The seven thunders, p.23
The Seven Thunders, page 23
“Herm!” he shouted, waving his arm.
“Aegus, stay here with the queen. Majesty . . .” said Hermium, anxiously bouncing on his feet as he readied to go.
“Take this,” said the queen, removing the crown from her head. “The New Briny says Taragons have a weakness for treasure. It may serve you.”
Hermium took the crown reluctantly and Alas Appearere’d, flapped his wings, and bolted off the open turret. He weaved through the battle that raged between the airjocks and goblins and banked hard, feeling the graze of a vulture’s talons on his whipping hair as it reached out to snatch him. His suit tingled and he dipped, just missing a flaming siege ball as it scorched by and broke apart on the parapet wall. He flew through the smoke and destruction and was accosted on the other side. He fell into a tailspin with the alpha fangist holding on to his legs, its sharp claws digging into his Aeriatis and cutting his thigh. Hermium righted himself and used his wings repeatedly to slash the fangist across its yellow eyes, blinding it, and then mustered all the speed he could and drove its head into the parapet crenels, breaking its neck and kicking it off. He zoomed to his friends as the beast dropped limp from the height of the great battlement to the ground.
“Herm,” said Tayori, panting, “I brought the egg. The Qwee, he told me to hold it until you were sealed. Figured it was now or never.”
Hermium took the egg.
“Go,” said Duma, cutting her green eyes up to the sky.
Hermium left Tayori and Duma in the wash of his wings and shot towards the Necrogist and his red dragon like cannon fire from the barrel of the Pirate’s Revenge. The Xylarook appeared at his side as his wingman. His suit was hungry to engage; he could feel the boom building.
“Easy,” coaxed Hermium. “We’re no good if we’re out of the fight. We have to conserve your energy. You’re not as young as you used to be.” His suit argued with him. “Well, you don’t have to get ugly about it. Do you want a repeat of what happened at the Gauntlet? Me either.” His suit begrudgingly eased its appetite for harm.
“I’ll distract him!” shouted the Xylarook. The Xylarook sped on ahead. Hermium clutched the phoenix egg tight against his chest, felt its warmth, and let it reassure him despite his doubts about being ready or able to summon the power that had been sealed inside of him. Though tucked in the reassurance was the worry of the consequences of using it again. The first time had put him in bandages with boils, the second time resulted in second-degree burns that verged on third.
The dragon’s roar cast the repercussion of using the egg to the back of his mind and so did the goblin arrows. Hermium executed a roll and, in the act of turning, deflected their shafts with the tips of his wings, then needled through the tight clutches of their volt of vultures with his hand extended towards the Necrogist. The Xylarook flew at the dragon’s face and then peeled away, and then did so again. Hermium focused on the egg alone. Light, pure and singular, shot forth from his fingers and punctured the storm clouds. The Necrogist recoiled at the uninvited sunbeams, pointed his arm at Hermium and dove. The Xylarook gave chase.
Hermium pinched back his wings and sped towards the dragon’s ferocious face. Behind his back, his hood and its drawstrings beat the air violently. He waited until it gathered its breath and then slipped into a modified whiffling, which he pulled from Horatio’s memory, and skimmed along the seam of its scaly belly looking for a missing chink in its armor, finding none. Reluctantly, he closed his eyes and dared using the egg again. What issued forth boomed like an explosion and glanced off the Taragon’s impregnable skin. Dejected, Hermium tried it again. The dragon reared and whipped his horny tail. The Xylarook swooped by and clawed on of its eyes. The dragon roared and sprayed its fire in pain. Hermium’s suit jerked him out of the way and shared with him acquired knowledge that a dragon’s soft parts were its eyes.
“Now, you tell me,” said Hermium.
Hermium saw his chance and zipped past the dragon’s snout and let it smell the queen’s crown. It turned aggressively and left his pursuit of the great gryphon. It pursued Hermium, ignoring the Necrogist’s commands. Hermium teased the dragon repeatedly and enticed it with the shiny diadem. When he was sure it was given to its lust, he faced it and the Necrogist, unleashing the force of the egg through the jewels of the crown, directly at the dragon’s eyes.
