Chapter 11 – Wizard Fighter

  Djanara

  Djanara felt wrong before even waking the day after Yule.

  Something bad had happened in the enclave.

  She jolted up, adjusting her eyes to the pink-blue low light of the common bedroom. She had wanted to try this communal rest thing for a night, felt like home. There were alarmed voices coming from out front, causing some of the others to stir. She gathered her sword stick before leaving.

  Out front, everything was wrong.

  The color of the sky between the dark canopies wasn’t its silvery color anymore – it had a brooding deep violet hue instead, with wisps of acid green clouds that swirled chaotically above the Yule tree. The tree itself had also changed, lost its vivid colors, turned more ashen; shed its decorations into heaps piled on the platform and down below. Lucette stood near, her usually placid face painted with dread, as did Sonnja, who was busy trying to keep several people from getting too close.

  “What’s going on?” Djanara asked while she ran toward Lucette. The fae only gave her a silent look and held up a single finger. Djanara was about to ask again when Jezza’s voice rang from the closest bridge.

  “Clover’s missing!” Jezza yelled, running her way to the group. She held the stick she’d brought with them, only now it had grown to the size of a proper focus staff. Her eyes were wide open in panic until Sonnja came over and placed a hand on her shoulder. Jezza took a moment to breathe, regained her rigid posture.

  “Yes,” Lucette said, calm, yet sad, “the Kingoma always takes one for a catalyst.”

  “Where?” Jezza demanded. “Where did this Kingoma take her?”

  Lucette raised a graceful arm and pointed below the platform toward the base of the tree’s trunk. A blackened, ichor-covered hole had opened in the bark, spilling its corrupted contents into the blue grass around to paint it the same violet-green color as the sky. The slime covering the opening prevented them from seeing further.

  Djanara felt heat rise in her chest, her lips curled. She glared at Lucette.

  “Why did you let this happen?” Djanara snarled, “aren’t you supposed to be in charge?”

  Lucette gave her a frustratingly patient look.

  “The Kingoma is fae,” Lucette answered, “primal fae, mindless, born of Terran fear, but fae, nonetheless. The first to find this place in a century. I may not harm one of my own, as per the courts.”

  Jezza, however, seemed to share Djanara’s frustration. The gnome tapped her staff on the ground.

  “Terrans can,” Jezza stated, simply. “Is the Kingoma stronger or weaker than a moldual? Because I torched one of those on Ivy’s turf.”

  Lucette appeared taken aback for a moment. Sonnja’s face went immediately grim, and her grasp on Jezza’s shoulder tightened.

  “No, honey,” Sonnja pleaded, “not again! You’re just supposed to be a teacher!”

  “We’re not doing this,” Jezza gave her mother a look of such mature ferocity that the woman took a step back in surprise. “You heard Lucette, that thing took Clover as a catalyst, who cares for what – she’s in danger. This place is in danger. There’s no time to rewrite the rules of the realm, no time to argue about who should go in, and no time to gather anyone else who can fight other than Dee-jay!”

  The gnome gave Djanara an intense glance.

  No real weapon or anything, but Leila wouldn’t care.

  I’m not talking to you anymore if you don’t save that girl. I know, Leila, damnit.

  Djanara’s hands tightened on her stick. It’d have to do. Anything did the job when swung hard enough, in her experience.

  “Yeah, alright,” the wolf-folk’s anger turned toward whatever darkness waited in that tree.

  Jezza looked to Lucette, said: “stronger or weaker than a moldual?”

  Lucette assessed.

  “Weaker,” Lucette said, “but so are both of you. It will be in roots’ heart.”

  Jezza nodded, then moved toward the edge of the platform where fairies loomed. Djanara and Sonnja followed, the older gnome wringing her hands and trying to get her daughter’s attention. Others were joining in now, Salem and Zephyr among them, gathering anxiously to watch them depart.

