The Armor of the Soul
By Dixxy
Chapter Twenty-Eight: The Jewel
(Sam)
As the next day or so passed, I discovered I was beginning to like Sage. He was a fairly nice guy and could come up with some interesting behind-the-back comments about Trulpa. As an added bonus, he was coming up with some decent ideas as to how to get Cara to join us.
But it was getting tense. Every mountain we tried came up empty handed. Trulpa was getting angrier and angrier, and we were running out of mountains. Cale at one point suggested that they might have to check the mountain range in Vermont. Trulpa screamed at him for that, nearly causing an avalanche. Cara mostly remained quiet.
The night after Cale "helped" Sage with his theory, Cara was on guard again. Sage boldly went over to Cara to ask her the inevitable. He tapped her shoulder. "What, do you need to go again?"
"No," said Sage. "We want to talk to you."
"What about?" asked Cara, slowly turning around.
"We know you're blind," I blurted. Sage turned back to me, a look on his face of something close to pain. Oops. I blew it! She's going to turn us into monster food or worse!
Cara's eyes widened. "So if I am?" she asked. I then noticed that her voice was a bit shaky, like she was nervous. I inwardly took a sigh of relief. I HADN'T ruined everything. Yet.
"Were you born that way?" asked Sage.
"N, no, but why do you care?!" asked Cara, now obviously upset over the subject.
"So at one point you could see," I said. "You know what colors, shapes, values, and space look like. I bet you miss all that, don't you? You MISS seeing things, even if your element IS the darkness!"
"We can heal you and make you be able to see again," replied my partner in arms. "Don't you miss seeing? Don't you miss color? The darkness means nothing if there's nothing to compliment it."
Cara turned back. "Shut up or I'll tell Trulpa you two tried to escape and she'll then have your loved ones killed. Think about it, Halos. You'll be all alone in this world. Your parents think you're dead, Sage- you couldn't go back to them. The only people you have are Hardrock and Torrent. And Sam, poor little Sam won't have anywhere to go if her poor Auntie Ella dies."
Sage and I exchanged looks. The look in his eyes told me that we'd at the very least, tried. But none the less, we both knew that we could very well be in a very large amount of trouble.
~
The following morning we reached the top of Mt. Washington, the highest mountain in the region. It was windy and cold, something that the mountain is famous for. Heck, Mt. Washington currently holds the record for the fastest recorded wind speeds of all time (Sage pointed this out in a book he'd found on the ground about Mt. Washington).
Today was particularly windy.
"There's a lot of buildings here," said Cale.
"It's a tourist spot. There's all sorts of cool things up here, like a research center and a hotel and even a train station." I said.
"Your trivial matters mean nothing," said Trulpa. "I can sense the seal. It's here, I know it!"
Cale's eyes glistened evilly. "Lead the way, Trulpa, lead the way. I'm anxious to see the Jewel of Death. I'm anxious to execute our plan."
"What plan?" I asked. Sage shrugged as Cale and Cara made us follow Trulpa to a spot a good ways away from the mountaintop buildings. Trulpa then drew a circle with her foot. "Right here."
"What, do we start digging?" asked Cale.
Trulpa fumed. "No, the Halos have to stand in the circle and create whatever doorway it is to wherever Nako and Sachi hid it!"
Cara and Cale forced us to stand in the center of the circle. Trulpa gave us our armor orbes. I looked down at the green orbe, then looked up at my enemy in suspicion. Sage had a similar look on his face. "Armor up to subarmor. No tricks," she said. Sage and I had no choice but to obey. "Now, how do you summon the doorway?"
"I have an idea," said Cale. He took my left hand and his right hand, pressing them together. He did the same with our remaining hands. "If they concentrate they might spark something."
"Try it," said Trulpa. Sage and I closed out eyes and we began to concentrate. I could feel his powers from the Armor of the Halo flow through my hands. I held back a gasp. Then I understood what Cale had done: he'd created a circuit between our armors. the power would keep passing through us until it became so powerful it would open up whatever door it was Trulpa wanted.
My eyes suddenly flashed open and everything went white.
~
I woke up with a sick to my stomach feeling, kind of like the way I felt last time I ate some of Sara's cooking (which, to say the least, isn't very good. . .). "I wanna hurl," I mumbled.