The dragon dropped from the sky like Abrie’s Comet. Hermium and the Necrogist tumbled with the great beast. They crashed onto the footstones of the parapet walk, causing great destruction. Hermium coughed to consciousness. He was pinned on the flat of his back, caught under the weight of the dragon, inches from the precarious edge of the demolished wall. The battle raged on everywhere he looked, in the air, on the ground. Feet away to his left, the Necrogist lay twisted in the rubble.
Hermium tried to move and grunted painfully, unable to feel his legs. He saw the Aegus searching for him through the rubble a good distance away. “I’m here,” he yelled.
The Aegus found him and stared at him most intently with a strange look in his eyes.
“Aegus . . . I did it,” said Hermium. He’s dead,” he said with relief, looking back at the Necrogist’s broken and lifeless body.
The Aegus turned his head towards an approaching flyer with a sneer.
Sliver blue feathered wings like that of an Weyean island jay stirred up the debris into a cloud of dust as the flyer landed. “Goodspeed, your hand.”
“Iggsworth?” said Hermium.
“I’ll let that go this once,” said the detailer. “C’mon Goodspeed, reach.”
“The dragon has me pinned. I can’t move my legs,” said Hermium, trying to reach Iggsworth’s hand.
Iggsworth huffed and got on his stomach and stretched into the debris. He grabbed Hermium’s wrist and pulled. He pulled again and was yanked back and lifted off the ground by a power unseen and thrown across the parapet walk.
“Iggsworth!” yelled Hermium, coughing.
The Aegus stepped towards Hermium slowly. A suppressed smile formed across his aged face as he bent down and pried the phoenix egg from Hermium’s burnt hand with a wave of a finger. The phoenix egg floated in the air towards him. Hermium stared at the white-bearded Vivirium as he gleefully added it to the one he had already his possession. The Aegus’s eyes were crazed with madness. Hermium did not understand. “Aegus,” he pleaded, “help me.”
Hermium winced, suddenly hearing the Necrogist’s laugh. He opened his eyes. The Aegus’s gray bearded appearance melted away, and in its place stood the Necrogist, his face hid in the black of his cowl.
“No,” bellowed Hermium, turning his head to the body lying beside him and finding that it was not the Necrogist lying there but the Aegus.
How? Hermium knew the answer in his gut. This was the Necrogist’s doing, one of his mind tricks. He fooled everyone into believing he was the Aegus and had the Aegus shapeshift to look like him.
The Aegus moaned.
“Aegus...” said Hermium.
“He forced me to bequile you to get the egg,” uttered the eldest Vivirim.
“Tell my brothers I love them.” the Aegus said with struggle.
“I am sorry. I was blind,” he said with his last breath.
Hermium cried and pounded his fists on the ground. He had killed the Aegus.
“You’re sick, Hermium Everling. And you have lost.” The Necrogist glided over the debris to the edge of the parapet further down, and, with the power of the two phoenix eggs, whipped his hands as a conductor would his orchestra. Airjocks’ wings suddenly stopped working and fell to the groping arms of the dead-undead. Second Thunder archers turned their arrows on the firecasters of the Fifth. The Fifth responded in kind, unable to stop themselves from attacking their comrades with their wielder’s blue flame. Hermium felt the parapet shake and craned to look down. The hammerhands of the First had destroyed the outer gates with their Woes. The Necrogist’s army funneled in like an unstoppable flood.
Hermium’s Aeriatis dragged him out of the rubble using its wings. His suit put him on his feet and tightened excruciatingly around his broken legs, enough for him to stand. He stood there teetering, observing as the fire of the phoenix emerged and danced just under the skin of his hands. “For the family name, Hargus,” he uttered.
Unable to bend his knees, Hermium lunged at the Necrogist’s back and was immediately seized into the air and held there by the warlock’s invisible hold. Hermium gasped for air, flailing to break free, as he was forced to watch the Thunders destroy themselves. Inside, he pleaded to the Triunes to show him how to summon the phoenix. A still small voice floated through his mind. “Believe, become.” it said.
“I believe,” Hermium said through the chokehold. “I am the phoenix,” he said, gasping. “I believe,” he repeated as his vision grew dark and faded.
