Shining In The Darkness
A Tale of Sol and Luna
Chapter Three: Behind Stars and Under Hills
"Do we have a plan for this part?" asked Felix, edging his toes over the rim. Yes, there was still a downward pull. "I mean, do we know for sure that we're not going to just plummet into oblivion?"
"Oblivion sure looks a lot bigger close up," Jenna commented. She was standing with Garet, and they were both staring out at the night. To either side, the world curved away, jagged at times, but certainly circular. The Adepts were gathered on a rocky point just at the edge, with water rushing away around them, over the edge and into the clouds of mist.
Ahead, there was only blackness and scattered stars. It was tremendously unnerving to see stars below and in front of you. The air was thin, too. Isaac thought that if he leaned over too far he'd probably lose consciousness and slip right over, straight through the clouds and into the nothingness forever…
"Isaac, snap out of it," said Ivan.
"We so don't need you thinking like that right now," Sheba added.
"Do you two make a habit of monitoring my thoughts?" demanded Isaac.
"They can be quite entertaining," said Sheba innocently.
"Stay out of my head, you dwarf!" said Isaac with mock-seriousness, and lightly whacked Ivan in the back of the head.
"Hey!" protested Ivan, covering himself against further assault. "Sheba said it, not me!"
"Yeah, but… she's a girl," said Isaac.
"And the revolution strives onward," commented Mia, passing by to look over the edge.
"Do we have a plan for this part?" asked Picard, making the final check to see that his ship was properly moored. Felix leaned theatrically over the edge and cupped a hand to his ear.
"That's one hell of an echo. It sounded just like you, Picard!"
"We could push him over and see what happens," suggested Garet dryly.
"I think you should leave this up to us," said Ivan. "Ready, Sheba?"
"Ready." Sheba closed her eyes and extended an arm in each direction. The air shifted subtly. Ivan took a deep breath and ran, leaping over the edge. Sheba moved her arms forward and the air rushed after Ivan, following him down and preparing to become a strong updraft if necessary. The other Adepts watched as Ivan shot through the clouds layer and out of sight. Nothing happened for a moment.
"Sheba," said Garet, "I think you might want-"
"YAAAAAAA!" screamed Ivan as he rose up like a peasant army against a tyrant. He came back up to about the level of the ledge, missed grabbing hold of anything, and fell back down. A moment later, the process repeated, though he didn't come up quite so high.
"Sheba, stop messing with him and get him back up here, will you?" said Felix tersely, but when he looked at Sheba she had stopped using Psynergy and was watching Ivan's rises and falls with surprise -not to mention a lot of giggling.
Sheba noticed the look Felix was giving her. "I think he'll reach equilibrium soon, don't worry." Everyone's expressions went blank except for Picard, who simply looked quizzical. "I think the gravity switches directions when you go through the clouds. Underneath them, down is our up, above them, it's the way we think it should be."
"So he's falling, but when he goes through the clouds he's suddenly rising because he's still got momentum, and then it all happens backwards…" Jenna realised. "But he's going a little less distance each time."
"I'M GLAD THIS IS SUCH AN EDUCATIONAL EXPERIENCE FOR YOU PEOPLE!" shouted Ivan from over the edge.
"Are we ready?" asked Isaac.
"No," said Picard.
"But we're not going to get any readier, either," Felix added.
"Well then," Garet muttered, and leapt over the edge, holding tightly on the straps of the pack he carried. The others followed, and Picard made a point of aiming for Ivan so that the two of them were both pushed through to the other side.
There was a moment of debilitating dizziness as the Adepts passed through the clouds, where no direction looked like or felt like up, and then they were through, most definitely upside down. Most of them managed to flip around right side up in time -Garet landed on his back and Ivan was still upside down, though Picard put him down the right way- and were faced with a vast barren plain.
Just as they had seen within Kraden's mirror, the land was a wide, dusty, and grey expanse of flatness, punctuated only with rocks and occasional stalagmites, though their existence was inexplicable. It stretched on endlessly, curving to either side just as the upper half did, and all fractionally uphill, towards the centre.
"This ought to be thrilling. How long are we walking? A month?" asked Garet.
"Keep it up and I'll make you carry me," Jenna responded.
