Merlin acted first. He swept his staff wide, conjuring a wave of concussive energy that slammed into Accolon and sent him flying back so suddenly and unexpectedly that he lost his grip on his sword. Then, with blue fire in his old, wizened eyes, Merlin glared at Selvina.
"Remember your training, Selvina," he said in a voice that seemed to echo. "Keep Accolon back."
Selvina had never seen Merlin like this before. It was something like Accolon's strange transformation but different. It wasn't menacing but incredibly intimidating. The wizard's voice held so much weight and commanding authority that Selvina nodded dumbly and reached for Accolon's fallen sword.
Merlin then faced Iktarosh directly. Wizard and god stared at one another from across the open pit. The god still hung from two chains but he seemed not to notice. There was wonder, confusion, and, it seemed, some fear in his expression. The god appeared to be disoriented.
"What is this?" Iktarosh said in a booming voice that shook the walls. "How am I here?"
"Worry not, Iktarosh," Merlin replied in that loud voice of his. "Your time here, brief as it was, is over."
Selvina, still absentmindedly holding Accolon's sword, watched Merlin let go of his staff and begin a spell. The staff somehow hovered in the air beside him as he muttered incantations and made intricate signals and shapes in the air. Before long, tendrils of light trailed from Merlin's fingers and followed his movements, tracing the outlines of various symbols that floated in the air.
The sound of rapid footsteps had Selvina turning away to see Accolon racing toward her, red-faced and furious.
"Remember your training," Merlin had said. Training? Did he mean the training she had with Red? Selvina looked down at the sword in her hand as if she was seeing it for the first time. Wide-eyed and frightened, she wanted to let go of it and run. She wanted to and nearly did but something stopped her.
It was that feeling again. It had come to her when she had held aloft the ceremonial sword and pointed it at the stranger in the room, who turned out to be Merlin. Now it had returned and was rising up through her, emanating from her heart. It flowed through her arms, legs, neck, and head and pulsed powerfully, filling her with courage and determination.
Remember your training, she told herself.
Suddenly, Accolon did not appear so terrifying. He only held a dagger. Selvina had the sword. She had the reach and the more powerful weapon. Accolon had far more experience, however, as well as strength and speed. It would not be an easy fight.
Selvina put her mind at ease and imagined it was another training exercise. Red had come at her hard several times, charging in with breakneck speed and forcing her to act and think quickly. Selvina had not done so well in those exercises but she remembered her mistakes. She remembered what Red had taught her.
The young redheaded woman's face appeared in Selvina's mind, then. She was smiling kindly, her faint freckles appearing more prominently and her blue eyes sparkling. Red had been her friend and bodyguard for longer than anyone. Without her, Selvina's journey into Faeryum would have never happened. It was not Amalthea that had saved her from Grandmother and her sons, it was Red Riding Hood.
Selvina's grip on the sword tightened.
Iktarosh could not be freed. Merlin would do everything in his power to stop him and it was up to Selvina to ensure he did that. It was up to her. If she failed, Merlin failed. It was time for Selvina to take Red's place and save the saviour.
It was time for Selvina to stake her claim as the true protector of Faeryum.
"Remember your training," Selvina muttered to herself, thinking back to that beautiful day in the field outside Maron where she had last trained with Red. It had been the last day where everyone had been together. After that, Rapunzel, Goldilocks, and Wendy had left. And then, soon after, Jack, Hook, Cindy, and Red. Everything had changed since then, and yet nothing truly had. Her friends were not here with her now in physical form but they were with her in spirit and memory. Red's smile, Cindy's laugh, and Jack's smirk were still with her.
Selvina gathered strength from the memories. She felt that overwhelming feeling of power intensify. It was now stronger than ever. Selvina still did not know what it was but she embraced it. She relished it and let it wash over her completely.
Accolon was upon her now, only a few paces away, nearly within reach.
Selvina, without hesitation, charged.
****
Deep in his mountain, many days' ride away, the Writer's eyes peered down at the newest book to appear on his shelves. It had not been difficult finding it at all. This book, larger and more ornate than any other, glowed with its own light and had appeared with a bang so loud it rattled the stone bookshelves like an earthquake. No other book had ever done that and the Writer knew why.
He grinned wickedly as he read the inscription along the book's spine. The name Iktarosh was written in golden letters that pulsed with brightness, hinting at untold power within the pages, like a key to the greatest treasure in existence.
And, in all reality, this was to the Writer the greatest treasure. After all his planning, after all his manipulating and reading and directing, his prize was here. The empress had been of tremendous help but she had never been the means to an end. Iktarosh had always been the goal. And now, finally, he was here. Now, the god was his.
With tender care, he lifted the book and carried it to his study, where many other books sat opened. He placed the book on a side table before returning to his current story.
