“Well that, or I just find myself now,” Shewit blurted and immediately stabbed her mind into Lull’s.
The rest of the mages saw what was going on but did not react quickly enough. When they reacted, sending bolts of lightning streaking towards Shewit, she had already infiltrated Lull’s mind.
Ermias rolled close to Shewit immediately and cast a shield spell.
“Hasab totallus!”
A sphere of energy materialized over them, encasing and shielding them off from the magic of the attacking mages. Lull gritted his teeth as he tried to fight off Shewit’s presence in his mind. But she was the being of Balance and Chaos, and he could not do much against her. Not alone.
Ermias was no master of magic. He could conjure different magic with a vast assortment of spells, but seriously tired when it came to holding them up for a very long time; even now, when his life depended on it.
“Shewit!” he called. “You have to let him go. I do not know how much longer I can hold off the attacks.”
Shewit still had her mind locked onto Lull’s. And then she found something, so disturbing she could not understand if his mind was just hallucinating, or she saw the truth.
The moment made her weaker for a second. At that moment like bubbles of air bursting, the shield began to break. Shewit removed herself from Lull’s mind to come to Ermias’s aid, but not before he had been struck by a boulder of rock. The rock had been formed out of different stones levitated into the air, swirling round and round before finally fusing into one for the strike. All the mages were pouring the brunt of their magical strength on Shewit now. The motive was simple. Hit her with a massive assault so that she spends all her strength on the defensive and when she tires out, it would be easy to bring her back to the palace.
Shewit risked a turn to look at Ermias on the ground beside her, bleeding from his mouth. She felt her heart break.“Do it,” Ermias said, coughing as he spoke. “There is only one way you can set yourself free. Let go of everything, and draw your strength from the earth itself.”
Shewit could feel the weight of the mages’ assault pressing on her like a moving wall. She was forced down to her knees. She felt something touch her arm. It was Ermias. Tears began to drop from Shewit’s eyes, if she was not defending from the mages’ attacks, she could try to heal him.
“Let go,” Ermias told her.
And she did. Seeing Ermias’s life, about the only thing she had ever cared about in her life, slip away from her was the catalyst for all the powers she had kept within herself; all the doors she had chosen to leave locked and unexplored. The first lightning bolt hit her on her chest. All she felt was a blast of pain, and then she felt a massive surge of energy within her. It was not hers. The energy was old, stronger than anything she ever felt. She felt it envelop her, fill her to the very brim, and it was not even close to exhaustion yet.
Lull and the other mages stopped attacking for a second when Shewit began to glow like hot iron, only she did not glow red, she glowed bright yellow. Her eyeballs shone a radiant yellow, and her hair swam in the air as though they were alive.
“Attack!” Lull yelled. “Attack!”
The mages unleashed every magic they knew how to conjure to the extent of their strength and energy.
With one mighty scream, Shewit unleashed an arc of bright energy that radiated from her and washed through the mages, causing them to break and disintegrate. Done with her use of magic, the energy within her began to dissipate as she relinquished her connection to the earth. Then she turned and looked at Ermias’s still body.
Shewit fell to her knees by his side and began to weep. He had given her the way out. She had finally let go and drawn her power from Toas itself, but Ermias was dead. Shewit placed her head on his chest and wept bitterly, wishing to all the world that there was a way she could bring him back. But short of dark magic, with its dubious untruthful results, she did not know of anything else that would be done.
She was free now. The only person she had ever loved was dead. This fuelled her anger until all she felt was hate for the world. A world that knew where she was headed yet had said nothing. They had contributed to her fattening process as if she was no more a living being as they were.
There was nothing for her to live for. She looked around her. All she saw was destruction and smoking heaps of ash. The Middle Kingdom would never leave her alone if she stayed within the vicinity. They would always come for her as far as she still had the title as the being of Balance and Chaos. She knew this for a certainty.
Shewit rose to her feet, her face turning into a mask of steel with tears still dripping from her eyes. She lifted Ermias’s body into the air beside her. Then she closed her eyes. Conjuring in her mind the image of the place Ermias had charted for their retirement, she muttered a teleportation spell and vanished in a blinding flash of yellow light.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
It was a lie
It is all a lie.
Eldana walked by the beach in slow steps. She exuded a thick aura of gloom. She tried to kick sand back into the waves lapping at the beach, but the patch of sand only went so far before falling back and re-joining its kin. The island was big enough on the side she walked
