Existentially Bound: Part 12
Accord
Kievaa hummed a soft melody as a force-field flickered into existence in front of her, erected just before the arrival of the two expected guests. The portal above the cell swirled a spiraling exit, depositing Paige and Ember into the cell with a thud in a pile of arms and legs, interchanged. Both women felt nauseous and sick from having themselves scattered and reconstituted over the vast distance.Paige unwrapped herself from Emily, groaning. "You okay?"
Emily's brow furrowed in angst. "What are you doing here? The plan was for you to stay! We were going to…"
"I know what you were going to do! And, I can choose to! I can choose not to let you do it! We can figure out a way; we can… we can Ember it!" Paige said as she stood, offering the woman her hand. "Together."
Emily's eyes rolled, taking the hand and the opportunity to familiarize herself with their surroundings. "Oh not again!" she exclaimed exasperatedly at the electrical wall in front of them. Above, an aperture closed over the asuran roof-mounted portal.
"What is it with asura and force-fields?" Valandra barked.
Kievaa let out a slight chuckle. She sat some distance away, her feet upon a desk with various gadgets upon it, most encircling the sword of ice, which levitated above a circular platform. The asura purposefully paid more attention to a glass of green bubbling liquid in which she sipped than the arrival of the two.
"You!" Ember screamed, ramming into the force-field before Valandra could warn against it. At once, the force-field wobbled, jolting the woman across the small room into the wall behind her.
Valandra pulled their person up. "Are you okay?" she whispered.
"Ugh. Stupid skritt."
Kievaa took another sip. "Me, stupid? You say this right after you do such an imbecilic thing! Have you not learned by now? Oh, I had simply forgotten just how dim-witted you were!" She said, followed by a cackle at her own joke.
"Easy to laugh when you're cowering behind a force-field!" Paige said, already eyeing the perimeter of the arch, looking for emitters, panels, wiring or consoles.
"Oh you won't find any of that," the asura said, standing and stretching as if she'd just awoken. In her own time, she strolled over to the cage. "You see, this airship is equipped with its own emitters! Courtesy of my partner, of course!"
"Airship? We're on an airship?" Emily said looking beyond the red energy barrier.
Paige spat. "And just where is your 'partner'? I'd like to… greet our host."
Kievaa blinked for a moment, then burst into laughter, practically rolling on the floor. "Oh! That's rich! I knew you were a talker, but did not know you were such a comedian, Poofy-haired Bookah! I thought nobles were persuasive!"
"We're not here for this… banter! Lower this and we'll show you just how persuasive we can be!" Emily said, as close to the field as she could get, staring eyes of frost at the little being.
Kievaa wiped a tear from her eye, then came to stand close to the other side of the portal as she could, staring directly back at Emily, in a mocking posture. "And you'll what? Let me guess: Roast me? Burn me to a crisp? (Insert dim-witted insult here!) Or maybe you'll just-"
Emily squinted as the ice queen's frosty breath crackled against the force-field. "We'll freeze you to death, shatter you, scatter your shards in a storm and electrify them where they land!"
A smirk flashed over Kievaa's face. "Ah, there you are… Ice Bookah! I was wondering if you were going to confirm my suspicions. Didn't take much; despite your cool, calculating exterior, you are very much the same as your primal counterpart." Kievaa turned, hobbled back to the desk.
"Let me out and I'll show you just how… feral I can be!" hissed Valandra, but the last words were fused with Ember's own voice.
Kievaa's black ears perked up as she spun around, holding Valandra's vessel, wiggling it. "And that would explain what you couldn't be summoned with this. Once again, the genius of my hypothesis has proven true: She is bound to you!"
Emily growled, pulled her sword of fire, ran it along the edge of the energy barrier. The sword flickered a few times, struggling to stay lit. She glanced down, tried not to let Kievaa see her acknowledge the strangeness.
The ever-observant asura did, however. She hobbled over, bent down to examine the flame sword, obviously confident in the force-field. "Peculiar indeed. So you're bound, but you are not one?" She stood upright, stroking her chin a moment.
"Let us out and we'll show you. Lower the force-field; let Paige go. It's us you seem so fascinated in anyway!"
