Pandora's Box

Chapter 14: Part II

The crystal grave marker thrummed with the magical current the Drake-beast had poured into it. The remaining flesh on Pandora's fingertips registered the scalding warmth as she placed a bony hand on the the tombstone's smooth surface. She ignored the echoes of pain and focused her thoughts on the sword still protruding from the Drake-beast's chest. In its arrogance Pandora realized it had betrayed a vulnerability.

The remnants of her human heart beat idly in Pandora's chest. She summoned every bit of will she had and infused it with the eternal, unyielding force of the Blight and slammed a fresh barricade down against the intruding voices in her head.

Clarity, precious clarity, evicted the storm of shouting voices and the world went still. She filled the blank slate of her mind with warm memories of sandy summer holidays on the Ivory beaches and birthday celebrations in the elegantly decorated palace ballroom, of fall breezes whipping through her hair on spirited horseback rides with her father and the scent of incense burning during successful spellcraft lessons with her mother. She channeled laughter, love, disappointment, regret, sickness, and healing into a single, dazzling orb and froze the image in her mind's eye

Working through the Blight's reverse, Pandora channeled life itself.

"Go on, my daughter," the Drake-beast said, with a hint of jubilation in its graveled voice. "Release Kasaadi. Command the Dawn Splitter to rise as your servant."

Pandora spun on her heel and spat defiantly, "I am not your daughter." She reeled back and flung the orb held frozen in her mind like she were skipping a stone across a pond.

The orb rippled with blazing white fire, streaking across the top of Kasaadi's tomb like a miniature comet. It slammed into the Drake-beast's chest and the giant figure, staggered backward a step. The Drake-beast gave a brief assessment of the magic missile's impact and then glared at Pandora with its hellish eyes. It lurched forward with an accusatory finger. "Foolish girl—"

The Drake-beast froze in its tracks. Pandora watched wide-eyed, edging closer to the crystal slab as the towering skeletal figure with the obscene antlers of bone began contorting under the spell. Bones creaked and then snapped. The Drake-beast unleashed a tortured bellow. Under a limning shell of indigo light, the bones shrank and reformed themselves into human-sized specimens. One of its antlers snapped and fell to the golden floor. The other crumbled to dust. New skin stretched over supple flesh that packed itself into the vacant spaces between the new bones.

Crimson fire panicked in the Drake-beast's eyes, then flickered out as a pair of natural, steel-grey eyes formed in their place. The reborn body of King Drake clutched the sword spearing its chest and fell to its knees. The creature's own avalanche of a voice remained.

"What have you done?" the Drake-beast demanded.

Pandora drew her wands and stalked over to her downed opponent.

"I've returned you to life. To true life, not this mockery."

The Drake-beast's borrowed face snarled. "To claim it for your own?"

Pandora smiled a grotesque smile with her mottled lips.

"To right a wrong that never should have been."

Pandora willed the remnants of her strength into the paired wands, filling them with a light so brilliant that its reflection against the temple's gold rivaled the sun at high noon. Just before the wands seared through the Drake-beast's throat, Pandora's deathly heart fluttered. Somewhere in the face it had stolen, she found her faday's grateful smile.

"Goodbye, faday."

As quickly as the ziggurat had rumbled to life, it fell still. Pandora turned and found the remaining terracotta soldiers standing stoically in place, bearing silent witness for the princess who had just smothered a nightmare from being born. She let the Blight seep from her mind, ignoring the petty insults and barbs thrown by the lingering voices. When her thoughts were fully her own again, she placed freshly regenerated bare palm on Kasaadi's crystal tombstone.

"Sleep well, Dawn Splitter."

Pandora ran to the ziggurat's eastern edge. She looked over the side and a surge of relief swelled in her throat. She called down, startled for a moment by the echo in the total silence. "Are you alright?"

Donovan sat cross legged in a thick bush that centered a handful of smaller ones. He glowered up with a sure-to-be permanent frown nailed to his face. "Am I alright? You turned into an evil demon thing and threw me off of a pyramid."

"Ziggurat. The top is flat, not triangular."

Donovan's frown turned into a scowl. Then eased. He gave an exasperated sigh. "Are you ok? Is it done then?"

Pandora's lips offered only a vague hint of a smile. A heavy sadness veiled her heart, but she refused to give it voice. "My father is back at rest where he belongs."

Donovan nodded his head in silent prayer, then climbed down from his seat atop the bush. Pandora made to summon a gale for her companion to climb, but her limbs felt like lead and a dull throb punched the back of her skull. Exhausted, she dropped to her rump, letting her legs dangle over the side.

"Any chance you could climb up?"