"What makes you think you can make me do anything?"
"Because I have absolute power over your very existence and can make you dance like a puppet at my every whim?" she suggested innocently.
"Don't let the fact that you're right make you think I'm going to agree."
"There isn't a lit fire in twenty miles. Now what's with them?" asked Mia.
"I don't know and I don't want to know. Let's get going," said Picard.
"Aye, captain!" replied Isaac, and saluted perfectly before starting towards the centre in a militaristic sort of march. "Care to suggest a cadence, sir?"
"All right, all right, I know you're the leader. Lead, already."
They did walk for some days, trekking across the barren ground toward a distant glow in the dark sky. The land transformed into terrain -or at least that's what Ivan said, by which he meant that it wasn't quite so flat. Instead, it became exceptionally rocky, like there had once been a mountain range but then an army of Venus Adepts decided to try their hands at landscaping and the whole thing got out of control. It was while they were travelling through a narrow pass among the rocks that the first evidence of life appeared. It appeared in the form of acid.
A screech echoed off the stone walls, and suddenly transformed into a sort of choking gurgle. Footsteps sounded above them, and then the acid fell. Great drops that burned away the stone in a matter of seconds, sinking out of sight and leaving only acrid smoke. The Adepts flung themselves against the pass wall closest to where the acid was coming from, but soon the rain began from the other direction as well. Several drops struck the Adepts, hissing as they dissolved cloth and touched skin.
"Unleash Flash!" "Unleash Granite!" "Unleash Shade!" The three auras flew up as Djinn flew into battle. Drops continued to fall, rolling along the luminous barriers but prevented from touching the Adepts. Isaac screamed as the acid that had slipped by corroded through his armor and started burning. He was joined by most of the others only a moment later.
"Deep breath!" ordered Picard, ignoring the pain. "Deluge!" The barrier-dome suddenly filled with rushing water, diluting the acid until it could do no more harm. Unfortunately, the dry soil was only too happy to draw in moisture, and soon they were simply standing in grey mud. Still sore and in pain, Isaac looked up and saw that the rain of acid had simply collected on top of the Djinn's auras, which would be failing at any moment.
"Run for it!" he shouted, and sprinted as well as he could down the pass. The others followed, no longer paralysed by the pain of burning liquid digging into them, and a few seconds later the auras faded away, causing a low torrent of acid to chase the Adepts as they ran.
"You know, it's about time you called us up," Flint commented, gripping Isaac's shoulder with his feet. "Most of us Djinn have practically fallen asleep."
"I thought the world was quieter than usual," Isaac gasped as he ran. "Though you're right. Ivan!"
"Oh yeah. Unleash Zephyr!" A Jupiter Djinni flew into being, and winds surrounded them, letting the Adepts move with incredible speed. The hissing flow was left behind them, soon enough, and the path widened into more open ground.
The Adepts slowed for a moment, some looking for the origin of the acid and screeching while the healers -mostly Mia- tried to handle the group's burns. Fortunately, the auras had been fast enough to stop more than the initial downpour, and Picard's flood had stopped the acid from digging too deeply.
"What on Wayard was that?" demanded Garet.
"Under," Sheba corrected him.
"This is so not what I expected to find. Weird Psynergy, okay, but acid rain?!" he continued, gesturing back the way they came.
"Hold still, damn it!" growled Jenna, trying to mend his arm.
"Save it for combat, Jenna," Mia told her, and clasped her hands together. "Wish Well." Blue light twinkled around the Adepts and rushed into them, mostly closing the wounds. She would have given it another shot, but at that moment the air was cut in half and Jenna fell to the grey sands.
"Jenna!" shouted Felix and Garet in unison, rushing over to her. Jenna rolled into an upright sprawl and reached for her arm, from which she pulled what appeared to be a silvery-grey point, stained red with blood. Something began to roll into her eye, and Jenna realised that the blade had sliced across her forehead before catching her in the arm.
"Close one," she muttered, wiping a glove across her brow.
"What was that?" demanded Isaac, turning a full circle with his sword on guard.
"Who, I think," Felix reported. "This looks like a dagger to me." The Adepts were silent for a few moments, looking around for a sign of who could have thrown it. Sheba looked closer at the glinting edge. In a quiet voice made all the smaller by the vast silence around them, she pointed out a worrying fact.
