Chapter 6-Choice

"Your destiny will have to wait until we can secure your future," Nessi replied quickly, "The shadow coming toward us is an army coming to overthrow the capitol. We can leave now and no one will blame us. However, if we stay, we may have to fight for our lives."

Luareth looked at her friends on the ground and noticed the soldiers trapped in the castle, and thought of the Havenites. She then looked at the shadow and she could seem them; millions of legions in black armor. She took a deep breath; "can we win?"

Nessi stopped Tingit from speaking and answered for herself, "That is for you to answer. If we run, we won't know and if we stay then time will tell."

A surge of energy reminded her of her past weakness. Then she had to run but now she could defend herself and the city. She felt logic sweep aside, "Let's fight."

Nessi was happy, "Oh my, it has been along time. The rest of you go into the castle, you'll be safe there . . . relatively."

Tingit objected, "No, I want to fight with you. If she can handle it, I can."

"No, you can't," Nessi confirmed herself as she swept her hand through the air. Suddenly Nessi and Luareth were alone on the field.

Luareth looked at Nessi, "Why didn't you send me back too?"

"Do you want to be inside the castle?" Nessi whispered back, a hint of malice in her voice. Luareth shook her head, although Nessi was looking away and couldn't have seen it, she continued, "I want you to see this first hand."

Luareth stepped forward but Nessi pulled her back, "Look and listen until you feel and know your opponent." Luareth could see the foot soldiers more clearly now, they were not like the lively soldiers of the city, they were creatures of disease and death; animated mockeries of life. The horde moved with a monotonous grace of decaying flesh, bone, and unearthly groans.

The Nightwere slid forward as Nessi explained to Luareth what was happening, "This is not a mortal army; behind them, or even in the midst of this undead horde, is a magic user. This is a challenge and the Nightwere has excepted. Let evil destroy evil. Good cannot, and the Haven was proof of that." Luareth didn't ask the question, she didn't want Nessi to repeat it and she knew Nessi wouldn't answer her anyway.

Black vines burst from the decaying cloak and oozed across the battlefield. The charging undead tripped and fell, shriveling to the ground as the Nightwere sucked them dry of their animation magic. A skeleton formed beneath the cloak, as if the Nightwere were stealing their false vitality to rejuvenate himself.

For each one that died, two more zombies replaced its ranks, allowing the army to quickly surround the walled city. Luareth prepared herself to fight the monsters herself, seeing that the Nightwere could not possibly summon the forces to battle the undead by himself. However, as the Nightwere's vines drank the zombies dry, it also built up his own strength.

A shock wave vibrated out from the Nightwere and Luareth's idea, her efforts to prepare, where immediately forgotten. Although her own summoning magic was blocked, she gladly noticed that the zombie warriors couldn't restock their forces. She also noticed that the Nightwere was becoming more human with every zombie that fell.

Green ripples emanated from the Nightwere, waves that sliced the hordes of trudging undead. Nessi summoned a shield against the waves, a thin blue membrane that flashed when the waves struck, and protected the castle as well as herself. Luareth was amazed at the Nightwere's potency; almost a third of the approaching horde lay festering on the field while their companions marched over them. And the Nightwere was human again.

Luareth stared for a moment, astonished at the rapid restoration and how normal he looked now. Her heart fell as she realized that the Nightwere was a child. Luareth felt cold as she tried to imagine what rotting away must feel like. And yet the child had not died or aged, just decayed.

The child began to radiate black energy and he rose into the air as though dragged upwards by his shoulders. Luareth heard Nessi mumble to herself as she began to glimmer within her blue energy. Luareth panicked; something big was about to happen and she couldn't do anything. She froze when she felt a voice vibrating her bones. Her head moved slowly with fear as she looked to the source, to the boy.

"LET THERE BE DEATH." The words trembled in her heart as the ground itself rolled. The ripples of the earth expanded and shrank, rising to towering tsunamis and crashing to swallow mouthfuls of fetid prey. Nessi reinforced her shields and her face contorted each time a ripple struck the shields. Luareth felt like a rat trapped in a sinking cage, helpless and knowing that she was doomed. The onslaught was too much for Nessi; she crashed down to the ground as a wave rose to swallow them.

The jaws fell in a shower of dirt, covering Nessi and Luareth. The field was dead; the blades of grass itself blown away and rotting bodies had replaced them. One of the corpses, disfigured and barely recognizable, had grown. The towers of the city barely reached his knees and his power matched his height.

Luareth felt Nessi shift by her side and heard her mummer, "This is getting nowhere, both of these mages are already dead." Nessi rose from the ground and glided upwards until she could look the aberrance in the eye. A blue mist covered the field and shrouded the two of them.

