The link between Talona and Mane-of-Night breaks, and the two of them fall to the ground, Talona slumping into a heap, my friend floating to the floor as the anti-gravity units in her armour kick in automatically. To psionically attuned eyes, they're both exuding copious amounts of raw psychic energy - they've been really busy...
They're okay, though. It's the rest of the city we have to worry about.
I can feel the wave of Var energy expanding through the city, touching every living thing that was born there. Every time it touches one of the Shadow-Folk, it conjures up a point of star-bright life-force, an emphatic statement of life in the face of the rising waves of undeath. Each star "simmers" for a moment as the energy is absorbed, and an incredible transformation takes place.
It starts with only one or two at a time, Shadow-Folk gifted with new power turning to face the threat to their city. Shafts of light, beams of energy, bolts of lightning burst out from a dozen, then a hundred, then a thousand windows, stabbing the great masses of bone over and over again.
The Wraiths, Talona's little super-powered agents, used to be unique, but now they're just like everyone else. Everyone in Shadow City now has powers - and they're not going to stand idly by, and lose their city when they can do something about it.
The tide of undeath halts as it meets its match in the streets, a tide of life, saturated with power. Glitterthorn doesn't leave it all to the Shadow-Folk, hurling great blasts of raw energy into the bone-wave, punching great charred holes in it that the undead army swarm to fill, but soon find their numbers are no longer up to the task.
I look to the east, and the approaching bone-wave has stopped dead, every square inch of its pale ivory surface covered with enraged Shadow-Folk. To the south, the wave is burning, and to the west, more brilliant energy-stars are rising over the city wall - the humans, also originally servants of the Var, have received the same gift, and their past differences have fallen by the wayside, now they realise their whole world hangs in the balance...
Hard as it is to believe, I think we're actually going to win.
What's even harder to believe is that we're not done with the surprises.
Suddenly, there's no more enemy to fight. The bone waves collapse, the sound of their simultaneous demises like thunder rolling in from all sides, and vast clouds of bone-dust rise as the skeletal remains are crushed to powder under their own weight. Above the city, the clouds are melting away, the power keeping them in place now gone...
Glitterthorn speaks, and his smugness is beyond measure. ***I told you.***
The shadow cast over the city, blocking out a beautiful red and gold sunrise, has only just departed when another dark shape descends. Dominion Two is back, with an incredulous Myromar in command. ***If you think all these super-beings popping up is amazing - and I have a few thousand on board right now - you should see the sensor returns I'm picking up***, she reports. ***Yafornis is no longer in interdimensional "free-fall", and all negative energy influence has been erased.***
I'm at a loss to even think how that was done, but I have a good idea who to thank. Before I get a chance to do that, however, I feel the air around me and Talona becoming charged with energy - a teleport beam, by the feel of it...
...and when that sensation subsides, the two of us are in a large chamber, dimly lit in rather disturbing green by a multitude of hanging lanterns, some fashioned from a variety of skulls. There are a pile of rocks at the centre of the room, draped with what look like tattered robes, and on those sit five more skulls, apparently human or something similar, with gold and platinum teeth, and gems set into the bone, across the forehead and temples. More gems lie scattered around the skulls, and on the floor.
Talona, roused from a drowsy state by the unexpected teleportation, is shocked fully awake by sight of the skulls. She tenses, her breathing becoming noticeably quicker...
"You okay?", I ask.
The mistress of Shadow City says nothing for a few moments. She clearly expects something to happen...but when it doesn't, she begins to relax. "We should be dead", she finally gets round to saying. "Dead, or worse."
I want to ask for an explanation, but someone else wants a word first. "Your continued survival in this place is all thanks to me", says Vaarla, stepping into our world, most likely from a private wrinkle in interdimensional space. "Me, and an interphasic device I had teleported into this chamber just a few minutes ago."
The golden-haired wanna-be goddess looks towards me, and I know what she's gonna say. "Darkhawk, we have to talk..."
...to be concluded...
- Posted on 29.11.2003 at 17:16 -
Previously...
The Traveller: Old Friends, New Friends - Chapter 4 - 28.08.2009
The Traveller: Old Friends, New Friends - Chapter 3 - 25.08.2009
The Traveller: Old Friends, New Friends - Chapter 2 - 23.08.2009
The Traveller: Old Friends, New Friends - Chapter 1 - 21.08.2009
Shards And Splinters - Chapter 3 - 19.08.2009
