Excerpt from Alexan’s Seventh Journal, Tour of the Small and the Strange.

I am pretty confident in using whatever element the situation calls for. Having four elements within my seed is an incredible advantage to enjoy. Luckily for me, my companions are always on the lookout for someone willing to spar with me and keep my ego from becoming overinflated.

Sparring with that ancient Gnomish Icemancer is probably the most painful yet. Having wind and water elements to call upon to cancel out his spells helps, but it took him only moments to shatter any notions of winning I might have held.

It really is hard to overstate the value of experience when it comes to magic.

Grand Elder Darisen

After nearly a thousand years of life, Darisen had thought his patience nearly inexhaustible. The previous couple weeks had put the lie to that belief.

Warden Tusoy stood before Darisen, back straight and eyes forward. And it was his words that were so testing Darisen’s patience as the warden reported on the hunt. Darisen stared at the replica of the sealing pedestal that sat on his desk, although the tiny gem set into the pedestal alternately glittered with light mana and smoked with dark. It didn’t eat light as the true pedestal did.

Darisen laced his fingers together on his desk as he listened to the story of how his wardens had chased the voices of the fugitives through the upper trunk and come up with nothing. Tusoy just hadn’t quite admitted it yet. Not that Darisen had expected otherwise.

Allowing Perkay to retreat into his self-imposed exile had always promised to cause trouble later, but the old craftsman had never done anything to truly deserve reprisal from Darisen. Worse, several of Darisen’s older wardens at that time had sympathized with the damn fool, making any attempts at removing future problems unwise at best. Now that problem had come home to roost.

“... So they’ve escaped again?” Darisen asked, his tone calm.

Warden Tusoy paused. He was old enough to have no white left in his hair. Old, and experienced enough to know when he was treading a fine line. Tusoy deflated ever-so-subtly, his posture changing so little that anyone without centuries of experience would never have noticed.

“Yes, Grand Elder. I have nothing but theories. My best guess is—” Tusoy stopped mid-speech, his eyes now looking over Darisen’s shoulder. “It’s them,” he whispered in horror.

Darisen’s office was three stories up from the floor of the tower.

Darisen stood, knocking his chair to the floor and pointing to his door. “Gather every warden within the Heart! Protect the seal!”

“They’re all out hunting…”

“I Do Not Care!”

As Tusoy ran for the door, Darisen grabbed his staff from the mount on the floor next to his desk. A tug pulled the staff loose and he turned to the window behind him, looking down into the sealing chamber.

Three figures, partially obscured by the giant bird made of dark mana carrying them down, neared the pedestal. Now that Darisen was paying attention, he could feel the backwash of dark mana lightly brushing against his face. Which was odd, he should have felt that pulse of mana as they approached.

Darisen gathered his natural elements and fired a small ball of light and dark mana at a small spell gem in the replica sealing pedestal. The gem flashed, and an orb of swirling white and black rose, then hovered for a moment as the spell activated. Darisen turned his head to face the window, and the orb flew past his head down to the chamber floor.

He gripped his staff tight, threading aether through the chime, maze, and hollow wood portions, wrapping knots of wind, earth, and dark mana around his feet. Now prepared, Darisen jumped out the open window, showing an agile grace that belied his age.

The rushing air fluttered in his ears for a moment, his last moment of peace before he engaged in a battle to keep the monster sealed. He smiled as the three invaders came to a halt, stopped by the appearance of Darisen’s personal shield spell surrounding the pedestal and preventing any approach.

Darisen landed and the spell about his feet activated, dispersing the impact of his landing into the floor and leaving him unharmed from the fall.

Rising to his feet, Darisen pointed at the three of them, carefully schooling the emotion from his face. “Foolish chosen, it grieves me that another has fallen to the corrupt shadow. But my duty must be done.”

“I’m sure it does,” Perkay commented, his tone sour.

The weaving of Darisen’s first spell had already begun, but he still had room for conversation as he saw something - someone - else that disappointed him further. He shook his head at her as he gathered fire and light mana at the point of his staff.

“Nolsa, I expected more from you. To see you’ve even gone so far as to break the child compact... you know there’s only so much room within the Hollow Home.”

Nolsa raised her head, the pulsing shadow above her following her motions. “If the barrier comes down, that won’t be a problem will—”

Noticing the Human boy run for the barrier, shadow hawk on his shoulder, Darisen interrupted Nolsa by firing his sunlance. The beam cut through the air as it split into three, one for each individual.

Perkay and Nolsa both had their defenses ready to go, thick shields of dark mana coalescing before them to catch and disperse the sunbeams.