The people in the castle rose to their feet with curiosity. Out of the dead silence, some of them rejoiced the finally of the battle. Blasts of lightning rocked the people to their knees, bursts of light and sound that threatened to tear Luareth apart. When the mist cleared and Luareth stood up, she noticed the Nightwere standing in front of her, oblivious to the world.

The noise died down and flashes became less frequent as the mist cleared. Ness stood on the ground with a body sprawled in front of her, clasping its head in a death grasp. Nessi motioned it to rise, and it obeyed, as both of them floated back to Luareth. As the body floated nearer, Luareth could pick out tiny details; the black cloak; the thin brown hair, the pointy ears of an elf.

Nessi alighted behind Luareth and spoke softly as the body floated to Luareth's feet; "Do you know him?"

Luareth looked and realized she did, "He's one of the mages in the Haven, an apprentice of the Archmage. He was trained in life, what happened?"

"You," Nessi whispered, "He traded his soul in hopes to gain your abilities. Your existence and your inability, or even your unwillingness, to use it will disrupt the minds and conscience of those around you. He wanted ultimate power, but he couldn't grasp ultimate knowledge. I filled his mind to the brink and then erased it." The Nightwere light heavily and swept his hand over the body. As his hand moved, flakes of flesh and bone sprang from the body and rotted away to nothingness before it hit the ground. Luareth felt tears roll down her cheek.

"Halt, both of you," someone barked from the castle walls. Nessi turned, putting a hand around the shoulders of the Nightwere and saw a brightly- colored uniformed court official coming towards them. Nessi raised a hand and jerked it backwards and laughed as the official fell to the ground, his feet pulled from beneath him. More officials bumbled out of the castle to aid the first and Nessi shouted to the castle, "Stop sending these pawns, I want to talk to the counsel."

A procession of soldiers began at the gates and snaked outwards. When the line had expanded to form a ring around Nessi, Luareth and the Nightwere. Between the rows of soldiers, five new people came out. The first three were obviously mages, each bore a white cloak, and the other two appeared to be royalty of some kind. They walked together, confidant and condescending. The mages' faces tightened as they saw Nessi, who just smiled back, and they look strangely at the boy.

The taller of the two royalty saw Luareth and immediately spoke up, "I'm so glad you're safe, Luareth." He rushed forward and took Luareth by the hand and led her away. Nessi tried to move in front of Luareth but the second royal got in the way, "Nessi, thank you for retrieving the one for us. We'll take care of her, you know, keep her safe and all that. What do we owe you?"

"Money is not my price and power is not yours to give," Nessi fixed her gaze on the royal in front of her, "you have no claim to her." Nessi seized the air in front of her with a tight grip. As Nessi picked up her hand and moved it towards her, Luareth felt a hidden hand wrap around her waist and pick her up. Luareth's legs dangled in the air as the hand lifted her through the air and set her by Nessi again.

Nessi looked again at the royal, "What would you have done if we weren't here? Your white goons couldn't have stopped that."

The royal puffed out his chest; "My wizards are the best in the world. We can handle anything. We just waited, uh, until you asked for help."

"Your wizards are barely tested," Nessi corrected, "Any one of us could destroy your castle out and you know it."

The official bustled with rage, "We called the Seers and the merchants here to protect them. The livelihood of all civilizations are within these walls, therefore we have to have the best."

Dismissive, Nessi turned to Luareth, "The parts are all here now, Luareth. Its time to make your decision."

Luareth tried to look calm about the decision she must make, although she felt the fear seep through her façade as she asked, "What choice must I make?"

"The five most powerful wizards gather here today," Nessi replied shortly as if Luareth should already have known this, "and you get to destroy as many as you like. You've already destroyed two; you harbor the energy of the Archmage and the Embermage."

"The Archmage? I destroyed the Archmage?" Luareth fell to her knees gasping for breath, "The elves, but the other mage, that one that attacked us, you said that he destroyed them."

Nessi whispered harshly, "My child, welcome to the world of power"

Luareth broke away from Nessi. Tears streamed down her face as she stared down Nessi, "I have power now? Why? I didn't ask for it."

"You've had a painless ascent to power, Luareth," Nessi scolded, "You wanted the power to defend yourself, and power itself answered your call. You stole power from the source you knew, the Archmage, and the elves couldn't defend themselves."

"But I have the power now," Luareth replied forcefully, following the advice of a friend, "I can take power away from any one and I choose you. Elah has told me of what you and the Nightwere have done."

"I bet she told you about the Nightwere and her parents," Nessi clarified, "but let me take you back to the Nightwere's first victim and then you might see the truth." Nessi threw her arms to the sky and a purple-blue dome enclosed Nessi and Luareth. The dome expanded but continued to include only Luareth and Nessi alone.

