Shadows in the Wind

Gelden in his new form as an Elemental Lord, attacks Windhaven, desperate to find the other Elemental Gems.

24.

Shadows in the Wind

 

 

 He descended upon the floating city with such fury and speed that Ant briefly lost consciousness.     She came to - only a few moments later- on the ground in front of a collapsed tower.

         Gelden was already moving across the deck of the Losasidhe airship, which had just docked a short distance away.

In his Air Elemental form, the Faesidhe wizard rushed over those on the airship deck with gale force, flinging elves off the deck then off the side of the floating city, like rag dolls.    Ant gasped at Gelden’s rage.   His voice boomed out, loudly reaching her from a distance.   

“DO NOT SIT THERE, GAPE MOUTHED, WATCHING ME EXTRACT MY VENGENCE, TOLTHE, OR YOU TOO WILL EXPERIENCE IT!   THE GEMS ARE IN THE RUBBLE OF THE TOWER, CONCENTRATE ON FINDING THEM AT ONCE!” 

Numbly, Ant stood up, unable to keep from watching the terrible massacre taking place on the Losasidhe ship.

The vessel was rocking from side to side as Gelden shook it with tremendous power.    Elves were hanging on to rigging and the railing of the ship as the wind howled over it.

One by one the poor Losasidhe elves on the airship were pulled free and flung high in the air, to fall to their death.

“Yesh, help us!”   She whispered, feeling completely helpless and not knowing what she could possibly do to stop the killing.

 

On the airship, all seemed lost.    Right and left the ship was shaken and all of the Losasidhe guards tumbled off the side one by one.    Ant knew that Gelden was searching the airship for Eleazar and Aurei, as well as Eiolmoel and Synthaeia.

But when he fails to locate them, then what would he do?

*Ant*

It was a familiar telepathic voice and for a moment the Changeling looked around in confusion.

*Ant, it is Sophia, listen to me - run to the house nearest you and stay there.*

*But-*

*Don’t argue with me, I don’t have time!   Hurry!*

 

 Antheeya didn’t waste any time, but found a hut close by and raced to it, praying that Gelden wouldn’t see her and attack.

 

The hut was empty and she knelt inside, peering out the window to try and see what would happen next.

She didn’t have long to wait.

There was a subtle flash of light from near the pile of rubble and out of nowhere three figures appeared.    She recognized all three of them.   The first was King Eleazar, wearing plate armor, and with him was Queen Aurei, in her black Drow plate armor.   The third person surprised her the most, for it was none other than the Faesidhe Elf, Tolthe, which she was impersonating.

He appeared near the rubble and was kneeling down as if he was searching for something.   He seemed to find something and jumped to his feet, but Eleazar and Aurei rushed him.

Tolthe turned and tried to run, but fell over some rubble.   King Eleazar grabbed him by the back of his neck and yanked him up to his feet, shaking him violently.

“Give them to me!”  He growled at Tolthe, holding a dagger to the Faesidhe Elf’s throat.  

“Master, help!”   Tolthe screamed out, and Eleazar slashed across his neck, killing him.

Three gemstones fell from his hands and Aurei hurriedly snatched them up as Eleazar flung the corpse away.

The Drow queen gave two of the gems to her husband and they stood there staring down the hill to the airship dock.

“GELDEN!”   Eleazar called loudly, and immediately the wind died down to a dead still.

“Gelden!   I have what you’re looking for - the other elemental gems are mine!”   Eleazar held up his hands above his head, letting the sun shine on blue, green and red gemstones.

The wind abruptly picked up into hurricane force as Gelden’s voice shook the ground in fury, “THOSE ARE MINE, HALF-BLOOD!”

“Try to take them from us!”   Eleazar challenged.

 

Before Ant could blink, the challenge was answered.   A tornado came out of nowhere, directly over the King and Queen.     Never had Ant seen anything more furious.   It ripped them off the ground as if they were pieces of straw.     Around and around the typhoon took them and as it spun them around and around, Gelden began ripping off pieces of their armor and weapons.    Swords, helmets, leg-guards and breastplates were flipped off of them and flung far away, but still they tightly held the gemstones.

