© 2000 to Sorceress/Muse/Angel
This is a very intense part. I am very sorry that this Part has taken so long! I think Part 8 is complete. If not, i'll combine the start of Part 9 with this if that's what you wish. Well.... Review and be kind.
Alanna looked around the place that was surrounded in gray mist. There was nothing here. She felt like she was suspended in air. She tried to move, and felt the air hold her tighter. She screamed with the pain, and the invisible thing dropped her. She plummeted to the bottom of the endless black hole.
She finally fell to a ground, but could not stop her uncontrolled toss. She fell to the ground, sprawled. She got up, and sighed. Her body felt like it was on fire. Her ribs ached, as did her head. Her heart began to spasm, and she screamed out, falling to her knees, clutching her chest.
Then it stopped. Alanna’s face was contorted in pain as she began to weep. Where was she? She didn’t remember anything! Where was Thom? He was always around. Even when she felt about to pop him in the jaw, he was there. Now she was alone. Completely, utterly alone....
Thom shook his head, crying like a child. “No…” he wept. “Not again…”
“Thom, you tried. She was already too far gone,” George said softly, still cradling Alanna’s lifeless body in his arms. The words were blades cutting his heart apart as he said the words that meant Alanna was truly dead. His throat choked up, “What could you have done? What could any of us have done?”
Thom shook his head. “I could have saved her, dammit!” he yelled out. Jon, Raoul, and Gary watched on in sadness and in shock.
“No, you couldn’t’ve,” said Gary softly. “None of could.”
Thom turned on him, eyes glowing through the tears. “I could have killed Daemos! Stopped him from harming her! I could have…” Thom wept, falling to his knees. His head drooped and he rocked back and forth. “Alanna,” he moaned, crying.
Jonathan looked at Thom in shock. “She wouldn’t have wanted you to do this to yourself,” he said, trying to comfort.
Magic erupted in the back of the room, near the doors. “Stop it this instant, Thom!” Lael hissed. “You have more important things to do that sit here and mourn!”
“Can’t you see he’s in pain? That we’re all in pain?” Raoul roared out.
Lael looked at him. “She was born to die. You are all born to die. Thom is born to die. If he wants to see Alanna, he has to do this.”
“Did you kill her?” Thom whispered. “Did you and Sapphire plan this to keep us apart so that our powers would be heighten by misery?”
Lael shook his head. “Thom, we had nothing to do with this. I would have stopped Daemos if I could’ve. The fact is her soul is gone. Its as if she never even existed, or was even created. That is the sort of thing that gods don’t make reality. Things that we can’t do! I don’t even know how it happened… And I’m suppose to be the god of magick!”
“It’s all right, Lael,” Dysis said, appearing next to him. The other aspects of the Goddess of War appeared.
“It truly is,” Valasca said, smiling. Hateya and Livia nodded.
“Alanna is safe, if bewildered. We know where she is, that is all you need to know,” Livia said.
Thom threw himself at her. “Send me to her, please!” he begged.
Livia shoved him to the floor. “Never. This is what her price is.”
The War Goddess vanished in wisps of blood red smoke. Lael sighed and disappeared as well. Thom knelt where he was, crying. George looked at him and began to cry as well.
Alanna was dead.
There was no way to bring her back.
There was a battle to fight.
But revenge would be sweet.
Alanna moaned, holding her aching body, curled up upon herself. The pain in her body was terrifying. The mental, and emotional, pain wrecked her self-confidence and self-control to bits.
There was nothing she could do. Not a thing. She remembered now, she remembered what had happened…
Daemos grabbed her throat and lifted her off her feet, squeezing. Alanna choked, trying to get breath in her body—her lungs felt as if they were on fire. Her head swam, and her mind screamed for air.
Alanna could vaguely hear George and the children crying out. Then the blast of magic near to her, and a collision. Alanna had a good idea who collided with what and tried to scream out, but Daemos only squeezed harder, breaking three bones in her neck.
Daemos hefted her body with his hand and threw her violently against the wall. Alanna’s skull connected with the stone, shattering it and sending the bone splinters deep into her brain. Her body twisted, while in the air, to try and stop the collision with the wall, but collided anyway. Alanna would have—if she could have—cried out in terrible pain as her back snapped and shattering every bendable disk in her back.
Alanna lay there, shatter skull and back. And as she lay there, she saw the Dream King—Gainel. He reached a hand out to her, eyes pleading. Weakly, though she knew that this was not a physical feat, she gripped his hand.
“I cannot save you. I can only keep your spirit alive until your heir is born,” he told her, voice pleading with her to understand.
“Let me die,” Alanna moaned, almost letting go of Gainel’s hand.
“No!” Gainel gasped, grabbing her hand and wrist. His hands were cold, but not as cold as Alanna’s icy ones. “You mustn’t let go! You need to survive!”
“Why?” murmured Alanna as Gainel picked her—no, her spirit—up. “Life is too harsh on mortals.”
“But it is not,” Gainel murmured to her, taking her up to the Moon, where the Silver Realms lay in destruction. “You must rest. You must not stir…Daemos’ allies will want you gone either to their side, or completely. Stay here. I will inform Sapphire of your position.”