Suddenly, Hermium started to glow. The celestial light mushroomed and weakened the Necrogist’s hold. Hermium’s feet hit the ground, his power growing. With help from his suit, he launched forward and tackled the Necrogist, embracing him in his brilliance. Hermium held on as they plummeted and peered into his cowl, brushing off his efforts to assail his mind. He thought of his mother and father and older brother Hargus and smiled, remembering their words and support and belief in him when all he could ever see was what he wasn’t, and summoned the phoenix in full. Together, he and the Necrogist plunged towards Glimmeroc soil, engulfed in a ball of light equal to a new sun.
Hermium felt his spirit leave and looked down at his body. A voice whispered and said, “Not yet . . . Not yet . . .”
Nightfall, inside Glimmeroc.
“Qwee, your horn . . .” squawked the Xylarook. “It’s grown back.” The Xylarook covered the moon with clouds and just as easily dispelled them. “I have control again,” he screeched.
“But . . . that would mean . . .” The Qwee touched his horn, shocked to find that even the silvery tip had been restored.
Tayori and Duma were huddled around Hermium.
“Let’s give them a moment alone,” said the Xylarook. The Qwee agreed with a nod, and they exited the room.
“Duma, he’s moving,” piped Tayori. Duma rushed to his side. “I knew the Triunes couldn’t let him die. Easy mate. Triunes only know how your legs aren’t broken. It’s a miracle. We’d be dead if it wasn’t for Iggsworth. Turns out the blowhard has a heart after all.”
“Didn’t last long,” said Duma. “He’s back in rare form,” she said with a smile.
Tayori snickered. “See friends,” he said of the three of them.
Duma rolled her eyes. “Yeah well, someone has to look after you two Halfwits.”
Hermium opened his eyes to the scent of Duma’s perfume. Lilies. He breathed it in and took in the room. He was in the infirmary again, a pattern, he thought to himself, he needed to break. The room was spacious, and he the only patient. He was still wearing his suit. It told him through images how it refused to be taken off and assured him it was fine.
“Iggsworth, is he okay?” said Hermium coughing, informed by Tayori that he had breathed in a lot of dust.
“You’re worried about Iggsworth? After all he’s put you through?” Tayori said with surprise. Tayori looked at Duma.
Hermium situated the pillow behind his back and let out a groan. “He tried to help me on the parapet walk. The Necrogist threw him pretty hard.”
“Cut and bruised . . . like most of us,” Duma said showing her scrapes. “Nothing serious.”
Hermium lowered his head. “I saw Rufus and Georgi go down. It was . . .”
Tayori grimaced. “Horrible.”
“How many?” said Hermium. Duma informed him that they were the only Halfwits and Crows that were turned. “Wuvi. He abandoned the company. I saw him run inside.”
“Don’t be too hard on him, mate,” said Tayori. “He wasn’t the only one.”
“He was the only Theta,” inserted Duma.
“Yes. That we know of,” said Tayori. “And he’ll have to deal with the looks. What we saw . . . that was a nightmare that had a nightmare, and it came to life. The New Briny will be writing stories about this for years. Years,” Tayori restated. “It’s hard to fight basic instincts, mate. Fight or flight. And most folks . . . presented with what we saw . . . giant bats, she-spiders, dead-undead, would have cut and run. Though, if I was Wuvi, I would definitely stay away from the Courage Stone. Can you imagine?” he said as if he had been zapped by lightning.
The Qwee and the Xylarook entered the room.
“Qwee. Rook,” said Hermium.
“By the Triunes, boy,” hugged the Qwee, “I thought you were lost to us.”
“The One Tree says she’s feeling better,” Hermium whispered into his furry ear. “Did you know phoenixes have healing powers?”
“I do now. Hah!” laughed the Qwee.
“Rook, can you look at my hippocampus?” said Hermium. “Is it any better?”
The gryphon looked at Hermium as if through him. “The power of the phoenix healed your legs and your hand,” said the Xylarook. “But your hippocampus . . . hmm, interesting. A slight change, but mostly untouched. Must be a Triune purpose in it,” he said with a comforting tone. “Trust to that. Yes?”
Hermium nodded okay, but ‘slight change’ was no comfort all. He looked at his hand thinking about what it meant: the bandage was gone; the burn and blisters were gone as well. Hermium looked at the Qwee.