Outside the bubble, the air thickened until light could not pass through. Nessi narrated through the darkness, "This vessel will take us back to the Nightwere's youth. He's thousands of decades old; rather he was born many generations ago but he stayed about the same age. He was once a student of mine and he was young when he sold his soul for the power he got and I gave him that cloak as a right of passage. I revived my own appearance and volition of youth every twenty years but his conscience won't allow him to. He thought that his evil would die with his flesh but evil is stronger than flesh and it doesn't die easily, you saw that in the field just now. Since then, his flesh and, rotted away but he lived through it because of his deathless existence."

The air opened and Luareth could see outside. The plain and the castle were gone, replaced by mountains and a sea. The bubble descended and Luareth saw a group of boys running, playing some type of game. Higher on the hill sat a woman, blue robes and a staff, who looked strikingly like Nessi. Luareth heard Nessi whispering to herself but she turned her attention to the running game.

The boys always ran within a set circle, although the kids seemed to run wherever they wanted. Luareth thought back to similar games of her youth, running and laughing. And she heard it to, the laughter of children, the purest form of glee, but one wasn't. Luareth looked closer at the one. Soon it became clear to her that the other boys were taunting him.

"The boy you're looking at will grow into the Nightwere," Nessi narrated, "and this is where it all started. Watch."

Another of the boys ran by the silent boy, laughing playfully, and a jolt of lightning joined them and the silent boy contorted slightly. The silent boy turned and returned the jolt with a thin black bolt. When the bolt hit, the running boy just fell. As he lay lifeless on the ground, the others stopped laughing and began screaming at the boy, who ducked his head and sauntered away.

"That boy didn't mean to, you know," Nessi narrated, "He was only eleven and he could kill a person without meaning to."

"He deserves to be destroyed then," Luareth countered. This whole thing seemed pointless, "If he could kill at eleven, imagine what he can do in our time."

"You're not thinking it through," Nessi said. Luareth looked at her for a moment before Nessi explained, "What is your fondest memory of the past?"

"I was fifteen at the time," Luareth responded, her eyes glazing over as she slipped into the memory, "and we were rolling down hills and laughing, racing and the air was sweet with spring and . . . " "Who's we?" "My friends, of course."

"What if your friends feared for their life? What if you were a danger to them and they knew it?" Nessi asked. "He grew as old as you first saw him and no one would let him near them. He could have killed thousands, but he chose to wait out the generation to see if the next generation would be better. They weren't."

"But he did kill thousands of people," Luareth objected, "Elah said that you did too."

"You should not believe everything your told. What proof does she have? How can she prove it? I can show you her father and mother relaxing on a beach or in the center of a luxurious palace. I can show you anything I want, make you hear what I want, would you believe that?"

Luareth paused. She suppressed the doubt but it sprouted through every defense. She thought of many ways to respond but the logic and doubt over whelmed them. The bubble closed and the two of them were cut off from the outside world again. Luareth felt more alone than before.

"I'm taking us back," Nessi gave her final thought, "Don't trust your senses or memories, they can change and be changed. When someone tells you something or does something, think about what they gain from saying or doing that. Let that guide your life, not your fickle senses or emotions." Luareth closed her eyes to think and her mind slid away to a restless sleep.

Luareth strolled a forest path of her youth, but the joy was gone. She was queen of this place, she knew it and the very trees uprooted themselves to let her pass. Her joy was replaced by analytical sourness. Birds and animals chattered and she knew it was for her, but somehow it was an annoyance this time. Her vision and senses flowed throughout the forest, and she was a part of the forest. No, the forest was a part of her, she had mastered the forest and it existed to serve her.

A brown dog leapt from the brush and landed by her side. Looking down at it, she smiled the bittersweet pleasure. She used to enjoy chance encounters and two days ago she would have loved this. She knelt and looked into the black eyes of the dog, "I used to love this. Why don't I now?" She thought herself silly immediately. The dog couldn't answer her and she knew that expecting it to know the answer was hopeless.

And yet it did. --Luareth, this is the power you have. You should learn to enjoy it. You can't give it away.-- Luareth was astonished but somehow she had felt that the dog could speak.

"But I used to enjoy this so much more," Luareth complained, "I'm talking to a dog, I'm at one with the nature, and yet I'm not happy."

--The power has changed you,-- the dog replied, --Only you can deal with the power you have gotten. You wanted this--

"I know," Luareth sighed and looked around, "But I'm all alone. My home and everything I know is destroyed."

--You have a choice to make. You are the One--

Luareth closed her eyes. She had made her decision and she would remember this for the rest of her life, even though others would forget.