The bird on Yetchetal’s shoulder extended a wing of darkness as the boy turned. The sunbeam pierced the impeding wing but soon ceased to be as it struck something Darisen hadn’t realized the Human was carrying: a chunk of gnarl wood, so empty of mana that it absorbed Darisen’s spell completely.

That would explain why he hadn’t noticed them at first. It was a problem, but not one to truly worry Darisen.

Darisen allowed himself a satisfied smile. He’d faced far worse than an old craftsman, a magic teacher, and a clumsy, seedless Human.

Teacher Nolsa

For the first time in the last two days, Nolsa’s full concentration returned to her. A threat to her life would do that. She fed her aether into the medallion slowly, her attention split with having to defend against a true shadowmancer, a person far older and more powerful than herself by any means.

With his grand staff of elements in hand, and black sweeping robes with green and gold edging, the Elder cut an imposing figure. Despite the wrinkles in his face and the dense mana infusing his body, Darisen remained unbowed by age.

Her shield of dark and water absorbed Darisen’s sunbeam with ease, his divided spell failing to deplete her protection. Nolsa responded by gathering more mana into the shield, expanding the width of her shield and investing more power into it. At the same time, Nolsa moved towards the barrier, carefully placing herself between Tal and Darisen.

Perkay did the opposite, moving further away from the barrier, forcing Darisen to split his attention. With a grin on his face, Perkay forced the issue by throwing out his left hand and activating the spell stored in the spell gem on his gauntlet.

“A gift, Darisen!” Perkay shouted as a bright ball of flame burst forth, streaking out from his palm. At launch, it was no bigger than his fist, but by the time it was halfway between them, the ball was as large as Perkay’s torso.

“You dare use FIRE?!” Darisen shouted, even as he countered by lowering the point of his staff to the floor and swiping upwards. From his motion he created a wave of dark and light mana that ate the ball of fire and rushed towards Perkay with terrifying speed. The opposing elements swirled about within the wave violently, leaving dancing afterimages in Nolsa’s vision.

“Damn right I use fire! You gotta protect your duty!” Perkay taunted as he slapped his right hand on the floor and dragged a section of wood up to block the wave. Darisen’s spell tore at the wood, alternately crushing and ripping sections of the impromptu shield, throwing splinters and fragments in all directions.

For Perkay, Darisen was using brute force.

Almost too late, Nolsa realized the Elder was using subterfuge for her.

While Darisen faced Perkay with the staff in his right hand leveled at the craftsman, Darisen’s left hand motioned towards Nolsa as if grasping at something.

Nolsa jumped backwards as a swirl of darkness rose up from the very spot she’d been standing. The strand snapped tight, just brushing her hoof as she vacated the spot.

Nolsa landed and swung her medallion forwards, the whip of water she’d created lashing out at Darisen.

At the same time Perkay spit more fireballs from his gauntlet.

The swirls of darkness that had attempted to grab Nolsa retreated to Darisen, one rising up to catch Nolsa’s whip and another gathering to intercept Perkay’s fireballs. The first flaming projectile struck the mass of dark and exploded, wisps of orange and black scattering about. Darisen intercepted the second by raising his left arm, the sleeve of his robe catching the ball of fire. Upon impacting his robe, the fireball popped, leaving no more than a light scorch on his robe. The inky black of the cloth had faded to a dull grey around the impact.

Darisen had allowed the attack through in order to maintain his concentration. The end of his staff, held high above his head, glowed with gathering mana.

Nolsa squinted, unable to look directly at the spell the shadowmancer was crafting. It was far too much, and far too quick!

Nolsa released the water whip Darisen had caught while Perkay was busy swapping a gem out of his gauntlet.

The expanding mass of mana above Darisen’s head burst, streams of light leaving trails on Nolsa’s vision as they rose, hovered, and then came down hard.

Nolsa raised the shield floating before her above her head and started pushing her natural mana into the barrier.

Perkay took hold of his shredded wall of wood and did the same, more of it sprouting and rising up to protect the man.

Too late, Nolsa realized who was in the most danger. She turned her head and shouted.

“Tal!”

Unnamed Talkarn

[Protect yourself!]

Tal had forgotten how flexible mental communication was, but he was suddenly reminded when an image of him raising the club in his hand flashed through his head.

Tal did just that, swinging the gnarl club outwards.

The Sentinel had extended a wing of darkness to Tal’s side as he ran. A flash of light cut through that wing and smashed into the club Tal had placed in the way.

The wood thrummed in his hand as it devoured the beam of light. For a moment it felt even hungrier, as if the attack had awakened its appetite, and Tal felt the trickle of aether seeping from his hand through his glove increase. Then he blinked as the flow reversed and the club fed him a trickle of aether instead.

Perkay had never mentioned that.

Nolsa was fine though, and Perkay looked angry, but Darisen was already gathering himself for the next attack. Tal moved to the shield, his eyes watering as he tried to look at the alternating bands of utter darkness and blinding light.