  “Jezza, please, no,” Sonnja pleaded, “I was so happy when you finally moved to professing full-time, I can’t believe you want to-”

  “Who’s going to do it then, mom?” Jezza replied. “Letting this happen when I’m the most qualified to stop it? What kind of model would I be for my future wizards?” The gnome didn’t even ask before hopping into the waiting fairies, which floated her down. Djanara figured she’d never seen her so heated.

  Sonnja looked to Djanara in desperation.

  “At least let me come with you!” Sonnja said. The wolf-folk shook her head.

  “You haven’t fought, ma’am,” Djanara said. “You should keep it that way. We’d trip on you, and we’ll need you ready when we bring her out.”

  Djanara waited for a moment to see the quiet resignation creep onto Sonnja’s face, before riding the fairies down to join Jezza. The gnome was already in front of the ichor-covered hole when Djanara arrived, twirling her staff in her palms and thinking.

  “So how much magic can you actually do like this?” Djanara asked, then added: “in numbers.”

  “All of it,” Jezza replied, “it’s mana that’s the constraint. I’ve got a lot less – we’ll say one big blast, three medium blasts, and some spot-work.”

  Djanara nodded. She remembered from the pyramid gig that she wasn’t risking getting blasted herself, the gnome had good aim. Shaped it around her or something.

  “Don’t sit on the big one all day,” Djanara said, “but don’t throw it away either.”

  “Right,” Jezza said, before stepping to the side. “I have a theory about your stick by the way: try cutting this.”

  Djanara looked at the stick again, realizing for the first time why it felt natural in her hand – its weight balancing would be perfect for a real blade. Curious, she approached the slimy covering. One overhead swing, full force, both hands. It cut right into the slime, sliced through like butter. The entrance sheared open to reveal a darkened tunnel down. Djanara brought the stick-sword up, searching for any cutting edge as Jezza came up behind.

  “Looks like it’ll cut through Kingoma’s stuff,” Jezza said, “so it should cut Kingoma, yeah? Fae logic for you.”

  Djanara had to admit that it made sense, somehow.

  “Alright,” Djanara grumbled, “dumbasses first.”

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  The wolf-folk kicked doubt from her body, gripped her sword, and hunkered down into the hole.

  It tilted down, curved inward. She heard the gnome behind her. It was dark, but her wolf-folk eyes gave her enough information to work with. Calls came from some of the others gathering on the surface, prayers for safety that faded into still earthen silence as she continued. Finally, she felt things open up and came to a stand on the giant ashen root they’d arrived on.

  It was less like a root system, and more like an upside-down trunk had grown into the ground and been hollowed out.

  A cavernous chamber, circular, with walls of ancient wood. Roots jutted their way through the wooden boundaries, crossed over each other in their haste to find silver soil. They curled downward toward an expanse below, spiraling against the endless bark separating them from the earth. The smell would have been fresh and mossy if not for the hint of bitter medicine corrupting it.

  It all had a kind of gray tone to it. Could be how dark it was.

  Jezza joined her shortly, taking a moment to look around, then over the edge.

  “Lucette said it’d be in the roots’ heart,” Jezza said, “that’s fae for all the way down.”

  Figured. She peered down at the yawning chasm and its crossing roots, close together enough to leap between.

  “Can you fly us down?” Djanara asked. “Jumping on these leaves us pretty open.”

  “That’d be the big boom gone,” Jezza said, “maybe let’s climb down a way, and see?”

  “Right,” Djanara sighed, taking another look around for movement. Seeing none, she hopped onto the closest root. She took another hop to clear space for Jezza, then another, before turning around. Jezza had made her way onto the first root, eyes focused on the next jump.

  The gnome blinked in anticipation.

  Something below the gnome blinked as well.

  It was an eye, as big as either of them, suspended under the root. A slit like a snake’s with an iris of green-violet malice, floating in a formless black mass that clung beneath Jezza’s feet, focused on Djanara.

  The eye blinked once more, then peered upward.