Kievaa chuckled. "Oh no; the Death Bookah is just as important as you both are to this! (Whether she realizes it or not!)" The asura glanced to Paige, her brow raised. "Do you realize it? Do you even know where you are?" she asked mockingly.
A masking chuckle came from the asura, but it was obvious the insult landed where Paige had meant it. "Isn't she the intellectual?"
The mocha woman grinned. "Oh I am, indeed. I know that this cell doesn't use the ship's main engines to power it. After all, that would lead to cascade failures which would undoubtedly be the downfall of the entire airship. Thus, the power cell should be located close to the parameters. Batteries, as it were-"
"Would you stop it with the damned ship, already! You're infuriating! You want to talk batteries? Let's talk about these batteries!" Kievaa exclaimed in frustration, producing a small cylinder from her side pouch. A blue and purple swirl of magic could be seen within, swirling and intermixing, before separating and repeating.
"That's… That's…"
Emily deadpanned. "That's the vial. The… energy she was pulling from Demitra and…"
Valandra finished the sentence, "me."
Kievaa would have applauded if she had free hands to do so. "It's about damned time you two settled down!"
Paige was transfixed on the battery: a link to her past… a link to Demitra… "Wha- what are you going to do with that?"
"These!" Kievaa excitedly corrected, pulling another cylinder from her pouch, containing the same essence. She sat the sword of ice on the floor in front of Emily, one battery next to it, the other battery directly in front of Paige, then stood between them with an impish grin. "What I am going to do depends on what your answer is. My question is this: Do you wish to save your loved ones?"
"Like you care!" Emily spat.
Kievaa grinned wildly. "Remember: We care!"
Paige rubbed her temples, tired of the mind games. "What kind of question is that? Of course we're here to save our loved ones! I know you're dying to tell us, so just get to it."
"None of us are laughing here, you little shit. Stop trying to manipulate us!"
"Manipu- You have no idea what I've been through to get you here! You think I care about Lennk's motivation and proclamation that his precious Six Alpha is the ultimate warrior? (All he ever does is prattle on about his precious Six!) She's his experiment; not mine. But, it was a means to an end; as has been our business arrangement." The vile asura paused for a minute thinking of the actual transaction with an dreamy absent grin, but the thought was not welcomed and she shook her head free of it. "My experiment, however, was taken from me by the lot of you. It was only supposed to attack you all and lead you all here from the floating-"
"Yeah, we found her and your damned beacon. Not to mention-" Valandra took Ember's voice, "the desecrated vessels of my people!"
"Oh calm down, Ice Bookah! I didn't do that; all those pots and lanterns were broken before I arrived! I set the beacon there to pull my escaped Number to that empty place, knowing you lot would undoubtedly seek assistance there. Which does make me wonder who…" The asura brought a clawed hand to scratch her head a moment her thoughts drifting.
Paige folded her arms. "So what? You want her back now? An exchange to save our loved one; You want Shiera… for Six?"
Kievaa suddenly laughed. "Shier- Ha! You mean my Sixteen Omega? Hardly! That project should have been terminated long ago. (In fact, it was! Several times, actually!) No, what I want is…" A sudden serious look took the dark grey and black asura's face, her yellowish-green eyes turned and locked onto Ember. "Her."
Ember blinked, confusedly. "You want me… for Six?"
Valandra let out a sigh. "She means me."
"What? No! No way in hell! You are a part of me!" Ember said, clenching her fists. "That's not going to happen!"
The ice queen remained silent for a moment, then spoke softly to Ember's ears only. "What am I? I am within you, but all I am is strife to you. I cause you more internal turmoil than if you were alone. We mused of fusing together, but, would that not destroy your individuality?"
"Like hell you do! You complete me! We were always meant to be like this!" Ember barked aloud.
"She's right," Paige said, folding her arms. "I'm not about to trade one life for another. It's not even on the table for discussion; not even a consideration."
Emily stared with a dumbfounded expression at the defiance of her friend, a sudden flush filling her at the sight. Paige had been distant (or rather, Emily, herself had been distant) after their merger, and while Ember knew Paige's resolve was strong for her, she'd secretly believed Paige's resolve to find Six outweighed her. To conflate this, Valandra thought the same: she and Paige hadn't seen eye-to-eye, and even though respect had been starting to bridge the gap between them, she had been relatively certain until this moment that Paige would have chosen Six over her own well-being. Thus the combination of the women, Emily, stood staring, her mouth agape. She finally managed to utter, "Paige?"
