Chapter Eleven

Gary led the group defiantly up the stone steps. They were all quiet, each in deep thought.

As Brigitte climbed up the steps at the end of the single file line, she thought about the prophecy. On the day of the dead/the moon shall rise/five sorcerers of special power/and secret ties.

Five sorcerers of special power…. She looked at Gary. He had the power of wind. Kali, who wasn't here but had to be one of the sorcerers mentioned, had the power of electricity and lightning. Zale had water on his side, she knew that because he had specifically stayed in the pond when they first met. He lived behind a waterfall, so it had to be. She herself had a small amount of magic in her. But what about Sophia?

Hmm… Maybe Zale could help me; he seems to know a little more about this sort of stuff than Gary or Sophia.

Zale was climbing right in front of her, so it was easy to get his attention without disturbing Gary or Sophia. "Zale!" she hissed behind him. He turned his head slightly to listen.

"In your prophecy, you say 'five sorcerers of special power'. We here all have power except for Sophia. But she has to have a power, she is one of the five sorcerers. What do you think-"

"Fire."

"Why do you think that?"

"Her firey red hair, the great amount of jealousy and contempt in her. And when she went to help Gary back at the clearing, she was never burned and didn't even flinch away from the fire."

"Oh. Well, that solves on problem."

They climbed the rest of the way in silence. When they reached a ledge, they stopped to examine it. Gary told them about the door that was carved into a rock and could only be opened by magic.

"What kind of magic would we need?" Sophia asked.

Gary hesitated. "I don't know."

Brigitte grinned. "I can open this door. Just tell me where it is."

Zale looked at her, and realization dawned on his face. Her power must have been something that could enhance strength or make her faster. He knew that not even a demon would be able to burst through rocks.

"It's right here." Gary outlined a part of the cliff, trying to get as close to the door as he could.

"Right. Back away, please, to avoid injury," Brigitte grinned as she stepped back. The group backed away, going either back down the stone steps or up a few more. When everyone was out of the way, Brigitte took another step back and took a deep breath. It had been awhile since she had done something like this.

She charged up her energy and power, resulting that she started glowing. Closing her eyes, she concentrated on her power and ran towards the cliff wall. Upon reaching the wall, she quickly brought her leg up and kicked the wall. It crumbled under her touch and a large hole appeared.

"Take your last breath of crystal night air," Gary said, stepping down from the steps and onto the ledge. "We're going to be spending a lot of time in there."

They climbed into the hole and entered the mountain.

*****

Behind Kali lay a road of destruction. Many of Nwon-Knu's demon servants were sprawled out on the ground in odd angles and positions. Kali was munching on a loaf of bread she had stolen from one of the servants she had knocked out.

She turned a corner in the dimly lit, ragged stone hole way and finished her bread. No one occupied this hall way, and she could not see the end, which was shadowed. Grabbing a torch of the wall, she ventured towards the shadowed end.

Her footsteps echoed in the corridor. The walls were becoming more smooth and perfected. There were picture painted on the walls. They began with pictures of a group of people slaying a prisoner or someone who had committed a crime. After a few of these came pictures of people, each half-human and half demon. In one picture there was an orange demon, with a tornado of fire ringing around it. The other half of a picture showed a fair nobleman with dark red hair and brown eyes. He was strong, and Kali recognized him as Ganralf. Turning to see the other side of the corridor, she found Mayonaka's picture.

She quickened her pace down the corridor, feeling the deathly stares of the half-demons. She could almost feel their human souls begging to save them, pulling on her, slowing her down. She was trudging towards the dark end, and could now make out a large iron door. One foot in front of the other, she slowly made her way to the iron door and collapse into it, leaning against it for support. And as she touched the cold iron, she could feel all the begging souls leave her. It was strange, almost like Nwon-Knu was using the bodies and magical powers, while she held the real human souls captive.

A picture caught her eye, and she gasped as she looked at it. It was her, with the lightning crashing down, and she was slipping. It was raining out, and there was an expression of horror and confusion etched on her shadowed face. She felt the door open and walked into the room.

Inside, she found cages, full of . . . people? They were weak from starvation and looked old. As she walked through the row of cages, people just stared at her, too weak to do anything else. In the last cage, there lay in an almost transparent person, who had obviously not been here to long. She looked up at Kali as she approached the cage. Kali stepped back in shock.

"You're . . . me."

The girl inside nodded.

"Why are you, why am I…transparent?"

"Nwon-Knu doesn't own us yet. But if you agree to go with her, she will. Everyone else in here, they are the people who were turned into half demons. She owns them, heart and soul. You already half agreed to go with her under the influence of pain. But now that you are fully recovered, she doesn't have so much power over you. Go through that door. You have to destroy her!"

"Yeah, right like I can do that," Kali laughed. "But she's behind that door?" Kali looked to her left and noticed a wooden door. The girl in the cage nodded. Kali thought for a moment, then, taking a deep breath, she opened the door and entered the room.

