Amelia squinted down the hallway and spoke a warning, “Zombie in a dress! It’s the Queen again!”
She slammed the accelerator pedal down and shifted to a higher gear, full-on intending to run the ancient witch down a third time!
Iris closed her eyes and went back to chanting her name, rank and serial number, while Marta aimed the big gonne!
Just as the Queen expected, Iris struck first, only to hit an unseen bubble of spirit magic. The invisible witch produced another ghostly yelp of pain as the spell exploded outward from the Queen, who grinned, satisfied her new defensive spell would block Iris and her strange gift!
As the war wagon approached, the Queen muttered a carefully-considered spell that started with ‘gravity’ and ‘wagon’, followed by ‘crush’ linked to ‘reverse’. She raised a hand and directed the spell at the wagon, while she started a second spell: ‘gravity’, ‘self’, ‘repel’ and ‘metal’.
The wagon exploded into tiny fragments as an inverted gravity spell drew the metal in all directions, while the Queen’s protective magic left her entirely untouched by the shrapnel! The sisters were not so lucky, as fragments of metal sliced mostly their faces and hands, while the tough fabric of their ship uniforms afforded only minimal protection! Marta received a few scratches before she tolled to a halt, Amelia was hit in the head and knocked cold, while Iris had the worst luck, taking a rather large and sharp chunk of armor to the gut!
Having sensed the magic coming, due to centuries of experience, Bones leaped off the hood just ahead of the explosion, flying right over the Queen’s head, only to land on his feet, behind her.
“Heel.” The Queen commanded.
Bones obeyed, stepping beside the ancient witch.
The Queen gave the groaning sisters an evil glare, pointed at Amelia and commanded, “Kill!”
Bones hesitated and gave the Queen a confused look.
“Kill!” The Queen pointed again.
Marta rose to her feet and growled, “Leave my dog out of this!”
“You’re confused!” The Queen laughed, “I’m his master, not you!”
Marta shook her head, pointed at the Queen and growled, “Kill!”
The Queen pointed at Marta and countered, “Kill her, not me!”
Despite a piece of the war wagon’s armor sticking through her gut, Iris was conscious, because the pain was nothing compared to her withdrawal symptoms. Unnoticed by the others, she dragged herself sideways across the floor, leaving a trail of blood. As a trained healer and doctor, she knew exactly how grave her injury was. Her magic wouldn’t be enough, because several of her organs had been damaged.
She had one hope of survival and it was the spell-core, which most certainly possessed the power to put her back together. She looked from one end of the pile of wreckage to the other and muttered a weak healing spell, in an attempt to keep herself from bleeding out: ‘life’ and ‘heal’, followed by ‘bleeding’ linked to ‘stop’. It made some difference, just enough to buy her a little time. She struggled onward, trying to reach her only hope!
Along the way, she glanced at Amelia, who lay unconscious on the floor from a bleeding head wound. Iris kept her sister’s injuries in mind, planning to encompass her in the same healing spell, if only she could reach the core, though she was beginning to doubt she’d last long enough!
Bones looked back and forth, very confused, because there were two Gods and God was normally in one place at a time. She also never argued with herself and never claimed someone was a friend, followed by telling him to kill them, unless they made the first violent move.
That was very strange and Bones didn’t like it!
He tried to determine which God was the real one, though in-depth philosophical thinking had never been his strongest point. He took a few steps back, hoping a little distance would give him some perspective.
The God on the left smelled wrong, but so did the one on the right. In fact, they smelled exactly the same, almost as if God and some other woman were occupying the same space.
Both of God were screaming for him to kill the other and seemed to be arguing back and forth, not that he could understand much other than their orders to attack. He cocked his head to one side, then the other, but that didn’t help. With sight, sound and smell having failed him, he tried licking the hand of the closest one, which tasted really foul, like rotting meat. Next, he licked the hand of the other and she tasted better, just slightly salty.
All other things being equal, Bones decided the one that tasted normal was the Good God. He turned to face the Bad God and without one bit of warning, leaped to attack!