“FOOLS!”   Gelden roared, “RELEASE THE GEMSTONES AND I WON’T RIP YOUR AUTOCASTER RINGS FROM YOUR HANDS!”

Ant couldn’t hear their response (or even see them) but after a moment, Gelden growled as if frustrated and -incredibly- the intensity of the wind increased.     The hut she was in began to tremble and shake, drawn toward the vortex that contained the Marksylvania King and Queen.

Somehow, over the gale, she heard Queen Aurei cry out, “No!” and Gelden roared with laughter.   Suddenly, out of the vortex, the Drow Queen, completely stripped of all armor, undergarments and jewelry, was thrown like a catapult shot into the side of the Queen Eioldth.

But then she was pulled back as if held by a string and slammed again and again and again into the side of the airship with such force that the ship rocked.

Eleazar’s agonized yell could barely be heard over the mocking laughter of Gelden.

“DIE, DROW WITCH!!  DIE!  DIE!  DIE!”  Gelden’s voice screamed as he pounded her time after time into the side of the airship until her body was a bloody mess.    

Ant groaned as she watched, for clearly her Autocaster ring had been stripped from her.

“DEAD, DEAD, DEAD AT LAST!!!”   Gelden howled as he now flung her abused corpse high in the air and off the side of the floating city.

Eleazar, lost in grief, yelled something angrily at her killer, but the intensity of the wind made his words escape Ant’s ears.

“NOW IT IS YOUR TURN, KILLER OF MY PEOPLE!  I SHALL TAKE GREAT DELIGHT IN DOING THE SAME THING TO YOU TH… WHAT?”

There was a flash of light from the cyclone and a second later, a second flash of light from the deck of the Queen Eioldth.

 

***

On the deck of the new airship, near one of the two banks of vacuum engines, those hiding behind them saw Eleazar appear.

Although they expected it, his battered, bloody appearance almost caused several of them to cry out in dismay.

He was unclothed and covered with a thousand cuts from debris from the tornado, but he yelled out defiantly at the Air Elemental that was Gelden.

“You will never possess these, wizard!”  The King called, then turned and sprinted the short distance to the three vacuum engines.   

Gelden’s fury was immediate, the air storm engulfing the airship.

“TELEPORTATION WILL NOT SAVE YOU, ELEAZAR!”   The wizard roared as he descended on the king.

But before he could reach Eleazar, the king leaped on top of the bottom most of the bank of three vacuum engines and slid down the slightly sloped surface toward the intake side with two of the Elemental Gemstones still clutched in his hand.

The tornado surrounded the Queen Eioldth as Gelden’s winds grabbed at the king.   The winds picked him up, but one of his hands had grabbed hold of the end of the air intake of the vacuum engine and he flung the gemstones into this opening before Gelden’s wind ripped him free.

The wizard didn’t toy with killing Eleazar; he simply used the wind to twist his head completely around, snapping his neck and then flinging him high in the air to join his wife in death.

“SUCH IS THE FATE OF TYRANTS!”   Gelden called on the wind, “NOW TO CLAIM WHAT IS RIGHTFULLY MINE!”

The tornado shrunk until it became a vortex about the size of a man.     It hovered there a moment and then rushed into the vacuum engine’s air intake after the two Elemental gemstones.

“NOW!”   Muld screamed at the top of his lungs and on the bridge of the Queen Eioldth, Syndi pulled the top starboard engine lever open and then quickly closed it again.

Inside the engine, Gelden realized at the very last second that he’d been tricked.     The Elemental gemstones lying at the opposite end of the engine disappeared into smoke.

“AN ILLUSION!!” He screamed, and then he knew their plan as it dawned on him where he was.

The click of the lever was not heard by him, but he sensed the Vacuum spell activating in the engine compartment a moment before it destroyed him.   The metal covering closed over the intake port and the chamber immediately became a vacuum as all the air was magically dispersed into nothing.

