An angel’s road to hell

37. Of beginnings, ends and a little bit of change (4)

Cassandra Pendragon

My head hurt and I felt dizzy while the world spun around me. Streaks of colour whirled up and down, left and right and only came to a stop when I crashed on the frozen and unforgiving ground. Specks of light danced before my eyes and the sound of the sea drowned out every other noise. Blind, deaf and disorientated I tried to move, to get back on my feet but my legs gave out and I fell back down. My breath rushed in and out of my lungs, much too fast I might add, and fear quickly evolved into panic while the seconds ticked on. I didn’t know where I was or how long it’d take the cursed to reach me. I could imagine vividly what would happen if they found me prone on the ground.

I focused on my wings and luckily I was still able to control them, if not fluently. I closed my eyes and focused on my inner world, willing the darkness to recede and illuminate my surroundings in the shades of silver I was starting to get used to. My second sight was fuzzy but I still managed to conjure blurred images of everything within 20 meters. I had crash-landed on the far side of the wall in the middle of the road that lead towards Boseiju’s trunk. The full fury of the whirlwind whipped through my hair and I could already feel the frozen wood beneath me leech away the warmth of my body. The cursed who had successfully rammed me out of the sky was close by, his legs and tails broken and intertwined, blood slowly oozed from the wounds I had stabbed through his torso. I saw him shudder and exhale before he went still, his broken form unable to cling to life any longer.

The gate and the foundations of the wall were just within my reach but I couldn’t see what was going on on top or if the earthbound kitsune had already succeeded in climbing up. I didn’t have to wonder for long, though, as two figures dropped into my field of vision and almost immediately headed for me, crouched down on all fours in a truly animalistic display of eagerness and bloodlust.

My hearing started to clear and their rasping breath and the drumbeat of rushing feet assaulted my ears. They were maybe 15 meters away and I still couldn’t convince my limbs to move or quell the paralysing panic that gnawed at me. I was sitting ducks, a turtle turned onto its back but I still had control over my wings, sluggish as it might be. With all my might I pulled them back towards me, my vision winking out step after step as they dragged over the ground. Once again I was thankful for Greta’s intense and sometimes dangerous forms of training. Despite my panic I managed to at least somewhat concentrate and focus on what I was doing instead of the approaching threat.

I didn’t have enough strength left to pierce their hearts with my wings, at least not on my own. I would have to rely on their stupidity and greed once again and hope that they would impale themselves like the ones in the air had. Unfortunately I was too slow. They were running too fast and I couldn’t retract my wings quickly enough to position the tips in front of them. The distance between us was shrinking by the moment and I simply couldn’t muster enough concentration to move my wings instantaneously. The cursed would bury their teeth in my body long before I would be able to scratch even their backs, never mind overtaking them. I had to try something else.

Instead of pulling my wings closer I extended them as fast as possible and focused on a spot close to the wall at the very limit of my range. When the decayed stench of their bodies reached my nose and I could practically feel their teeth ripping through my skin I collapsed into a shower of silvery sparks and disappeared. From the shadow beneath the wall I watched them crash onto the spot I had vacated an instant before, their momentum carried them along and they slithered over the frozen ground away from me. I could see them with my own eyes again and a small smile started to form on my face but it was whisked away just as quickly because Greta finished her spell just that instant.

Guided rays of golden fire slithered away from a spot somewhere above me and I could hear three distinct wails erupt from the top of the wall. Silence returned just as quickly and I imagined the three kitsune who had attacked Greta were nothing more than ash by now. The fire continued on and consumed the one who had crashed into me but the other two were just out of reach. Before they could be engulfed the torrents of fire became thinner, more insubstantial and finally winked out. Not even a single hair on their bodies had been singed.

“Two are still left,” I screamed as loudly as I could but it seemed more like a hoarse rasp to me. Hopefully Greta had heard me none the less -blind people have excellent hearing, don’t they-, I’d feel much better if I knew she was on her way. The cursed were already moving again. Without so much as a second glance for their annihilated brethren they jumped back up and flung themselves in my direction. This time around I wasn’t as helpless. I had had enough time to become the master of my senses once again and even though each section of my body hurt and groaned, nothing was broken and I could move freely, more or less. It surely was enough for what I had in mind.