Paige caught the look, slightly grinned with a wink. "You're welcome, dear sister."
The asura rolled her eyes. "You damned bookahs! Don't you see? That's exactly what it always is about though: One life for another! That's what this is all about! That's what you're here for! That's what you're 'Shiera' is about!" Kievaa yelled, clomped around angrily, fuming as she ranted.
The mocha woman winked at Emily again, this time to indicate that the reaction was just as she wanted: Make the asura talk, devise a way out. Valandra smiled back at her clever half-sister.
"Not quite! This is about your wounded pride at missing a mark. You failed at your manipulative attempt to trade Six for Valandra, just like you failed with Shiera! She's ours now… they both are! They're part of my family, and I will do everything in my power to protect them!"
Kievaa spun around, slamming her foot as loudly as her small body allowed to express her utter discontent. "Do you even understand my Number's purpose?"
Paige nodded. "You weaponized them. It's hardly a challenge to figure out their purpose. And, here I thought you were supposed to be smart?" The woman returned the insult, trying to get under their captor's skin.
"Ha! Not in the slightest! I don't care about making the perfect soldier for world domination! Lennk is a fool! (Passionate lover as he may be!)"
Both Emily and Paige shivered at the disgusting thought.
Kievaa took in a deep breath, appearing to try to settle her own nerves. "My experiment on that corpse of a bookah proved I could pull them back. I mean, it may have cost a few injuries to my old Krewe, but it worked! My amazing intellect had unlocked the method to harness very spirits from the mists!" Her long fingers reached forward and grasped at nothing to mime her description. "But see? All I needed was a way to keep it integrated!"
"The husks?" Emily shook her head with a repulsed expression.
"Yes," Kievaa hissed. "A temporary measure… Or what would have been had the damn lich not died before he could ever explain! And then you! You damned Ice Bookah… You went and poofed before showing me the secrets which your body possessed!"
Ember blinked, trying to understand. "You think she really had the secret to awakening?"
Kievaa rolled her eyes. "Her body was touched by Joko. His magics saved her! And I want that secret! I need that secret!" She shook her fist at Emily.
Paige tilted her head to one side, analyzing the small woman, following the patterns and solving the puzzled. "So you wish to bring someone back? This evilness does not beget cooperation though. I don't care how noble of a cause it is. What you have done… What you have put my family through, us through, Six through, and Demitra through-"
Emily stabbed the fire sword into the shield causing a fizzle and crackle which brought all eyes to her. "What did you do to Demitra?" she said gritting her teeth.
A large dastardly grin came to the asura's face. "Well, you see… She is my contingency incentive, as it were!"
Emily's face grew pale, as did Paige's. "What?" they uttered simultaneously.
Kievaa took a step closer to the projected containment field. "Contingency incentive," she said slowly, enunciating in a mocking tone.
Ember asked her other half to explain. Valandra, however, wasn't exactly sure what the vile creature meant.
"Do I really have to explain everything? I surmised this would be your reaction to the exchange of the ice one for Lennk's precious," she said using air quotes. "You want Six Alpha but are unwilling to give me what I want in exchange? Yes? Such is the reason my contingency incentive exists; one which would ensure that I get what I want! Well then, I also offer you her." Kievaa stepped back, almost in a courtesy as if it were the final act of a play. When there were no audible gasps, no applauds and no words, she grew angry. "Demitra!" she blurted.
Paige and Emily were frozen, both sharing the same dramatic expression, traumatized at the suggestion. Neither had expected such an offer; neither wanted to acknowledge the possibility, yet both secretly hoped.
A slight shriek came from Paige as Emily slapped her sword against the barrier. Her eyes flashed at the asura with the wintery mix of a storm that could be felt through the force field. "Prove she's okay," the woman said through her teeth.
Paige roused herself, "Emily… no! I won't trade you or anyone for another; not even… Demi. Some costs are just too high!"
Valandra's voice weighed in. "And what would you do with me when this task has been completed? Am I to be your slave? Like I was to you before? Like I was to Joko?"