"It actually looks like a feather."
The silence deepened, and was then split so piercingly that Isaac though he could see the sound- a bright red line slashing across his vision. A cry rang across the stones, and was joined by more of the same creature. Then they rose from nooks and crevasses, darker shadows against the ever-dark sky.
"What are those?" asked Isaac, warily. The starlight dancing across the multitude of shapes was menacing, and made it hard to guess how many creatures were surrounding them. In the flash as Bane appeared on his shoulder, a few more vague features were lit, mostly sharp or glowing red eyes.
"Oh, no," Bane muttered. "There shouldn't be any of these left. They're called Sorro'wings, ancient monsters of the upper world. Feathers of iron, and all razor sharp. We Djinn have fought them before."
"Any weak points?" asked Felix.
"With iron feathers? Worse than plate mail," Mia muttered.
"Well, metal is a good conductor. Heat and electricity are the only things likely to slow them down much," Corona pointed out, perched on Garet's pack. "But it's probably safer just to run."
"How much longer do you think I can keep them going?" demanded Zephyr.
"He's right," Sleet growled. "We have no choice for the moment."
"What good am I, again?" asked Isaac, a little annoyed.
"You get to say 'Charge'," Bane replied.
Isaac shook his head. "Ivan, Sheba, go for it. Garet, you too. Jenna, I want you to keep a reserve of Psynergy, just in case there's something we don't know about yet. Everyone else, it's time for some manual plucking." He drew the Sol Blade, which shone gold in the darkness, ready to strike. In its light, the Adepts could see the Sorro'wings much better, and wished they couldn't.
The creatures were perhaps six feet tall from ground to head, though the way they stood made it difficult to tell how high they could rear up. Their legs were paw-like, coated in dark grey fur and thickly padded, shaped in a way Isaac had learned to recognise as concealing claws. Big claws. The rest of their eagle-ish bodies were covered in large feathers, all sleek dark silver and looking just as sharp as Bane had said.
Except for the beaks, which were black and cruelly hooked, and the eyes, which glowed like red coals. The Adepts were surrounded by dozens of these flame-eyes, all shifting as they studied the Adepts, moving oddly in the darkness.
The Sorro'wings seemed a little uncertain. Humans were very uncommon underneath the world. And they had experienced some very strange encounters recently with such creatures. So the Adepts had a little bit of a mental edge, though against hunting monsters this is rarely a major advantage.
"Why aren't they doing anything?" asked Ivan.
"They look worried," Mia pointed out. "Well, not so much worried as… pensive."
"Pensive? You have time to remember words like pensive when we're facing down a horde of hawks crossed with mezza lunas?" demanded Garet. The others stared at him. "What?"
"Let's go already!" said Felix tersely -not being much of one for battle cries- and drew Excalibur, spinning it in his usual fashion as he ran towards one of the Sorro'wings.
"We don't know that-" began Isaac, cutting himself off from saying 'there's no peaceful way out', but he knew from experience that Psynergy predators rarely surrounded someone just to look at them. "Very well. Hit it!"
Ivan threw his arms wide, trying to focus Psynergy on as wide an area as possible. "Destruct Ray!" Purple lightning stabbed down out of the perfectly clear starry sky, crackling and arcing across the metal-coated raptors. They froze, the current paralysing them as every muscle tensed to the point of pain.
"Spark Plasma!" said Sheba, dropping a hail of exploding electron bolts onto another group. They were knocked about, but the battering only seemed to increase their rage. The flock set upon the Adepts furiously, and then there was no time to say anything except the occasional call to Psynergy.
Garet stayed near Jenna, smashing anything that came close, launching Heat Waves whenever he had a spare breath, and feeling rather smug in general about so obviously defending her with all his might. The Sorro'wings' feather armor glowed red as the tremendous heat washed over them, losing their sharp edges and beginning to run together. Still the creatures fought, claws raking across armor and locking against blades.
