Told you all this would be up sooner than you think. Enjoy!


Chapter 17 - Her Fallen Kingdom

Because of the distance remaining between it and them, the temple at first looked miniscule, almost flat. That in itself changed as they walked closer towards it, lessening the gap as they went. Compared to the massive height of the waystation, the temple was remarkably small for what it was said to contain. No taller than a two-storey house and as wide as a church, it was crafted entirely out of stone as if some unknown force had hollowed out a mesa and shaped it into the building they heralded before them. Had anyone chosen to look at the structure from above or from its sides and back, they would easily have assumed that it was merely a part of the barren landscape it stood on.

It was only by looking at the front entrance that one could see it was something else. Just up out of the ground, there were five steps leading up to the door, each one long enough to span the entire wall. The door towered up so grandly high that it reached the roof, making the Y-shaped groove in its middle stand out more.

Together, Kevin, Hope and Gwen marched over the last few miles of the pathway and entered onto the sanctuary of solid land, breathing out in relief. Freed from the oppressive danger of falling into the bottomless chasm, glad they had not met with any visions on the second leg of their journey, they allowed themselves to be overcome with a tremendous sense of enlightenment.

The calm it endowed was short and momentary, as its hold on Hope waned quickly and she turned to the other two and recommended they set up another two-hour camp. Gwen, her feelings swayed by the temple being so near in reach, openly argued against her. Patiently keeping her cool, Hope explained her decision.

"We don't know what trials we're going to face or how long they'll take to accomplish," she said. "I know we don't have a lot of time, but we're tired and worn out. It's best for us to recover for a little while. Remember, we get one chance only to take on these trials."

Kevin nodded in agreement and started to prepare camp. After a minute's worth of loitering, teetering between engaging in the argument further and listening to reason, Gwen surrendered reluctantly to the latter and joined him. As they worked, Hope withdrew the sheet of paper Hex had written for her from her satchel and consulted the instructions once more, checking attentively in case she missed anything important. Ensuring she had not, she went on to memorize the next step and put the paper away when she was done. Then she went to aid Kevin and Gwen in setting up.

Almost as before, when everything was finished, the three of them stayed close to the fire as they gulped comfortably-heated tomato soup and hot chocolate. Finishing up her serving first, Gwen moved to go to her sleeping bag when a cursory look in Hope's direction caused her to stop. A moment passed as she considered something, her mind travelling back to when she had struck her deal with Ghostfreak. She sat back down and waited until the sorceress had eaten all of her meal.

"Charmcaster?" she said once that happened.

"Hmmm," Hope peered up at her.

"Ghostfreak told me that you, well, you lost the Alpha Rune and Ledgerdomain to Adwaita again."

"And you overheard what I said to Kevin earlier, right?" Hope asked.

"Right," Gwen nodded slowly, unsettled by how rapidly she had confessed.

"Then I don't think I need to say any more," Hope shrugged. "You already know I'm not planning on going back to face him again."

"That's not why I brought it up," Gwen refuted. "Hex told me about your injuries after Ghostfreak mentioned them before. What I want to know is how Adwaita managed to thrash you so badly. By the sounds of it, you weren't able to put up a fight at all. That isn't like you."

Hope's gaze fell, her eyes circling down to stare into the fire. She held her legs together and slipped into a solemn quiet. Concerned, Gwen glanced briefly at Kevin, scared that she put the question forward too hard. He replied with a look that told her to give Hope time. She obeyed. Finally, after some minutes of waiting, Hope raised her head again. There was a new look in her eyes, a look Gwen recognised with a swift chill could only be called haunted. Hope gazed back at her, turned to briefly regard Kevin, and then numbly began to recount her last series of battles with Adwaita.

"At first, it appeared like any of the invasions Adwaita previously created to supplant me. A new army of stone golems at his command and a set of spells to aid him in his takeover. No new allies. Just him and his ever-growing fury towards me. I expected nothing else when he led his army in the charge across the border and I activated all the defence forces surrounding the villages and towns between him and the castle."

