The Tower tilted dangerously to one side. The mages and I stood outside, staring at it.
Imarath sighed. "We can't fix it until tomorrow."
Jared, who had joined me outside, muttered, "It's the Leaning Tower of Piza. The freaking Tower of Piza." I nodded.
"That whole thing could collapse by tomorrow," I said, raising my voice to be heard over the babble of mage voices. "Imarath, you've got to fix it now."
He held up his hands. "I would if I could, but I can't, so I won't."
I stomped forward, stood on my toes to make my eyes level with his. "I am the general of Calsa's former army," I said firmly. "If I say that Tower is dangerous, it is. Fix it. Now!"
He stared back at me, blinked. Further conversation was ruined by the fact that the plane came back then, crashed to the ground, didn't break. Kyretholle and Shannon climbed out, then helped Camryn up. Her robes had vanished, leaving her in her harem-girl outfit, and there was a long scratch on her side. She clutched a black CD in her hands. She stumbled forward, into Imarath's arms, and burst into tears.
How human. How...not-evil.
Imarath stroked her dark hair and murmured words of comfort. She sobbed into his chest for a few minutes, then stood up straight, ran her fingers through her hair, and barked out, "That Tower is going to fall over. Someone do something about it. Ahora, ahora!"
So the mages drew in their power and combined their efforts, and the Tower slowly slipped back until it was mostly straight. Camryn nodded approvingly, then dragged me aside without giving me any warning whatsoever.
"What is it?" I asked nervously.
"We defeated a demon lord," she murmured, her voice so quiet I could barely hear it. "There are three more. They'll be here very soon, General. You're supposed to be a soldier - help me make a trap."
"Excuse me," I said, backing up. "Cam, I'm not a soldier. You know me, remember? This isn't me. This was forced on me."
She laughed. "You must know something about defense and strategy, Mary. Come on. Let's make a plan."
So that's what we did. We dragged out assorted maps and found a red marker, which smelled very toxic but made perfect lines for mapping out the ideas we had.
After maybe two hours, I held up the final product. "It will never work," I pronounced.
"It will work," Camryn snapped. She dragged herself up. "We will see to it personally."
Five mages, Imarath among them, joined us in the room with the broken window. No one had told me how the window had broken, but it didn't look safe. However, that window was an important part of the plan.
Camryn spread out the map, stuck it magically to the wall. "Okay, here we are." She traced a red line. "Here's where I put the Disk. It's spinning already. We have to get the demon lord from here to there." She stepped up to the window, drew her new black robes closer against the wind. She pointed. "There's the demon lord, my friends."
We all crowded around and looked down. Climbing up the walls at an impossible rate was ivy, flowers, other plants. But not normal plants. They weren't brilliantly green - they were gray, brown, black. Dead.
"The Demon Lord of the Earth," Camryn said, satisfied. "Join hands. Not you, Mary."
Feeling very left out, I stepped back and surveyed the map again. Would it work? No way to tell.
Something twined about my ankles. I jumped about three feet and shrieked, muffled it. Dead. Dead vines. I backed up, started to run, tripped on a tree root.
"Mary!" Camryn cried. "Run to the disk, but don't get caught in the tornado!"
I got up, ran down the hall, down some stairs, across an empty room. I yanked on the black iron door. Locked! It wasn't supposed to be locked!
I screamed as the rapidly growing dead plants touched me. Where were the mages? The plan was that they would spell the vines into following a certain path. I was the focus of the spell; it followed me...but I was locked out.
I kicked the door, screamed an obscenity, kicked again, hurt myself. I whirled around, gazed in horror at the dead plants as they solidified, growing into a terrible creature with eye sockets, a smushed sort of nose, a gaping hole where a mouth should be. Deep in the empty eye sockets I saw a burning silver light.
The demon lord had come.
It reached out, wrapped its hands around my neck and effortlessly lifted me up, slammed me into the wall. I was dizzy, couldn't breathe, choked, kicked feebly.