  “Below!” shouted Djanara, pointing her sword. Jezza leapt aside just in time for the mass of black to whirl from under the branch and land where she’d been. The gnome stood further along the root with her focus poised.

  The black mass took an upright form then, stretched four jagged corners of itself into tendrils. It rose up on two, using them as legs to rear back with its lashing tentacle-arms. The eye floated in the central black mass, leering at Jezza.

  The gnome fired off a silver-blue ray from the end of her focus which pierced all the way through the creature’s eye and the back of its body.

  Djanara caught a glimpse of dark-colored splatter before something coiled around her ankle. Swinging her sword without looking, she felt it sever something and free her foot. She leapt back, now seeing a second inky monster slather up onto her root, missing half of a tendril. That horrible, vicious eye in the center glared murderous carnage at her, while the black ichor coiled around it, preparing to bound.

  “Eyes!” Jezza shouted, but Djanara already had her target – the wolf-folk leapt first.

  Djanara met the creature’s leap mid-air with her sword cocked and braced against her right hand. Drove it deep into that slitted pupil, turned her head against the spray of ooze that showered her as she tackled her target to the root sword-first.

  Thunk.

  It seized with a pained and unearthly cry. Stopped moving.

  She pulled her sword out, then kicked its corpse into the darkness below. Checking on Jezza, the gnome was wiping her splattered arm while studying the dead thing on her root. Its eye looked more like mush, with its tendrils draped and dangling on either side.

  Things went still again. Djanara thought she heard something quiet, but Jezza spoke over it.

  “Hm, pretty weak,” Jezza noted, “wanna call these gomalings?”

  “Fine,” Djanara grunted, “was that one of the medium blasts?”

  “No,” Jezza began to explain too much. Djanara became distracted by something. The sound was louder now. Then, she saw it.

  Blinking. Lots of blinking. On the walls above, behind Jezza, all around. Gomaling eyes. Dozens of them. More. They swept down the roots from above, emanating with sick trickling noise, like a brook flowing with hot tar.

  “Wizard!” Djanara shouted, snapping Jezza out of her ramble. “Start jumping!”

  Jezza glanced back and yelped.

  Djanara turned to bound further down on the roots, now being far less cautious about it. The wolf-folk held her sword in her maw, taking advantage of her strength to cling and scramble on all fours. Her progress halted when a gomaling slathered its way onto her next target. It spread its tendrils, glared, waited for her to jump. Not a good option this time, Djanara instead tensed her right arm.

  Bullseye. You got it, Leila.

  She flipped her stick upside down, held it like a throwing axe, chucked it directly into the waiting gomaling’s eye. Her aim was true; the stick pierced its eye in an explosion of liquid. The creature slumped. Djanara hopped the gap and grabbed her weapon from its twitching corpse before it slumped off the side, then turned to check in Jezza.

  The gnome was a few hops behind, fleeing a gomaling that’d gotten ahead of the pack. It oozed from root to root, flowing its body across the wall.

  “Keep going!” Jezza waved, jumped another gap and turned. “Get to the bottom!”

  Djanara didn’t wait, she leapt down four or five more roots before finally the dark abyss below lightened into an ashen gray. The circular bottom of the chamber neared, where a large crack in the wooden barrier traced up the far wall. They’d be able to squeeze into it, if they could get there. She was about to call out when a wet tendril plopped down her shoulder and curled around her midsection.

  “Fuck me!” Djanara growled. A gomaling clung to the root directly above, using one tendril to lift her toward its waiting mass. Her feet left the root; she dangled for a moment before grasping her left hand higher up to steady herself, getting a handful of slathering tentacle.

  She pushed against the tendril, released, pushed again – and now, momentum. Able to put her whole upper body into it, she widened the arc of her swing, and smirked when the gomaling had to cling its other three tendrils to the root to stay attached. She looked around for a good place to take her next swing, and spotted Jezza jumping across a gap above. The wizard had taken a different route, but now gomalings had surrounded her and were closing in.

  Djanara swung back, all the way back, like on the old rope course.

