Curse of Stone

Chapter 10 - Part 2

Heaving sobs overtook me and my tears dripped on a stone face as I held Anara tightly. The overwhelming grief came in waves, one after the other, lashing against my shattered soul. Never had my heart been so broken. If I could trade my life for hers, I would have, and that I had not that option was a bitter failure.

Topping the rubble berm, Mom gasped as she saw us. The rigors of fighting left her clothes tattered with numerous cuts and abrasions across her body. She came to my side, kneeling, embracing me. "I'm so sorry, Micah."

I bent down and kissed Anara's forehead, then gently laid her body on the ground. Standing upright, I wiped the moisture from my cheeks. "We must end this!"

"But how?" Mom said, putting fingers to a bowed forehead. "When we strike Cephas down, he comes right back."

"That was not actually Cephis, but a projection of him. Like his rock giants."

"Then where is the real villain?"

There could only be one place. "The obelisk. I sensed more there than just rock."

Before we took two steps, rock claws shot up from the ground all around us, cracking through the stone. We danced away as pointed talons snatched at us, but one grabbed my ankle and held fast. Like at Adam's house, I called forth the Symbio Magique and placed hands on the ground. The claws crumbled away.

A swirl of brown magic appeared beside us. Rock and gravel lifted from the ground and reassembled Cephas' body. He crossed his arms while gazing at me.

Hot anger rose. "You are truly evil," I spat.

That irritating, self-absorbed, smug grin returned to his stony face. "Come, now. Good and evil are only arbitrary concepts defined by the victorious."

My eyes blazed back at him. "Then, I will define them."

Cephas' lips turned down into a deep frown. "Such arrogance I cannot abide." He raised his hands.

But before Cephas could launch a magic attack, my mother launched her own. Baring teeth and hissing, she shot out glowing yellow streamers from her hands, enhanced by the Symbio Magique. The streamers surrounded Cephas and collapsed inward, and by alchemy transformation, his rock body transformed to dust.

"I doubt he is done," Mom muttered.

True to her prediction, a dozen more rock giants self-assembled from the rubble, rising like zombies from a cemetery, surrounding us in a menacing circle.

Growling with contempt, my mother placed one hand on my shoulder and with the other, fired off a barrage of three tight pressure pulses at the closest giants, upending them with loud booms.

Targon joined the battle, letting out a screech as it attacked in a flurry of wings and talons, scratching at a giant's eyes. Annoyed by the distraction, the giant swatted at the little wyvern, but its heavy rock arms moved much too slow, and Targon easily avoided the blows.

One giant jumped behind us, landing with a deep thump. It swung down a maul-like fist at us, but missed as I pulled Mom aside. I dove between its legs. Grazing my hand against its foot, I called the Symbio Magique to my defense, and it answered. By disrupting the magic holding together the giant, it disassembled, forcing me to jump back to avoid the falling rock.

"This way!" she shouted, taking my hand.

We dashed through the gap she created by her initial blasts, past the fallen giants, only to find four more rising from the rubble. Yellow threads of alchemy magic shot out from her extended hand, wrapping around the two closest rock giants. Their rock bodies converted to sand in flashes of yellow, then sloughed down into piles.