“Qwee . . .” Hermium found the words hard to get out. “The Aegus . . .”
The Qwee’s face soured. “It pains me to say it,” he said snorting out of his nostrils. “The Aegus betrayed us.”
“No, Qwee. He loved you both,” Hermium said tearfully. “He told me before he died. I killed him. I thought it was the Necrogist.” Tears streamed down Hermium’s face. “I wish I had known him.”
“Now there,” said the Xylarook. “You did not know it was him. None of us knew and we were his brothers.” The Xylarook looked at the Qwee. “The Aegus did not betray us, Qwee. He was bewitched. We would have been too; you know it in your heart. If not for you,” he said caressing Hermium’s face endearingly with his wing.
“He was our brother till the end,” said the Qwee, his voice full of emotion. “I will miss him calling me bullheaded . . . and his stupid jokes.”
“They were funny,” said the Xylarook.
The Qwee grabbed the Xylarook about the neck and they shared a cry. Tayori and Duma cried too. It was a somber moment. Everyone felt the weight of it.
Hermium wiped his nose. “The eggs?” said Hermium.
The Qwee thumbed away his tears. “I have them,” said the Qwee, “and will see they are scattered and hid for good this time.”
“And the Necrogist?” said Hermium. Tayori squeezed his shoulder reassuringly and nodded as one would when you were telling them without words the news wasn’t good.
Duma handed him the warlock’s black robe. “Gone,” she said.
Week 12, Day 7. Eve of the academic year . . .
Boreas, maiden of the Northwind, drifted into Hermium’s room carrying the boy’s Woe Hammer and placed it inside its case. Hermium’s suit floated beside his bed. Hermium was in the bathroom. Wuvi, with his back to the door, read the Weyean Post/Tribune sports page Skaabash professional play matchups on his bed, utterly oblivious that Boreas was there.
“There,” she said to the Woe Hammer. “The dark, alone is no place for an enchanted talisman,” she said to it. Boreas looked at Hermium’s suit. “Tell the boy I retrieved his Woe. The Selectery is here,” she whispered as wind over a reed, and left without a sound.
“Wuvain. Goodspeed. New paludaments,” said Iggsworth from the frame of the door. Hermium came out of the bathroom, beaming, and was met with a stern look. “The black diagonal stripe on the back is for the weight we carry for Renethor and Grennel, and the others,” noted Iggsworth. “We dress as Fourthers tomorrow. Aeriatises and capes to remember them. Am I clear?”
“Yes, cadet sergeant,” shouted Hermium and Wuvi.
Hermium handed Iggsworth his gray Plebe Summer cape. In exchange, he was given a red one with a scowl. He rubbed at the thick bars of golden stitches woven along the hem with wonder, remembering Rufus and Georgi, imagining black diagonal stripes on everyone’s back in honor of those who died. He was sternly informed by his detailer, in case he had any ideas above his station and had bought into all the hype of him being a hero, he was still scum. Plebe First class were the bottom of the totem pole, boot-licking wonks that, if he had his way as detailer, would never see rank and forever be tagged as mules.
“This cadet thanks you for your guidance, cadet sergeant,” replied Hermium.
“Hmm,” Iggsworth’s face soured. “No PT this week. Put a lid on the smiles. Groundskeeping needs the time to make the quad usable once the last of those twisted creatures are removed, and many parts of the keep are still being repaired. Goodspeed, cite me the third verse of our Thunder creed according to the bolts.”
Hermium stood as straight as he could and saluted. “I serve the people of the Thunderlands, and live the Thunder values, cadet sergeant. Shall I say the fourth verse for you, cadet sergeant?”
Two men, dressed in the gray of Selectery staff officers, suddenly appeared at the door asking for the whereabouts of the Woe that was to be decommissioned. Iggsworth directed them with a curt nod. They walked in sterned faced as men with purpose towards the wielder case on the floor. They undid the latches before Hermium could tell them that the Woe wasn’t there because he had lost it in the catacombs, and placed a black, circular, hollow ring-like stone at the butt of the hammer’s hilt. Hermium recognized the device instantly. It was a circumventor, just like the one his suit once had hidden inside its collar.
Wuvi yawned and returned to reading his sports page, uninterested.
