Dreamweaver - Chapter 17
"I'm not sure I can do this." Siegbert's voice was small, weak, barely discernible over the screams of demons. "I..." He shook his head — his face was pasty and sticky with sweat in the cold starlight. "No, I can't, Forrest. I can't."
The two boys sat a ways from the edge of Anankos's abyss, clinging to each other as if that would protect them from the things they'd seen over the edge. Siegbert's fingers dug into Forrest's arms, and Forrest had a death-grip on his cousin's leg. The presence of his living, breathing kin was a profound comfort to Forrest, a reminder that he was not the only one facing the horrors that loomed but yards away.
Forrest took a deep breath and said, "We don't have a choice."
"The hell we don't." It was one of the few times Siegbert gave in to bad language, but Forrest didn't fault him for it — the current situation warranted it. "There has to be another way out of here. Someplace where we can die bravely and—"
"Forrest is right." Brynhildr was twisting uneasily above the two boys, showering them with mountain-lily-scented mist. "This is it. The final fright. The witches' last attempt at stopping your hearts for good. It's also the back door out of this nightmare. You have to go in."
Siegbert's fear turned into anger. "What you're suggesting? It's suicide! There's nothing waiting for us down there except for a dragon and two million demons who want to rip us into pieces to share amongst themselves!"
"We can do it, Siegbert." Forrest struggled to stay calm, to keep his cousin's fear from infecting him. Nothing will hurt you unless you allow it, he told himself. Don't give in.
"We've made a similar plunge before, and we survived," he said to his cousin.
"That was not the same," Siegbert snarled. "That was jumping from one island to the next. This...this will be jumping into the pit of hell itself. We don't know what's down there, besides Anankos, besides those demons, and...and once we jump..."
He didn't have to finish his sentence. Once we jump, there's no going back. This really was the final hurdle — the final fright and the final death, if Forrest's theory proved false. If they didn't embrace the death, embrace it with the valor of martyrs, then they would never live to see reality again. Forrest knew that, and the knowledge - the knowledge that he was walking a thin line, that there was every chance that he could be wrong as much as he could be right - scared him. And that too, he knew, was a part of the witches' plot. The door's there, but they want me to be afraid to open it. They want me to be afraid every step I take towards it.
He laced his fingers tightly through Siegbert's. "We can do it, Siegbert," he said again, trying to convince himself as much as his cousin. "We have to do it."
Siegbert's eyes were hooded in the gloom. "How do we...how do we even know that this really is the back door?" he asked. "The deathstroke spell's chased us towards this place. What if this is all a trick? What if you discovering how to get out of the dreamweave was intentional? What if they want you to want to jump, and there really is nothing down there but death?"
Forrest felt himself going cold. Siegbert's idea made him feel sick, and for a second, he truly wondered: What if he's right, and this is some kind of bluff? Double bluff? Triple bluff? Then he shook his head, setting his jaw. No. He wasn't going to give in to doubts. He wasn't going to ask himself if the witches had orchestrated the fight with Leo so that he would be hopeful in something that didn't exist. "The door is down there, Siegbert," he said, making his voice as hard as he was able. "I know it is. And I'm not going to let the witches and their determination to kill us stymie me. You and I are going over that edge, together, hand in hand. And when we fall and we get scared, we're going to look at each other and take comfort in our own humanity. And then, we're going to smile when Anankos eats us, smile and laugh because we won and they lost. Because the doorway to reality is somewhere down Anankos's throat, and they thought we'd never think to reach it, but we did."
Siegbert's face tightened, and Forrest saw despair in his eyes. He couldn't be sure if Siegbert took his words to heart, but he shut his eyes a moment, and when he opened them again, they were a little steadier. Not so bright, on the edge of hysteria.
"Okay." Siegbert's voice was shaky, but he gave his consent. "Okay, Forrest. I'll do it. We'll...we'll do it. I trust you."
His trust warmed Forrest, but it also made a bolt of doubt shoot down his back, doubt and fear that he'd given Forrest his word only to plunge into an abyss that might very well kill the both of them for good.
No. No more fear.
Brynhildr swooped low. "Our time is at an end."