The door swung open. Why? Who the hell knows? I tumbled through, broke free by accident, ducked under the tornado as it roared to life and consumed the screaming demon lord.
I just laid there for awhile, rubbing my neck and trying to breathe normally. Two. That was half of the demons lords vanquished in one day. But soon the other two would be upon us, and the barbarians, and Asjanel...
Fingers snapped close to my ear and I jerked up. I had almost fallen asleep. "Wake up," Camryn said loudly, dragging me to my feet. "You did good, Josie."
I smiled weakly at the pet name. "Can I go to bed now?"
"Sure," Cam said. She waved her hand. The world spun around me, blurred, turned into a bedroom. I collapsed on the bed, sick to my stomach. Translocation was not fun.
When I woke up, it was midnight. There were four other beds in the room now - Ashton, Allison, Jared, Shannon. Meg? I didn't know. It had been a long time since I'd seen her. Camryn? She was Head Mage, she had her own room. Dakota was curled up at Jared's feet. Elu wasn't with us.
Someone screamed, far away. Jared muttered something in his sleep as I sat up. Dakota lifted his head. For a moment I thought I saw his eyes glow silver, but I was tired still.
I couldn't fall back to sleep. Kyretholle was gone, too. It made me extremely nervous to be missing so many people. For a moment I toyed with the notion of just locking all of us in one room for awhile, just for my peace of mind.
Then I laughed, out loud. Dakota let out a sleepy sort of howl and gazed at me with those golden eyes of his. I laughed again and buried my face in my pillow, shaking with giggles. Home! I wanted to be home, where I never worried about where everybody was. Home, where demons didn't wander around killing people. Home!
I must have fallen asleep, because I woke up the next day around noon. The others were gone, except Elu, who sat on the end of my bed, cross-legged, watching me.
"Hello," he said calmly. "I thought you might like to know that Kitana and Ashton are missing."
I sat up, stared at him. "What?"
"They went out this morning and haven't come back." He paused. "We're under siege. The demons are here. No sign of the demon lords." Another pause. "And the plateaus, you know about them?"
"Yeah, Allison told me. What about the plateaus?"
"They're going to be flooded in half an hour."
"That's a specific prophecy."
He looked up at the ceiling, blind eyes looking at something else. "Not a prophecy. A fact. Storm clouds have gathered and a dam has been destroyed far to the north. In half an hour, the plateaus will flood."
"Do I care?"
"That's probably where Kitana and Ashton went."
I sighed, slid out of bed, and helped him down. "Just once I would like to wake up in the morning and say, 'I have nothing to do today.'" I paused. “And then, I would like to go through the day and actually have nothing to do.”
*Kitana*
Ashton and I walked along the rope bridges that connected several of the plateaus to each other. Some of the bridges were burnt from the crossing of the demons. We were out to destroy the rest, so that the barbarians couldn't cross. But first we had to get to the other side, which seemed to be taking quite awhile.
I glanced up at the gray clouds that gathered overhead. "It's going to rain," I said. "We'd better hurry."
Ashton looked at me, her eyes cold. "Why are you doing this?"
"Come again?"
"Being evil. All of it."
I sighed, stopped walking, planted my hands on my hips. "What don't you people get about 'I'm not evil'?" I held up one hand before she could protest. "Listen to me, Ash. Remember what I said? No one is completely good or completely evil. I'm in the middle. I don't kill unless I have to." Tears stung my eyes; I'm not one for making speeches. "Why can't you morons understand? I. Am. Not. Evil. I want to help these people. I want to give them the true faith."
"And the Empress thing?" Ashton asked, unwilling to believe. I groaned.
"Can't you see it?" I wailed desperately, waving my hands theatrically. "Can't you see how wonderful and unpolluted this is? Can't you taste it in the air, feel it in the ground you walk on? It's the opposite of Earth. It hasn't been destroyed by technology. There are no guns, no abortions, nothing like that. I just want to keep it that way. I just want...to protect them. From Earth. From...everything."
