A spear dug deep into his side.
Ancient Badden’s roar changed in timbre. More spears reached up and stung him profoundly. He answered with another gout of fiery breath, and indeed, those nearest barbarians shied away from the flames. But those flames were not nearly as intense as the previous.
Badden’s serpentine neck swiveled to offer him a view of his distant castle. Something was wrong here, he knew. Something was interrupting the flow and strength of his magic. Another spear pierced him, shooting lines of hot pain. The dragon roared and beat his long and leathery wings, propelling him across the barbarian ranks and beyond.
The barbarians cheered behind him and threw more spears and clubs and rocks-anything to sting the defeated beast. Then they threw taunts, and more than one noted that the dragon seemed as if it had diminished in actual size.
Feeling the painful sting of a dozen wounds, and feeling even more acutely a sudden distance to the power that fed his draconian form, Badden knew those observations to be more than illusion.
There was little for Cormack to do as the other six, in their own special ways, despoiled Badden’s fountain conduit. Too late, he thought to take the gemstone necklace from Milkeila, for now he did not dare interrupt her concentrated efforts.
Nor did he want the gemstones at that time, the former Abellican monk had to admit, to himself at least. The sense of betrayal was too raw and too sharp. His communion with the gemstones had always before elicited a feeling of kinship to Blessed Abelle, the man who had founded the Church less than a century before. But now, clearly, the representatives of that dead prophet considered Cormack’s worldview as heretical.
If he used the gemstones in this tremendous battle, would he feel the consternation of the spirit of Abelle?
He considered that perhaps he was making too much of it all, was allowing his anger and disappointment to overrule his judgment. He looked over at Milkeila and could see the strain on her face from her continuing efforts. The magic she battled was tangible, and formidable.
With a sharp inhale, Cormack steadied himself and took a step toward her, determined to dismiss his excuses and offer whatever help he could. But he stopped before he had really even started, for through the translucent wall above and behind Milkeila came such a blossom of orange and yellow that Cormack instinctively pondered that he was seeing the birth of the colors themselves. He watched, mouth agape, unable to even call out a warning, as those colors, the fires of dragon breath, turned the icy wall to water and steam, and through the glowing cloud came the beast itself, framed in hot-glowing mist that made it seem as if it were entering through some extradimensional portal!
The powries cried out and scrambled to pull up their pants; Bransen reacted with snakelike speed and precision, diving to the side, out of the way and collecting Milkeila as he went, still deep in her trance.
Cormack could only stand there and gape as the dragon’s serpentine neck swept down and the beast rolled right over it, tucking its wings. As it came around, it was not the lower torso of a reptilian dragon that showed, but the legs of a man, feet adorned with painted toenails and vine-tied sandals. Badden continued his transformation as he completed the somersault and it was a man and not a dragon that landed on the floor before the fountain.
But not just any man; it was the Ancient of the Samhaists come calling.
He landed with such a thud that it seemed as if he must be many times his apparent weight, and the same magic that perpetuated that strange perception reached out from Badden and into his magical ice floor. Huge ripples rolled out from the man, waves of ice, as if the floor had been caught somewhere between the state of a solid and of a liquid. Those ripples rose like waves and crested sharply and with tremendous energy, throwing dwarves and humans alike into the air violently. They crashed into the walls and bounced off the fountain, handheld weapons flying wildly. Milkeila splashed down into the fountain, and with the rumbling all about her, it took her a long while to sort out which way was up and get her head above water.
She fared the best, however, for the only place in the room, other than at Badden’s feet, that was not violently rolling and crashing was within that very pool. The shaman grimaced as Mcwigik and Bikelbrin flew past her, grabbing at each other for support until they were split apart from each other by the intervening fountain tower, both ricocheting, spinning out toward the walls. She cried out in pain as her beloved Cormack flew straight up into the air, more than a dozen feet-and only his considerable training allowed him to sort himself out enough in his descent to prevent landing on his head.
She winced at watching Bransen, not flying about, but maneuvering over the solid waves as a boat might defy heavy surf, and she gasped in shock to see one wave break right over poor Ruggirs, smashing down on the dwarf with tremendous force, blowing out his breath in a great and profound groan. The ice wave blended right over him, burying him in the floor.
Not far from her, Ancient Badden cackled with enjoyment, and stamped his foot again, giving rise to another series of waves, ones that crashed into the rebounding first set and sent the whole of the room into frenzy. Even the walls began to ripple and buckle! Now all of Milkeila’s friends flopped and bounced about uncontrollably, except for buried Ruggirs and one other.
To the Jhesta Tu, Bransen’s posture was known as doan-chi-kree, the “stance of the mountain,” a place of complete balance and perfect calm, where the straight-standing mystic reached his line of life energy, his chi, below his ki, his groin, and down to doan, the floor beneath his feet. That line of life energy became the mystic’s roots, his stability, and in such a state, a Jhesta Tu could not be moved by a charging giant.
The floor rolled to Badden’s command beneath Bransen’s feet, but Bransen moved with it, his legs bending and straightening accordingly and so perfectly that his upper body remained perfectly still. He locked stares with Badden. The Ancient stomped his foot again. But Bransen would not be thrown.
Milkeila drew courage from that image and shook herself from her stupor. She reached into her magic again and thrust it into Badden’s fountain, demanding that the violence end.
She felt as if she was trying to hold back the great Mirianic Ocean itself! But she shook away her despair and pressed on, blocking out all the distractions, focusing solely on the task at hand.
The room began to quiet.
Ancient Badden broke off his stare and looked over his shoulder at the woman, feeling her intrusion into his magic as keenly as if she was reaching into his stomach and tugging at his entrails. The Samhaist roared, as much the voice of a dragon as that of a man, and stabbed his hands out to the fountain’s centering geyser. The roiling waters froze solid suddenly, encasing Milkeila’s hands and forearms in a crushing grip.
Badden whipped his arm in a sudden circle, and the icicle responded likewise, turning over itself as it rushed around, twisting Milkeila right over.
She felt her shoulders pop from their sockets, then wrenched her back as the ice stopped its swing abruptly, locking her top half fast in place while her lower body whipped around.
Waves of nausea and dizziness and floating black spots filled her gut and head and eyes, and when the ice returned again to its liquid fountain form, the helpless woman dropped into and under the water, with no sense of direction or awareness at all.
Badden chuckled as he felt his magic flow more fully once more, but he knew that the diversion of this foolish woman had cost him. For in the moment of calm, the humans and dwarves had closed.