Chapter 52.

 

At that moment there was a rising shout, and both Ugu and I turned.

The Armies of Faerie were on the move.

I looked up, and realized that the half-formed wish in my mind — when Ozma had infused her power into me — had come true. Zenga, Ruggedo, and Nimbus were no longer bound, and they had regained command of the Armies. Now, with many of the powerful creatures gone from the Usurpers’ forces, they had a chance.

That knowledge, and Ugu’s unexpected and brilliant countermove, shocked me back to some form of sanity. The power was burning in me, with a sensation that could not be described. It was agony, as though my very bones were afire — and it was ecstasy, as though there was nothing I could not do. And I knew the longer it went on, the less of me there would be. How long? How long can my soul withstand the power? I have to be careful. Go too fast too soon and I’ll die before I can win. Go too slow… and they’ll kill me sure. I’m both Mortal and Faerie now, and I have to use both exactly right.

I concentrated, remembering — with a sharp and sudden pang of renewed loss — the sheer speed Polychrome had shown. Ugu can negate combat powers, probably, but I doubt his little trick can stop me from using things on myself; that’d mean he could directly affect me. I found myself streaking across the ground so fast I was leaving an arrow-straight cloud of dust behind me. The Usurper’s forces, regrouping — with both Cirrus and Guph shouting orders — were just in front of me.

I tore into their ranks, tossing bodies aside like confetti. One of the mighty siege engines loomed up and I grasped it, hefted it like a softball, and spun around like a hammer-thrower, lofting it directly for the Usurper’s stands. With sight and hearing multiplied as well, I could see eyes widen, hear their gasps, though I stood half a mile away.

Ugu shattered it with a word and a gesture; I realized that he must have spent many, many months preparing, and even the inhuman speed I’d gained wasn’t going to be able to beat him alone. I would have to start pushing what I had…and hope it would last long enough.

Amanita cast out a handful of powder, and the ground began to erupt with stone warriors, the transformational power of Yookoohoo magic making unliving ground into real opponents. These charged towards the still re-forming ranks of the Armies, even as her other three monsters rose and came for me. “You have done well, Mortal Man, but see! I have more forces for the asking, while you — powerful though you are — are but one man. You cannot confront us and protect your friends at the same time.”

Oh, can’t I? A flash of thought, blond hair and simple headband and an unyielding will, fingers of my two hands crossing just so, and in a blaze of light and smoke there were three, five, twenty, a hundred of me. We grinned our nastiest grin at Amanita as her face went slack in astonishment. The others might not last long, but it’ll sure slow things up. And if…yep, I see ten of me keeping near each of my friends; that should keep them for a while.

“An illusion?” Ugu gestured, then frowned. “No. Truth. Perhaps all not equally powerful…”

But while he was chewing on that, I saw a shadow, dropped and rolled, as Hræsvelgr dove upon me, chill-bladed claw cutting a gash along my body. Oh, damn, I’m almost naked, too.

That was fixed even in the moment I thought it, and I realized I had other options. Even having thought about this power beforehand, it was different actually using it. I came to my feet, dressed, and something shimmered into existence, a long wide tube with a handle, I swung, pointed it as the half-substantial Roc-sized eagle began its second dive, and pulled the trigger. “Let’s lay down the LAW.”

A projectile of flame blasted from the mouth of the mystical bazooka and detonated on the creature’s head. Magical flame warred with airy cold and Hræsvelgr flew erratically, desperately trying to shake off the clinging fire, and finally plummeted to the ground with an earthshaking crash.

Flaming projectiles screamed at me from Ugu’s staff and my weapon became an ornate spiky orange shaft of steel, spinning so fast it countered the arrows. I charged back towards them, but the ground was moving, rising, a great hand reaching out, crushing down on me, but I imagined red and blue and the power of legend, and up, up, and away! Through the hand I went, shattering the dull-witted elemental before it could realize what had happened.

