Thank you for the reviews and follows and favorites. I particularly thank Grand Viper, who is always fun to talk to and who listened to a lot of my rambling about this chapter and the future of the story. Hopefully this twice-delayed chapter does not disappoint. Also, the previous chapter has been editing to correct some inconsistencies in tense.
Enjoy the climax of this particular arc of the story!
Chapter 7: Tact
The sun dawned warm and early, and the moment its rays brushed Karma's face her mind returned to her body. Feeling returned first in her core, then spread to her fingers and toes, and once she had stretched and flexed she opened her eyes with a delighted smile.
She had missed extending her spirit over Ionia. The happy light of her people's souls were more nourishing to her will than any meal or bed. And as she had floated in the gentle bliss of the twilight of her mind, she had seen the Pit of Pallas and those within.
Varus, his soul an angry red, paced incessantly around the central chamber, and there were twenty tiny, flickering lights like the most fragile of matches, crushed together in the back. And in the center, an ominous presence that chuckled at her in a darkly lovely feminine voice as she surveyed it.
Karma laced her fingers together and thought of that last band in her hair. The metal was scarred with jagged lines and curves that clashed without harmony or sense, yet still radiated an aura of ugly power. Unease curled in her stomach, unpleasantly different from the sense of peace she had felt.
Her eyes snapped towards her left and she drew her fans from within her overdress. In three sharp motions, each perfectly in time with her breaths, she snapped the fans open, whirled them around her body, and thrust them towards her side. Her will thrummed through her fingers and a torrent of tiny spirit knives shot from between the folded paper and hummed through the air like hornets.
They splashed against an elegant, upraised hand. Karma turned slowly, her fans held before her defensively.
"Greetings and defiance, Demon-Goddess," she said calmly.
The woman that sat before her inclined her head. Her skin was pure, jet black, covered in blazing yellow swirls and runes in some ancient, furious tongue. Her eyes were pools of bright red blood, swirling endlessly beneath her long lashes, and her lovely mouth curved in a smile that revealed pointed teeth. She wore only a swatch of violet cloth draped over her hips and her nose, eyebrows, and lips were pierced with shining diamonds.
"Still afraid to speak my name, Duchess?" the woman asked with a cat's lazy smile.
"I honor Pallas, Ionia's Last Defender," Karma replied, her eyes never wavering from the woman's long, clawed fingers. "But to the Demon-Goddess I bring no offerings, nor give the gift of a name."
Pallas chuckled, her voice like sweet wine, and leaned forwards to whisper conspiratorially, "you know, Karma, you have my boy in quite the tizzy. He's ever so conflicted now, torn by grief and guilt and anger, desperate to release it, and I quite look forwards to the finish!"
Her voice dropped, low and deadly. "Do you really think you can steal my archer from me?"
"He was never yours to take, Demon-Goddess," Karma said firmly.
"Oh but he was!" Pallas cooed. "It was not duty that allowed him to protect Ionia, but my power—and as Ionia's Last Defender I am free to gift it to anyone I choose."
"Varus takes his grief too far," the Enlightened One warned. "I shall place him on a better path, so that your 'gift' does not consume him."
"Do you not fear my power, little mortal?" she asked.
"I know you will not kill me," Karma said without a shred of doubt in her voice, "and I cannot be corrupted."
"We shall see," Pallas murmured, her slender brows rising, "oh, indeed, we shall see, Duchess…"
The next breath of wind blew the Demon-Goddess away like smoke.
Karma sighed wearily and forced herself to wake up.
She felt a prickle of soreness as her eyes actually opened to a grim, rainy morning. She cursed herself briefly for allowing Pallas to penetrate her mental defenses, but the damage was already done. Strangely, she did not feel the crushing weariness or disquieting doubt that the Demon-Goddess surely had the opportunity to plant in her mind. Perhaps, then, she had really only invaded Karma's mind to speak?
"Not the best day for attacking Varus in his home," Irelia muttered sourly by the ashes of their small fire. Her blade hung behind her back, its razor sharp edges glistening with water.
"Conviction, my friend," Karma said, standing and stretching. Her robe was soaked with mud and she performed a sort of mental shimmy that involved her gathering in her will and expelling it from her skin forcefully. Mud and sweat flew from her and back into the forest, and her hair shimmered with pale green fire for a moment as tangles unraveled themselves and her headbands adjusted themselves.
Irelia raised an eyebrow. "That's handy."
"I feel appearances will be important," Karma said. Irelia laughed, gesturing briefly at her brilliant crimson armor and impeccably polished blade.
"Those are the only things I bother keeping neat," she said, tugging a few leaves out of her hair. Her hands left smears of mud and plant matter whenever they brushed her face.