Kievaa let out a belting laugh. "Slave? Hardly! I can make many of those: you've seen my little garden. No… I want what you have, locked within you. Lennk is convinced he's going to experiment on you; take your powers to imbue his precious Six Alpha with. (As I said, his ambitions are… unfounded.) Make no mistake, Ice Bookah, I do not care for you. I never have. You welched on our deal and while exacting revenge on you through your lack of freedom would be… (Oh so sweet!) I am very close to my ultimate desire. I could care less what comes of your fate. Go back into your vessel forever, for all I care."
"Emily… Valandra, Ember… this isn't what we want. Don't do this. You know she's not to be trusted!"
"Shut up, Paige. She has my wife!" Ember spat, annoyed at the interruption to the internal conversation happening in her head.
"Then that's a yes? We have an accord?" Kievaa grinned wickedly.
"For Demitra and for their friend Six, yes. Agreed," Valandra said.
"Valandra no!" Paige gasped.
"Trust me," Ember said. "We can do this… We can save her."
"You're… You're asking me to trust you, fine… But her?" Paige waved a hand at their captor.
"If there's a chance to bring her back and save Six, then we should try. I'm asking you to trust me… us."
"Oh, well that is all well and good, but you see, it's not entirely just your consent I need." Kievaa spun, taking a few steps toward Paige. "You must be compliant and agree as well. (After all, it's the only way the ritual will work!)"
Paige's eyes narrowed at the asura. "What ritual?"
Kievaa smiled from ear to ear, bearing her shark-like teeth, hardly able to contain her giddiness at the statement. "Why… You're going to be bound, Death Bookah!""I what?" Paige was startled.
Kievaa sighed purposefully loud. "You know, you bookah really are fortunate I am so proficient at explanation, because you two seem to need a lot of it! You wish to get her back, yes? That is the agreement. In order to do that, you have to go in and get her!"
"What do you mean go in?" Ember asked, cocking her head to the side.
"Into the Djinn Realm, of course! She's not in her vessel anymore, right? I surmised as such since you're not vigorously rubbing the things!" Kievaa cackled.
Paige downed her head, cradling the bracers. "I… tried. We did everything we could do to…"
"Everything but elect my genius! I have had time to study the Djinn magical essence within the batteries. While it seems the raw magics cannot be utilized by mortals, it most definitely can be used to bind those the Djinn have already deemed… 'worthy' of being Djinn. (Apparently, they are a picky lot! And they don't choose very wisely, if they chose you two, but I digress!)"
Paige took in a deep breath, chewing on the bitter pill of the offer. It meant throwing away her heritage, her ancestry, abandoning her father, and potentially giving up her humanity. She looked up to see the green and yellow eyes of Kievaa staring up at her with a large grin on her face.
"That's right. Now you're getting it: You want to save Demitra, then Six and agree to give me what I want from Valandra? Then you, Paige Dejarin, will become-"
"A Djinn," she whispered.
"No, Paige… You can't! We… We'll go!" Emily implored.
A scowl and sharp glance was shot to the woman. "No! It must be both, or the accord is broken."
Paige looked at both Ember and through her eyes, Valandra. "I don't trust her one bit, but I'm trusting you. You're stronger than me, and I trust you both."
Emily nodded, though Valandra's voice spoke. "Despite our… icy start… I believe in you, Lady Paige Dejarin."
Ember groaned at the pun, but smiled back confidently. "You're much stronger than you think, my friend. We are getting her back," she winked.
"Alchemist's gas! This is so damned mind-numbingly sappy! It's not as though you're both dying! Just give me your damn vessels so I won't have to witness this sickening display of affection any longer!" Kievaa stuck her tongue out to mime the disgust.
Emily stared at Paige then nodded slowly as she relinquished her sword of fire, Ember's vessel. Paige did much the same, handing over her own vessel, her torch of green flame. Kievaa accepted them both with gusto, trotting over to the battery in front of Paige and placing the woman's vessel under it. She then laid the flame sword crisscrossed over Valandra's ice sword, sitting the battery on top of the pile.
