He had controlled fire, lightning, ice, wind, motion, light, even gravity, but none of these compared to the force he wielded now, the force that ruled over all others.
Willpower.
As an enchanter, he had been aware of that presence from the first moment he had discovered his powers, that near-infinite force that slept behind the workings of the world. That strength that breathed the winds, made the stars shine and the tides flow. A well of will from which all creatures drew at birth, some more deeply than others. Whether it was the Gods or not, he was powerless to judge, he knew only that it was there, giving life and resolve to the world.
It was forbidden to speak of the presence, although he could never fully put into words why. It was simply part of his calling as an enchanter. All creatures had will, but without the enchanter’s gifts, there was no way to bring it to bear on reality other than their own bodies. He could provide a path, form a way for inner strength to transform into other things. He was a sculptor of will, an artist of the elements, blending one with the other, placing the physical under the control of the mental. Magical strength was simply a matter of resolve, he had seen several strong-minded children overpowering men many times their size in spellcasting, through sheer strength of will. In magic, the body was nothing, the mind was all.
But even the most determined mind paled next to the unimaginable will from which it came. But he was an enchanter, he could shape will, transform it, and, when the situation was dire, he could channel that incontestable power. Transcendency.
Syllables burst from his lips, familiar from a thousand repetitions. He could not allow his enemy to tap that strength before he could counter it. He increased the speed of his chant.
“Veda ei ketri donimas a venei saluras kilases ei serri ei quadat…”
It was a mantra, phrases to help him focus, using words to focus the images in his mind. That was the reason Kostra was made, the language of enchantment, precise, unambiguous. The language had been passed down for hundreds of years, since the first enchanters had sprung from Nevinian stock, and unlike the languages of the North, it remained pure and uncorrupted. It was an exact language, with unyielding syntax and precise structure. Unlike the work of the Elvish mystics, the enchanter’s spells could not be open to alternate interpretations. Kostra had no words for ‘mostly’ or ‘sometimes,’ or ‘maybe.’ Instead it had percentages and values and rules to be followed, and one word out of place could bring the whole enchantment to crashing ruin.
But the old man was a master of it, and not a single syllable was spoken out of turn. He felt the heat rush through him as the otherworldly will burst forth upon the world, it was all he could do keep it in check, his will bending the will to his wishes. Blazing spectral fire burst into existence around him, raw energy bleeding into the world, sending luminous white tendrils swirling around him like ghostly whips.
His vision fell back, revealing the workings of the world, the fabric from which reality was made, and saw his enemy there, pulling on the same forces, but bathed in wrath, his mood manifesting itself as a crimson glow. He could feel the power of the chant booming through the earth, colliding with the echoes of his foe’s words.
Another phrase was added to the tuneless chant, and gravity slipped away, powerless before his augmented strength. His nemesis did the same, and two men faced each other, righteous anger against avaricious rage.
Resca, and Lithra.
Swords were drawn, masterpieces of forging and enchanting both. For weeks on end, Lithra had toiled over his sword, taxing his mind to the limit, rewriting, reworking, and refining the spell, dozens of pages worth of material that had to be recited flawlessly, with perfect timing. Weeks of metallurgy and heating and hammering into a single piece, a single weapon. Sa’Lithra.
It burned with crimson fire as it flashed into the sunlight, for it had been designed to channel transcendent energy, an extension of the enchanter himself. Even now it broke his heart to see his greatest work in the hands of a traitor, but he dispelled the thought. To lose focus while transcendent would be disastrous, he walked a narrow path between losing control over the will, or being consumed by it, losing himself in its pull. Either one would spell death to him and the rest of the North.
But Sa’Lithra did not go unchallenged. Avenger flew from the scabbard into his outstretched hand, gleaming with incandescent flames. This sword had been made for one purpose, to counter Sa’Lithra. Avenger had been endowed with only the most basic of spells accessible to normal men, its true power lay in the hands of a transcendent being, and it was now being put to the test. His other hand gripped his newly made staff, the crystals atop it humming with energy.
There was the slightest pause as teacher and pupil glared at one another, able to see one another in perfect detail, despite the distance between them. Below them, two armies rushed towards one another, a sea of pale lights through his supernatural vision, stars to the blaze of Resca’s sun. Novels could nave been written about the glares that passed between them, but the look only lasted a second. Just as the armies first crashed upon one another, they sprung into action.
The ground warped and blurred as he flew forward, pushing and pulling at the threads of reality, propelling himself exponentially faster, until thought and sound fell away behind him. The air ruptured in his wake, trailing his unbroken chant behind him. He leveled Avenger directly at his equally fast-moving opponent, and braced for impact.
A crash like the end of the world, a boom like a mountain had fallen from heaven, a flash like two lightning bolts had struck one another, two transcendent beings colliding in rage. The explosion blew the air itself backwards, stealing a breath from the enchanters and blasting a shock wave around them, crushing hapless soldiers of both sides as it struck the ground.
Sa’Lithra and Avenger made their first contact, two indestructible edges grinding against each other, streams of transcendent energy breaking against each other, vibrating the combatants to the core. A fraction of a second later, the turbulence threw both men violently backwards.
Lithra was hard-pressed to regain control, old age working both for and against him as a keen mind struggled to control an aging and shaken body. Wracking his brain, he wrenched the otherworldly will back under his control. Despite the stress, his chant had continued unabated, as natural as breathing after long years of practice.
Resca seemed to be taken aback by Avenger’s strength, and Lithra took heart. But not for long.
Existence was changing in response to Resca’s commands, altering reality through sheer force of will, and a streak of lightning coalesced from nothingness. Lithra shoved himself to one side, and the bolt arced past him, mere inches away, before flashing downward to earth itself, incinerating some unfortunate soul.