Alanna stood, and looked around. This was the Silver Realms? The gods had really made short shift of the place in the little time they had. Bodies of gods laid strew around the courtyard where Alanna was.
She looked around, frantically, and then finally noticed what she was wearing. She was wearing a common wench’s outfit with a very tight fitting bodice that started under her breasts and went down to her waist. Where the bodice ended, a blue cotton skirt swept out. The shirt was also made of the blue cotton, though it had white embroidery on it and was sleeveless. Alanna’s hair now fell in copper waves down her back to her bust, where the bodice started. She wore a necklace—the emberstone transformed into a gold oval locket wrought with silver on the cover. It had a melded picture of a sword on the front.
Alanna picked it up off her neck and opened it. Inside was a ring. Two hands clutching a heart made the band, and the crowned heart made the “centerpiece”.
“Friendship, loyalty, and honor,” Alanna murmured, taking the ring out and putting it on with the crown facing her and the point of the heart facing away from her.
Alanna knew very well how the magic worked and flowed in the Silver Realms. She only hoped that even being dead, she could work the power flows as a spirit. She closed her eyes and grasped the magic with all her strength. She was well aware of the pain of it on her spiritual hands.
She lost herself to the pain. And in that pain, she saw what she wished to see: Tortall.
Thom sat in chair, an almost empty bottle of brandy on the table next to him. Jon, Gary, Raoul, and George stared at Thom, whose eyes were glazed over from too much alcohol.
“Who knew someone could down that much brandy and still be sober?” Jon asked, whispering.
“Because grief sobers me to the cold truth, the cold logic. The coldness of life,” Thom replied mournfully. He took another swig from the bottle while the others stared.
“Then why are you trying to get drunk?” Raoul asked.
“I cannot get drunk. Never have been able to. Even Alan—” he choked the name off. “Even she couldn’t get drunk,” he said, eyes closed tightly. “Surely you must have noticed that, after all these years.”
George closed his eyes in pain, not unlike Thom. “She never drank much anyway.”
Thom snorted. “Maybe you just weren’t there,” he said, resuming his ever-winning personality he had died with. He looked up, and was suddenly alert. “Anna?” he asked, looking around.
“What?” Jon, Gary, and Raoul asked. George—knowing whom Thom meant—stayed silent.
“I feel her. Somehow… She’s here.”
“Of course she’s here,” Sapphire said, appearing in a chair. “She’s dead. Her spirit is free from Daemos, which he is cursing about. She’s in the Silver Realms.”
“Restore her!” Thom yelled at Sapphire, jumping to his feet.
Sapphire stood and glared. “I would if I could! Daemos is the only one of us who can restore life to the dead!” she snapped. “If Gainel hadn’t taken her soul out of her body, she’d be fighting against you as we speak, meaning she would therefore be killing all of you, and Daemos would win! Every move has consequences, every death grants Daemos more power than before. I will not have the Silver Realms involved in something that will totally destroy us!
“We are not at full strength! You know that, Thom! You know that! I plead with you to be careful! Daemos may be an asshole, but he is no idiot! He must be aware of how this hurts you. On how much this hurts Lael, on how much this hurts me. I am afraid he planned for this. That he planned to have Alanna die, so that he could use her against us.”
“Well, he will loose,” stated Thom flatly.
Sapphire blasted Thom against a wall. “You idiot! You dare underestimate his powers?” she yelled. “We underestimated him, and he slaughtered fifty of us! We are loosing, boy!” she yelled at him.
“He will not win me! He will not win Alanna! He will loose!” Thom yelled, getting to his feet, eyes streaming tears, mingling with the blood dripping down from a gash in Thom’s forehead.
“You fool!” Sapphire hissed scornfully. “You dare think you can take on Daemos and win? Fine. Go ahead and try. I will not pull you out of a bad situation even if you beg.” She disappeared.
George, Gary, Jon, and Raoul stared at Thom, who was propped against the wall. He was crying, the tears mixing with his blood.
“SAPPHIRE!” Alanna screamed. No one appeared. “GAINEL!”
Slowly, time stopped and Gainel appeared. “What is it?” he asked.
“I want you to get Sapphire, now. We have to talk,” Alanna grit out. Her jaw was clamped together so tightly it hurt for her to speak.
Gainel bowed and vanished, reappearing a bit later with Sapphire. Alanna was furious.
“How could you do that?” Alanna snapped at Sapphire.
“Do what? Smack Thom into a wall to make him think?” Sapphire hissed. “We have a war going on! Your death means nothing at the moment – not unless Daemos gets his hands on you. If he does, you are his and we will loose!”
“So?” Alanna asked, waspishly.
Sapphire only glared and vanished, Gainel with her. Alanna moaned and fell to her knees, crying.
Thom was bitter. He was beginning to hate everything and everyone. His magical powers had been growing ever since Lael had opened the channels again to their full extent. Thom knew that Daemos could restore Alanna to a full body, that she could live once more. And at the moment when the idea occurred to him, he remembered everything Alanna had stood for, and how much she’d be hurt if she had to be on the side of the “enemy.”