"A nice speech," Ashton sneered. "But how can I believe you? You're mostly evil."
"I am not!"
She rolled her eyes. "Look, I'm on your side for now, but as soon as the demons are gone, I'm going to do whatever I have to do to stop you."
"To stop me from being a good person? I thought you of all people would understand me."
She paused, her hand lightly touching the rope that served as a railing. "I did understand you," she said quietly. "On Earth. I'm the only one who ever did. But here? You're not even Camryn anymore. You're Kitana, and I don't get you at all."
I walked on, fast, until I was running, my feet pounding on the bridge. Ashton wasn't hurt as badly as I was at that point; she caught up, grabbed me, shoved me down.
"Kitana," she said firmly. "I don't trust you. I don't even like you. I want Cam back. But I will promise you one thing. I'll give you ten years. Ten years to make these people like you. It's up to them, my dear friend. It's up to them. I'll have Imarath rig up a spell to bring me back in ten years. If the people think you're a good person, I'll leave you alone. But if you really are evil..."
She didn't have to say it; I saw it in her eyes. She would kill me if she had to.
Patiently, I said, "I'm not evil."
She kicked me playfully and helped me up. "Let's get going. It's going to rain."
For the next ten minutes, everything was right again. Everything. We were friends, talking, laughing together, sharing our experiences here. Everything was okay.
That was the last time in my entire life that absolutely everything was okay between us.
Then a roaring sound filled our ears. We stopped dead in the middle of a bridge. "What's that?" I asked, raising my hands in standard "guard" position. I felt the cool metal of my enchanted sword against my hip, ready to leap into existence at my whistle.
Am I allowed to take time out from the action to describe my sword? It was a present from Imarath. He noticed how depressed I was when I came back from Earth for the last time, so he took my old sword and spelled it. It's one of the few things in the world that can defend against unbound magic. The thing about it is that I needn't carry it. It doesn't actually exist until I whistle for it; then it springs into my hand, ready to attack. Only problem is, I can't whistle, except on rare occasions...I'll have to fix that someday.
Anyway, we stopped on the bridge, staring north, dumbstruck, at the wall of water racing toward us. I tried to whistle, didn't succeed, shoved Ashton, screamed incoherently as we ran to get off the bridge.
We didn't make it.
The wall of water slammed into the bridge, tearing it from its moorings and flinging both it and us into the water. I held my breath, kicked hard, robes dragging me down. My head broke the surface and I inhaled desperately, fighting against the waves that broke over my head.
"Ashton!" I cried, looking around wildly. I got a mouthful of water, spat it out. The water pressed on me, sent me back down into the depths, down into darkness. My robes tore against my frantic kicking. I fumbled for my sash, got it off, my chest burned with the effort of holding my breath. I got the sash off and tried to yank the robes over my head - not as easy as it sounds, not in the water. I managed it and let them float free, clawed at the water, couldn't hold my breath, couldn't help it, I breathed in.
I choked as I reached the air, coughing up water. "Ash!" I yelled again. I couldn't see her, I couldn't see anything for the water in my eyes. I blinked hard, looked around, fought against the unnatural waves and current. I dove under, this time of my own free will. I kept my eyes open wide, looking for any sign of Ashton.
After maybe thirty seconds, my supply of oxygen ran out and I returned to the surface, coming up near one of the plateaus. I grabbed a rock and hung on, coughing uncontrollably.
"Hey," Ashton said from somewhere to my left. "You're alive after all." I nodded, couldn't speak, clung to my only lifeline with a grip that tore my skin and left my hands raw and bloody.
Ashton continued, "I was a bit worried for a minute. What caused all this?"
I felt a tingling in the back of my head. The hair on the back of my neck stood on end, my skin crackled with unbearable electricity. My stomach knotted up, my lungs burned.
I knew the feeling, knew it too well.
Unbound magic.
A demon lord.
"It must be the Demon Lord of Water!" I cried.