[Don’t touch it directly, the mana will tear you to pieces.]

“Gotcha,” Tal acknowledged. “But what do I do?

[I am uncertain.] The sentinel flapped its wings, throwing blades of darkness that deflected off the light and sunk into the dark of the dome.

He could hear Perkay shouting back and forth with Darisen. Tal glanced over to Nolsa. She’d placed herself directly between Tal and Darisen and he could see her gathering water from the air around her medallion.

Tal grimaced and jammed the club into the dome and felt the way the mana attempted to tear at the wood and twist it out of his hand.

Tal blinked as he realized what was happening. The dark pulled at it, attempting to increase the mass of the wood to ridiculous levels. Tal wasn’t familiar with light mana, but he knew dark mana and the comparison between the two made it more obvious. The light had the opposite effect, lightening the material and pushing it away.

Tal held the club on the barrier, letting it eat away at the mana, the wood continuing to bounce and jerk around in his hand.

For a moment Tal’s mind blanked. The white and the black and seeped into the wood, and the drain on his hand had reversed and fed him a touch of clean aether instead, although more aether just radiated out from the wood. The feeling of how the wood took and scattered the mana was a little nostalgic, and extremely infuriating. He knew this! But how?

Distracted and confused by the powerful feeling of familiarity, Tal was thrown back from the dome. A band of white mana deflected the gnarl wood out with a heavy thunk, throwing Tal’s arm back.

“Tal!” Nolsa shouted, the fear in her voice raising the hairs on the back of Tal’s neck.

[Tal! Give me your strength!]

Tal put his left hand on the chest of the bird on his shoulder and jammed as much aether as he could through the glove. His hand tingled with the sudden influx of mana, his nerves activating in the flow.

Perkay had made the Sentinel’s body to imitate a shadow hawk, and the birds were known for being able to play with both light and dark, which put the Sentinel in the same elemental territory as Darisen.

Tal flinched as the Sentinel extended its wings and glowed with alternating flashes of light and dark. With every flash, a strand of opposing shades violently slashed out to meet similar flashes coming down from above. And it kept coming. The pressure of it drove Tal to his knees.

[It’s too much!]

One slash of light and dark only deflected slightly, cutting through the cloth of Tal’s shirt over his chest and nicking the side of his thigh as he crouched. Adrenaline coursing through Tal’s blood, he pushed more aether through the focus glove to the Sentinel. Another slash of light skimmed across his shoulder and Tal could feel the bloom of heat as it sliced him open. Another caught the tip of his elbow, just barely missing Tal’s wooden guardian.

It wasn’t enough. Tal dropped the gnarl wood, whipped his right hand to throw off the bulky glove on his right hand and snatched the club back up.

“YeaaaAHHH!” Tal shouted, driving the wood into the shield in front of him.

The aether it put out caused his right hand to tingle as Tal dragged it through himself and drove it back out his left hand. His left hand spasmed as he drove more aether through it and to the Sentinel.

The club could only do so much. The converted aether slowed as more and more white and dark mana soaked into the wood and Tal’s momentary supply very quickly dried up.

Tal didn’t stop, still trying to drag anything out of the wood that could be used, feeding the Sentinel every dreg he could get.

Suddenly the barrage stopped.

[Gasp] the Sentinel collapsed from Tal’s shoulder, cutting off the transfer of mana as it flopped to the floor.

The gnarl wood in Tal’s hand hit its limit, it shattered in Tal’s right hand and he hissed as it filled his fingers and palm full of splinters.

[Mmmm~ that’s interesting.]

“What?” Tal asked. That was not the voice of the Sentinel. “Who?”

[Sentinel~ wake up, you’re needed again, this one might go a little different~] The Sentinel had seemed male, but this voice was clearly that of a woman. She sounded incredibly tired as she dragged out her speech, as if a yawn threatened to interrupt every word that drifted into Tal’s head.

Tal glanced at the unmoving bird next to him. It didn’t so much as twitch.

The dome bulged and twisted, as if a pair of hands had taken a hold of it from within and dragged it inwards. The dome could only take so much. It exploded outwards, sending Tal sprawling on his backside. Something caught his cheek and spun his head away.

Tal looked back, right hand reaching across his face to where he’d been struck.

For a moment a giant of shadow stood before the pedestal. The figure was covered in obsidian fur that looked exactly like the beast Tal had eaten weeks ago. It spoke, it’s voice identical to one with which Tal had become very familiar.

The newest copy of the Sentinel drooped, barely able to hold its head up and face Tal, [I am… incomplete, this is all… I can…]

The body of the giant disintegrated into smoke, having done all it could.

End Chapter