The Queen looked into an open mouth full of teeth and realized Bones had gotten so confused, he’d chosen Marta over his own master!
The ancient witch took a few steps back and opened her mouth to cast a spell, but Marta smiled and her voice rang through the Queen’s mind, You don’t want to hurt your dog, do you? Bones is the only thing you love!
Marta had a point, but neither could the Queen allow herself to be ripped to shreds!
In the end, she spoke a simple spell as she stepped to the side: ‘blood’, ‘stun’ and ‘dog’, though she held a linking syllable at the end. With a yelp, Bones hit the floor and rolled as the Queen finished the spell by adding ‘sleep’. With that, Bones was down for the count, with a minimum of harm.
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“I’ll kill you for that!” The Queen growled, furious with Marta for having forced her to attack her beloved companion!
Both of them launched into incantations at the same time, each using the same sequence of words, which they rushed through at maximum speed: ‘blood’, ‘kill’ and ‘witch’! The two opposed spells met in the air, differing only by the direction they moved, resulting in magical frequencies that were exactly out of phase!
The air was suddenly full of raw, uncontrolled magic at a level beyond what it could contain. Two surges occurred. The first was a simple spell that rolled the spell-core to the hands of Iris, because her only thought was to reach it. The second latched onto the slumbering imagination of Bones, producing an illusion of his food bowl, with a huge, cooked steak in it, which was tantalizingly just beyond his nose!
Iris was shocked the spell-core had rolled toward her, but she wasn’t about to look a gift horse in the mouth! As she laid a hand on it, a wave of life magic rolled over the sisters, accelerating healing, while Iris used her other hand to pull the metal fragment from her gut, so it could heal!
Next, she grinned evilly and imagined the undead witch burning to ashes!
At the same time, she noticed Marta mumbling quietly, speaking a spell: ‘fire’, ‘scatter’, ‘burn’ and ‘witch’, with a link to ‘limited’ and ‘corpse’!
As the air heated up around the Queen, she glanced at Iris and real terror gripped her mind, because she knew exactly how powerful that spell-core was!
She immediately launched into another incantation, which she spoke as fast as possible: ‘gravity’, ‘mythril’ and ‘away’! The fire spell Iris had started collapsed and failed when the core rolled out of her grip, as if it had been punched!
“I’ve lived for more than a thousand years, child! You won’t kill me so easily!” The Queen growled!
Marta raised her arm and opened her palm with a look of cruelty on her face, producing not just one fiery spell, but hundreds of little ones!
The Queen’s head swiveled from Iris to Marta with horror and she screamed an incantation, but since Marta’s mind was in perfect sync with the Queen, they once again spoke the same incantation: ‘air’, ‘extinguish’ and ‘flame’! Again, the two spells met in the air, canceled each other out and Marta’s fire spell struck the Queen full force, lighting both her dress and body aflame! She went down screaming and rolled to put herself out!
Meanwhile, the raw magic in the air once again reacted to the dream of Bones, enhancing the illusion in front of him, adding an olfactory component to the magic that caused him to stir.
Though Bones had no actual need to eat, he still occasionally enjoyed a snack and God had always been kind to him, giving him the very best cuts of meat, but the steak in front of him surpassed everything he’d ever seen before. It was thicker than average, with exactly the right amount of fat and he could smell just a hint of blood, indicating it was uncooked at the center, which was exactly the way he liked them. It was also the most fragrant steak he could possibly have imagined, as if he’d stolen it straight from the grill. It was perfect in every way!
He reached out and closed his jaws, only to discover it wasn’t real! He instantly went from happy to furious, because he hated illusions! He looked at the fallen Bad God and growled, convinced she was responsible!
The Queen finished putting out the flames, only to look up at Bones, who was growling with menace, while Marta and Amelia stepped closer, the first mumbling another spell, while the latter raised a small, handheld device that appeared to be made of pipes.