But things were happening faster now, Ugu and Amanita working together and far, far more quickly than anything mortal could ever have managed. I rebounded from a crystal shield and something shocked me, thunder-bound power so intense that its pain momentarily eclipsed my burning soul, and I escaped, fingers to ghostly-green crested forehead and instantaneously moving, behind them, calling energy and the soul of the oceans forth in a rising dragon of water accompanied by the shimmer of long black hair and the calm of discipline I’d never known; the dragon strike slammed into the crystal shield and it began to crack, but the King and Queen leapt from the Royal Box and landed safely below, a barrage of steely bolts filling the air from Ugu as the ruins of the stands were transformed to a savage flock of wood-and-stone gargoyles set to rend me apart.

I disappeared from them in a puff of blue smoke and brimstone, but I hadn’t thought ahead too much, just over there! Regaining my bearings took too long; Niddhogg’s tail smashed into me.

That very nearly finished everything.

I fell from the sky, tumbling over and over, fetched up against a broken wall of the Grey Castle, stunned, unable for a moment to move. What…that felt…like stone.

I realized suddenly that my combination of Faerie and Mortal power was a two-edged sword. While wielding the full power of Faerie, I no longer had the True Mortal invulnerability; if, on the other hand, I pulled in Ozma’s gift, hid it for a moment within my Mortal shell, I could not use the power; it had to be released, driving me forward, or it would do me no good at all.

But as Niddhogg slammed down a talon the size of a two-bedroom house, I yanked the power inside somehow, withheld it from my form. The concussion was like Yoop’s club, only even softer. These things were almost purely magical creations, elementals, unlike Yoop who had at least started out fairly solid. As it lifted its paw and looked with glazed-yellow eyes, I released the magic, reached out to the chaos of the war that was now raging full-bore, and for just a moment the sounds faded, all sound disappearing into silence, and inside an echo of a singer, a fighter, a blonde-haired outcast. My body blazed brighter, into a detonation of pure light that blinded and dazzled the stony creature. It roared in confusion, staggering, and I ran up its leg and onto its back, as Hræsvelgr, wounded but once more airborne, came at me. I stopped, waving, hurling insults, and then dove aside.

Amanita’s injured demon of the air collided with her infuriated and blinded monster of the earth. Immediately Niddhogg turned its fury onto Hræsvelgr, and half the south tower went down on top of them as they rolled over and over into the Grey Castle.

More exchanges of power, even faster now as they unleashed monsters, dancing swords of power, true tempests and transformed creatures. I battled my way through them with borrowed sword and symbolic power and spells created by a hundred imaginations, Druid-fire and Freeze-Arrow and “you cannot pass!,” a sword of pure light and an orchestral fanfare so mighty that it echoed awe and wonder through my entire life.

I was closing in on them. I felt the power still burning within me, but it was not close to the end — I thought. But would I know? Or would I go on fighting until — in one fiery instant — it all came apart, never sensing that my soul was almost gone?

Ugu’s face was showing the strain of the combat, sweating, no longer so sure, realizing that I had not been making some empty boast. He could counter every trick I showed him, and had many of his own, but… “My Queen,” I heard him say grimly, “He is coming, and I think all our efforts may not hold him more than another minute or three.”

Amanita’s laugh floated over the battlefield, and I felt my heart constrict. She doesn’t sound worried at all.

“A minute or less — perhaps less than half that — and he is done.”

I paused, shielding myself. “What?”

“Ah, he has heard.” Her smile was poisoned candy. “They told you, no doubt, that your power burns your soul. But did they tell you how it does so, little Mortal? For as you so truly say, ’tis your Will that drives you, that holds you to this world with such power as could shatter a world held within you. But what drives the Will, save the knowledge of your loss?

“The power erodes you, wears you away, as a river cutting through a canyon, a candle burning down. And the layers of your soul are time, Mortal, the length of your soul the depth of your life.” The cold smile widened. “How long ago did you come to Faerie, Erik Medon? A year? A year and a half? For know this: you have burned nigh unto a year of your life already, and when your soul is worn away to the point at which your purpose began — when that which drives you was truly a part of your heart — in that moment you shall forget what drives you, and your will is gone, the power with it…

“And in that moment, Mortal Man…you will die.”