The Life Story of Accolon of Ghal sat opened, dark letters running through the pages at a furious pace. The Writer picked up his quill, dabbed it in an inkwell, and scratched a fresh inscription. He groaned in pain as each letter stabbed into his body like tiny blades. The pain was real, and not simply felt. The Writer, beneath his dark robes, would sport a fresh scar.
"Bring her down, Accolon," he whispered to the book as he picked it up and moved it aside. He then retrieved Iktarosh's Life Story and placed it on his desk. It already had several sentences written into it as the god's life began anew. Most sentences were identical, questioning why and how the god could see and experience the sensation of life. He was deeply confused and bewildered. The freshly newborn god needed help. He needed guidance.
A bearded mortal stands before me, speaking nonsense, the Writer read. There is hatred in his eyes. This insect seeks to harm me. Why? Is this a dream? A mortal cannot harm me. He is a slave. I am his master.
How am I here? Irtue? Where is Irtue? Where is she? Where is my sister? The mortal is waving his hands about now. Does he mock me? There is a girl beside him. She is...
The Writer pressed his quill onto the page and began writing. He managed to write the letter S and cried out in torment in doing so. Unlike the cuts and aches the other manipulations had done to him, this was near life-ending agony. Iktarosh was not a warrior, a general, or even a king. He was a god. Gods were the ones who controlled the mortals, not the other way around.
The Writer went at it again regardless. For once, a mortal would direct a god; a mortal would order a god to do his bidding. He pressed the quill against the page and began writing again. A mortal would control a god, no matter what it took.
"She is the enemy," the Writer wrote, his body quivering and thrashing about with absolute torment with every written letter, as if a dozen blades impaled him from every direction. He breathed heavily, steadied his trembling body, and swallowed the blood gathering in his mouth.
"She must die," he wrote before collapsing in an exhausted heap.
****
Accolon lunged at Selvina and stabbed at her chest. She smacked the dagger aside with her sword and hopped to the right. Accolon followed, relentless in his advance, and stabbed again, and then once more. Selvina dodged the first and parried the second strike. She was forced on the defensive but was holding.
Accolon leapt and rolled along the ground, coming up slightly behind Selvina. She spun around to face him but not before he scored a cut along her leg. She winced from the pain but did not fall back. She instead retaliated with a thrust of her own, one that Accolon had to quickly back away from.
For several tense moments the two fighters eyed one another firmly. Accolon's eyes were darker than before and there was a strange and unsettling hunger within them. He was on a mission to kill her, Selvina could clearly see. It was completely unlike the elf she thought she had known.
Accolon renewed his attack, leaping forward, inside Selvina's reach, and thrust upward, his dagger point aimed for under Selvina's chin. She leapt back in time quickly but did so awkwardly and landed on her backside. Accolon pressed on, seizing his advantage, and swung his dagger down at one of Selvina's knees. Selvina acted quickly and launched her other foot at Accolon's face.
It struck him in the cheek and knocked his head back painfully. He groaned in pain as she slid her feet under her body and shot up to a standing position. Selvina went on the offensive then, slashing for Accolon's arm. She was prepared to fight him and stop him but she had no intention to kill him. There was something off about Accolon and she intended to find out what it was. He reminded her of Rhiannon when she had gazed upon Iktarosh. They had the same hungry and possessed look in their eyes.
Selvina gasped. There it was. The Writer. He was doing this. She remembered the trolls attacking her in the swamps and how their eyes lacked the dark intensity Accolon now had. They had wanted her dead but they had attacked her willingly. Accolon, perhaps, did not mean to attack her but was forced to anyhow.
"Fight him, Accolon," she cried out as she blocked the chopping dagger. "It's the Writer! I know you don't want to kill me. You can fight him, Accolon!"
Accolon was not listening, however, and furiously swung and slashed and stabbed with his dagger. Selvina kept his attacks at bay the best she could but she was losing energy and Accolon seemed capable of fighting for hours. Her training was keeping her alive but she still lacked a battle-conditioned body like Accolon's. Before long she would misstep and it would cost her dearly.
Selvina briefly glanced at Merlin and saw him with arms spread wide, his mouth moving quickly, as discs of energy swirled in the air before him. Symbols were etched upon the discs and crackling energy jumped from one disc to another like electricity. Whatever spell he was preparing, it appeared complicated but incredibly powerful.
Selvina cried out as Accolon's dagger cut across her stomach, shedding blood. She slashed her sword wide, forcing him back, and grit her teeth as she attempted to ignore the pain with minimal success. "Stop him, Accolon! The Writer is trying to control you! You can't let him!"
Accolon blinked his eyes, as if finally listening, and hesitated for a brief second before lunging. Selvina parried the strike and called at him again, urging him to listen and to fight the Writer's hold. Accolon once again paused and blinked but continued to attack anyway.