"That doesn't make sense! Demons are from hell, they can't enter water!"
"It's a demon lord," I said, as if this made all the difference - which it did, actually. I grit my teeth, ignoring the miniature lightning bolts dancing on my skin. Powerful magic has its price; one of mine is a heightened sense of the unbound. Very heightened.
I lifted my head, more of a struggle than it might have been otherwise, saw a row of spines racing toward us. "Under!" I yelled, letting go and plunging as far down as I could.
Underwater the unbound magic crackled. I screamed as electricity rippled through my body. Apparently, water also conducts unbound magic. I breathed in, choked, doubled over in pain and terror.
A demon lord, a demon lord was coming, and I didn't have the Disk...
*Ashton*
My head broke the surface, reddish-gold hair floating around me as I drew in air. No sign of Kitana anywhere, just the spine of the demon lord. I'd seen it, under the water. It was a sea serpent, a long creature with the arms of a praying mantis.
Definitely safer on the plateaus.
I started to climb up a natural ladder and was dragged back down. White-hot pain flashed through my leg as a claw punched through muscle and whatever the hell else is in a leg. I screamed as the demon lord yanked me back into the water. I didn't open my eyes, didn't want to see blood in the water, my blood.
But I did. I had to open my eyes because there was no chance of escape with them closed.
Kitana drifted near me, curled up in a strange position, face contorted in pain. I didn't see blood, but she wouldn't be any help. It was up to me.
The claw drew back from my leg. I felt myself getting faint, no, had to concentrate. I visualized myself as a goldfish - bang, I was tiny, it was huge, and I swam away, pain in my fins. I hit rock and turned back into myself, clambered up, collapsed on top of the plateau.
I looked at my leg and nearly threw up. I was a mess.
Kitana! I dragged myself to the edge and looked over. She had surfaced and soon joined me. She half-collapsed, sobbing. I still couldn't see a visible wound.
After a moment, she sat up, shuddered, looked at my leg, and threw up over the side of the plateau. She splashed water on her face and whistled.
It wasn't much of a whistle, but a sword appeared in her hand. She almost dropped it, then let the point touch the wound. I must have screamed, but she spoke words of strange power and I healed.
She didn't. She just fell over, exhausted.
It took three hours for the demon lord to find us again. It decided to ram the plateau, knock us into the water, and then kill us - or bring us to Asjanel. I shook Kitana.
"Get up," I pleaded.
She moaned and sat up. She shivered, dressed only in her harem-girl outfit, and held up her hand. She rotated her wrist twice and spoke a word of command. The black Disk appeared in her hand.
She spun it, left it spinning, and waved her hand again. Then she stood up, almost fell, looked at me pleadingly.
We walked on water, me propping her up as she carried the Disk. She didn't really carry it, I guess - it spun an inch above her outstretched hands. We walked out to where the serpent was, and Kitana let go of the Disk - and our "bridge." We plunged into the water.
Again.
I held my breath as the sea serpent looked at me, swam frantically to the surface just in time to see the tornado that burst from the Disk, swallowed the demon lord whole. I laughed, hysterical, and climbed back onto the plateau.
Kitana soon joined me, looking almost gray. "How do we get back?" she asked. "The bridges are gone..."
"We'll have to swim," I said. My leg ached at the mere thought of returning to the water. "It's pretty far, but there's all these plateaus around for us to rest on..."
Kitana grabbed my arm and pointed. There, in the water, where it was still tinged red with blood - my blood - were the oh-so-cliched fins of sharks.
"Can sharks live in fresh water?" I asked.
"Oh, come on, Ashton. The grass is blue. Sharks swim in fresh water. Go figure!"
I poked her. "You have a sword. Kill them." I didn't much enjoy the idea, but I also didn't want to think about Satan taking over the world. The worlds. Whatever.
"No freaking way." She shuddered. "I'm all burned up right now. No more magic."
"Then how the hell do we get out of here?"
Lightning flashed, thunder boomed. I looked up as rain sprinkled my skin. The storm was upon us.