Siegbert and Forrest followed her gaze and saw the far darkness dissolving into liquid black. The deathstroke spell, tenacious as ever, had arrived, sliding across the stone towards them. The two boys rose and retreated, stepping back until they reached the edge of the cliff. The screeches of demons and the Silent Dragon seemed to grow louder with every step they took, until it was an all-consuming roar as they stood at the very edge. A cold wind appeared, harsh and keening, and it whipped Forrest's hair around his face as it plunged downwards, down into the abyss where Anankos dwelt. Gravity seemed to intensify, beckoning the young lords earthward, and the two knew without a doubt that the demons of their worst nightmares were waiting impatiently for them to give in and jump. Fall.
Siegbert's hand shook — or was that Forrest's hand, shaking around his? Fear tightened Forrest's chest, crept up his throat and locked his jaw. He wanted to say something to Siegbert, something to galvanize their courage, because if there was no courage, than there was no chance at life. They had to remember that this was a test, a dream, and they had to take confidence in that knowledge, in that truth, or else their leap of faith would be pointless.
But as Forrest gazed down into what waited for him, into a pit deeper than the Bottomless Canyon, he, for a fleeting second, could not remember how to be brave.
Then, Brynhildr twisted around him, wreathing him in the scent of safety, wisdom, and wildflowers. "I will tell you when to jump." Her voice was calm, even. "You must go when the deathstroke spell is almost upon you."
Forrest stared into her green eyes. Her composure calmed him, unlocked his jaw. "What about you?" he asked. "How quickly will you follow?"
"I will not."
"What?" Shock made Forrest stammer. What was she saying? She wasn't going with them? "But...what do you mean? If you don't come with us, the deathstroke spell—"
"Don't worry about me." Brynhildr's green eyes remained serene. "Your safety is my only concern."
"But if you die—"
"If it comforts you, know that I will not die. I told you once that I cannot interact with this world in this form. But the truth, Forrest, is that I was never really here. Not truly."
Forrest shook his head, reeling from this information. "I don't understand!" he cried over the wind and screams of dragons. "What do you mean?"
Brynhildr's voice held a smile. "I am only here because you brought me here, Forrest." Before Forrest could say anything else, she bent close, her lips by his ear. "Brynhildr," she murmured, "hear my cry. Rise from the earth and lay low those that would do me harm. Defend my allies and sunder my foes."
Then, she twisted away, sailing high above, undulating on the wind. Forrest stared after her. Those words...what could they have meant?
"Forrest!" Siegbert's grip tightened on his hand. "The spell!"
He turned to see that the black acid was nearly upon them — it had consumed the entire horizon, dissolving it into a dark, churning, acidic sea. The only thing left in this entire black infinity was the yard of black stone they stood on, and the evil that lay below them. Forrest gazed up at the stars, knowing that the time was upon them.
No fear. No fear. No fear.
"NOW!" Brynhildr's cry rang out louder than a shriek from Anankos. Forrest felt the deathstroke spell lick at his heels, a deathly cold numbing his foot. And then, he and Siegbert were over the edge, the world dissolving into black and cold and fear and uncertainty as they fell down towards the great below. Forrest closed his eyes, gripping Siegbert's hand, cherishing the thought that whatever lay beyond the darkness, they would face together.
No fear.
No fear.
No fear.
No...
Fear...
--
"Milady!" The cry, from one of the younger witches, was loud and frightened. She rushed from the door, tugging on one of Griselda's sleeves. "Milady! Something is happening! People are gathering outside!"
"SILENCE!" Griselda hurled the witch away, and she stumbled back into Annette. "If someone is trying to come in, then take care of them!"
Looking frightened, the witch returned to her sisters, who were spreading out in a defensive ring before the door, retrieving their tomes from the depths of their robes. There was, indeed, a great abundance of noise coming from outside the door: the rattle of armor, the clang of weaponry, the hushing of one person to another as they strived to keep quiet. Annette was right. They had overstayed their welcome, and in that time, someone had noticed the absence of the children and had quite obviously suspected something foul was afoot. Any minute, whoever was outside would be inside.
But that doesn't matter. We'll be gone long before they open the door.
Because finally, at long, long last, it was happening. Griselda watched with barely contained glee as things began to shift within the Edon Stone corona: the deathstroke spell, which had thus far hovered above the two children, now descended in a black cloud, spreading over their bodies like a funeral shroud. It hissed and popped as it swirled and spread, mixing with the dreamweave magic. Already, the girl's cheeks were growing white.
"Milady!" Annette hurried up to her side. "Milady, we must Warp! Now!"
