“Succumbing to intimidation is weakness. Showing and reacting to fear are signs of doubt. Believe in Prima with the same fervor you would if you prayed for Ilumni’s help,” Damal commanded.
Ancel sighed. Regardless of how many times he tried, he found it difficult to apply the concepts. Belief in a god was one thing. Belief that the essences were his to command despite how they fought him was another. After witnessing what they could do, his fear was warranted. How could he forget he faced an Eztezian, a myth, a legend, here before him? Even though not of flesh and blood, Damal was no less real.
Sweat trickled down his brow as Ancel raised his sword once more. His last helping of kinai had been hours before, and both his legs and arms were beginning to feel like massive logs. Striated with both air and water essences, a transparent dome spread above and around them. The shield absorbed the impact of his body whenever he failed to block Damal’s Forgings. Its edges cushioned him as it bent, but never broke. The metallic taste of blood filled his mouth. He refused to wipe at where it crawled from the corner of his lip and down into his bushy beard.
The beard reminded him yet again of how long he must have been inside the Entosis. At least three weeks by his count, but the growth said it had to be more.
He was still thinking when a soft whine made him glance up. A shaft of heat and light made solid by use of air slammed into his chest. The impact blew him backward. He flew at least twenty feet before he crashed into the barrier that this time wasn’t so forgiving.
Spots dancing before his eyes, he crawled to his feet. His head throbbed. Someone was speaking. Or at least he thought he heard words mixed in with the ringing in his head. His vision of Damal split into a dozen parts before becoming one again. A lopsided grin split its features, but its eyes weren’t smiling.
Enraged, Ancel charged Damal, sword out before him. He pulled on whatever essences he could, flinging Forgings at the sentient. All the skills he’d learned.
He sent fire blazing in a trail across the ground, leaving a swath of blackened grass in its wake. At the same time, he cast several balls of flame in a curving arc from the right and left. He connected with the skies above, finding particles of energy there, drawing on them to form lightning. Using the sun’s beams, he also whipped forth a spear of heat and light to strike at an angle above the blaze speeding toward Damal.
A single strike of lightning tore from the sky. The fire wave, the balls, and the spear struck at the same time. They dissipated before they hit Damal, not even leaving a concussion.
The sentient grinned even more broadly. “I told you such petty Forges will not work on one such as I.” He flung a hand out.
Ancel felt as if the hand snatched him and tossed him sideways. He tried to turn to soften his fall, or at least roll, but he landed in a heap. Pain shot up his side and arm.
“You are weak, boy. You will stop no one in your current state. Pitiful.”
Ancel’s ribs throbbed and his arm hung limp as he struggled up onto his feet. He would not give in. Even if he had to fight to his death. Attempting to will the hurt away, he drew in ragged breaths. This time, he approached Damal carefully, one slow step at a time, grimacing as pain lanced up his side. Ancel gauged the distance between them, searching for any revealing movement or shift in the essences to signify an attack. The sentient simply watched him with a bemused expression.
The self-satisfied smile irked Ancel more than his failure. Steeling himself, he brought his sword down and dashed in. When he drew on the essences, he used them to strengthen his blade and lend him speed. Sword in one hand, he struck with a series of attacks, using primarily the Streams, feeding his annoyance into the Stances.
He swept from slices to stabs, kicks and lunges, faster and faster, more random with each strike. The jarring impact of his relatively tiny sword against Damal’s oversized weapon vibrated through his arms. Not once did Damal move his feet, but he parried each blow. The sentient was so large that all it needed to do was slightly shift its weapon. Ancel growled under his breath at the apparent ease with which Damal defended.
Reinforcing his arms with the strength of earth, Ancel swung harder. With the Streams, he moved faster. In his mind’s eye, he was a blur of movement.
Yet none of it mattered.
One sweep of its other hand, and Damal sent him soaring back into the barrier once more. He landed hard, rolling through dirt and grass, shearing skin from his forearm. Unable to move, he lay there, panting. Numerous aches and burns scoured his body. Exhaustion threatened to overwhelm him.
“I hope there are none you hold dear … a sister, a brother, a lover, a mother, a father … If there are, consider them dead. To stand against the Skadwaz, the shade, or any creature from beyond the Kassite is a fool’s dream for you. You may as well give up. Admit failure in this test.”
A piece of Ancel broke. Despair coiled inside him, threatening to choke him He’d wanted to become stronger to save his mother if she was still alive. Now, his father might also need his aid. With the chance in front of him here, all he’d managed was failure after failure. To add to it all, he’d finally reconciled with Irmina, only to have that snatched from him. And what of his people? Where were they now? Captured and imprisoned by the Tribunal? Or dead at the hands of a shadeling? On and on, voices and thoughts warred in his head.
A memory whispered in the back of his mind to seek the Eye. He did. Its confines did little to quench his heated emotions. A pull beyond its edges drew him. It was as if a light shone in the distance, beckoning him. Within all his fears lay something else.
It allowed him to stand after falling. Each time he thought he had no more, he’d found another reserve. He allowed his mind, body, and soul to drift to that light. When he touched it, he immediately recognized its caress.
His will. A simple refusal to lose.
Instead of picking out each individual feeling as they surged within him, Ancel took his will and with it, he thrust all his passion, fury, despair, all his aggression into the Streams represented by the Etchings on his arm and chest.
Damal would learn not to take him lightly.
Ancel no longer cared how long it took. He would be with Irmina again. He would save his father from imprisonment. He would help fulfill his father’s wish in bringing their people back together in Seti. He would find the black-armored man and defeat him. He would free Mother.
And I will pass this test.
“Light to balance shade. Light to show honor. Honor to show mercy,” he whispered.
Essences flooded him. He surrendered to them. White flashed through his vision. Light blinded him. Heat wilted his body. He screamed, expelling all that he was into the Etchings.
He felt more than he saw the being that burst forth. In an incandescent haze, it shot up into the air, taller, bigger, and more powerful than Damal. The construct was featureless, made of a blinding glow that made Ancel shield his eyes for a moment. As the light dimmed, it grew into the image of a stern-faced man wielding a sword of pure energy. From what he felt, Ancel knew he’d called forth a sentient.
The old voices of power stopped their gibbering even inside the Eye. He felt a connection between them and the essences he now held. The Entosis’ Mater uttered two words to them. They were tinged with scorn.
“Be gone.”
The malignant voices fled.
With eyes like sunlight, his sentient brought its attention to bear on Damal. The Eztezian gasped, and then bowed.
Chest heaving, Ancel could only stare. A noise next to him turned out to be Ryne, his expression one of awe.
“Your Prima construct,” Ryne intoned, “is one of Ilumni’s Battleguards. Praise Ilumni.” Reverence filled his voice.
Ancel’s gaze was riveted on the Battleguard. Somehow, he found his voice. “But-but they aren’t real. They’re stories.” Stories to make men have something to believe in, to push faith. “Aren’t they?”