Practically crying, the Queen crawled back from Bones, protesting, “First you turn my dog against me, then you steal my ship’s core? What’s next, pulling my teeth?”
“We didn’t ask for this!” Amelia shouted back, “You attacked us! Why don’t you just let us go?”
“I might as well cover myself in tartar sauce, then go swimming in shark infested waters!” The Queen spoke with great sarcasm, “My lieutenants would tear me to shreds, just the same!”
Looking back and forth between her assailants, the Queen began muttering under her breath, careful to keep her lips from moving, starting a relatively complex spell that began with the words ‘space’ and ‘translocate’, while she focused to draw waste magic from the granite of the walls and floor.
“What’s the plan, Amelia?” Marta asked.
Iris suggested, “We should kill her.”
Bones continued to growl, making his vote clear.
Amelia spent a split second for the calculations required to improve her aim, then pulled the trigger of her hand-gonne, firing a lead ball with pinpoint accuracy at the head of the Queen, but it failed to connect, because in that same instant, there was a tremendously bright flash of light!
When the sisters and Bones were finally able to see again, the Queen was gone and Bones howled!
“What a coward.” Iris complained and rose to her feet, then moved to retrieve the spell-core, tightly wrapping her arms around it.
“Let’s get out of here.” Amelia spoke in a weary tone.
“This way.” Marta gestured and her sisters followed.
Within an hour, Amelia stepped into the bridge of the monolith, surprised to see hundreds of dead zombie soldiers. She crouched next to one and examined a hole in its forehead, which she assumed had come from an eerily precise shot from the spring-gonne she’d left behind.
The zombies appeared to have swarmed the room an attempt to retake it.
“What happened here?” Iris asked, as she put down the spell-core long enough for she and Marta to shut the cargo bay’s hatch.
Amelia grinned, “Our rats seem to have made good use of the toy I left them.”
She stepped over to the abandoned spring-gonne and opened the hopper that held the lead balls, not at all surprised it was almost empty, with only five shots left. She unhooked the steam engine and Marta picked up the gonne, while Iris climbed the ladder into the ship. They handed things up to her, then joined her inside.
Bones jumped in after Marta and Amelia asked, “Are we taking him with us?”
“Yes.” Marta spoke in a tone that left no room for argument, then took care of sealing the door, while Amelia picked up their new and improved spell-core, deciding it weighed one-hundred-thirty-five pounds.
Shivering, Iris stepped into the witchpit, only to shout, “We’ve got no water in the tanks!”
“I’m still eager to get out of here!” Amelia shouted back, “With our new spell-core, we should be able to use a gravitic thrust spell the whole way!”
She stepped into the workshop, where The Book of Newts was still glowing to maintain the atmospheric seal spell, grateful it had done such an excellent job.
She reached the spell-core room, lined the threaded end up on the hole in the wall, then screwed it in. An instant later, the air of the ship was refreshed and ever trace of zombie rot was gone.
“Ah, so much better,” she enthused, then laid a hand on the core and used it to place a perpetual artificial gravity spell, before she shouted, “Ready for launch, ladies?”
“Yeah!” Iris shouted back, while Marta strapped herself into the acceleration couch that had been moved from the entry bay to crew quarters for their last delivery, which seemed like a lifetime ago. Bones sat beside her, almost as if he knew what was coming.
Stepping back into the workshop, Amelia looked at The Book and declared, “Thank you for helping us. Please stop on my mark.”
There was a sense of weary and reluctant acceptance in the back of Amelia’s mind, which she took as agreement to her request.
Amelia returned to the spell-core, sat down beside it with a hand resting on it and called out, “Launching in three…two…one…mark!”
When the spell gracing the masts of Starwitch suddenly ceased, the vessel shot from the bridge of Foundation Stone like a cork from a shaken bottle of champagne, propelled by the force of the bigger ship’s internal atmosphere!
Mere seconds later, it rocketed away, propelled by an invisible gravity-manipulation spell. Within a few minutes, the masts were retracted one at a time, because the ship didn’t need them for the time being.