"Each Djinn has a vessel which is unique to them. Artifacts, vessels, weapons, pottery, lanterns, even other people… (You get the idea!)" She offered as she drew symbols on the ground encircling each of the two stacks. "And each vessel contains a portal to the place they originally manifest: The Djinn Realm. That's where she is. And that's where you'll be going to retrieve your precious Demitra-bookah." She paused a moment, inspecting the carefully inscribed sigils before nodding. "Just remember our deal, Fire Bookah; you get her and Six Alpha. I get Valandra."
Even though Ember was reluctant to do so, Valandra nodded their head.
Kievaa waved her hands between the two circles, which obeyed her command, suddenly sparked to life in an otherworldly blue flame. A soft chant grew to a deafening shrill incantation, enhancing the vividness of the two circles. Both exploded forming cylinders of light almost too bright to look at, yet in their centers, the stack of artifacts and batteries glowed vividly. Kievaa stopped her air-sigil drawing, continued chanting as she pulled out a pad, pressed a button upon it. A red electricity suddenly shot into both columns from unseen emitters of the ship, which seemed to dim and rock at the power drain. The lightning penetrated the columns, found their way to each battery, and struck them. Both shone a brilliant purple and blue light, until finally exploding in a swirling smoke of the same color, held within the columns, humming with power.
Paige's vessel, the artifact given to her by the Djinn, was lifted by the smoke to the center of her column, where the clouds encircled it, spinning the torch as it interacted with the weapon. The clouds of azure and purple slowly faded, replaced with that of black and jade, as though the result of an unknown fundamental change of energy. Suddenly, the column of light exploded, the smoke rushed outward, through the force-field and into the puffy-haired woman. It filled the woman's mouth, nostrils, ears and other orifices, lifting her forcefully into the air. Her mind raced as she convulsed at the violation, fought the unpleasantness with every fiber of her being. Until a scream promptly tore its way through her lungs and past her lips from her very soul.
The cry of agony pierced Emily's confidence. She took a step toward Paige, only to find her own column suddenly burst in an explosion of smoke, which quickly shot through the force-field, entering her body as Paige's had. She struggled against the sensation, struggled to make it to her friend, but found herself frozen by the overwhelming pain rushing into her. It was a rush of heat and cold, intermixing, then exploding in a storm of fire and ice; both Valandra and Ember screamed.
Paige's own scream suddenly turned to a gargled muffle as the smoke solidified, forming a viscus thick obsidian plasma. She convulsed, collapsed to the ground, scratching at her throat trying in a desperate attempt to breathe. Her hazel eyes turned to Ember as they filled with tears, then the blackness of the bile within.
Ember looked to Paige, the expression on her face a look of sorrowful apology through the torment. Lightning broke the moment however, striking directly down the woman's being from the top of her head to the bottom of her center. The electricity rapidly spread throughout, melting the ice within, filling her orifices with water. She toppled over, coughing, and gagging, drowning from within as her lungs filled and she struggled to breathe.
Both women took their last breath then collapsed, as did their respective vessels and batteries which clanked upon the floor, now consumed and empty. Kievaa pressed a button, lowered the force-field and took a step toward both bodies which lay dormant in a dead stillness. She tilted her head, bent down to inspect Paige's body closer with an eyebrow raised. A few touches on her pad confirmed her calculations, yet touching the mocha woman's lifeless cold cheek made Kievaa doubt herself… but only for a fleeting moment.
Paige's body suddenly burst into the same green and black smoke that had filled her corporal form. It promptly traveled to the woman's vessel and poured itself into the torch.
Kievaa grinned, satisfied her calculations were correct. She spun on her heel to observe Emily's body doing much of the same: it erupted into an outpouring of a red and blue intermixing purple haze, which traveled to the swords, hovered above them for a minute. The asura's grin turned into a malicious smile of excitement at her plan coming to fruition and she couldn't help but stand and giggle. "Now you both go back where you belong," she said watching the event.
The purple cloud of smoke rapidly pulled itself apart, into a blue and white wintery mass that sucked itself into the fire sword, and a red and black mass of heat pouring into the ice vessel.
Kievaa's smile was suddenly wiped, replaced with a scowl of extreme annoyance and frustrated confusion, clearly not the result the vile asura had planned.
[To Be Continued...]