Lee Sin cracked his neck and held up his hands defensively when the two women looked at him. "Shaved heads tend to take care of themselves."
Their shared chuckles brought light to the gloom, if only for a moment.
The wide marble steps stretched up the hill in from of them as Irelia, Karma, and Lee Sin walked carefully through the ruins of Kun'oh. Karma spared a glance to the small sand bar on the lake before she came to the base of the steps and the beginning of the hazy shimmer around the temple.
The closer they had gotten, the greater a sense of terrible, looming dread had pressed down on them. This close, it was almost overpowering, trying to force Karma's lungs to falter in their steady rhythm. But Irelia had prepared her and with her ingrained discipline that steady one two three beat went on without a pause.
The three Ionians paused at the very edge of the barrier.
"Are you ready, Karma?" Lee Sin asked, his clenched fists beginning to flicker with dragonfire.
"Always," Karma said, closing her eyes.
A faint light began to shine from the ruby teardrops on her cheeks and the gems in her headbands as the Duchess let her spirit expand from her body and wrap around her companions. She saw herself and her surroundings as if she was floating slightly above them, and her chakras appeared as a line of brightly colored orbs, pulsing in time with her heartbeat. Karma twitched her fingers and green flame shot down from the white crown of Sahasrara to meet violet Ajna, and her shield firmed around them.
"Go," she murmured, and Irelia led the way, her blade splitting twice to form four swords that floated around them protectively. They ran up the steps, Karma only dimly away of her body's movement as she forced the flame down from Ajna to blue Vishuddha in her throat. Dim wraiths appeared around them as her shield flared with long tongues of energy and obliterated them.
Her struggle to connect with green Anahata was the same as the struggle to leap from logical to emotional thought.
"Not a downside," Ulu whispered in her mind. "Think of emotions as different rather than clouded. It is a different way of Seeing."
The steps opened to a wide, pillared courtyard before the temple. Huge doors, emblazoned with designs of chains and protective wards, lay in pieces, the wood smashed and iron hinges shattered. An arrow shot through the gap and Lee Sin struck it to the ground with a shout. She dared not use her shield to protect them from physical threats, 'lest the power of Pallas overpower her. Even now she could feel it like a crushing weight, filling her throat with sand and her feet with lead. She struggled onwards, fighting for control, and she saw Irelia send her blades shooting through the ruined doors as they leaped through. The central chamber was vast and impenetrably dark, cutting the light from the outside like a knife at the edge of its smooth obsidian tiles. The Pit in the center smoldered like the fires of Hell, and braziers were set along the sides to fill the room with smoky light. Varus stood before them, menaced by the blades, his arms writhing as corruption bubbled over his skin and his bow drawn. Karma instantly sensed the children, huddled in a dark corner, their lives so weak and faint that her spiritual senses cried out in pity and fear, and that bridged the gap separating her from Anahata.
The Heart Chakra shone and healthy, green light filled the room, burning from every inch of Karma's skin. She was vaguely aware of herself mumbling chants in Old Ionian to maintain her focus as she sank into a lotus position on the floor.
"Face oblivion!" Varus roared and dark tendrils rose from the Pit behind him and shot out to snare legs and arms. Irelia's blades shrieked in fury and spun around her in a sharp-edged whirlwind as she fought her way towards him, slicing tentacles of corruption into bits of black slime as she staggered towards him. Lee Sin remained beside Karma, blasts of dragonfire shooting from his fists as he smashed the chains of corruption that shot towards her and shattered arrows with his bare hands as Varus began to fire, an unending stream filling the air in front of him with death. But no arrow could move faster than the Blind Monk, and Lee Sin's sweeping kicks and strikes protected Karma from any harm.
Irelia hissed as arrows struck joints in her ceremonial armor, but abandoned her blades' attempts to protect her in favor of shooting them all towards Varus. His fingers on his bow trembled as foot long shards of metal embedded themselves from his knees to his shoulders, but the corruption swelled in a black wave and threw them to the ground. It had lasted long enough for Irelia to reach him and he had to roll to the side to avoid being decapitated by a huge swing of her main blade. He blocked her next swipe with his bow and forced her backwards with a surge of darkness from the Pit at his back long enough to fire a hail of arrows at Lee Sin and Karma and stumble away from a furious Irelia.
His eyes glowed with his hate and Karma felt a flicker of unease even as she fought to connect Anahata with Manipura, last of her unlocked chakras. Suddenly, a renewed wave of fear and loathing collided with her shield and Karma choked, her body's hands flying over her head to try and stop it from impacting Irelia or Lee Sin. Irelia seemed unaffected, but Lee Sin froze mid punch and took three arrows to the shoulder.
Dimly, Karma was aware of an arrow that would now take her in the throat.