I dropped to my knees and lowered my head. My wings shot straight up and forward like a swarm of silvery snakes. They zeroed in on their targets, soundless and deadly, crystallised light pierced the cursed and with a flash of bluish fire they turned into ash. Their outline was visible for the fracture of a second before the raging wind whipped away the last traces of their existence. Still alive!

I straightened slowly, the subsiding rush of adrenaline made my knees wobbly again and I felt the cold chill of my blood and sweat drenched clothes clinging close to my frame. Without Greta’s protective bubble the storm raged around me unhindered and even though I was immune to its supernatural properties the freezing temperatures made me shiver. Curse all fashion trends, if I was going to get the chance I’d be wearing leather and armour from now on. I clamped my jaws tightly to stop my teeth from chattering and turned around towards the wall.

Greta was already on her way down, floating orbs of silvery energy served as footsteps in the air. She appeared unscathed the only visible sign she had encountered the cursed was a streak of ash that sprawled across her front. Her ears twitched and she was on high alert, her body tense and I could see unfocused wads of energy coursing through her, ready to answer every command in an instant. Her lips moved silently while she used her magic to quickly observe her surroundings, if there had been an enemy left, I was sure he would have been torn to shreds before he even realised that an old sourpuss had launched an aerial attack. As it was she asked:

“Cassandra, are you all right?” She reached the ground, extended one claw like hand and withdrew the focus imprinted with my blood from the depths of her robe with the other. “Come here, let me have a look at you.” I wasn’t going to argue, my bones still ached and I had lost quite a bit of skin during my landing. I approached her and put my hand into hers. She murmured a complicated chant and I felt warmth flow through my body, easing my pain and revitalising my muscles. After a moment her intonation changed and her voice became deeper, more powerful. The warmth turned into heat but it didn’t hurt, instead I could watch the grazes on my skin and the deeper cuts on my arms disappear, covered with fresh and smooth skin. I stopped shivering and my headache vanished. Healing powers were simply awesome.

“Thanks, I feel much better now. If you could reinstate your protection spell as well and shut out that awful storm I would be even better.”

“Today’s youth, so needy.” She grumped while already fulfilling my request. A moment later we were again safe from the storm, a translucent bubble had closed around us.

“That was much harder than I anticipated. My magic is severely hampered around here. It didn’t even reach half as far as I expected.” Greta admitted. “I hope it doesn’t get worse the closer we are to the tower. At this rate I might not be able to do much at all, once we are there.”

“Honestly, I’m not entirely surprised. It would have been naive to assume we wouldn’t find a nasty surprise here or there. It doesn’t change much though, unless we encounter more guards. But from what I have seen the last time, these should have been all of them. My powers work perfectly, I think we can still pull this off.”

“About that… I meant to ask you before we were so rudely interrupted. What did you mean when you said you intend to channel the backlash into Boseiju?”

“To actively change the curse I would have to touch each individual strand of woven energy it consists of or I have to use my own energy to force the change onto all of them at the same time. As I am now, I won’t be able to survive the backlash that’s going to occur afterwards, at least Mephisto said so. But if I’m already connected to Boseiju I think it should be possible to redirect it. I don’t think anything could survive that so I can hit two birds with one stone. I get away unscathed and the emperor loses Boseiju’s energy the second before a portal to… do you have any idea where we could link the second part of the curse to?” My voice trailed off. Even if everything was going to go according to plan, I had never stopped to think about where the portal could lead to. I was quite sure we would have to splice a specific destination into the curse.

There were 2 different ways to connect a magical gateway to a location. One was based on unique characteristics of the location which would be included and defined within the magic and the second one used a focus, a memento to link the magic to its origin. Since the spell we were going to be dealing with was based on the enchantments on the stone arch I was sure the destination wasn’t linked with a focus. The enchantments on the arch had been used as a blueprint which would be impossible if a part of their workings was tied to a physical object that couldn’t have been included while preparing the curse. We would need a suitable destination and its characteristics to replace the ones from the stone arch with and I didn’t have them. I had never bothered to read up on accessible ones and I couldn’t generate a magical map on my own. With my new vision I might be able to, but that didn’t help much at the moment.

