Quick, now, Yesenia, I do not know how long I can keep this spell up!
Forward she flew, through the attackers, and they burned away or shrank from our approach. I reached around for more energy and felt energy from the trees and the sun itself flow into me and out around me, burning the black swarm away. I pulled more from the sun, and felt a connection form. A burning band of solar energy reached up from my magical sun to the real sun far above, burning through the frujen grouped above us.
The energy flowed through me and I was sweating now. The chill that had frozen me to my bones was gone. I pulled more energy and made the sun bigger, greater. Moving out, warming my friends and burning away or driving away my enemies. A growing ball of natural fire, so bright it was blinding, shone from all around me and my steed.
Up we flew into the center of the black swarm, burning them away. I pulled more, and the sun expanded, until we were a great burning globe of fire, in the middle of the sky – burning away the unnatural frozen night that the frujen had created. Slowly the unnaturally dark cold sky brightened into a natural hot summer day. We fell upon the remaining enemies, as we made for Elias and Woltan, who had flown high up in the air to find the rift.
And they had found it, and were flying in front of it, shielding themselves too from the frujen who were still moving through it. They had closed it half-way, and the frujen were struggling now to get out.
We flew closer to the gateway, and our heat came with us, our sun met the cold that rushed through the gateway. I pushed and pulled with the heat of the sun above us and pushed it toward the gateway. A funnel of liquid fire ran from my hand and Yesenia’s mouth, meeting in the cut in the air through which a frujen was emerging, a rider on its back. The frujen was covered with flames.
The frujen pulled back, and disappeared.
Now, Elias, Woltan! We can’t hold them much longer.
Together then. One Two Three.
SCHLIESSEN.
The rift got instantly smaller but refused to close … the poison remained in the air, the shrinking hole was a wound that would not heal, with cold fetid air escaping through it. I pulled from the grass beneath us, from the trees, from the tree people who fought far below, and from the city itself. To the poison and infection I sent healing green energy. Schliessen. The cut in the sky narrowed until it was no more than a red scar. But still it would not heal, and I knew any moment the wound would, could reopen and let out more pollution. I needed one last spell. Heilen. With the last word, the red cut in the sky, from which so much death and destruction had been birthed into this world in such a short time was healed.
The rift was closed.
Below, the battle raged. Around me, the remaining frujen regrouped. One of them, I noticed, was bigger than the others. And atop it was not a dead man, but a human rider.
How could I have ignored his presence? It must have been cloaked by all the death and cold around me, all the other frujen and their dead riders.
Gerard.
He did not look happy. Covered in leather, almost unrecognizable, he held his staff high.
Nacht!
I did not hear the word; I saw it in his aura.
I pulled more energy in, and diverted it towards Gerard. Tag!
I did not even have to look at Gerard to know his spell had been thwarted. I could feel his rage.
Carolina impinged on my consciousness than. Careful, Anders. You may think you have surpassed him, but you haven’t. He is more evil and dangerous than he appears. Watch out. Maybe I should have listened to her. But around us the second sun burned on. I felt like some kind of deity, on top of a dragon in the middle of it, feeling all the energy course through me. Perhaps Carolina was right, but it felt glorious. Surrounded by this second sun fed by the energy of the sun high above me, I felt invulnerable, filled with the energy that coursed through me as my dragon beat its wings high up in the air.
Somewhere nearby, someone very close to me screamed.
I felt and heard it over the sound of the battle. It ran up and down my spine, as cold as the dead frujen and their riders gathered above the forgotten city.
Karsten.
A great mass of the frujen were attacking my friend from behind, grabbing him with their foul stinking hands. Before we could react, they pulled him off his mount. Octavia swung around – I could feel her confusion, afraid as she was to spit fire for fear of burning him. Elias spun towards them, flying into the mass, Esmerelda burning them away. But then he too was engulfed. Elias, too…I could feel his pain; the poison was deep within him, burning at him, cold icy death taint. And my friend Karsten would bake no more bread.
Gerard laughed. Later I would remember the screams, and that laugh.
An alien dragon intelligence touched my mind then. It was Esmerelda, contacting me directly. I must bring Elias down, Anders, he cannot stay on dragonback. I will come back to fight without him.
After the shock I felt at last a rage well up in me that knew no bound. From Octavia too came a wailing scream. The last barrier between my blood and brain broke down then, the last barrier between my sword and the pixie within, between my blood and Octavia and Yesenia beneath me – we all became one in rage. I reached up and grabbed at the sun and sent it smashing down at Gerard, and I watched him burn: there was a look of panic on his face, but then with a twist of his staff he was gone.
Anders, there are too many of them still, and many of the forgotten city have been touched…
I reached out to all the friendly sorcerers of the city. I reached out to the tree mother, to all the