@all: Sorry for my lateness
@Aegis: I’m curious; what gives you the impression that Magus is in Limbo?
BTW, the movement of the story on fanfiction.net is ok with me. It fits into either category.
* * * * *
As Calahan stumbled, trying to get his bearings, three more arrows come whistling towards him. Two of them again bounce off harmlessly, but one finds a gap between plates on the inside of his left elbow. The wound is shallow, but the pain snaps Calahan’s mind back into focus. Quickly looking around, he sees his last mercerany send a thief running, two of his comrades dead or crippled at the fighter’s feet. Then the idiot just stands there staring off at nothing in particular.
“GET OVER HERE AND HELP ME YOU LOUSY SON OF A B*TCH!” Calahan yells furiously. He senses a stab from behind, and whirls with surprising speed to block it with the shaft of his halberd. Thryn, expecting a counter slash from the left with the blade, rolls with it. Instead, Calahan brings around the haft from the other side, dealing a glancing blow on the head. Fighting off dizziness and disorientation, he doesn’t manage to dodge Calahan’s armored kick, which catches him in the ribs and sends him sprawling, winded and badly bruised.
Llira’s timely arrival saves his life. She kicks out at the back of Calahan’s knee, sending him stumbling backward. Then she rushes forward to slit his throat from behind. The move is expertly done, but yet again his speed catches his attacker unaware. As the knife arcs towards his throat he grabs her wrist in a crushing embrace. Llira’s scream echoes hauntingly through the pass as bones splinter and crush. Meanwhile he maneuvers her around, putting her between him and the archers.
* * * * *
The lesser demons dead, the djiins and Magus are left alone with the ta’narri balor. Smelling sweet blood, it immediately rushes at the wounded genie, still invisible. He casts a dimension door, but too late. The balor’s claws come raking down, tearing into the genie’s abdomen and disrupting the spell. Blood spills forth as if from nowhere. With its last breath on the prime material the djiin lets loose a powerful lightning bolt that blasts through the balor’s magical defenses and sends it reeling backward.
The other djiin, protected by a shield of cold fire, dashes in before the ta’narri can recover. Hasting himself with a word, the djiin’s blade moves in a blur, scoring a dozen hits in the span of seconds. Weakened and distracted, Magus’s finger of death meets little resistance, and ends the fiend’s life before it can counter.
The battle over, the djiin returns the katana to its belt, and his shield fades away. The death of his comrade makes him feel somewhat lonely, but he is not saddened. He was home, and free once again from the whims of impertinent mortals.
“A battle well-fought, mortal. Your magic commands respect, it does. However, no closer are we to our goal than before. No rakshasa pays us a visit.”
Impossible, Magus thinks. He knew for certain that there was a rakshasa somewhere in the area. The artifact should have drawn it there with all the rest. Something was wrong, very wrong.
“Well? Is our most respected and powerful wizard actually baffled, yes?”
Suddenly Magus appears, his invisibility dispelled. He instantly deduces from the djiin’s surprised expression that it wasn’t him. Then he senses it. The powerful, malevolent presence. The rakshasa had arrived.
Magus cries out in warning, but it’s too late. A scimitar cuts through the air, and the genie’s head rolls to the ground, followed by its body.
Luckily he hadn’t yet revoked his stoneskins. Quickly he weaves a spell turning protection, just in time to reflect the rakshasa’s fireball back at it. The explosion doesn’t even faze it. This one was powerful indeed.
Without stopping Magus begins his next spell. Shimmering silver daggers erupt from his hand and shoot towards their target. The rakshasa responds with a stoneskin, but it underestimates the sheer number of daggers. 7 bounce off, but 3 more bite deeply into flesh.
The power of the spell is draining, and Magus is forced to pause. Infuriated, the rakshasa goes into a long, mystic chant. His magic unavailable, Magus taps other powers as his opponent’s spell reaches completion.
A great pillar of black flame shoots down from the sky, enveloping the mage in fiery death, blasting through his spell defenses. The dark inferno raged for a second, a minute, who can really say? But when it ended, and the smoke clears, Magus stood levitating in midair, his eyes closed, his robes blackened with soot but untouched. Opening his eyes, he gazed at the rakshasa with eyes unseeing, eyes focused inward in the ecstasy of self-enlightenment. At that moment the cunning rakshasa knew fear, perhaps for the first time in its despicable life. Great among its kind, feared by creatures across the planes, it never knew an opponent it couldn’t smite with a mix of guile and overwhelming power.
Something about the mage’s gaze was compelling, forcing the rakshasa lord to stare back. Seconds later it fell, a lifeless husk, defeated in a mighty psionic battle spanning timeless eons in the realm of the mind. Then Magus himself crumpled to the ground, mind and body exhausted from the ordeal of their assimilating. He barely managed to crawl over and conceal the gem once more within his robe before consciousness left him.
* * * * *
His foes finished, for some reason Xandax’s gaze is drawn to the sky in the far-off distance. There he sees a writhing black pillar extending from sky to horizon, composed of what, he doesn’t know. The sight is hideous but entrancing. His musings are interrupted by Calahan’s nearby bellow.
“GET OVER HERE AND HELP ME YOU LOUSY SON OF A B*TCH!”
[ 09-02-2001: Message edited by: Magus ]