Chapter 8 Uninvited guest…

Chapter 8

 

 

Uninvited guest…

 

 

“I’ll have to thank that twit for letting me out of my prison whenever it is opportunistic.” Claire mumbled to herself as she made her way up the side of the mountain in the dark. Darkness was never a fear for Claire; what with being a fire elemental all she had to do was light a finger and 'tada' no more darkness.

She continued to mumble to herself all the way to the highest peak of Death Mountain. Once she arrived an hour or so later from when she started the moon was just creeping past the edges of the mountain rim.

Claire stopped to stare at it for a minute, curled her lips into a sneer and turned to the volcano mouth at her feet. As she looked over the edge a tender smile touched her pale face.

“Hello my old friend.” She whispered. She was answered by a low rumble from the depths of the pit.

 

Gerad lifted his pick above his head and brought it down hard on the stubborn hunk of rock in front of him. A chip no bigger than the size of his thumbnail flew off and hit Shanmo in the back of the head. Gerad pretended not to notice as he continued to hack away at the rock.

Gerad knew he was in trouble when a loaming shadow appeared over his shoulder. Gerad put his pick down and slowly turned around to find Shanmo two inches away from his face. Gerad instinctively stepped back against the rock wall behind him. Gerad had encountered glares from upset people before but this one took the cake, platter, and table it sat on.

“Can I help you sir?” Gerad asked staring back into Shanmo’s unblinking eyes.

Shanmo growled and reached for Gerad. Gerad flinched but stood his ground. He heard a crunch and felt small pricks fall on his shoulders and back. Gerad followed Shanmo’s arm to the wall behind him where Shanmo’s hand disappeared. Shanmo removed his hand from the wall with a fistful of dark grey mush. Gerad gagged from the smell and couldn’t cover his nose fast enough.

Shanmo looked at the goop in his hand then flung it against the wall. It gave this disturbing squish sound then slowly slid to the floor leaving a grey slime trail behind it. Shanmo gently grabbed Gerad by the arm and maneuvered him out of the way with Gerad trying to keep his balance.

Once Gerad was out of the way Shanmo carefully began to chip the wall away with his hands. Rock came off in small pieces and the grey mush began to ooze out of the hole with more disturbing squishes and squelches. A Goron came over and began to carefully gather the mush into buckets. More Gorons carried the buckets off once they were full and replaced them with empty ones.

“G-Link what is that stuff?” Sheik asked leaning to look at the buckets as they passed him.

A goop bubble popped and splattered him in the face. Meria almost fell over laughing at him as he straightened back up and looked at her. He wiped the goop off and acted like he was going to wipe the goop off on her. Meria shrieked and back peddled all the time laughing at him.

“Oh nothing dangerous, we use it to lubricate things such as large blocks of stone that are too heavy to carry, and also Biggoron uses it in his blacksmithing.” G-Link said sidestepping the issue of what it was.

Sheik noticed but thought better of asking for specifics considering some got in his mouth.

“This looks to be a big deposit and gathering this stuff isn’t in your job description so ya’ll have the rest of the day off.” Darunia said from the entry way.

The group gratefully put down their picks and shuffled out the door. Once they were outside the main cavern by Aerica’s tree they relaxed.

“Man, I thought Shanmo was gonna tear you apart Gerad.” Sheik said.

Gerad nodded his head in agreement but didn’t say anything.

“Only three more weeks to go.” Selene mumbled from Gerad’s shoulder.

The others either nodded or chuckled in agreement. Calhan approached from the entrance moving slowly. The group watched him as he came to a halt and gingerly sat down against a rock.

“Do you guys feel up to practicing?” Calhan asked in a quiet voice that desperately sought no for an answer.

Meria raised her eyebrow at him and closed her eyes leaning her head against Sheik’s shoulder.

“Good.” Was all Calhan could say when no one else answered.

He had been assigned by Darunia to straighten the Goron archive. A job none of them envied him for. Aerica stared at a small flower that desperately clung to life in a crack at her feet. She began to move her hand delicately before the flower back and forth. The flower moved with her hand as if in a trance.

“Calhan, may I see the book?” Meria asked holding her hand out. Calhan nodded and pulled it out of the satchel at his waist. He handed it to her and she took it carefully.

As she flipped through it she passed through the sections of Shadow, Earth, Fire, and Light, she finally reached the section of Wind and looked through there to see what the author had to say about her supposed powers.