Resca began to spin as well, and the duelists entered a deadly circle. Lithra responded to lightning with fire, and a pillar of flames burst from the void. With a brief command, Resca collapsed the air just underneath the flow, sending the fiery column spiraling around the vacuum and sweeping across the ground. Lithra abandoned the spell just in time to counter the golden wave of a force attack.
Freeform spellcasting was a dangerous prospect, unpredictable and unstable. The pathways enchanters construct require stability, and are nearly always cast upon a suitably sturdy object that can withstand the stress exerted on them. Many an enchanted item has broken under extreme pressure, and spells cast upon the air last only seconds before falling apart.
But freeform casting offers a flexibility that hardbound spells cannot match, and both enchanters were using to full advantage, twisting and transforming spells at the last second, keeping each other off guard. Raw elements flashed through the air between the enchanters, ice, lightning, fire, force, countered and deflected endlessly in a fast paced game of reflexes, as both enchanters spun around the spiral of death. Lithra did his best to steer the fallout away from his struggling allies below him, but although in most cases he succeeded, he had neither the time nor the strength to control every attack.
But the frenzied swapping of spells was not productive enough for Resca. Deflecting Lithra’s next lightning bolt, he suddenly tightened his loop of the circling pattern and cut directly towards Lithra, Sa’Lithra swinging in a deadly arc. Reacting with the speed of a snake, Lithra dove towards his foe, driving in underneath the arc of the blade, and robbing Resca’s stroke of power. The treacherous pupil barely had time to block Avenger’s thrust, and a shuddering crash again boomed through the sky.
Student and master spun through the air, trading dozens of magically enhanced blows, mindless of their course, intent on only the duel and the chant that drove it. Red and white tendrils lashed against one another angrily, as both swords beat on each other. A sudden burst in propulsion by Resca lent a new dimension to the swordplay, as Lithra raced after him, Avenger cutting vicious arcs behind his fleeing prey. The chase rapidly picked up speed as Lithra desperately tried to overcome his target, intent on ending this madness.
The monotonous spiel was picking up in intensity, as both combatants reached deep within themselves, finding the strength for ever increasing speed. Suddenly, Resca let fly a single word, and whirling to face his tormentor, stopped dead still. Lithra barely had time to bring Avenger to a defensive position before Sa’Lithra’s lethal blow came directly at his head, whistling as it cut through the air. The swords locked, and before Lithra could utter a single syllable, Resca pulled them both into a dive, plummeting towards the ground.
Lithra began a quick spell that would force them apart, but the last word escaped his lips approximately half a second before they impacted. Resca was positioned above his mentor, intending to smash him headfirst into the unforgiving ground, but Lithra’s hasty spell skewed their path sideways, twisting them into a rough, but more survivable crash.
Dirt and rock sprayed into the air like water as the pair plowed through the earth. For the first time, the chanting ceased, rhythm lost in the impact. Fortunately, the force exuded by the transcendent enchanters cushioned their blow enough that they survived.
Resca drew a deep breath, while Lithra lay sprawled out across the freshly excavated ravine, having received the worst of the impact. Both men struggled to reclaim their strength as well as their senses. Resca began to chant softly to himself, beginning the return to transcendency, and raised his sword overhead for a killing blow.
Three things happened in the next instant. Crimson fire burst into life as Resca reclaimed his transcendency, and slashed Sa’Lithra downward. But there was still life in the old enchanter, and with a speed born of desperation, the previously unused staff in his left hand was thrust directly at his Resca’s heart. Vaguely golden crystals glittered brightly in response to Lithra’s next command.
“Avai.” he said, drawing deeply from what power he still held, and the world shattered into a million pieces of glass.
His crystals were a rarity of nature, one of the few instances where the will-that-was showed itself through non-living means. They were a tremendous repository of power, and when broken, existence shattered with it. The effect was brief, while reality pieced itself back together, but it was enough.
Light and sound fractured around them, white light bursting into rainbow flares, and when things returned to normal, Resca had been blown back more than a mile. Lithra quickly resumed the spiel, and felt strength return to him. He rose once again, and the battle resumed.
But the pace had slowed, both were tiring, the frenzied swapping of spells had now slowed, seeming almost lazy compared to the earlier attacks. Again they charged past each other, releasing another deafening, but decidedly smaller crash. But for all Lithra’s intelligence, the vigor of youth was lending Resca the edge, and Lithra was forced to detonate another crystal in order to keep him at bay.
As tired as they were, both enchanters had to reach deeper and deeper into the unconquerable will in order to maintain their strength. As they drifted eastward, their auras grew in response to the pull. Lithra and Resca clashed swords once again, determined to finish this battle. Swords were wielded with terrible ferocity, lightning and fire washing over the blades as the struck time and time again. A terrible grin came over Resca’s face as he realized he was gaining the upper hand, and Lithra desperately defended. His chant began to falter as his concentration waived under the relentless blows, and both his remaining crystals were soon broken in short succession, bearing Resca back under the sky-shattering blows.
It was not enough, Resca was winning, and he knew it, coming back after each blast with a vengeance. Resca poured all his power into one final blow, and Lithra’s power was broken.
A falling star crashed to earth.
Resca watched as his long-time tormentor smashed into the ground, displaced energy blasting a crater into the soft loam and sending a shockwave racing through the earth. The hunter descended on his prey, gloating over his victory.
Lithra was struggling to his feet, holding Avenger in both hands, staff discarded to one side. A few feet above the ground, Resca released his hold on transcendency before it could consume him, and dropped lightly to the earth.
Dust hung thick in the air, falling slowly to the ground as the enemies entered the last duel.
But you know the rest of this tale…