"We will Warp when I say it's time to Warp, child!" Griselda's attention didn't stray from the corona. Soon, she knew. Seconds. The girl will die, and then the boy, and then the Edon Stones, sensing no life force, will dissolve the corona. I will grab the stones, and we will disappear.
"Please, milady!" Annette begged. "I don't think you understand—"
"GO!" It was in that moment that Leo smashed open the door, blasting it off of its hinges with a concentrated sphere of electricity. It careened inward, and in the light of flickers of electricity, Leo saw a multitude of robed women filling the interior of Siegbert's room, all armed with glowing tomes. He understood instantly: Deeprealm witches! The same ones that they'd faced yesterday.
But where is Forrest?
He didn't have time for a more proper look — all at once, the witches blasted him with a tidal wave of magic. Wind, thunder, fire, and black magic mixed together in a wave of destruction — it punched through Leo's defensive magic like an arrow, carrying him off his feet and slamming him into the far hallway wall.
"Back!" Odin roared, stopping the two waves of knights that immediately surged forward. "Nyx! Niles! Formation one!"
The two other soldiers stepped into the line of fire, shifting into a configuration that they'd practiced many, many times before: Odin and Nyx stood side by side, erecting a highly resistant, luminous shield that took the form of a shoulder pauldron — it beat back the witches' wave of magic like water against a wall. Niles stood in the middle, choosing what target he could amongst the chaos of magic and darkness inside the room. As two Dark Knights helped lift Leo to his feet, a break opened up in the opposing waves of magic — without hesitating, Niles loosed his arrow, and it slammed into a witch's shoulder.
Shrieking, the spell-caster went down — behind her, Leo saw another witch, one with sheets of pin-straight, silver hair. She stood over the bed — a bed on which his son and nephew lay, pale and still and surrounded by a halo of malevolent magic.
Undiluted shock threatened to send Leo to his knees. "Forrest!" he screamed. His fear quickly changed to fury, to vengeful, unbridled fury. What has she done to him? "Odin! Nyx! Punch in! Now!"
"But milord!" There was nothing theatrical or foolish about Odin's attitude now — he was snarling as he held both hands out, struggling to hold the integrity of their shield. "Their magic is too powerful!"
"Did I stutter, fool? Do as I say! NOW! Push in as hard as you can, as long as you can!"
Odin and Nyx exchanged a glance but did as they were told, digging in their feet and bearing their shield forward, pressing into the room. The witches, alarmed, increased the ferocity of their attacks, pelting the shield with balls of fire, scythes of wind, daggers of lightning, acidic waves of black magic. It melted the stone at their feet, reduced it to brown sludge, and carved chunks out of the surrounding walls — the Fire attacks licked up the cobblestone, setting the drapery on fire until the ceiling and two walls were crackling with flames. The two magicians struggled under the brunt of so many powerful attacks, but a second later, Leo joined them, adding his own magic strength with theirs and reinforcing the shield. It morphed in form, from a translucent pauldron to the shape of a buckler, thick and impenetrable.
"Niles!" Leo snarled as the witches continued to hurl magic towards them. "The gray-haired one! I want an arrow in her skull!"
"As you command, milord." As the magicians continued to push inside, Niles retrieved a fresh arrow from his quiver and loaded it into his bow. He aimed, waiting for a suitable break in the magic attacks.
By now, the witches had been forced to retreat to the center of the room, closer to the corona. They knew that they were failing — the enemy's magical shield was incredibly powerful, and it would not be long before they pushed fully into the room. "Milady!" Annette cried as she hurled another spear of lightning into the shield — it dissolved the second it made contact, sending sparks snaking down to the sludge-like floor. "Help us! We can't hold out much longer!" And they couldn't — already, some of them looked to be going dizzy from casting so many magical attacks in one sitting.
Griselda, severely annoyed, turned away from the corona. The second she did, Forrest woke up, sucking in a deep breath as though a corpse come back to life. It was a rough awakening: sound, sight, smell, touch - all of his senses assaulted him in a merciless barrage, twisting his stomach into a tempest and making his temples throb with pain. Eyes blurry, limbs stiff, he scrambled up into a sighting position, mind churning as he struggled to comprehend what he was seeing. Fire. Light. Wind. Witches. A wide, glowing shield. And behind that shield...
Father!
He and Odin and Nyx were behind the shield, hands spread upward as though praising the Dusk Dragon, holding erect the magical shield being blasted relentlessly with magic cast by the witches. A thrill went down Forrest's spine at the sight of his father, at the memory of that other thing. That thing in the dreamweave that had made him bleed, made him cry, nearly killed him.