Sheba's staff was useless against metal coats, and she rather thought it would be reduced to sawdust anyway. As she watched, one of the Sorro'wings flapped and flung a hail of its feather daggers at Isaac, who rolled to the side and managed to pick a couple out of the air with his luminous sword. Not wanting to see anyone ventilated, Sheba focused and called up a Tempest around them- spiralling winds from which electricity crackled and occasionally earthed on one of the beasts.
This wasn't the winning strategy she had hoped for. The next time two of the creatures launched a feather hail, the blades were caught on the wind and sailed around madly, ricocheting off of one target and sailing on to the next.
"Ivan!" called Felix, his long hair whipping into his face. "Can't you -pth- do something about this storm? Blh!" He then screamed as one of the razors found an unlucky space under his arm and stuck deeply into his side.
"It's out of control! There's too much power for me to fight it down!" replied Ivan, ducking under a whistling feather. Sheba realised with sudden, fearful regret that she had tried too hard. The storm was even beyond her control now, and would soon enough slice them all apart. She caught sight of Isaac's face, two red lines across it, and wondered how much of her fault they were.
Well, there's always the extreme way. And the atmosphere must be thinner down here… "Everyone exhale and drop!" she shouted, focusing whatever Jupiter Psynergy she could.
"Seem to be doing rather a lot of breath stuff today," Jenna commented as Garet fell beside her, and they both breathed out as much as possible. When she saw that they were all down -it only took a couple of seconds- Sheba released the power she had gathered into the air around them.
And pushed it away.
In a silent dome around the Adepts, containing most of the Sorro'wings as well, the air was reduced to vacuum, and the knife-feathers flew outwards, no longer riding the gusts. Well, mostly outwards. One caught Sheba in the shoulder and simply fell to the ground, as she had forgotten to follow her own advice, but the rest were propelled far away.
As though she were taking the deepest breath of her life, Sheba drew the air back in, and was startled by the sudden return of sound, as it was almost entirely made up of screeching Sorro'wings. The beasts, deeply shaken by this strange assault, fell into a deeper rage, barely thinking as they fell back into combat.
Mia and Picard found themselves back to back, trying to fend the beasts off with staff and sword. Smashing one away, Picard said to her, "A mean plan just occurred to me."
"I'll take anything!" she replied, performing a deft spin and jab.
"Metal contracts when it gets really cold."
"Ooh. That's mean."
"Get ready. Deluge!" shouted Picard, and a torrent of water exploded from his upraised hand.
"I didn't mean stop warning us!" cried Jenna as the wave rolled over her.
"Glacier!" Mia's quick following Psynergy merged with Picard's easily, transforming the rush of water into a frigid bath. And when it had overtaken most of the Sorro'wings, she intensified the power, freezing the water in place. From a distance the whole thing might have looked like modern art, with all the crests and ripples frozen in place.
A moment later, though, Jenna melt-broke her way out -destroying the symmetry- Garet gasping as he followed, and they set about freeing the others as fast as possible. Isaac, who had been caught couple of feet in the air, fell straight to the ground when he was thawed out.
"I take it back," he said, breathing heavily. "Some last-minute plans should be run past me."
"If I were you, I'd take what I could get. Let's see those cuts," said Mia, holding his head firmly by the chin. When he struggled, she twisted around, kissed him quickly, and went back to cleaning the gash. A look of stunned peace replaced Isaac's expression, and he stared straight ahead blankly.
Sure that she could do no more to disinfect, Mia whispered "Ply" and sealed the cuts. Turning back to the others, she saw Picard giving her a weird look. "It shuts him up most of the time," she explained. The look didn't go away. "Oh, go heal someone!"
An ominous cracking came from behind them, and a Sorro'wing's head broke free, thrashing and shrieking. It began chipping furiously at the ice with a fervour that was somehow unsettling.
"I think we should run now," said Felix.
"Unleash Zephyr!"
The Adepts sprinted away again across the grey wasteland, skin smeared and clothes stained with blood and dark mud, but still alive. Isaac was just considering their most recent lucky escape from death when a worrying thought occurred to him.
"None of those things spat acid at us," he stated woodenly. No one looked back, being too busy running at high speeds, but Sheba thought she saw a tiny falter in most of the Adepts' steps. The same fact had just occurred to her, and she didn't like it.
"Any other little monstrosities you didn't mention to us, Bane?" asked Felix.