Then Imarath and Elu and a blonde mage I didn't recognize appeared. "There you are," Imarath said, obviously relieved. "We'll translocate you back to the Tower."
I nodded, but Kitana shook her head and held up the Disk. "What now?" I moaned.
"I'm the only one who can translocate the Disk," she explained. "I can't leave it here."
The blonde woman pointed at the water and spoke a word that crackled with power. Kitana screamed and fell to her knees, hands pressed to her ears, the sword clattering on the ground at her side. Imarath shivered. Elu blinked, then came over to me and slipped his small hand into mine.
A fountain of water shot up, red with blood. Not mine this time. The sharks were dead, killed by the word of power. The word of the unbound.
The five of us jumped into the water. I could barely keep my head up, especially with Elu perched on my back. Imarath supported the half-conscious Kitana, while the blonde mage disappeared, gone back to the Tower, I guess.
We stopped to rest on one of the plateaus. Elu, drenched and shivering, looked straight at Kitana. In a strangely calm voice, he spoke words that I don't think Kitana ever forgot.
"In the end, the creatures of hell with return, Kitana. They will sap your power and leave you as defenseless as a blind prophet. What is the price of magic, Kitana?"
She coughed, raised her hand to her lips. It came away speckled with blood. "The price of magic," she whispered.
"Yes. Great power requires much blood. Do you have enough to save your own life?" He didn't smirk, as I expect I would have, had I been in his place. "The demons will tear the magic from you, and Asjanel will kill you. You know I speak the truth. For even if he does not kill you, he will wrench your life from you."
"That doesn't make any sense," I objected. But Kitana understood. She shivered, coughed, and leaned against Imarath, who drew her close. I watched him stroke her dark hair and suddenly smiled.
She wasn't lost forever. But it wasn't I, or any Earthling, who could save her soul.
Elu patted my hand. "Evil is coming," he murmured. "You are a shapeshifter..."
I became a giant hawk and flew us back to the Tower.
*Meg*
Kit spoke only once when she returned from the plateaus. "Top of the Tower at midnight," she whispered to me, flicking her fingers in my direction. The spell took hold at once, compelling me to obey.
But the magic was different. Once strong, it felt weak, like I could easily shake it off. I didn't.
For the rest of the day, the mages didn't try to fight the demons. They exchanged gossip about what had happened on the plateaus, why Kit had come back looking like she was dead. I eavesdropped on several conversations.
One of the mages, a blonde woman, had been there for a little while. "She banished another demon lord," the mage said.
"You lie, Kakia," someone else said. "Three in two days? She's tapping into her own lifeblood. No way she'll ever recover. No one's dumb enough to do that."
They talked of deposing her in favor of Imarath, who was apparently second strongest in power. I didn't want to listen. I was sick to my stomach. I went up to the roof around seven in the evening and just sat there for five hours straight, watching the demons, thinking. The demons milled around the Tower, looking rather bored, occasionally getting into fights. Fire flashed repeatedly.
At midnight, it hadn't stopped raining. Kit joined me on the roof. We stood there for a few moments, silent.
"What are you going to do?" I whispered. I had a feeling it would involve magic, which I couldn't let her try. It might kill her.
She rested a hand on my shoulder, overrode all those thoughts. "I can't fight the fourth demon lord," she whispered. "I'm calling on the forces of darkness to help me."
"Why darkness?" I asked, through numb lips. "Why not angels?"
She laughed darkly and plucked at her black robes. "They will not serve me," she murmured. "I wear the black robes, do I not? They mark me as evil. I'm not evil, but as long as I wear these..."
"Then don't wear them!" My throat seemed to close up and I coughed, my mouth dry. I could barely speak. "You're a child of God. Wear white."
"Not if I want to be Head Mage, I can't!" She dipped her pale hand into a pocket and withdrew a small silver-blue book. She opened it and almost fell over. I quickly rose to support her as she began to read from the book.