Selvina, frustrated and tiring, blocked Accolon's falling dagger and used all her strength to push it away. It returned immediately, and she ducked her head and then threw herself at Accolon, her shoulder catching him in his armoured abdomen. It probably hurt her more than it did him but it did knock him back a few feet.
Selvina rubbed her bruised shoulder and eyed Accolon as he stood and watched her. She readied to parry or block his next attack but, for the moment, it did not come. Accolon's lips were twisting and quivering oddly. His mouth opened once and then closed, and then opened a second time. His face was contorting strangely and his entire body began to vibrate.
"I..." Accolon forced out with what appeared like tremendous effort. "I...can't."
"Yes, you can!" Selvina immediately replied, hope building.
"No," Accolon said before that hunger reappeared in his eyes. He was on her once more, faster than ever, and Selvina shrieked as she realized she would not be able to stop him this time. She parried and blocked to the best of her ability but it was too much. Accolon was unstoppable. The sword was knocked out of her hand. She was thrown to the ground.
Accolon's blade pressed against her neck.
"SHE MUST DIE!" cried out Iktarosh, and the whole chamber shook. "SHE MUST DIE!"
The cry momentarily startled Accolon and Selvina but she, surprisingly, recovered first. Swiftly, she threw herself at Accolon and jammed her thumbs into his eyes, much like she had done with Peter Pan in Wonderland. The elf cried out agony and tried to defend himself with the dagger but Selvina, remembering her training, slammed her knee against Accolon's wrist and pressed it against the ground, holding the dagger at bay.
Chains rattled and stone cracked behind her but Selvina did not look. She kept her thumbs pressed into Accolon's eye sockets until her fingers ached from the strain. Accolon used his free hand to slam hard fists into her side, the blows like sledgehammers bashing against her kidneys. Selvina's hold weakened and gave Accolon a chance to free his dagger. She rolled away, narrowly avoiding the slashing blade, and retrieved her sword. Accolon was groaning in pain as he stood up and stumbled back, blinking his damaged eyes.
Selvina's side ached with the agony of a thousand cramps and she could barely stand straight. She held her sword in both hands, her body bent over, and tried to remain steady. Adrenaline was flowing through her body like buzzing electricity, tightening her skin, tensing her muscles, and enhancing her senses. The pain was becoming somewhat bearable but every movement sent a fresh stab of torment throughout her flesh, restricting her actions.
Accolon eyed her through bloodshot eyes for a moment before charging ahead. Selvina cried out and slashed wide but hit nothing but air. She stepped back, preparing for another furious assault by the elven general but he wasn't there. Instead, he was racing toward Merlin, the wizard preoccupied with his spell.
Selvina gasped in fright and immediately pursued. The adrenaline and fear was so powerful that she barely felt the agony in her side. She focused on catching up to Accolon, thinking of nothing else. Her eyes were on his dagger and how he was adjusting his grip on it, sliding it through his fingers and gripping it by the tip of the blade.
He's going to throw it, she realized with terror.
Selvina screamed as, like a master beating a slave, she forced her body to go beyond its limits. She saw Accolon pause for a moment as he pulled his arm back for the throw. In that span of less of a second she had a chance to save Merlin. She swung her arms back and, just as Accolon was throwing his arm forward, did the same with hers, only a fraction faster. Accolon needed to take time to aim his strike. He needed precision to make his thrown dagger have the greatest impact. Selvina needed no such precision. She just needed to make that throw go astray.
Her sword swung end over end as it flew through the air. It smacked against Accolon's armoured back, cutting a gash through the enchanted steel and jerking him to the side. His dagger was let go and it flew far off its mark and fell into the deep pit, lost forever. Accolon turned on Selvina, his face red with rage, and reached for his fallen sword.
Selvina leapt at it, throwing her body on the blade and gripping the hilt with both hands. Accolon kicked her savagely, adding fresh agony to her already pain-wracked body. Selvina rolled away, holding the sword against her body like a cherished heirloom.
"Remember Rhiannon!" Selvina shouted, her voice tiny amidst the rumbling echo of the struggling god. "Remember Rhiannon! Accolon! Fight the Writer! Fight him!"
The kicking stopped and Accolon stood motionless, fighting an invisible battle of wits with the force that was controlling him. Selvina, bloodied and bruised, watched him carefully, still holding the sword tightly against her body.
"You can do it, Accolon!" Selvina urged. "Do it for Rhiannon! Do it for her!"
Accolon clenched his teeth tightly and shut his eyes, groaning and moaning with exertion. He cried out, his mouth slowly opening wider as veins bulged on his head and neck, his skin going red with effort. His hands snapped up and grabbed his head, the fingers pressing against his skull as he cried out louder and louder.