But this was not that Leo. He was not bloody and mutilated, eye dark with its own brand of insanity. This Leo was real, whole and unwounded, though the murder in his eyes resembled the darkness of his demented counterpart. But that anger faded when Leo suddenly looked his way.
"Forrest!" he cried in amazement.
"Father! I—" Suddenly, behind him, Siegbert choked awake, hacking as though his throat were dry as a desert plain. Griselda whirled around at the sound. Her eyes went wide and wild as Forrest helped Siegbert sit up.
"What... No!" she shrieked. "How can...how can this be? The deathstroke spell...it was killing you! I know it was killing you! I saw it! How?"
But the deathstroke spell, the one that had pursued the cousins relentlessly, mercilessly, through the dreamweave, was now dissolving around them — mixed with the fiery red of the dreamweave magic, it began to dissipate like smoke, taking the sleeping magic with it as it faded into oblivion.
"NO!" Griselda's voice rang with fury, with defeat. Her fingers kindled with magic.
Forrest barely had time to throw himself on top of his disoriented cousin before Griselda fired a blast of magic towards him, a dark, hissing arrow. Deathstroke spell!
"FORREST!" Leo screamed.
Forrest felt as though he'd been transported back in time, to when the witches had first appeared in Siegbert's room. Lying over his dead cousin, the attack had struck his back, instantly stealing his consciousness, but now, he saw it coming, saw the way it congealed into a roughly lance-like shape like molded sludge - he tasted its toxicity, it sourness, as it grew near. But before it could strike him, something stretched up in front of Forrest: a wall of red magic. It bowed inwards as it caught the deathstroke magic, then curled in on itself, folding the spell in a pocket of its own power. Forrest and Siegbert watched, speechless, as it suppressed the spell — the deathstroke magic hissed and steamed in protest as it was smothered, leaving nothing but a curl of black smoke behind.
"Curse you!" Griselda shrieked. "Curse you! Curse you!"
Furiously, she launched a barrage of black arrows towards the bed, but each time they were stopped, folded, extinguished by red magic — red magic that Forrest now saw surrounded the bed in a crackling hemisphere, separating him and Siegbert from the vindictive women beyond like a magical shield.
"What's going on?" Siegbert asked, voice weak and scratchy. "What's doing that?"
A small part of Forrest knew — he reached up to his ears, to the Edon Stones that hung there, the precious relics that were at the heart of this entire nightmare. Somehow, even though they didn't belong to Forrest, they were protecting him, because he wore them. They shielded him, even from the might of Griselda's deathly powerful black magic.
"Take them out!" Griselda screamed at the other witches, pointing to Leo's shield. "Now!"
The witches redoubled their efforts to subdue Forrest's father — Forrest, in horror, watched as Leo flinched under another volley of powerful magic attacks. The shield did not break, but it began to bow back under the sheer amount of magical force. Forrest saw Nyx's feet begin to slip — she scrambled to dig them in, but a rain of Speed Thunder made her knees buckle, and she hit the floor with an astonished cry.
"Get up!" Leo roared. "Get up, Nyx!" He reached out to grab the sorceress's hand, but at that moment Griselda stepped forward, marching into the center of the ranks of casting witches, fingertips dancing with flames.
Behind him, Siegbert surged forward, making to jump off of the bed. Forrest grabbed his wrist.
"No!" he cried. "If you go out there—"
"I have to do something!" Siegbert roared. "That shield won't be able to take too much more of this!"
"You can't go outside of the corona!" Forrest said frantically. "Any one of those witches could just as easily turn around and aim their next attack at you!"
"Then what are we supposed to do?" Siegbert cried.
"Valflame!" They both snapped around at the sound of Griselda's cry, just in time to be blinded by a blast of light and heat. Before them, Griselda had opened her Fire tome and cast a powerful spell, once that called forth a blazing wave of magma. It erupted from the ether and, hotter than the sun and just as destructive, it slammed into Leo's shield with the force of a fiery tsunami. Forrest shrieked when he saw the lava begin to dissolve the shield — the heat was so severe that it melted the magicians' defense like butter.
"Hold the line!" Leo's cry was desperate as he pumped as much of his power as he could muster into the shield, struggling to reinforce it. "Hold the line! Do not let so much as a drop of lava through!"
