperately clutching at his head to hold his scalp in place. He went down to the floor, looking frantically for his lost beret.
Mcwigik and Cormack, side by side, fell away without getting stung, but Cormack shouted anyway, in frustrated outrage and not in physical pain, for he found himself separated from his fallen Milkeila, and he couldn’t see her above the rim of the fountain bowl. He tried to maneuver around the side, but got all tangled up with the ducking and retreating Mcwigik.
“What whirlpool’s he swimming in?” the dwarf barked in absolute surprise.
Bransen, too, slipped out of reach, but in a more controlled manner, taking a full measure of his adversary, and Bikelbrin dove over the side of the fountain, splashing down into the water. He had just regained his footing when Badden suddenly extended his reach, using the narrow sword as a focus for the release of his magical energy.
The prone Pergwick skidded across the room. Cormack and Mcwigik went flying away in a confused tumble, and Bikelbrin flew back into the center pole of the fountain with such force that his sensibilities kept right on flying.
Dazed and hardly conscious as he hit the water once more, the dwarf flopped over the drowning Milkeila. On pure instinct, he hooked his arm under the woman’s head and rolled himself onto his back, atop her back, using her bulk to keep his own head above the water. He kept his arm hooked to hold himself steady, and that alone saved the gasping Milkeila, for the weight of the dwarf rolled him back and his arm brought her head out of the water.
Ancient Badden had never felt a purer release of magical energy, as satisfying as any release any man might know. He stomped his foot to accentuate the magic, sending the room into a series of crashing ice waves once again.
Before he could congratulate himself, however, Ancient Badden looked into the face of one who had not been moved by his magical thrust, and who seemed not bothered in the least by the current rocking.
Bransen Garibond held his ground. “You have my sword,” the Highwayman calmly explained, and Badden looked at him in abject disbelief.
“It is you!” the Samhaist replied. “I threw you from the glacier!”
“Highwaymen bounce,” Bransen replied.
“You were a babbling fool—an idiot who could hardly stand!”
“Or I was a clever scout, taking a measure of Ancient Badden and his forces before bringing doom upon them.”
Badden stood up straight and shook his head—or started to, for faster than a striking serpent the Highwayman struck. He sprang forward and snapped off a left and right jab for the old man’s face, connecting solidly both times.
He leaped back immediately, throwing back his hips and keeping his belly just an inch ahead of the thrusting sword. As he bent double with the move, Bransen drove down his forearm to knock the blade downward.
But Badden had anticipated that, and he cunningly turned the sword so that Bransen’s arm hit the razor edge.
Bransen did grimace, but simply rolled his hand down lower, changing the angle and driving the blade out wide. Then he rushed back in, slamming against Badden, one hand holding the man’s sword arm, the other hand grasping the old man’s face.
And Badden responded by snapping his free arm up behind Bransen. First he crushed the man into him, and with strength beyond anything Bransen could ever have believed possible!
Badden grabbed the back of Bransen’s hair and bandanna and tugged back violently, and Bransen growled in pain and in the sudden horror that he might again lose that precious gemstone. He raked his hand straight down, fingernails drawing lines of blood on Badden’s face, then reversed and hit the old man with a series of short and devastating uppercuts, crunching bone beneath his pounding fist.
Badden reflexively let go of Bransen’s hair to bring his free hand in to stop the barrage, but the moment he did Bransen shot out to the side, going after Badden’s sword arm, going after the sword, furiously.
But even though he got the leverage, the proper angle, he couldn’t pry the weapon free, and he realized his error, realized how vulnerable he had left himself, right before Badden’s fist smashed him in the back, driving his breath from his body. This was no mortal he faced, but some magical monstrosity! He needed the sword, but he couldn’t hope to get it. Badden pounded him again, and Bransen’s legs went weak.
“Fool!” the old Samhaist chided.
Bransen fell within himself as yet another explosive and thundering punch crashed against his back. He found his line of chi, found his center….
He thought of Cadayle. He centered all of his fleeting thoughts on her, using her image as a focal point for holding on to his fast-flying consciousness. Something flew past him, and he was jerked backward. Another form rushed by—Cormack. He heard the slap of punches; he managed to glance over his shoulder to see Mcwigik tight about Badden’s leg, biting the man hard on the thigh, and to see Cormack facing Badden straight up, raining a rapid barrage of punches against the man’s face. That one was no novice to fighting.
But neither was he—were they—a match for Ancient Badden.
Bransen guessed Badden’s move—to pull free the sword and be done quickly with all three—so as soon as the Ancient started, Bransen reacted with sudden fury and all the power of his training behind him. He lunged for Badden’s sword hand, grasping the wrist and cupping his other hand over the Ancient’s clenched fist, snapping with all his strength, with all of his leverage, with every ounce of Jhesta Tu and gemstone magic he could possibly muster. One chance, he knew. One moment of focused power.
Ancient Badden’s hand bent back over his wrist, his wrist-bone shattering. Bransen drove his own hand up over Badden’s fist, catching the serpent hilt of his mother’s sword and pulling it free.
He got slugged one more time but anticipated it and was diving into a forward roll even as Badden’s fist hit him, thus absorbing much of the blow. He rolled head over, coming numbly back to his feet, and he spun about just in time to see Cormack launched in a sidelong somersault by a vicious backhand.
Staring at Bransen with hate-filled eyes, clutching his broken hand in close at his side, the Ancient clawed his free hand down on the stubborn, gnawing powrie, and with frightening strength plucked Mcwigik free.
He lifted the dwarf to throw him at Bransen, but the Highwayman was already there, coming under the would-be sentient missile. He stabbed, and quickly slashed upward, cutting under Badden’s arm. The Ancient still managed to throw Mcwigik, but suddenly he had so little strength behind it that the dwarf bounced and turned and roared right back in. Or would have, if there had been a need.