 

On the deck of the ship and all across Windhaven, it was suddenly completely still.     No one spoke for a long moment, listening for any sign that Gelden’s Air Elemental form had somehow survived the vacuum environment of the Airship engine.

Muld looked at Sophia and the Drow woman slowly nodded, a cautious smile creeping across her face.

“Should we activate the engine to make sure?”   He asked her.

“Yes.”

“Syndi,”  Muld called down to the other end of the ship, “Flip the lever again - just a quick burst, so we can see.”

“Here goes,”  She called back wearily, again quickly opening and closing the engine ports by flicking the lever.    For a moment there was thrust from the engine as air rushed through the vacuum chamber and then was expelled out the other end.

Everyone watched and held their breath.    But it was nothing but air.

“Thank God!”   Syndi said with a sigh, her knees wobbling as she slipped down onto the deck of the ship named after her sister.

“It worked!”  Muld shouted joyously, hugging first Sophia and then Khord before rushing across the deck to his fiancée.

 

***

*Sophia, is it over?*  Ant asked timidly, hearing the shouting coming from the deck of the airship.

*It is indeed, Ant!    Gelden is destroyed!*

*But how?   And what about King Eleazar and Queen Aurei?*

*An elaborate illusion - I’ll fill you in on the details later.    Join us on the Queen Eioldth.*

 

Twenty minutes later everyone was seated in a circle around Sophia as she explained to Ant their plan.

“I knew that the only way to destroy an Air Elemental was by a vacuum thanks to Master Muld, but a spell cast out in the open wouldn’t be strong enough to kill an Elemental Lord.   We didn’t have time to create a large enough magic item to trap Gelden then use the spell upon him, so we decided to use something that we had at hand that already had a vacuum spell on it - the vacuum engines of this airship."

“And that was strong enough to kill him?”   Ant asked.

“It was when he condensed his form to enter the engine while going after the two elemental stones.”

“And they were illusions as well; just like King Eleazar and Queen Aurei?”

Sophia nodded, “As well as the Losasidhe men on the ship that Gelden thought he’d killed.    My illusion wand wasn’t powerful enough to create that grand of an illusion, but thanks to Syndi and Allea casting Amplification spells for boost, it was enough.”

“It was very convincing,”  Ant said, “It was quite horrible to watch.”

“It had to convince Gelden,”  Sophia responded, “His threat was too great.”

“What about the other Elemental Gemstones?”   

“Oh, we found them earlier today when the rubble was turned to mud.    That is why we had to recreate the rubble with an illusion.”

“What are you going to do with them?    They seem too powerful.   They need to be destroyed.”

“The Air stone was destroyed, when Gelden died.   We’ll figure out how to destroy the other three soon, but we have to get a certain couple back to Westmark to be reunited with her parents.”   Sophia nodded toward Muld and Syndi, who sat with their backs against the bank of engines.     Syndi was curled up in Muld’s arms and both were asleep.

“Hey, wake up, you two; they’re talking about you!”  Allea nudged Muld with her foot, but he simply slid down on top of Syndi.

“Hey!   Are you alright?   Muld?   Syndi?   Oh no!   Mom!”   Allea called, but Zeatt was already rushing over to them.

“What’s wrong?”   Khord asked, kneeling beside her as she checked the two, “Are they dead?”

“No, but they are very weak.   I wondered about that!   They have those stupid Chastity spell rings on, suppressing their Aleiryid attraction for each other.   I’m afraid the stress of this whole thing with Gelden has weakened them much faster than they imagined it would.”

“What does that mean?”  Allea asked her mother.

“They’re dying!”   Zeatt responded, “We need to get them back to Westmark and have her father dispel the Chastity spell upon the rings or they will most certainly die.”

“That might take too long!”  Sophia said, “What if we could bring her parents to her?”

“We need to do it quickly, child!”

“Allea, come with me; we’ll see what we can do.”   Sophia lead her sister toward the under decks of the airship.

“I just hope it’s not too late.”   Zeatt said to the others as she looked at the pale forms of the engaged couple.