 

“The element of wind is not well known by the people of our era, but is a strong force in our world. Calarie was the first to discover the powers of wind in her culture, and soon others followed. They have displayed many wondrous and also frightening abilities, such as the use of wind in archery to make the arrows fly farther or faster, also the use of wind in transportation, Calarie also discovered the use of wind unfortunately as a weapon, much to the sorrow of the town of Parsford.”

 

“Calhan, where was the town of Parsford located?” Meria asked him.

Calhan’s eyes flew open at the mention of the name, “Parsford was a town located where your ranch is now many years ago, and that is where I believe the Wind element was discovered.”

“What happened to it?” Meria asked curious.

Calhan looked into her eyes and the sorrow there made Meria wish she hadn’t asked. Sighing Calhan puffed his cheeks up as he ran his hand through his hair.

“Well it was destroyed by a storm.” Calhan said quietly.

Meria nodded and fell silent. She looked back at the book and read on.

 

“From what we can understand Wind was only meant for destruction.”

 

 

Meria closed the book and handed it back to Calhan. He took it without comment and stashed it away in his satchel closing his eyes once again.

“Find anything interesting?” Sheik asked as Meria settled back against him.

 Meria smiled at him, “Nah, not really.”

Sheik smiled back at her till she laid her head back on his shoulder. Aerica was still playing with the flower making it dance back and forth. The others watched as the sun slowly sank to the edge of the horizon. The shadow of the tree stretched out to cover the entrance of the cavern. When Meria glanced up at Sheik he had a puzzled look on his face as he studied the shadow.

“What?” Meria asked following his gaze.

Sheik glanced down at her then to Calhan. “Calhan you said I could manipulate shadows, is that in the same sense as Aerica manipulating plants?”

Calhan glanced at him then stared off in thought. He opened the book to the Shadow section and slowly flipped through the pages.

“Yes, I believe so. Do you want to try?” Calhan asked closing the book and putting it away.

Sheik shrugged, “Sure why not.”

He stood up slowly and moved to stand next to Calhan. The others watched in interest as Calhan explained what the book said to do. Sheik nodded and closed his eyes. When he opened them again they were completely black.

Sheik stretched out his hand to the tree’s shadow. At first there was no obvious change, but as the minutes stretched on the shadows seemed to churn. Meria sat perfectly still as a sliver of shadow crept towards her across the ground in the full rays of the sun.

A smile spread across Sheik’s face as the sliver followed his outstretched hand across  Meria’s arm, over her thighs, and across her other arm. Meria closed her eyes and a smile spread across her face as the sliver slowly crept up her right arm towards her face.

The others watched in silence as the sliver paused on her cheek; it spread out into the silhouette of a hand then reverted back to a sliver and retreated back the way it had come.

Sheik’s eyes returned to normal and he sank to his knees. Calhan touched him on the shoulder and he looked up at him and nodded his head.

“That was interesting.” Dahrin said.

Gerad nodded in agreement, “To say the least.”  

Aerica kept her eyes on Meria who had not reopened her eyes. Selene stared at Meria then stretched out her hand. She shook her shoulder to no effect then touched her face it was ice cold.

“Meria?” Selene asked moving closer to her. She forced open one of her eyelids to find the eye beneath completely black.

“Sheik what did you do?” Selene asked glancing at Sheik to see him collapsed on the ground. Calhan kneeled next to him and took his pulse. It was there but shallow, Selene took Meria’s and it was the same.

“Alright Calhan what is going on?” Gerad asked coming over to him as he flipped through the book.

Calhan searched feverishly for an answer shaking his head, “I don’t know; this shouldn’t be happening.”

Gerad grimaced in frustration, “There has to be something we can do.”

As Calhan shook his head Gerad turned to Lucius, “Lucius, can you do anything?”

Lucius walked to Meria first and studied her eyes carefully, he then moved to Sheik. Sheik’s eyes were his normal red and he started awake when Lucius held open his other eye.

“What’s going on?” Sheik asked rubbing his eyes as he sat up, he looked at Meria and saw that she wasn’t moving. Sheik scooted across the ground to her side. He touched her cheek and withdrew his hand quickly. Lucius exhaled in aggravation.

“Can you do anything?” Sheik asked looking at him desperately. Lucius looked at him, his deep blue eyes troubled.

“Ya’ll make me break so many rules.” He grumbled as he scooped Meria up into his arms and headed back into the city. The others scrambled to follow. They were given a few curious glances from passing Gorons. Lucius led them all to their room and placed Meria on her bed. Sheik took up the other side and held her hand.

“What do we do Lucius?” Gerad asked from the foot of the bed. Lucius ignored him and examined Meria more closely. He looked at Gerad then glanced back at Meria. He then moved away from her side to his bed and packs. The others heard him muttering to himself as he searched for something. Strange devices were tossed aside as he searched.