"Everything changed after that. Every time he's tried to take or taken Ledgerdomain before, he made the effort to subjugate every piece of land and civilisation he conquered to his rule. This time, he didn't seem to care about doing that. He and his army just blazed on through or past them, leaving uncontrolled panic and chaos in his wake. The only times he ever truly stopped was to replenish the number of his soldiers."

"By a certain time, it was clear I needed some new tactics of my own to counter his. I sent out my assault forces to attack wherever his army was at its weakest and worked from there. That helped, for a while. It managed to slow his advance, but not enough. After weeks of back and forth, the battleline had progressed to the point he was laying siege to the castle."

"The night before I returned to Earth, I decided to use an old tactic, one that when successful always saw Adwaita back off and retreat beyond Ledgerdomain's borders. As much as he wanted to rule Ledgerdomain from the throne, he consistently valued his life more than his conquest. So I led a team of my golems created specifically for stealth missions and infiltrated the enemy camp. We succeeded in ambushing Adwaita, but that was when I really noticed the change in him. In all of our battles, he usually concentrated his offence on my creatures first as a display of his power, but he went for me right from the start. The good thing was that left him open to attack from my golems. It was a long battle, but we wore him down. Maybe I could have finished them there, but before I was able to do anything more, he called upon his army. I ran."

"I returned to the castle, tired and exhausted, hoping to replenish my energy. One hour later, we were under attack again. The second assault was more powerful than the first and I was stunned to see why. Adwaita was at the head of his army, on the attack as though I had never even damaged him. My forces were crippled within minutes and his were scaling freely up the castle walls. I led the final charge with whatever creatures I had left to me, trying to at least stem how much of the enemy was getting in. Then he saw me. Adwaita saw me and the look in his eyes changed. Beforehand, his attention was ultimately fixed on everything around him, but then it was like I was the only adversary that mattered. He took out all of the golems aiding me first, leaving it just between me and him. It was during that fight that I finally recognised what I had missed throughout the whole battle."

"It was not just his wounds he had healed. He had replenished his magic completely. Obviously, that didn't make any sense as magic should not be as easy to regain as that. Then the answer hit me. When the castle was attacked again, Adwaita seemed to have brought half of his forces with him rather than the entire army. Where was the other half, I asked myself. He figured out what I was thinking and he smiled and showed me the answer. He threw a projectile at one of his own golems and shattered it. My jaw literally dropped. Inside the golem had been a tiny spherical core of mana, which then flew into Adwaita and added its power to his strength. I understood. A parcel of magic was contained in every one of his creatures, and when each golem was destroyed, he absorbed the mana."

"Then he told me he had actually been waiting for my ambush on him. He gambled his own life to make sure I would be drained out of magic and be forced to take the time to restore it, all the while he sacrificed half his army to recover his instantly. He started to revel in his triumph, which I took advantage of in the hope I'd surprise him. He was onto me in seconds."

"I never really kept track of how much time passed fighting him. All I remember is holding on until my body was ready to give out, my magic spent and my senses strained beyond their limit. But he didn't stop there, he just kept going at me. He never even bothered to take the Alpha Rune from my neck until after I collapsed. I thought it was over then, but he said he was still going to kill me. In fear, I threw one last attack at him and summoned a portal to Earth to get me to Uncle Hex. Adwaita lunged at me from behind just as the portal was opening, and I thought in that split-second that if I was going to die, then the last thing I wanted to remember in life was Ben. Then the portal opened and I jumped in, eventually ending up at Ben's home."

Hope concluded, "The rest, either one or the both of you know."

Kevin nodded almost instantly, his eyes darkening as he remembered the panic in Sandra's voice as she told him the news of Hope's horrifying arrival. Gwen was rooted in shock, looking as though she had been listening to a real-life horror story. As her senses returned to a level of stability, she accepted she had, but even in that state of mind, there was a part of her trying to sift through everything Charmcaster had said. To her, it seemed like something was missing from the tale. The who and what had been pretty clear from the start. The how and when was explained thoroughly. The why was absent.