  “Jezza, fall!” Djanara yelled up, hoping to shit the gnome dropped straight down in the next second.

  Jezza tossed herself off the branch. Straight down.

  Djanara swung forward, eyes locked on the falling gnome. At the apex of her forward swing, she slashed up with her sword, severing the tentacle and sending her hurtling forward toward Jezza – a collision course. Almost. Jezza was a little too low!

  Snatch!

  Djanara grasped with her left hand, getting a firm hold of the gnome’s ankle. Now they were mid-air, still thirty feet from the bottom; too far to fall. There was one chance to grasp a low root on the way down, it was just in reach. They fell for a fraction of a second. Djanara released her grip on the sword, thrust out with her right hand, grabbed the root, and braced to stop Jezza’s momentum.

  It wasn’t that hard, actually. Right – small.

  Djanara flexed her left arm, dangling Jezza by her leg gracelessly about fifteen feet over the bottom of the chamber. The gnome muttered awkwardly about the unflattering position.

  The gomalings continued their descent, oozing across the walls above, but Djanara wagered they could take the rest of the fall. She let go, raising her legs so she’d land on her seat and bracing Jezza to do the same.

  They hit the bottom hard. Djanara winced, then stood, looking around for her sword.

  “Ulp!” Jezza gasped, but was quickly able to stand, eyes darting around, up, then to the crack. “We gotta get in there, I can block them off!”

  “Help me find the stick-” Djanara began but quickly spotted it a few feet in front of the crack’s entrance. “Nevermind, go!”

  The gomalings plopped onto the ground around as they both sprinted for the wooden passage, that tar sound intensifying. Ignoring them, Djanara grabbed her sword as they ran to the crack in the barrier. Jezza arrived first, slipping her smaller frame through easily. Djanara waited a few seconds, glancing over her shoulder at the advancing horde.

  “It opens up!” Jezza called from the other side.

  Djanara wasted no time squeezing herself through, getting near to the other side when a tendril grasped desperately at her left paw, pulling it back. A gomaling’s eye peeked at her through the crack, making its inhuman sounds, bubbling through to close the distance.

  The fighter tugged back with all her great strength. The tendril stretched. Djanara stepped. Tugged again. Stretched. Stepped.

  Djanara gave one last great heave and wormed fully into the small space between the great roots where Jezza waited. Free to swing her right hand, she chopped the stretched tendril in twain, snapping it back into the advancing monster’s mass.

  The wizard, eyes purple, raised her staff toward the crack and spoke a firm phrase in that arcane language.

  A high-pitched ringing sound pinged through the crack. Then, a dull, blunt explosion. Hunks of the grand wooden barrier collapsed the opening in on itself. The gomaling inside disappeared from view, ground to paste between the massive reshuffling of earth. Things rumbled for several seconds, shaking the world around them.

  Then, silence. A moment of stillness passed.

  Djanara snorted at last.

  “How are we gonna get back out?” Djanara frowned, although she didn’t have a better plan when there’d been so many.

  “We’ll figure that out with Clover,” Jezza sputtered, breathing heavy. She looked weary for a moment.

  Djanara gave her a few seconds for her breathing to catch up while looking around. They were in some enclosure between two giant roots, twisting together in a helix. The way they curled around each other left space for an opening leading down, an almost intentional-looking hallway. It once again curled in on itself, so she couldn’t see further.

  “I’m guessing that was your big blast?” Djanara turned back to Jezza, who had composed herself.

  “Surprisingly,” Jezza said, “a medium blast. I let the environment do the work there.”

  “Well, that’s good news,” Djanara replied. “You think this is the right way?”

  “It looked like the only way, to me,” Jezza tapped her chin. “So, yeah.”

  Well, at least they weren’t stuck.

  “Ready to go, then?” Djanara asked.

  “I could use some khofi,” Jezza chuckled easily, “but it can wait.”

  Djanara smirked.

  “Me too,” Djanara said. “Let’s move.”