"Not that I know-" the Djinni began.
"Yes," said Luff, hanging onto Ivan's staff like a parrot on a perch. "The Drenmar."
"Acid?" asked Picard, coming up beside Ivan.
"Lots," Luff replied.
"Joyous," Garet muttered, trudging at near-mach speed. "Can we outrun them?"
"How long do you expect me to keep this up?" demanded Zephyr.
"That's assuming we're being chased," Mia pointed out.
"Or," said Sheba, wishing she were wrong, "we could run right into some more." Zephyr's blessing of speed stopped almost immediately, and the Adepts slowed after only a few seconds, coming to a halt in the midst of a plain that was, in an unexpected burst of creativity, grey and dusty. A bright light was apparent not too far away, now that they had left the broken mountains, at least telling them that the Sol Lighthouse was close.
"I bet we could make it," said Jenna.
"We've been beaten up enough today," Felix stated. "If we run into some other sort of freakish thing on the way, we probably won't make it. And no offence, but the fewer times Isaac has to cast Revive in his lifetime, the better."
"I actually haven't managed it for some time," said Isaac quietly.
"So what else do we do? It can't be more than a couple more miles to Sol Lighthouse. You can see the glow in the sky as well as I can," Jenna returned. "Let Zephyr recharge, we'll see to what wounds we can, and then we make a dash for it."
"This isn't the time for the Charge of the Sol Brigade!" snapped Felix.
"No jokes, thanks," Picard muttered.
"So what do we do?" she demanded. "What's your solution? Wait out here where we can be attacked any minute-"
"Don't say that," Mia groaned, and barely before she spoke the words, a splatter of green liquid flew past her, hissing as it dissolved the dust. The Adepts turned to see four of the creatures called Drenmar glaring at them.
"I thought they were smaller than that," Luff commented with the calm of the immortal.
The Drenmar were only two or three feet tall from ground to head, but likely five long, not counting the tail, which was flattish and serrated at the edges. The rest of the body was a mottled green, grey, and brown mixture of colours that didn't do much to improve their lumpy, orc-skinned wolf shape. They had short, unpleasant horns at their knees and back of the head, and reptilian face.
Altogether unpleasant-looking to begin with, there was one more feature that Sheba found exceptionally unnerving. In the creatures' backs, just behind the shoulder blades, there was another opening, very mouthlike and edged with things that might not have been teeth, but then again might have. In any case, the same greenish liquid was oozing out the corner as had burned them earlier, and Sheba's skin crawled at the very sight of it.
"Those, I take it, are Drenmar," said Ivan, flatly.
"Is it likely to get any worse? Around that last mountain right there and we should be home free. Come on," said Jenna.
"She's right," Mia seconded. "Suppression fire- Picard and I can handle that. Then we run."
"Zephyr's still weak," Ivan reported.
"Then we use muscle power. Go!" shouted Isaac.
"Ice Missile!" called Mia, and from her hands more than a dozen shards of ice exploded in a cloud of frost, slicing back through the air before turning toward the Drenmar and launching themselves forward. This gave the creatures pause for a moment, halting their progress as cold lances fell upon them, but they quickly found that a burst of acid melted through very quickly.
The Adepts had taken their momentary advantage and were already trying to speed away across the barren plain. The Drenmar, unfortunately, quickly showed that they surpassed most topside beasts for foot speed, and began to catch up at an alarming rate.
"They're coming up on our left!" shouted Ivan; being a Jupiter Adept he rarely had to worry about running out of breath.
"Oh, great," said Sheba. "They're smart."
"What do you mean?" asked Ivan, for which the less breath-advantaged Adepts thanked him.
"We need to go right unless we want to try going through that rocky pass between us and Sol Lighthouse," said Sheba, and she seemed to think this explained it all. Ivan groaned as he understood, but noticed the confusion on other faces.
"Why is that a problem?" he asked, his voice clearly showing his distaste for asking questions to which he knew the answers, even for someone else's sake.
"We want to go right, they know that, and they're forcing us right. So they're trying to drive us into more Drenmar, while we think all along that we're just lucky," said Sheba. A burst of acid hissed as it splashed down beside Mia, accentuating what could be their near future.