But it was no use — not ten seconds had passed before the shield broke, dissipating into nothingness. The Valflame magic crashed into Leo and his soldiers, fire, heat, and sheer magical force blasting out and into the hallway like a full volcanic eruption. Forrest and Siegbert covered themselves as a backlash of fire magic washed back into the room. Furniture disintegrated. Stones melted. Windows shattered, released churning columns of smoke. Soldiers screamed as they were thrown every which way, carried along by lava, smashed into columns, walls, arches. The entire castle rumbled ominously as the magma washed down its hallways, spewed out of its broken windows and doorways, melting anything it came into contact with and making the very air burn red with heat.
Very abruptly, it was over. Forrest and Siegbert slowly unfurled, stunned that they were still alive and completely unblemished. The same could not be said for the room, what was left of it: smoke filled the air, but it quickly dissipated, drifting out of the holes in the ceiling, holes that dripped with melted stone. A thick bank of heat enclosed them, hotter than the inside of a bellows — the Edon Stone corona rippled continuously as it absorbed the heat and suppressed it before it could reach Forrest and his cousin. Near the door, Griselda stood whole and unmarked, her witches gathered tightly around her on a single island of untouched stone standing in the middle of a bog of melted floor tiles. The walls of the room had collapsed inward, and were blackened and eroded into crumpling pillars; the doorway had been almost completely dissolved, save for a few blackened, melted chunks that resembled heavily eroded teeth. The view into the hallway was now clear in either direction, the walls scarred by lava and bubbling with deposits of cooling magma. Forrest trembled at what he saw: blackened soldiers lay up and down the way like lumps of coal, their armor, skin, faces burned beyond recognition. Nearby, Odin lay, haggard, against a pillar, on top of Niles — he'd obviously been trying to shield his fellow retainer, sacrificing his own magical resistance in the process. In the opposite direction, Nyx lay underneath a pile of blackened boulders, her face sticky with blood. Half of her hair had been incinerated, and a nasty burn had been scorn into her cheeks as though by the claw of a tiger.
Griselda marched forward, her heels echoing oddly in the ruin of the Valflame spell, until she was in the hallway. She reached down, seizing one of the soldiers by his hair. Blonde hair. Forrest screamed.
Father!
Leo grunted in pain as Griselda dragged him in the room by his hair, forcing him to crawl through the sludge that had once been the floor. His resistance to magic had quite obviously saved him, as he was still alive, but he was covered in burns, and his hair was black with soot. Half of his head was soaked in blood, dripping from a wound caused by a collision with a wall, and it leaked down his face in a thick stream — with a flash, Forrest remembered the river of blood that had poured from his dark double back in the dreamweave.
When he was finally close enough, Griselda yanked upward — with a snarl, Leo levied himself up to his knees.
"You're the one who came to rescue those two wretches from my Deeprealm." The cold of Griselda's voice cut through the heat like a katana. She looked over at Forrest. "And you called him father." She dropped Leo, and he flumped to the ground. "My, my. Looks like someone married early."
She clacked to the other side of the room and picked up Siegbert's short sword.
"What are you doing?" Forrest cried as she returned to his father.
"Exactly what it looks like." Griselda forced Leo back to his knees and held the sword to his throat. "I suppose that I should be grateful that your knights in shining armor decided to disturb us, for now I have a hostage, and one that you genuinely care about, to boot. I don't suppose you have any doubts as to what will happen if you do not give me your surrender."
Forrest felt Siegbert tense beside him. They were on an edge again, the edge of something horrible: the death of a man that they both, deep down, loved and respected. One that they could prevent. Forrest reached up for the bangles in his ears, but paused when he glanced at Siegbert, saw the doubts in his eyes. The Edon Stones were the answer, but they were also the only thing protecting them from Griselda's vengeful magic. If they handed them over, what guarantee did they have that Griselda wouldn't immediately kill them?
Leo seemed to read Forrest's mind: "Don't, Forrest." His voice scared Forrest: it was low and weak, nothing like the intimidating thunder with which he usually spoke. "Don't do it. The second you give her what she wants, she will consider you collateral."
Griselda struck Leo with the pommel of the short blade, and Forrest screamed as Leo crumpled to the ground. Griselda forced him up again; a fresh stream of blood eked down the opposite side of Leo's face.
"As you can see," Griselda said, "I may be an expert in tomes, but I am not a stranger to the uses of the common blade. I am growing impatient. You have ten seconds to make your decision. Or he dies."
