Pandora's Box

Chapter 13: Part I

Energized by Donovan's will to fight, Pandora rushed the ziggurat's golden stairs. Her arms pumped, and her fists tightened around her wands. The ancient structure towered overhead—four sets of twenty-five steps to the top. Pandora took them two at a time, eyes locked onto the crest.

Kasaadi, the Dawn Splitter's, final resting place.

Pandora dismissed the bluish-white glow of the active wand: the fires burning at the tops of the obelisks cast enough light rivaling daybreak on their own. In its place. She imagined the fury of a lightning storm she'd once seen batter the lower districts' seaport and channeled the spirit of raw, electricity into the vacant crystal. Her lungs began burning at the top of the first set of stairs. Pandora wished she hadn't had to dismiss the elemental fire from the wand's twin. Spirits of fire were fickle beings who disliked being summoned and sent on their way (especially if they leave unfed...).

"Come on, princess! Pick it up!" Donovan shouted.

A shiver worked itself up Pandora's spine. Despite the lead weights burning her muscles and lungs, she focused on her friend's encouragement and willed more speed into her lower limbs. Donovan disappeared over the ziggurat's crest and Pandora vaulted the final three steps, breaching the top behind him.

Horror greeted her.

The Drake-beast's wretched form hovered twenty feet above the ziggurat. Even in undeath, his limbs moved fluidly, and with the precision of a master spellcaster. Coils of dark energy wreathed his forearms, congealing into orbs at the tips of his talons. The creature's haunting, chant-like incantation smothered the shrine.

Beneath him, centered in the middle of the broad floor of finely wrought gold, stood a fifteen foot block of crystal. Three dozen terra cotta soldiers, all better than eight feet tall, stood at eternal attention facing away from the cardinal compass points of the crystal grave marker. They carried weapons of antiquity: wavy-bladed flamberges longer than Pandora was tall and even longer polearms with an assortment of axe-heads and spear points.

Donovan pulled Pandora into cover behind a thickly nestled cluster of wide green plants. His sword was readied and Pandora easily found a tinge of excitement in the cadet's eyes.

"Look's like there's still time to stop him."

Pandora nodded agreement. "Alright then. Let's go."

Neither moved.

"You do have a plan right?" Pandora asked, eyebrow cocked.

"Do I have a plan?" Donovan replied. He pressed a hand into his chest to clarify. "Me?"

"Well of course you. Who else would have a battle plan? You're the soldier!"

Donovan tipped his head back. "Cadet, Pandi. I'm a first season cadet."

"So?"

"So I can handle myself in a brawl with other cadets and hopefully not get myself killed when using real steel." Donovan brushed a wide plant life aside and pointed at the swirling vortex of energy enveloping her father's spectre. "Magic is your department. You've been at it a longer than I've been at the Citadel scrubbing floors and playing with wooden training swords."

Pandora didn't reply. She glanced at the Drake-beast, trying her best to ignore the perverted, twisted sound of his voice.

"Can't you just blast him with fire?" Donovan asked.

The princess shook her head. "I had to release the fire spirit when someone almost got squashed by a giant rock." She held up the pair of wands. "I've got lightning and wind. And maybe something else."

"Your mother warned me about the Blight, so don't even think it. She said that every time you summon its power you're one step closer to being completely taken in by it." Donovan thrust his chin at the Drake-beast for emphasis. "One step closer to that."