Thom suddenly turned cold. Who truly cared? He wouldn’t have Daemos restore Alanna, he’d hide Alanna further from Daemos. Thom walked outside under the shield of his magic. He walked out to the back, where the Ysandir had made their camp. He noticed bodies all over the place, and that a steady fire was set up to ward the demons off. Thom was beginning to regret his hasty decision.
“Daemos!” Thom called out. “Show yourself!”
Daemos appeared in a dark blood-red color magic. “What?” he sneered.
“I want to help you,” Thom said quietly.
Daemos stared at him. “You’re turning traitor to your own kind?”
Thom’s eyes were glowing and looked deadly. “The kind that killed my sister. I am no ally to those who hold no regard for life. Sapphire, Lael, Loki… Who knows them better than I? Who used to be part of their court?”
Daemos watched Thom with something like a smile on his face—only it was a smile of malice and hatred. “I like the sound of this deal. Tell me, would you play a double agent for me?”
Thom’s eyes were glowing a deadly violet, and his face looked pained—pained but eager. “Yes.”
Daemos smiled and clapped Thom on the shoulder. “We’ll both be the victors at the end of this. When this ends, I will restore your sister to you. Aye, and eternal life.”
“Why not restore her now and add her to your army?”
Daemos looked at him, as if Thom had no sense. “Because she’d turn on me the minute she went against any of her friends. Her soul is too pure to be corrupted, and I don’t want her in this war.”
“Thank you,” Thom said quietly.
Daemos nodded and vanished. Thom went back into the palace, his eyes were dead of any emotions, of any feelings except that of hatred. Thom knew why he suddenly felt so empty—he had sold his soul, his life, his feelings because of his hatred for the Silver Realms and the Elementals. And in some strange way, Thom was glad. He was glad he no longer had to worry about his own conscience. That for once, he could do as he pleased without having to worry about consequences.
He was immortal.
Immortal because of his hatred.
Immortal because of his desire to rid the world of the Silver Realms.
To rid the world of the Elements….
Alianne watched her brother. “How can we possibly help? Ma is dead—”
“Daemos fears us, for no good reason,” Thom told his sister. “And Ma is dead. We cannot help that, nor can we bring her back. We’re stuck between the Black God and the Goddess with no where to run except in the way that our minds and hearts tell us. And I know I sound very much like a priest, but what else can we do?”
Alan sighed. “Ma had semi-divine blood, remember? That was because of Daemos’ intervention. Obviously we have her powers, therefore, that would explain why we weren’t in agony when the magic currents opened.”
“So, we try and stop Daemos?” Thom asked, a smile tugging on his lips. “Like Da or anyone else will let us near Daemos to try!”
Alianne and Alan sighed. “It was worth a try…” Alan muttered.
Thom and Alianne nodded.
A try? But not a very good one—Daemos feared them, but wanted them on his side. Never could anyone let Daemos get his hands on the three children, or the world was doomed.
Sapphire lounged in the ruins of the Silver Realms. Loki and Lael with her. Most of the other Elementals were there too. Jesek, Bartlebe, Serendipity, Azrael, and Metatron, and most of the others who weren’t cooling their heels in boxes that disabled them to help their brethren at all.
“Alanna was pregnant,” Sapphire said bemusedly into the silence. Everyone turned to her—they knew an idea was forming. “Let’s, oh… Take the child out of her dead body and speed up it’s growth. I’d say teenager would do.”
“Meaning what?” Loki demanded of his love.
“Meaning that we’ll have just as passable fighter as Alanna and George, and just a great a sorceress as her mother. She’ll be granted limited immortality, of course, and will train with the Guardians. We have no choice. We need a secret weapon.”
Jesek nodded. “We do.”
The War Goddess smirked—all four of them. “That’s because there’s a double agent in the field.”
“Who?” everyone demanded.
“Can’t tell,” Valasca said with a smirk.
“Who’s side are you on?” Asa demanded.
“No ones,” Hateya said. “We are the Goddess of War. We are on no one’s side, just like Chaos. She chooses the side who causes the most damage—and that’s Daemos’ side. Therefore, she’s on no one’s side, just like us!”
The War Goddess vanished with a laugh. The Blessed Trinity sighed.
“We are loosing,” she mourned.
“Don’t ever say that!” Sapphire snarled, throwing magic at her. “Our very lives depend on us winning this! We need to exist!” Tears ran down her face—she was desperate.
“Our time is up,” The Oracle said. “We have no strength to fight with—how can we survive?” She vanished.
“Two down, the rest of you? Are any of you brave enough to fight for our very lives?” Sapphire demanded. “We let the demi-gods walk all over us once before! And look what happened! We ceased to exist! Some of us were thrown into mortality, some of us killed in that eternal sleep. The rest of us are beginning to show fear and cowardice in Daemos’ face because we are too afraid to live! Do we just let them take care of us in this fashion? Should we just let them kill us?”
“NO!” they screamed.
“Rebel!” Sapphire yelled.
“Rebel!” they echoed.