"More acid-spitters?" repeated Isaac. "We take the rocks."
"They - might - be," gasped Picard, and thinking at the same time, Damn these heavy boots, "smarter - than - that." Unfortunately, he didn't have the time or breath to explain further before they were already climbing the rough slope. Especially not after he cast Dynamite Ice, causing a frigid explosion as the Drenmar started up the rise themselves.
In proper too-late fashion, Isaac paused for a moment at the top of the first rise and looked at Picard quizzically. "What do you mean, 'smarter than that'?"
"Well," said Picard, taking deep breaths and bent over slightly, "they could always make us think we're going the way they don't want us to, so that we actually run intentionally into difficult terrain where they're waiting to ambush us."
There was a moment of near-silence, broken by another volley of Ice Missiles at the scrambling Drenmar. "I wish you wouldn't suggest things like that," Garet commented. Then the hissing that had been just on the edge of their hearing intensified, and the ledge broke away, its support dissolved.
They landed in a rocky crevasse, perhaps twenty feet deep, and surrounded by a few dozen Drenmar. A series of strange syllables came from Picard of the type the Adepts had come to recognise as profanity in Old Lemurian.
"I wish I weren't so often right about things like that," he said, in his accented-yet-normal speech.
"I don't think this is going to go well," Mia commented.
"No!" screamed Sheba. She had caused enough trouble today, she wouldn't let anyone die because of her now. "Spark Plasma! Blue Bolt!" Shocking explosions and blazing lightning rained down on the Drenmar, and the Adepts had developed sufficient battle sense over time to see an opening when they had one. They ran, ignoring their exhaustion.
"There are still more!" called Ivan in disbelief and anger. "What does it take to clear a path underneath this blasted world?"
"Ready, sister?" asked Felix.
"Ready, brother," Jenna replied, putting a Mars Djinni on standby.
"Earth and Fire Power Rise! Felix and Jenna summon Zagan!" The creature appeared in a flare of Psynergy, three times the height of any human and mostly equestrian, the spirit of Zagan charged forward ahead of the Adepts and swung its hammer-axe, smiting the Drenmar to either side. The Adepts ploughed on through, shrugging off drops of acid and placing all their strength on making it to the Lighthouse.
They came through the rocks alive and… well, alive was good. The great tower of Sol Lighthouse stood before them, unscathed by time and looking very inviting as a place to get away from acid-spitting monsters. The ground sloped downward, rough and stony.
"Locusts. Real good," said Sheba. It was a Lalivero phrase, and she had never told any of them what it meant. "Picard!"
"I get it. This is going to sting…" he muttered.
"Wind and Water Power Rise! Sheba and Picard summon Moloch!" The ancient beast appeared behind the Adepts and released a massive blizzard in one vast breath, freezing over the slope in an inch of ice. Isaac cast Stone Spire and leapt onto one of the spikes, sliding easily toward the Lighthouse. The others caught on quickly, and soon they were all racing to safety.
"All clear?" asked Garet, who was latched onto the spire with a death grip and couldn't see behind them. Ivan, who was riding his standing up, turned around.
"They're long gone," said Ivan, relieved.
"Psyphon!" shouted Picard in warning, but there was nothing they could do. The defensive field around the Lighthouse was unavoidable, and one the Lemurians were quite familiar with. It sparkled slightly, especially around the Adepts, whose stores of Psynergy were completely drained as they passed through.
"What was that?" demanded Jenna when they had slid to a stop.
"No time!" said Picard, and rushed the Adepts inside. The Drenmar skidded to a halt at the field's edge, but were still within firing range. The door of the Lighthouse, both newly created and as old as the Spirits, slid closed after them, just barely missing Isaac's scarf. The acid ran off its design easily and ineffectually, repelled in a way that said 'We're closed now, and we don't intend to open for a very long time'. The Adepts' journey was over. Their quest was beginning.
[Author's Notes] Usual lateness apology. Why bother? You know the drill. Unrealistic promises about how soon the next one will be, thanking and praising of the muse, that sort of thing. Really. Things get exciting next chapter, and a few mysteries will be both explained and deepened (I have learned something from you.) Reviews, anyone? Please? Or Kaede will smite you, I understand.