From his astral vantage point, Kamahl could see Laquatas standing on the path, his arms raised over his head, his muscles taut and trembling as he struggled with the levitation spell. Then, lowering one hand to his belt, the mer pulled out his dagger, cocked his arm back and launched the blade, end over end, at the suspended barbarian.
Racing back just ahead of the dagger, Kamahl reentered his body and immediately swung his legs to the side, twisting to move his body out of the path of the tumbling blade. But he was too late. The dagger sunk into his shoulder blade, sending a searing pain down the length of his arm and making Kamahl lose his grip on the sword.
Calling vines from the trees, Kamahl wrapped four of them around the hilt of the sword to anchor it above the ground and out of the mer's reach. He then back flipped off the vines, landing on the path opposite Laquatas. Both mages looked up at the glittering orb hanging in mid air at the base of the huge silvery sword, and both reached out for it with their hands and their magic.
Kamahl willed the vines to move the sword toward him but met resistance as Laquatas obviously used his own power to pull the sword away.
"You have made your last mistake, barbarian," yelled Laquatas through clenched teeth. "I am the stronger mage. We both know that. Your physical strength can't help you now, and you cannot beat me with magic alone."
But even as Laquatas finished taunting him, Kamahl could see that he was winning the mental tug-of-war. The sword was inching its way slowly but surely toward the barbarian.
"No! It cannot be!" screamed Laquatas as two more vines shot out from the trees behind Kamahl, twining around the blade and pulling it even faster away from the mer.
Out of the comer of his eye, Kamahl saw movement beneath the sword, and Balthor's battle-axe flashed up into the air slicing through the vines that dragged the sword to Kamahl.
The barbarian nearly fell over backward from the release of tension on his vines but recovered in time to see the sword hurtling toward Laquatas, still trailing two vines. Kamahl tried to pull the sword up into the air by those vines, but the axe slashed in again and cut the sword completely loose.
Kamahl rushed at Laquatas but couldn't outrun the sword. Reaching over his shoulder as he ran, he pulled the mer's dagger out of his back and snapped it forward. The dagger and the sword reached the mer at the same time, and the dagger imbedded into the back of the mer's arm, plunging right through his wrist.
Laquatas screamed, and blood streamed down his arm. Kamahl could see him grasp at the sword, but it seemed his fingers wouldn't close over the pommel with the dagger sticking through his wrist. Instead, the mer plucked the sword out of the air with his left hand and pointed it at the barbarian just as Kamahl reached him.
Unable to slow his charge, Kamahl barreled into the mer wizard, driving the sword through the soft flesh below his own ribs as he and Laquatas tumbled to the ground. Kamahl lay there, hardly able to breathe, pinning the mer mage to the ground with the weight of his body, but pinned himself upon the blade of his own sword.
"I have the sword," groaned Laquatas, twisting the blade inside Kamahl to prove his point. "I win."
"I no longer need the sword," said Kamahl, as he pushed himself up off the mer, the sword slicing back through his abdomen as he moved.
Laquatas twisted the blade again, but Kamahl grabbed the mer's wrist to hold it steady. Then, with but a thought, the barbarian encased his forearm in nantuko armor and slashed his serrated limb down through the wizard's scaly arm, severing it at the elbow and freeing the sword from the mer's grasp.
Kamahl rose to his feet, staggered back as he pulled the blade out of his body, and called vines down to bind his wounds and stop the flow of blood that poured onto the ground from his gut.
Laquatas lay at his feet in a pool of mer and barbarian blood, his arms folded across his chest to staunch the bleeding.
"No more tricks left up your sleeve, Laquatas?" Kamahl asked. "No other lives left for you to destroy in your mad pursuit of power?"
Laquatus looked up at the barbarian, and a smile spread across his pale, grimacing face. "Only one that I can think of," he replied.
"I think you've squandered your last chance to destroy me," said Kamahl.
"Not you barbarian," said the mer, "your sister. Kill me, and Jeska dies. Do you really think I committed all of my forces to this one battle? I have a platoon of marines waiting in the caverns beneath Seton's hut. If I do not contact them, they will enter the hut and kill everyone inside."
Kamahl snorted, smiled, and then laughed out loud at the mer.
"Do you think I am bluffing?" asked Laquatas. "I assure you I am telling the truth."
"That would be a first," said Kamahl. "But it doesn't matter."
"What do you mean?"
Kamahl shook his head. "You still haven't learned a thing have you Laquatas?" he asked. "Not about me. Not about the Mirari. Not even about yourself. But I have learned a few things while chasing after this foul orb. Do you want to know the most important lesson I have learned?"
"Not especially."
Kamahl ignored the mer's sarcasm. "It's as simple as this," he said. "Everything dies, and we cannot do anything to stop that. The trees, the animals, Balthor, Chainer, Jeska, Seton, me. Everything. And, whether you are bluffing or not, I know one thing for certain. Today it is your turn to die."
With that, Kamahl flipped his sword over, grabbed the pommel in both hands just below the Mirari, and slammed the blade down through Laquatas's chest, shattering the mer's ribs, shredding his heart, and driving the silvery-blue wizard's spine down into the dirt, embedding the blade and his body in the ground. As Kamahl released the sword, the Mirari flashed, turning the forest around the barbarian bright white and tossing him into the trees across the path.
When Kamahl opened his eyes a few moments later, he was amazed to see he was now surrounded by new bushes and flowers. Sitting up, the barbarian watched as a wave of growth expanded out from the Mirari. Existing trees sprouted new limbs and grew higher into the sky. Flowers sprang up all around and bloomed in seconds. The path around him became overgrown as bushes and trees erupted from the earth. Looking around, Kamahl watched as the wave expanded out as far as he could see.
It didn't seem to be a destructive force like those unleashed by Kirtar, Aboshan, and Chainer, but Kamahl knew this was the work of the Mirari-the Mirari guided by his hand, he corrected himself.
Crossing over to where he'd left Laquatas, Kamahl found nothing but a small hill covered in flowers, with a shining orb half-embedded in the ground just visible amongst the colored petals. Turning around, Kamahl couldn't find any trace of Balthor or the marines. The new growth had enveloped them all, turning their deaths into new life. He wondered what the wave had done to Jeska and Seton, wondered whether they were all right, wondered if Laquatas had actually been telling the truth for once. But it didn't matter now. Later perhaps, but not now.
Kamahl looked down again at the Mirari, knowing full well that his sword lay underneath the hillock. "I've finally buried you," he said. "And I've left my old life behind me. I don't need or want either of you anymore. It's time to write a new chapter. It's time I got back to my training."
Walking back toward the heart of Krosan, Kamahl didn't know what he would find when he got there, but he was finally ready to accept whatever destiny the forest held in store for him.