Her words snapped in the air like lightning. I stumbled, almost fell. Unbound magic! My unnatural strength vanished in light of this kind of magic, and I was Manda again - my pathetic Earthling self. Even worse, I could feel the touch on my mind. Someone was trying to spellbind me - again.
Kit finally closed the book and gasped, falling to her knees. I looked out and shielded my eyes from the rain.
Shadows, dark shadows, came shrieking out of the woods and fell upon the demon armies. I watched, my eyes wide.
"The demon lord," Kit gasped. She produced the black Disk and held it out to me. "You have to stop him. I...haven't the strength." She coughed again. I caught the sparkle in her eyes. She was, naturally, acting melodramatic. I got the sudden feeling that she wasn't as helpless as she pretended to be.
I brushed strands of damp hair out of my face and held the Disk. How was I supposed to use the stupid thing? I wasn't a necromancer...
Then, on wings of flame that sputtered in the rain, the fourth demon lord came to us. You know the Balrog in the Lord of the Rings movie? That's sort of what it looked like. It was flying, wings burning even in the rain, lighting up the darkness. It seemed made of fire, but I saw silver eyes that burned with the magic of the unbound. I held up the Disk protectively. I hadn't seen how the Disk worked!
Then the silver markings on the Disk flared into life as the demon lord closed the distance, landed on the Tower. Kit screamed, a terrified sort of shriek, as it passed close to her. It paused, then rested one flaming hand on her shoulder.
She didn't catch fire, but she screamed again and wrenched away. I held the Disk, silver flames shooting up from it, and pointed it at the demon lord as the unbound magic flowed into me. I gritted my teeth as my body struggled to hold all that power without exploding. It took every effort to set the Disk spinning, and then I could barely stand up.
The demon lord looked up from whatever torture he was inflicting on Kit and snarled. In two monstrous strides, he stood before me, the Disk between us.
He stretched out one fiery hand and stroked my cheek. I screamed as the unbound magic in his touch electrocuted me. The demon lord laughed, and kept laughing, even as it vanished in the tornado.
All that unbound magic took its toll as every defense of mine shattered. The power that had been trying to spellbind me succeeded at last. This wasn't at all like what Kit had done. All of me was shoved away, back into that little corner with the lock that Kit had put on me. A rougher, crude lock snapped on, and Asjanel laughed.
I crumpled into a pitiful heap, wanting to cry but unable to because my body wasn't mine. I belonged to Asjanel, and he wanted Kit.
Her shadow-creatures surrounded me then, blacker than the night around us. In a mangled voice that dripped with ice, one of the shadows said, "You would destroy our Master. This may not be."
They grabbed me; I was powerless to resist as they dragged me to the edge. Yes! I thought desperately. Death - the only escape...
Asjanel made me fight, and I got away. I abandoned Kit in the race to save myself - well, in Asjanel's race to save his tool. You'll get her later, he murmured in my mind.
I found a dark, out-of-the-way corner, sat down, and flitted to Earth.
Manda was online; she screamed as I flooded her mind with memories. Luckily, she was home alone. I took over, shoving her off into a little part of our joint mind.
Jared was on. I bullied him into giving me Shannon's phone number; no way I would trust that assassin with the information I had. It was long distance, but so what?
The phone rang four times and was answered. "Hello?"
"May I speak with Shannon?"
"This is me...who's talking?"
"Manda."
"You called long distance? I barely know you, dude."
I finally convinced her that we had alternate personalities on another world, though she only believed me when I mentioned Mary and Allison, who I didn't know on Earth. Then I broke down, sobbing bitterly, and told her exactly who Asjanel was and what he was making me do.
"Whoa." Pause. "Um, what can I do about it?"
"I'll get Shannon - um, the other Shannon - to come back here, like I did. You can tell her what has happened - Asjanel surely won't let me speak of it." I bit my lip. "Well, bye."
"Yeah...bye."
I hung up. For some reason, that click seemed to mark the total destruction of my life as I knew it.