"There's just one thing I don't understand about all of that," she said, cringing at once from the fiery way Hope glared at her in response and she went on to explain. "Something that neither you or Ghostfreak have said. Why is Adwaita going out of his way to kill you this time? He's been perfectly content to let you go before. He's got Ledgerdomain. He's got the Alpha Rune. But he sent Ghostfreak after you and he's probably going to send others after you once he knows that didn't work."

"Believe me, I wish I knew," Hope answered, her features softening as she grew pensive.

"Maybe he's just gotten tired of the years of fighting?" Kevin suggested.

"I don't think so. If that were it, he'd have been too impatient to finish the fight once he had me in his sights," Hope shook her head. "He was too focused, too intense, and too calculating for that to be the answer."

The silence as they tried to fathom Adwaita's methods grew weary for the three of them. Eventually, Gwen broke it with a long sigh.

"Look. We can think about this later. We have a bigger issue right now. Making sure we're ready for whatever's inside that," she pointed to the temple.

"Agreed," Hope nodded. "Let's get some rest."

"Yeah," Kevin nodded.

: * :

As the trio settled down for another short period of rest, they were obliviously unaware that they were being watched by someone from inside the metaphysical realm. The individual spied on them for a few minutes longer, waiting until they were all fast asleep, before deciding it was time to return to his corporeal form. At once, his consciousness vanished from Náajaltik and hurried across the astral plane, making his way home. Never once hesitating in his course, he entered Ledgerdomain, raced towards the royal castle and phased through into its interior. He arrived at his body where he had left it sitting on the throne and flew within its shape, reoccupying it once more.

Adwaita opened his eyes, raised his head up slowly and deactivated the Alpha Rune. "So she is in the Nàajaltik dimension," he affirmed. "It also seems she has finally given up on battling for the throne at last."

He hauled himself to his feet as he pondered deeply upon the new development. If Charmcaster had truly surrendered, then he had no fears whatsoever about her threatening his power again. He'd no longer need to waste time and resources hunting her. But there was one question that plagued his mind, filling him with suspicion.

What was she doing in the Nàajaltik dimension to begin with? It was an empty and desolate wasteland, not to mention dangerous for any magic user with that cursed abyss. The only things of interest to anyone would be the waystation or the temple.

Wait, he stopped to think, the temple. The legend. A totem that would grant any person a single wish if obtained. What if Charmcaster had only given up herself and was in search of that talisman in case future generations of her bloodline wanted to continue where she had left off and they use it against him? What if the power of the totem clouded her mind and she wanted to use that wish to have control of Ledgerdomain permanently? Or what if the wish was used to render him powerless or to take his life? Or worse, what if she used it to do the very thing he sought to prevent her from doing for years, the thing he feared most?

No. It was too much of a risk. Charmcaster had to die. There was no question about it. The war had to be ended for good.

"My army, to the portal!" he called to his creations as he started to head for the gateway himself. Frowning, he muttered quietly, "I never should have trusted Ghostfreak to handle this. This was, is, my fight. I should have gone to Earth to deal with Charmcaster. After all, what was one of those Earth sayings humans love the villains of their stories to say so much?"

"Ah yes," he happened upon the answer. "If you want something done right, then you have to do it yourself."

Coming up to the gateway, he lifted a clawed hand and summoned a portal to open within the circular structure. The portal opened immediately and linked a passage between Ledgerdomain and Nàajaltik. From behind him, he sensed the approach of his soldiers as they marshalled into their ranks, readying themselves for the journey ahead. Adwaita grinned slyly; all of them still had their magic cores to supply him with enough energy to sustain him until the final battle with his nemesis. Confident, he stepped inside the portal, motioning to his army to follow him. They did so, marching after him two at a time.

"Fine," Adwaita said as he made his way down the passage. "I'll do it myself."


Uh-oh...