He finally found what he was looking for. He came back to Meria’s side with a long gold cylinder. The group watched curiously as he opened Meria’s eye and stared through one end of the cylinder into her eye. He let her eye close as he turned different parts of the cylinder different ways. Once he found the setting he wanted he returned to gazing into her eye.

Sheik paced, silently watching while chewing on his thumbnail. Calhan kept flipping pages of his book back and forth trying to find an answer. Lucius was silently studying her eyes when he was pulled backwards out of the way.

“I beg your pardon.” Lucius said as Sheik took his place.

Sheik signaled him to be quiet as he slowly let his finger brush Meria’s forehead. Sheik’s glow returned and his eyes turned black. Meria’s eyes opened on their own and she appeared to cry black tears, the tears, instead of following gravity’s law, went up her face to Sheik’s fingers and disappeared into his fingertips.

The rest of the group watched in silence. When Meria ran out of black tears the glow left Sheik and he collapsed backwards into Gerad, who caught him. Meria awoke and sat up with Lucius’s help.

Shaking her head she asked what happened. Gerad let go of Sheik as he regained his balance. Calhan stood in silence as Sheik sat on the bed next to Meria he had no answer to give. Meria looked from each face to the next till she finally came to Sheik.

Sheik smiled at her, “The woman in the dream was you.”

Meria looked at him questioningly then understood what he meant. She smiled, “How do you know about that?”

Sheik shrugged, “I don’t know how, but I know what happened; all of it.”

Calhan made them all jump with a triumphant shout. “I know what happened!”

They all looked at him waiting for the answer. “This book isn’t the best at explaining things; Sheik used what the book calls Informatalis, information seeker.” Calhan explained waiting for the part where they would be amazed.

When no amazement was forth coming he went on, “The book says that the Shadow sages used this technique for interrogation, instead of torturing their subject they let loose a shadow into them to find the information they wanted and bring it out.”

“So what was the bit about ‘the woman in the dream was you’?” Gerad asked, turning to Sheik. Sheik looked at Meria who looked at Lucius. Lucius returned everyone’s gaze coolly.

“No idea.” Lucius replied.

Gerad raised his eyebrow at him but Lucius continued to say nothing else.

Calhan cleared his throat, “Well you learn something new every day, even by accident. Sheik the book cautions you to not use that particular technique very often because it actually takes part of your consciousness with it when it enters another person’s mind. If you don’t retrieve it like you just did then it will be lost till you do get it back and if the person who has it dies it dies with them.”

“What do you mean by ‘part of your consciousness’?” Sheik asked.

“From what I understand some of your memories, and brain power, how fast you think and react will lessen while it’s away. So just be careful some of it can also get lost on accident.” Calhan explained further. Sheik nodded then exhaled and looked back at Meria, they smiled at each other.

A deafening explosion blew everyone against the wall opposite of the entrance. Dahrin tried to clear his head and stand up; he got to his knees when another explosion threw him back again. Selene rolled over onto her stomach and used the wall to help her up. Aerica followed her example and managed to get upright as well. Meko clung to her neck.

The two of them, using the walls for support, made it to the entrance of the room. Selene glanced around the doorway into the main cavern. She saw smoke and smoldering heaps of rock, what caught her eye was a woman.

She had long orange hair and she was about 5’ 7”.  The first thing Selene noticed was that the woman was on fire. The fire didn’t harm her not even her clothing was singed, it swirled around her licking out at the rocks beside her.

The next thing she noticed was that the woman was orange, and she was glowing.

The woman turned and shot fire out of the palm of her hand at something Selene couldn’t see. Selene ducked back as another blast of air blew through the entrance. The rest of the group had made it to their weapons and were arranged four to one side of the entrance five to the other. Gerad handed Selene her morning star and shield. Meria handed Aerica her bow and arrows. Selene dropped back and let Gerad take point, Dahrin took point in front of Calhan, Sheik, Lucius, and G-Link on the other side of the door.

 

Claire threw another fireball at the Goron Pot. It bounced off and hit the wall again. She was starting to get frustrated when an arrow whizzed past in front of her face. Claire looked to where the arrow had come from and another landed through her forehead.

“Yeah!” Aerica shouted but her shout stuck in her throat as Claire stood back up. Claire glared at her and the arrow turned fire red and disintegrated into ash, white hot iron trickled down Claire’s face from the hole in her forehead.

“Well crap.” Gerad said. The others stared in disbelief along with him till Claire threw a fireball in their direction. They all dove in different directions out of the way and scrambled for cover.