Visions
The Never Ending Quest - Episode 46640
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When the energy had hit Carola, she hadn't felt any of the pain she had steeled herself against.
Just a churning in her stomach and a fuzzy feeling, as if she was outside her body and it was just
out of reach. It wasn't too different from when she'd bedridden from being attacked by foul
spirits, or rather germs--she'd been trained some in science (including natural history,
philosophy and some vague abstract knowledge of magic) like everyone in the Aqualarian royal
family, but they'd only recently absorbed the knowledge of the Allarian mages that sickness
wasn't caused by evil spirits but by little animals that swam in the blood. Not that it made that
much difference. But it wasn't a sickness, this time, it was something the pyramid was doing to
her. The Pyramid of Balance, the Guardians had called it. But what kind of balance did it keep?
When she'd absorbed the energy, would it expend an equal amount of energy itself? Or--she
remembered the appearance of the pyramid, divided into white and black, and shuddered. What
if it the balance it kept was supposed to be that between good and evil, as the ancient heretical
philosophers had taught who practiced abominations on the island of Ilest in the days before the
oceans drank Atlantis. Since she had destroyed a man of evil, would the pyramid create evil in
his place?
"No," she heard her sister speak, "It can't be! She was too brave to be cut down so easily." Hearing her words was strange--they lacked immediacy, almost as if she was reading them in a book rather than hearing them spoken. Matthias was simply too shocked to say anything. Jarlath shook his head. "No. No. I knew I should have listened to those idiots who ran the academy and waited. I had no idea I'd get anyone killed! She--" And then, Jarlath began to sob. Carola found herself mildly surprised-- she'd never expected a wizard to cry, even a young one like Jarlath, who she thought of more as a boy her age than a wizard. THen, he stopped crying a sort of coldness came over him. "Well, we're screwed," he said. "We'll go on without her," said Matthias, doing his best to be stoic. "It was a great loss, but she was an example for us all. I will make sure that she is given a burial worthy of a true warrior, although she was only a young girl." Matthias seemed oddly surrpised at what she'd done. Her sister was about to say something in protest, but Jarlath interrupted. "I mean we're really screwed. Carola should consider herself lucky in whatever afterlife she may have gone to. At least she managed to die doing some good." "What do you mean?" said Matthias, the stoic air he'd put on dangerously close to cracking. "Well, Vaeren's dead. But as I explained some time ago, this whole structure is Vaeren. In a few moments it will vanish just as he did. And we'll be several hundred feet underground in solid rock." The full realization of what was about to happen began to dawn on the others. Carola did feel a sort of constricting on them, as if the air was starting to push in. And then she found herself in the prophecy again. It was strange how she found herself thinking of it, as a place rather than a thing. She was watching as she and three others stood in a dark chamber in front of a towering blue flame. She sensed that the flame was alive and trying to tell them something, but could not understand what. The more she tried to grasp what was happening, the more dim and vague the impression became. Could it be that the Pyramid itself was trying to stop her? She felt a strange burning sensation in her chest, as if the flame was beginning to kindle within her. She had felt this before, she remembered, during her first vision. Vague words and impressions began to form in her mind. She tried to listen to them-- And then she felt a churning in her stomach, and she fell through a desolate black pit. She saw brief flashes of being outside her, but they were gone before she could pin them down, like dreams. Just behind her she could hear a strange, alien, hateful whisper. It grew louder and louder as she fell. And then, she stopped falling, as if she was slowly awakening from a dream. She could not hear the laughter anymore, but she could hear the crackling of flames and terrible screams in a rough, alien toungue. After she heard the voice of Matthias calling to her in the distance, she realized it was Allarian. By now, she felt she was truly present in this time. Through the light of the flickering flames, she could see a little of the world around her. She was in a castle, which might once have been rough but magnificent, but now it was full of rubble. Through holes in the wall she could see a city with buildings mostly of wood burning in a vast, terrible fire. There seemed to be bursts of strange black flame mingled in the red. It made her think of the day Themiscyra burned, only now they were in what could only be Camelyn. Astra had described Camelyn vividly to her whenever she'd come back from state visits there. Not again, she thought. Even if their group managed to save most of the people here--and far too many had already been lost-- something irreperable would be lost, just as it had with Themiscyra, Carola was saddened to see it die before she could truly know it. Then she saw something swooping down toward her. It seemed to be a burst of black fire, with something within it. It felt very cold as it approached. Strangely, the two things she found herself thinking were that she knew she would not die and that she had something elsewhere to attend to. And then, for a moment, she drifted out, fell through the blackness again, and was once more underground where Vaeren had once been. She knew, somehow, that only a second had passed. She gasped in awe as she saw the patterns of magic that made up the castle that Vaeren had made, a mad zigzag of harmonies. The lines of power that held them in place were fraying more every moment as his life faded. She drew on the energy that had flown into her, gathered the others and their possessions (the only other thing in this castle that was not of Vaeren) into her spirit's grasp, and pulled. The citadel of Vaeren disappeared, followed by an explosion of air rushing in where it had been. Then Belinda, Carola, Matthias, and Jarlath appeared where it had been with all their provisions.
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Knight Random
2/13/2005 7:40:17 PM
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