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Battle
“Faye!” growled Mashu in indignation. Quite having forgotten that Mashu knew nothing of Faye’s guilt, Eliza was too slow to stop him reacting protectively. He threw himself into the professors and knocked four down as easily as bowling pins. Mashu jumped free of the tangle of limbs and prepared to charge the other professors who were now turning their magic onto him. Eliza saw that Faye’s attention had been distracted by Mashu’s eruptive interference. She looked at him lovingly.
“I’m sorry I deceived you.” Faye’s voice rang supernaturally loud as she addressed Mashu. “If I can find a cure for this, we could do anything. We could go anywhere you want.”
Mashu gaped at Faye in bewilderment. Before he could understand what was happening, the professors had recovered themselves.
“Enough!” cried Principal Crinwere. One hand was held out toward Mashu and a wand was pointed at him with the other. Before Eliza could do more than choke out a startled cry, the principal had teleported Mashu away. Stunned, Eliza looked around for him for a moment before coming to her senses. Of course, he would have been removed to someplace where he would not be able to interfere again.
Faye lost interest at this development and was looking skyward again, chanting something Eliza could not hear. Her voice became part of the wind and mixed itself into various melodies. Eliza felt the hair on the back of her neck stand on end as the air around them became charged with magic. A loud CRACK rent the air with such force the ground beneath their feet shook more violently than ever. Faye was awe inspiring in the greatness of her power. Her eyes pure black and magic pulsing from within her in waves of intense energy. The effect was breathtaking.
The professors were all attempting to contain Faye. Professor Walker had taken to lobbing Scalpere vines up into the air to try to bring Faye down with their razor-sharp needles. Fireballs rained down on Faye and potions bottles smashed at her sides. Professor Kent conjured ropes and chains to try to hold her.
Nothing had any effect. Faye did not notice any of their attacks; nothing managed to touch her. The plants, potions, and spells bounced away from Faye a few inches before making contact with her body. She was in a league of her own, covered by a protective spell stronger than any of the combined attacks the faculty could muster. Eliza closed her eyes in concentration and reached up to Faye with her mind. What are you doing?
She felt a stir of recognition.
What I must to gain my freedom.
Eliza reached Faye’s mind to let her know that she understood. Will you hurt anyone?
She felt a painful stab in her head and Faye’s reply was clear. Only if anyone stands in my way. What happens when I attempt this spell is a mystery even to me. Eliza, don’t try to stop me.
I won’t, was Eliza’s improbable promise. Why could you not do this somewhere remote where no one could get hurt?
Amusement met this thought, I am more generous than you think. If the magic goes wrong and puts the world in danger, there is a good chance that someone here will be able to stop it sooner than if it were unleashed somewhere isolated.
Without warning the connection was broken; Eliza was thrown unceremoniously out of Faye’s mind and back into her own. She stumbled a little at the abrupt break in connection and looked up again. The air around the courtyard was turning a hazy reddish colour and the sky continued to rumble as though by thunder. Eliza reached her magic down into the earth and asked the ground beneath the school to stand firm in the face of the tremors that occurred around them. The earth outside of the school could absorb all the shocks, but the ground below the walls must stand firm. Please.
Returning her mind into her body, Eliza examined how else she could mitigate destruction, but things were starting to look freaky. The air surrounding Faye was being ripped apart, the very fabric of reality wearing away. Through this shredded veil, other worlds, other landscapes, were now visible. With a shock, Eliza realized that more was coming from these windows than mere images. A burst of wind devoid of oxygen and colder than any winter winds she had ever known knocked her down onto her backside and left her seeing stars.
The red haze Eliza had seen accumulating around the scene was crimson sand. It was filling the air around them so densely they struggled to see. It was coming from another of these ragged windows. About to cast heat to protect herself from the frozen blast of air, Eliza was detained by a hot rush which came spilling out from a different tear; with it came a strong whiff of methane. Eliza pulled her wand from her belt and cast a protective spell toward the gateways and tried to block the immense heat from crossing into their world.
A piercing scream from the other side of the circle drew everyone’s eyes. Derren Angel, professor of Empathology and Mentalism, was being rained on from a fresh portal some twelve meters from where Eliza stood. The rain fell horizontally and covered him in clear liquid that quickly began to harden on impact. His strangled cry of pain carried around the grounds despite the thunder and wind; goosebumps rose on Eliza’s skin at the sight of the man becoming overwhelmed.
“Liquid glass!” yelled Professor Stone who reached Professor Angel’s side first. He was wearing several talismans around his neck and drew a wand from his holster. He crossed the wand over his staff in the shape of an X and began calling upon his magic to contain the horror of the glass rain. More teachers had reached the scene, and everyone was doing what they could to fight the foreign elements.
With everyone aiming their magic at preventing the mysteries that could come lurching into their world through these shredded veils, there was no one left to distract Faye. Only Faye remained uninterested in the chaos unfolding around her. She continued to float serenely above them, creating more and more doorways in the fabric of what Eliza quickly determined to be Reality, unleashing further Unrealities into their safe, precious little world.
“STOP!” Eliza shouted at Faye. “Can’t you see what you’re doing?”
But Faye did not respond, did not look down, did not hesitate in the spell she continued to cast. The shouts of the teachers rang in Eliza’s ears. She became aware that some students were beginning to appear around the outer edges of the courtyard, timidly offering a helping hand in an impossible battle.
Rage pounded in Eliza’s ears. Rage so powerful she felt her nose prickle with the injustice of it. How could someone be so singularly self-involved that they would risk their entire universe collapsing? Just so she could be a little more solid, a little more in control? How bad could flickering between two worlds really be, that she would go to such lengths and risk killing thousands of species just to get what she wanted? It was absurd, thought Eliza; it would have been better to choose death than to choose one’s own life at the risk of so many others.
