Dream of a Vast Blue Cavern

Chapter 18: A Vast Blue Cavern: Stasia & Dynat

 Lianda's face surfaced again, golden eyes glowing with pain, and they both cried, "Mother!"

 Confusion tore through their minds. In the ice cave, Dynat stood and stepped toward Stasia. Stasia drew cold from the ice, preparing to defend herself.

 The Fire Spirit flared, and suddenly they were all Dreaming.

 The ice cave grew vast, swallowed the howling monster, burst into color. A bright, yellow light shone from a vast blue ceiling. The cavern went on and on. Dynat thought that he could walk for days before touching a wall.

 V'lturhst, Stasia thought.

 Yesssss, the Fire Spirit hissed. And then?

 The floor of the cavern was bare and dusty, the air hot. Stasia and Dynat were marched across it in high speed, racing over the dust without stirring it, the light on the ceiling running up and down the cavern walls, traveling across the apex of the ceiling. The dust under their feet turned green, with a texture like coarse fur.  The fur grew tall like hair, and huge piles of rock and ice loomed on all sides. The Fire Spirit glowed with anticipation. Where? Where is it?

 They stepped onto the rocks, and they were looking down over the green ground, searching. They became giants, and walked over the huge rocks, small to them as chunks of ore. They came to a river running over the floor, cutting a deep chasm.

 The Dream faded like a slink slipping into shadow, and Stasia and Dynat stood facing each other in the dim cave, still linked, he wreathed in flames, she clutching the cold wall.

 The Fire Spirit became an inferno, exploded in rage. I know you have it, Dreamer! Show me! Show me your Dream!

 Stasia pushed at the flames, trying to banish them from her head. Her ears popped and her eyes bulged. The Fire Spirit clung to her, burning her core, probing every memory of every Dream she'd ever had. Dynat burned like a torch, his hardened, peeling lava starting to glow with heat. He raised a hand, and flames danced on his fingertips.

 "I have to kill you," he said. "Fire Spirit, forgive me." Mother, he thought, if I kill her, you'll be buried again in my mind and the pain will stop.

 Stasia sent an ice rope snaking out of her hands, but he melted it away. Ice daggers hurled at him fell in little sprays of water to the icy floor. Still bound to her mind, he anticipated her every move. She could anticipate him too, but his strategy was simply to push a wall of fire closer and closer until it swallowed her. Stasia considered making a globomb, but that would kill her too, in this cramped cave. Dynat's heat pressed into her, weakening her, draining her of cold T'Jas. She drew T'Jas from the heat, but couldn't conceive a clever way to use her meager abilities with it.

 Dynat advanced, the thrill of the fight taking over his senses. The Fire Spirit didn't seem to care, it was buried in her memories like a worm burrowing blindly into rock.  "You will die in fire, Sister," he said. "If your heart is pure, you will be with Mother in the Lava Lake."

 Fury blinded Stasia. He dared call her Sister? He had killed her sisters one by one, he was about to destroy her, and he dared to be sanctimonious? It was too much. She would see his death if it killed her too. She abandoned her cold T'Jas and drew heat from his wall of fire. She reached for the ceiling with heat T'Jas. The ice dome began to crack and buckle, blowing away in a fine powder. The walls shattered, and the roaring force crashed into them both, blowing away Dynat's fire and all the warmth of the Fire Spirit.

 Stasia screamed as burning cold seared her skin. Her icelight flickered and grew, until everything was blue instead of black, blindingly bright. Stasia tried to release T'Jas, but the power of immense cold dug into her bones, poured into her core, filled her completely, took away her control.  Powder ice blew across her field of vision, blinding her.

 Within Dynat's mind, the Fire Spirit shrieked. The sound made blood trickle out of Dynat's ears. Tiny shards of ice burned into his skin. Iceropes beyond Stasia's control snaked across his body, pulling away the cloak, strangling him.

 Stasia could have escaped from his mind in the Fire Spirit's moment of weakness, but instead she began to terrorize Dynat from within, drawing up the most painful of his memories, forcing him to see them. A distant voice told her stop, he's your only hope of returning home, you need him alive, but she could not listen to reason through the volume of T'Jas pouring through her veins. Hatred overwhelmed her. She would hurt him as he had hurt her. Not just kill his body. She would destroy his soul first.

 The Fire Spirit flared in his mind, burning white hot, trying to regain control of the battle, to give Dynat enough heat to combat her. You! Stasia raged at the deity. You caused all of this, you took everything from me, it was your command.

 Within her mind, she blasted the flaming face with cold. The flames fled before her T'Jas, revealing a handsome, middle-aged man with dark hair, a mouth gaping in astonishment, startled brown eyes. A mole on one cheek. A tuft sticking out of one dark eyebrow. She knew with certainty she'd seen that face before, but couldn't think where. He made her think of ashes. She tried to enter his mind, but the face disappeared, leaving Dynat cold and alone and helpless before her.

 Dynat was overwhelmed by a vast emptiness filled immediately with numb fear. Without the Fire Spirit, he would die in this cold waste. In the same instant, Stasia was startled out of her power-madness by her victory over the Fire Spirit, and knew that if Dynat died she would never return home.

 She climbed on top of Dynat and struggled to cover him with the cloak. She fought to control the writhing iceropes. A thousand spikes of ice were driving into her brain. The cloak flapped across her body, as if it too had come to life, and was trying to get free. Desperate, Stasia tried to use T'Jas to form a cave around them. She imagined a smooth dome of ice rising from the ground.

 T'Jas surged through her blood and the remnants of the original dome surrounding them exploded. The sound of cracking ice was even louder than the sound of the breath howling. Ice rose around them in jagged columns. Shards of ice pulled loose and whipped toward Stasia's head, and she crouched down, holding the cloak over her and Dynat, pushing it under his legs and arms.

 Ice shards bruised Dynat through the hide. The rampant icelight was so bright it shone through layers of fur. Dynat saw his face in Stasia's mind, slick with blood, eyes wide in shock. Her heart thudded against his chest.

 Then the cloak was wrenched from her hands once more, still wedged under his legs, flapping in the wild air, exposing her back. Colder than cold air rushed into the gap. Her icelight flickered, a bright chunk of ice sped toward her face. She ducked, but pain blossomed on her scalp, spreading into her skull, and darkness crept into the corners of her vision. She slumped over Dynat's body and awareness faded.

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