"Ah, good to see you're both up," said Trulpa. I looked over to see her clutching something in her hand, a string coming out the side. She opened her hand and I saw a black, beet shaped jewel in her hand. The glisten forced me to close my eyes. I could hear Sage wince somewhere nearby. Cale and Cara were on either side of her, laughing. Well, Cale was. Cara joined in shortly after. Of course she joined in after. She hadn't seen us wince. She couldn't see us wince.
I took time to figure out what the heck was going on. I was tied to a pillar of some sort, my wrist raised above my head, the binds attached to a hook. I could hardly move. "Where are we?"
"The Temple of Halo," said Trulpa. "The Ancient was more crafty in hiding the resting places of the female armors. They're kept in shrines only accessible by either the two bearers of that armor type, or, by the Staff. It was luck I snuck in behind the Ancient to get the seasonal armors." I looked around, seeing the room was completely done over in emerald green. I saw my armor sitting on a platform, surrounded by a soft green glow. The no-datchi sat in the "lap" of the armor, glistening menacingly.
"My armor," I said in amazement.
"Yes, pity I can't do anything to grab it," she said. "Since you're already claimed it I can't do anything to it unless you die from natural causes. Starvation and dehydration works, which is why I'm leaving you two here."
"But you can't kill us, and that-" started Sage.
"-is letting nature do the work for me," said Trulpa. Cale laughed, but Cara didn't. Her mouth and nose almost told me she was uncertain of what her mistress was saying. "Your deaths will be slow and painful, then I can have both of your armors. How perfect."
I struggled against my binds. "Trulpa, you'll never get away with this! How can you be so evil as to want to destroy everything? The Mortal Realm is beautiful. It's alive and full of life. Why do you want to destroy something so precious?"
"Destroy. . . everything?" said Cara slowly. All eyes turned to the Warlady of Darkness, Corruption and Decay. She turned to Trulpa in confusion (probably to hear her better more than anything else). "Trulpa, why do you want to destroy everything?"
"Because birdies and kitties and trees don't do anything to appease me. I want control over this realm. I want to see every last living thing in the Mortal Realm to wither and die slowly and painfully," said Trulpa. "I want to see fish slowly suffocate on the land. I went to see birds with broken wings who will never fly again. But most of all I want to see each and every human die a slow, horrendously cruel death. It starts with them." Trulpa snickered. "Why do you ask, Cara?"
"No!" said Cara. "Why kill everything? Why rule over nothingness? Wouldn't it be better to rule over people? After a few generations you could be seen as a goddess! If you kill everything then there is no point in ruling over it! You'd be alone forever."
"You fool!" said Trulpa, turning on Cara. "Do you realize how much work that would be? I've already worked hard enough! The Mortal World will soon be as desolate and dry as the Dynasty! Suffering all around! Don't you want that?"
"No, I don't," said Cara. "I joined the Dynasty because I wanted revenge. You came to me on what should have been the happiest day of my entire life."
"It was- you joined my Dynasty," said Trulpa.
Cara shook her head. "No. I was supposed to be married. But my fiancé was killed that wretched Dynasty beast! I wanted revenge because no one helped. But in four centuries- MORE than four centuries- since I came here, I haven't found that revenge. I don't want to destroy the world. All I want is justice to be brought unto those who ruined my life. But now I realize that justice will never come. You never wanted me to join the Dynasty so I could do that- you just needed me to do your dirty work because I hold a mystical armor!"
"Someone's pulling an Anubis," Sage mumbled.
Trulpa's eyes widened in rage at Cara, who tried to stand her ground. Then, she calmed down. An eerie calm. Trulpa narrowed her eyes, mumbled something, snapped her fingers, and Cara fell to her knees, crying out in pain. The Warlady pressed her hands over the goggles, crying out in pain. "This is what happens when you disobey me, Cara."
"What did you do to her?" I asked.
"Those goggles were to serve two purposes: give her partial sight, since she's blind, and to serve as punishment would she go against her virtue and disobey me. The claws in the frames are ripping what's left of her eyes from their sockets," said Trulpa. She grinned. "She will die here with you. Come Cale, let's go." In a flash of black smoke, they were gone, leaving a hysterically Cara and a hopeless pair of Halos.