She looked up with her spiritual senses to focus on Varus' face, even as she saw him realize her imminent death. She could withdraw her shield to save herself, but then Pallas would have Irelia and Lee Sin—and that could not be. Instead, she threw all of her will into making it as firm around them as possible, in hopes that they could escape. But yet, she kept a thin skin around herself, because she hoped—
"No!" Varus shouted, and as the tip of the arrow touched her skin it turned as soft as jelly and splattered harmlessly against her skin.
Karma smiled and let her shield fall away from herself, from Lee Sin, and from Irelia, and sent it to cover the Pit of Pallas even as she reached Manipura in a burst of glorious golden light.
The darkness screamed and Varus collapsed like a puppet with its strings cut as jade-colored flame burst into existence above the mass of swarming shadows in the Pit, the aura of fear falling harmlessly away. The arrows still in the air disintegrated and Lee Sin rubbed his shoulder gingerly.
"Karma?" Irelia whispered, halting in the midst of a swing that would have cut Varus in half.
"Take the children and leave this place," Karma said calmly in a voice quite unlike her own. She clamped her shield down as firmly as she could, leaving no gap for Pallas' wicked influence to escape, and breathed steadily against the agonizing power battering against her will. Pallas shrieked in fury, her beautiful voice distorting as she fought desperately against Karma's discipline.
Karma was aware of Irelia and Lee Sin rushing to the children before she left her body entirely. The threads of mortality were weaknesses for Pallas to attack and she could afford none.
She was closer to death than she had even been when reaching for Sahasrara, and it gave her strength.
Time passed by without her noticing but when she managed to tear her spiritual senses away from containing Pallas she saw that the temple was empty and her head was in Varus' lap. His chest heaved but no sound passed from his lips, and his tears dripped onto her face.
"Don't do this, Karma," he begged.
"If I hold her, then you will be free," her soul murmured. Her lips did not move.
"I am beyond redemption," Varus said. "Let her be satisfied with me, and you can leave this place!"
"But you see, Varus," Karma replied. "Pallas cannot afford to keep me here. She knows Ionia needs me, and she does not dare incapacitate me or kill me. But I am willing to remain and keep her trapped and powerless, and because she cannot break that will she must deal with me."
"Damn you, medium!" Pallas hissed, melting out of the darkness like a nightmare. Her teeth were bared and her eyes burned, but chains of Karma's will wrapped around her so thickly that her sleek black skin was barely visible.
"You know what I want, Pallas," Karma said calmly.
"You risk much on my duty as the Last Defender!" the Demon-Goddess spat.
"Yet here you are," Karma pointed out, "because that duty is a part of you and you cannot deny it. I need Varus, Pallas. He can still serve Ionia without your fingers in his mind."
"He is mine!" Pallas roared.
"No," Karma said. "The moment he stopped his arrow, he was free. I am the true heart of Ionia, Pallas, and he knows that, within himself. He is still a guardian, and my cause is just."
"I would have stopped it from killing you," Pallas snarled.
"You would," Karma acknowledged. "But he did first."
The Demon-Goddess leapt for Karma's body and Varus, quite without thinking, swept her up in his arms and jerked her away. He had been listening quite silently and his reaction was sudden.
"No!" Pallas shrieked. "No!"
"I will return your power to you," Karma said, "and leave here, with Varus. Ionia's safety is threatened in Freljord, and I need him to guard me as I travel there. He will still use his connection to you to fight, but you will refrain from using it to control him. In turn, if people see that your power is no longer harmful, perhaps more will seek to serve you."
Pallas hissed but bowed her head. With an effort of will, Karma let her shield dissipate, and flinched from a wave of nausea as Pallas' power returned to the temple. But after a moment, it faded to an unpleasant feeling in the back of her mind.
"Thank you, Pallas," she said with her own mouth as her spirit returned to her body.
"There will come a time when you need the third god of Ionia," the Demon-Goddess whispered bitterly. "When you must beg for my help, I will laugh, pure one."
"I offer homage to all my gods," Karma said. "Pallas the Last Defender is one of them, and I will not regret asking for her aid."
"You think you can change me, medium?" the goddess challenged her even as she faded back into the darkness.
Karma blinked her own eyes and sat up. Varus, puzzlement on his pale face, offered her his hand, which she used to haul herself to her feet. She smoothed her overdress and took three steady breaths.
"Never fear change," she said to both Varus and Pallas. "As Ionia changes, so have I—and so will you."
Then she smiled, just at the archer, and took three steady breaths.
"Would you like to come with me to Freljord, Varus?" she asked. "It seems that there is some significant civil unrest and it may be dangerous."
"I would be honored, my Duchess," he said hoarsely.
And they left the temple together.