Eliza’s fingers closed over a crystal that she carried in her pocket. It was a large, six-sided clear quartz crystal onto which she had carved her favourite rune. Eliza closed her eyes, the crystal clutched in one hand and her wand held in the other hand. But she did not cast any incantations, did not attempt to recite any spells. Casting goo and transporting objects, creating fireballs or fountains was of little use to her today. Eliza reverted to her most natural form of magic. The magic she had begun to understand even before being admitted to study at Kentree. There was nothing sophisticated or precise about it, and it had only earned her ridicule from Professor Kent. But it was hers.
Communicating directly with the elements, Eliza felt at home again. Not trying to create, contain, or contort as they were taught in Elemental Magic. The tools in her hands only served to amplify her natural ability to communicate with what already existed, with what already had power greater than any sorcerer could ever produce. The very forces of nature could not help but to listen to her small, determined contact. She felt a weight land heavily on her shoulder and she knew Pal had joined her in the fight. The cat was lending her some of his strength, Eliza was grateful.
At first, the many elements whirling around them were too confusing. Eliza could not focus on any one long enough to communicate or understand. The energies were foreign, the chemical make-up so unusual Eliza could make neither heads nor tails of any of it. Stones spat through a rip and battered her and Pal so painfully they were forced to retreat a few feet back, letting Professor Walker take the lead on casting a net of vines to contain the pelting rocks.
Eliza stumbled backward and fell to one knee. She could barely open her eyes; the air was too full of vile contaminants and sand being churned around by savage winds. Coughing, Eliza held Pal with one arm and continued her retreat. It was no use. She could barely see anything despite the day having been perfectly clear. It was dark even though it couldn’t be past two in the afternoon.
She tripped on something and her chin collided with something hard on the ground. A volcanic rock that must have been expelled from one of the many open gateways. She scraped her elbows when landing, trying to protect Pal from the force of the fall. The flat stone of the courtyard was no longer visible. She dug her fingers into the red sand that now covered the earth and felt the stone an inch or so below.
“When the going gets tough, the tough get going,” came a cheerful voice. Squinting up, Eliza saw Melissa Sweet beaming down at her, extending a helping hand. Eliza took it, grinning, and allowed herself to be pulled up.
“I can always trust you to think of something positive to say,” Eliza said, and Melissa laughed merrily. It was as if they were back in class, discussing the latest assignment.
“How about this weather we’re having?” asked Melissa, having to shout over the wind. “It seems to me I remember a certain witch who excels at this type of magic. You were having a go at it already, weren’t you?”
Eliza coughed in the dust storm, “I was but I can’t concentrate while being attacked from all sides.”
Melissa, holding a huge ornately decorated staff, merely smiled. The staff was incomprehensibly complex. Made of at least seven different species of wood, tens of crystals, with runes carved into every inch of the staff, and, to complete the strangeness of the object, there were a few bags of herbs tied along the length of it. Melissa said she could protect Eliza. She placed a hand on Eliza’s shoulder and concentrated on the task with both eyes shut. It was nothing to what Melissa would have been able to do with her abilities intact, but there was a distinct drop in the wind and particles of sand that came scratching at Eliza’s face and throat. Melissa had created a magical instrument so potently capable of amplifying magic, that what little magic she had left was strong enough for this. Melissa, with her unabashed optimism, created a magic so pure, clean, and good that Eliza’s spirits were quite recovered.
Encouraged by Melissa’s determined inability to give up, Eliza returned to work with Pal on her shoulder. She felt her way into the foreign energies coming from each gateway. She greeted each strangeness and invited them to return to their Reality. Some were receptive to this suggestion, but more were quite unable to acquiesce as the tides behind them pushed too strongly forward to go back. To them, Eliza suggested they direct their damaging effects onto the agent of their removal from their own world.
For the first time Faye let out a gasp of surprise. A chilling breeze blew across her from one of the portals. Crying aloud in pain, pellets shot at Faye from another gateway. A strong wind began to spin and disorient her. No longer a mask of calm, floating above the scene, Faye was now being pulled into the fight by her own weapons. Eliza did not stop. She started peeling off the protective spells she and the professors had cast, and allowed every terror which had been held back to be unleashed. With her guidance, they directed themselves at Faye.
Having almost finished separating herself from the other world, Faye did not relinquish so easily. She continued with her incantation, yelling strange words as she became consumed by freezing cold from one side, and hot magma from another. Only when the molten glass rain began to fill her mouth was the spell detained. Soon, nothing was left floating over the scene but what appeared to be an overlarge silver cocoon. Faye was encased entirely within.
Eliza did not open her eyes to see any of this. She knew it was happening just as she knew that the professors had all stopped their assaults on the doorways to locate the cause of the new development. Eliza did not give herself a moment to feel satisfaction. She knew she was not capable of a magic to match Faye’s, but she knew she could guide natural elements to do the work that needed to be done. Pal’s tail was wrapped around her neck, and she began analyzing the different energies available and encouraged them to mix in such a way that would allow the tears in Reality to heal themselves.
There was no way Eliza could understand the magic that had caused the portals, but she realized she didn’t need to understand. Nature understood itself, and where a force was capable of destruction, it was also capable of healing. Eliza asked the torn fabric of her world whether it knew how to heal itself and invited it to do so. She lent it whatever energies it needed to make itself whole again. One by one the portals began to close until the wind had died down and the world was stable. Finally, quiet filled the air. There was a small cough from someone nearby. A pained groan came from further away.