“That’s the least of our problems. I can link the portal to the sun or the bottom of the ocean, you would be surprised how many different sources I had to use to develop some of my more intricate spells.”

“That’s great, but I have to know them. I will be the one to manipulate the curse and exchange the descriptions.”

“Well, I guess we’ll have to link our minds than, so you can use my memories to guide you. I can’t teach you what you have to know in a mere moment.” Again I thought I saw a different expression cross her face while she talked but it vanished too fast for me to be sure. What was the old bat up to? She had had her answer ready, she hadn’t had to think about it and she was suspiciously eager to link her mind to mine, even after the warning Ahri had given my family earlier. If I didn’t know better I’d say she already knew and only waited for me to get there as well. But why would she want a mind link so badly? If push came to shove she might even be caught in the backlash and I was convinced her mortal soul wouldn’t be able to withstand even a part of the pressure. I guess this was another of those moments where you simply had to trust a person and I trusted Greta, explicitly. She wouldn’t tell me what was going through her head, even if I asked, I had spent enough time with her to figure out that much but I still had a hard time to let it go.

“Fine. I won’t tell you how risky that is, especially with what we intend to do but I still have to ask: have you thought that through?” There was that subtle change in her expression again.

“More thoroughly than you can imagine. Nothing unexpected will happen to me, or you for that matter. And now enough of the yammering, we have work to do.” She stretched her arms wide and gestured for me to pick her up. “Once again, to the skies!” She should have become an actress, considering all of her theatrics.

We covered the remaining distance without an incident but I could see Greta’s shield shrink down further and further the closer we came to the tower. Once we entered its shadow the spell winked out completely. The winds pushed me off course immediately and I had to struggle mightily to prevent a tete-a-tete with the wall. Luckily I had already expected that to happen and had planned my trajectory accordingly. I was some distance above and to the left of the window I had smashed previously. If I retracted my wings to the bare minimum I needed to keep us afloat, I should glide through the opening elegantly, the whirlwind carrying me gently on its back, at least in theory. In practice, I was thrown left and right and had all my hands full to keep approximately on course. If we were going to slip through the window or crash into the wall would depend mostly on luck now. I did everything I could to hold a straight line but unfortunately it quickly became one drawn by a toddler.

Skipping and cursing I managed to bring us close enough to the window to reach through with a good portion of my wings and anchor myself inside the room. It took all my strength to haul us after them, but I managed, with only a gentle bump against the wall close to the window. Luckily I was well padded at the moment and Greta’s admittedly more impressive litany of curses joined my own. We tumbled inside in a heap of energy torrents, flailing tails and arms and a veritable avalanche of bad words. For a moment I flirted with the idea of turning slightly so Greta would be below me and take the brunt of the crash but that would be stupid. She could patch me back up in a thrice but I wouldn’t be able to heal as much as a bloody nose. I clenched my teeth, clamped my wayward limbs as tightly around Greta as I could and tried to land on my back. Lucky for her, I was successful.

The breath got knocked from my lungs as I was sandwiched between a sturdy research table and a surprisingly heavy sack of skin and bones. My poor shoulder blade took most of the impact and I could feel it snap in two. The pain wasn’t as sever as I imagined but that might have also been due to the myriad of other injuries I sustained simultaneously. I hit my head heavily on the table and stars appeared before my eyes, my left leg slammed into the hard wood of the table unbridled and it felt like my kneecap had been pulverised, my second tale had somehow become intertwined with one of Greta’s arms and I felt a sharp pull followed by a dry crack as she rolled off and broke my tail. I was pretty damaged and couldn’t even sustain my tirade any longer. I might have even passed out for a moment for the next thing I knew was a blessed absence of pain, my limbs were all in the right places and not sticking out at weird angles. Greta kneeled on the floor close to me, her hands pressed the focus against my forehead. Bloody sweat poured down her face and she looked like she had aged 20 years in the last seconds. She inhaled shakily and croaked with a voice that sounded more dead than alive: “seems like I can still use magic. It only comes at a mightily steep price.”