Selvina got to her feet, urging Accolon on. Only a few paces away, a fully invested Merlin was coming to a crescendo with his spell, his voice rising and the floating discs spinning faster and faster as they slowly spread apart. The air between them was rippled and wavy, like the surface of water. Beyond all that, Iktarosh tugged and pulled on the chains holding him. Cracks where appearing beside the chains' anchor points and dust and rubble was pouring down from above. The god was either going to break the chains or rip them straight out of solid stone.
****
The Writer pulled his tired body up from the floor and eyed Iktarosh's pages. The god was having difficulty freeing himself from the chains. He was only minutes old and, despite being a god, did not have the sufficient power to shatter man-sized chain links.
The old mortal is creating a portal, Iktarosh was thinking. I can see it forming before me. He knows he cannot kill me thus he means to banish me. Not now! I cannot let this happen!
The Writer's body went cold. Damn him! Damn Merlin! Damn it all! After all this time, after all this work he finally had what he wanted, a being of absolute power at his command. And now Merlin was going to put a swift end to that. It didn't matter where Iktarosh was banished to. The Writer needed him here, in Faeryum, in the world of Emazh, not some other dimension or plane of existence, for he knew that's where Merlin would send him. A portal to another place in the same world did not take so long to create, even with unbalanced magical energies. Merlin had to be stopped.
"Curse me," the Writer growled. He had several Life Stories before him already but none were Merlin's. Manipulating someone as powerful as he would have taken too much energy and the Writer had spared it all for Rhiannon and now for Iktarosh. That meant Merlin's Life Story was still sitting on a shelf, somewhere, untouched.
But not untouchable, the Writer thought as he grabbed a quill and inkpot and shuffled off with all haste. His body was wracked with pain, scars, and sores and blood kept pooling in his mouth but he pressed on. He would not let all his plans go to waste. He would not let Merlin succeed. His spell was nearly finished and that gave the Writer very little time at all.
But it was yet not too late.
The Writer knew exactly where Merlin's Life Story lay and it was far from his study but hopefully not too far. He ran with a heavy limp and blood dripped freely from his mouth but the Writer did not relent. He would not fail. He could not fail. With Iktarosh under his command, he could forge a new Faeryum, one under his image, one where not only Iktarosh but everyone was under his command. With entire nations under his will, he would become a greater god than any other. He, a mortal, albeit a long-lived one, would surpassed godhood. The Four and the Thirteen and their minions would have no power over him.
No one would.
Finally, after passing aisle after aisle after aisle of stone bookshelves, he reached the one he was looking for. At the end of it was the Life Story of Merlin of Avalon. With quill and inkpot in hand, the Writer raced down the hall, his body screaming for an end to the constantly building pain.
Moments later, he saw it. Merlin's Life Story sat opened on a middle-level shelf, dark letters appearing on its pages at a fervent pace. To his relief, the Writer noticed that Merlin was still casting the spell. He recognized it and, in horror, realized that he was mere words away from completing it.
The Writer dabbed quill into ink pot and reached for the page.
****
Selvina carried her sword in one hand and reached for Accolon with the other. Her body was aflame with pain and aches but she fought through it all. Accolon was standing with his head in his hands, his long white hair veiling his face. His body was shaking and it sounded as if he was sobbing.
"Forgive me," he uttered through the sobs. "Forgive me, Selvina. I was not strong enough."
Selvina relaxed her grip on the sword and touched Accolon's shoulder. "You were, Accolon. You freed yourself. It's over now."
Merlin finished the last word of his spell on a high note and then Selvina gazed at him. She handed Accolon back his sword and started walking toward Merlin, eager to watch Iktarosh's demise. The swirling discs hovered before Merlin, glowing brightly as the opening between them shimmered and rippled like agitated water.
For several minutes, nothing happened.
Iktarosh was fighting stronger than ever and Selvina went cold as she witnessed him breaking one of the chains holding him. With his free hand he reached for the last chain and pulled on it, ripping it right out of the ceiling. The god then flapped his black-feathered wings and dove at Merlin, his clawed hands reaching.
"Merlin!" Selvina screamed. "DO SOMETHING!" What was going on? Why hadn't he sent his spell? What was he waiting for?
"I...am...sorry," Merlin said, his words coming out strained, much like Accolon's when he had been...
...fighting the Writer.
Merlin turned, his spell turning with him, staying in front of the wizard at all times. His eyes were dark like Accolon's had been but they were wide not with hunger, but with fear and something much like guilt.
Iktarosh landed with a boom behind Merlin at the same moment the wizard launched his spell, the swirling discs flying toward not the god but Selvina. The portal spell hit Selvina dead on, swallowing her whole, and then flew onward, gradually dissipating into nothingness.
Wizard and general stared wide-eyed at the spot Selvina had once stood while the god smiled at the sight. Where there had once been a young woman with a mighty destiny there was now nothing.
Selvina was gone.