"Forrest, give her the earrings." Siegbert's voice was pained.
"No!" Leo's voice cracked. "Don't you dare, Forrest. I forbid it. Do not give her what she wants!"
Slowly, shakily, Forrest reached up and removed the Edon Stones from his ears. He gathered them in his hands, where they smoldered, their magic still active by the touch of warm, living, breathing human. What do I do? If he gave them to the witch, they would die, and then Leo would die. If they didn't, Leo would die anyway. Was there any way to get out of this without anyone dying, anyone getting hurt? Because after the dreamweave, after the despair and the hurt and grief and anguish of thinking that Siegbert was lost forever, Forrest knew that he could not live through another, real, true death — not one of another man he loved.
"You have five seconds left," Griselda hissed.
Hurry! the frightened part of him cried. Give them to her! Quickly! Save your father! Save him despite the consequences, despite the risks. Save him! Save him!
But before he could move, another voice spoke, soft and kind and calm.
No fear, Forrest. No more fear. The scent of mountain lilies made him catch his breath.
Brynhildr?
How was she here, with him, right now? I thought you were back in the dreamweave.
She did not answer, but he remembered her words, some of her final words: I am here only because you brought me here.
Because you brought me here...
And then he remembered, remembered something that seemed so insignificant. Something that now meant everything: Since Father seems keen on making our lives miserable, I decided to get a little payback and discover the secrets within Brynhildr's pages... He hasn't used it much since Anankos's War ended. It's been put on one of the dusty shelves in his study. It was a simple matter of tiptoeing in, snatching the tome, and tiptoeing out.
He'd brought Brynhildr with him that night, the night the witches had attacked. And she was still here. With him. He looked down, saw her bulky, violet, deeply-grooved cover peeking out from beneath the bed's twisted sheets.
And he understood. The dreamweave hadn't just engulfed Siegbert. It had engulfed Brynhildr too. It had drawn them all into the magic, into that empty, skyward place that looked like Valla, the only place where the ghost of Anankos reigned. He had taken her with him, and she had protected him there. And she could still protect him now.
Brynhildr, hear my cry...
"Fine." Forrest fisted the Edon Stones once, gathering his resolve. "If you want them so badly..." He hurled them towards Griselda. "Take them!"
Griselda straightened as the Edon Stones sailed towards her, at long, long last. Relief overcame her senses, relief that it was finally over, that she had taken back what was hers, and the emotion was so strong that it blocked out everything else. She didn't notice her fingers loosen from Leo's hair, allowing him to collapse back to the floor. She didn't notice Forrest dive for Brynhildr, wrangle the tome out from under the sheets. She almost didn't notice him open the tome and scream, scream something that almost sounded like an invocation:
"BRYNHILDR, HEAR MY CRY!" Forrest ripped open the tome, holding it open by both covers. He thought he would forget the rest, but the words poured into his mind like water, and when he spoke, he almost thought he heard Brynhildr herself shouting the words, her voice overlapping his. "Rise from the earth and lay low those that would do me harm. Defend my allies and sunder my foes!"
The Edon Stones never reached Griselda's hand — before they even came near, she was blinded by a massive concentration of magical power rising from Forrest's tome, one so large and bright that it filled the room like a god's corona. It thundered across the room in a ferocious, glowing wall of destructive force, barreling the witches backward and flattening them as would a tornado a field of corn. Griselda's tome and sword flew from her hands, and she was thrown headlong across the floor, where she slammed into the opposite wall. The world dissolved into a chaotic swirl of color and sound, and pain rippled on her back, accompanied by a swarm of black dots that crowded her eyes like gnats. Weakness paralyzed her — she meant to get up, to fight, but suddenly and inexplicably, she found herself without an ounce of strength, unable to defend herself, just clinging to the edge of consciousness. She heard her fellow witches groaning pathetically all around her and knew that she wasn't imagining things — this magic, this spell, had stolen her strength and her ability to fight, leaving her, once again, at the mercy of two children.
She saw it then, just before she fell unconscious. The magic, the spell, congealed up by the ceiling, taking the form of a massive, magenta-colored dragon. It bared its teeth at her like a cobra poised to strike, but for a second, she was sure that it was laughing at her.
* It's not over, in case you're wondering. They're out of the dreamweave, but there're still a few things to tie up, so stay tuned!