"Gary!" Sophia cried over the chaos. The smell of blood - demon and human - mingled with the smell of sweat and dirt. Rock wall was blasted out, with holes with a one-foot diameter. Gary, Sophia, Zale, and Brigitte were fighting a gang of about thirty demons. A few were already down on the floor, but none were dead. Gary didn't know if this was a good thing or a bad thing.

"Sophia, listen-" Brigitte started, dodging another blast from an ice demon. "You have-" she through an uppercut at the ice demon, cracking his jaw, "-special powers that-" She ducked a punch thrown at her and shot her foot out to catch the demon by his ankles. "-can help you defend-" the demon fell with a loud thud and she grabbed a dislodged club to knock him out. "-yourself."

"What are you, kidding?!" Sophia yelled, backing up against a cliff.

Zale through a water blast at the attacking fire demon in front of him. "Don't you remember the prophecy?" He asked, stepping over the fire demon, who had fainted at the attack and was sprawled on the floor. Another demon quickly came up behind him, and he swung a fighting stick he had picked up from one demon around and hit the demon in the head.

Gary suddenly gasped in surprise. "Of course!" he exclaimed, dodging a side kick from a stone demon. "Five sorcerers of special powers!"

Brigitte jumped over a few unconscious demons to help Gary. "Take care of that water demon over there!" she said, pushing Gary out of the way. "We should try to fight demons we have power over!"

"Right!"

"What do I do?" Sophia whined, being cornered by a bunch of wood demons.

"Use your powers!" she heard a voice, though she wasn't sure who said it through the chaos.

"How?!"

"Concentrate on the element of fire."

"Increase your rage!" Zale shouted, punching a fire demon square in the stomach.

"Imagine a forest fire," Brigitte advised, sideswiping the stone demon she was fighting.

"Just how many kinds are there?!" Gary yelled.

"There's fire, stone and wood, water and ice, wind, electric, and special," Zale gasped, taking out an ice demon.

Gary dodged a fire demon and looked towards Sophia. All he saw was a mess of fighting bodies. Then, out of nowhere, came the impact of a stone demon's massive fist, and he fell to the floor.

"Gary!" Sophia cried. The mess of bodies exploded into a heap of fire, and Sophia quickly jumped out, sweating and burned.

Brigitte jumped on the stone demon's back and grabbed his neck. Gathering all the strength she could, she squeezed his neck and he collapsed onto the ground unconscious.

Gary quickly recovered and stood up, leaning on the wall for support. Gritting his teeth, he edged along the wall and looked around. There were bodies of demons littering the floor. The six or seven that were left were already retreating. He slid down and sat down against the wall. The others quickly followed.

"I can't take much more of this," Brigitte said. Her face was bruised, her lip was bleeding, and she had a good amount of cuts and more bruises on her arms and feet. Sophia and Zale looked the same, but Gary looked the worst. There was a large gash on his cheek, and another on his forehead. His lip was bleeding and he had two black eyes.

"It's too bad none of us have healing powers," he croaked, coughing up dark red blood.

"We'll die here, tonight," Sophia whispered, despair on her face.

"No. We got this far. We're not leaving without Kali." He stood up, as defiantly as he could. "More demons will becoming soon." He limped down the hall, and the others quickly followed him.

*****

Kali closed the door behind her, and the room went pitch black. Before she could use her electric power as a light, the room lit up. Five torches on each wall blew into flames. In the center of the furthest wall sat a shadowed figure in a black throne. Kali could feel the evil pouring out of her and knew immediately who it had to be.

"Good evening, Kali. I see you have decided to join my side."

Kali narrowed her eyes. "I did not come to join you. I will not join you."

"But before you said you would."

"I was under the influence of pain. If you want a truthful answer, you should never use pain to get it."

"Of course, 'words of wisdom'. Listen, you will join me, whether you want to or not!"

"You can't make me."

The person in the corner grinned. "Then take a look at this." She took out a crystal ball, from what seemed like nowhere. "Look into the ball. Don't worry, it won't hypnotize you or anything like that, if that's what you're afraid of."

Hesitantly, Kali looked into the ball. Inside, it showed Gary and the other fighting a group of demons. Gary looked the worst, in fact, he looked like he would collapse and die any second…

"No…" she heard herself say.

"Yes. Gary will die before he reaches your first prison room. You are in the heart of the mountain. He has a long way to go before he reaches here. But I can look after him . . . if you join me."

"You lie! It can't be true, you'd never protect him!" she cried.

"Well it's worth a try, is it not? If you don't, he'll die anyway. But if you join me, there's always a chance . . . "

"If I join you, you'll own me body and soul. I'll be locked up in those cages. And I won't do it. For Gary. I'll make sure he won't die. And doing that does not involve joining you." She spat the last word, "you" like it was poison.

"Testy, testy, testy, aren't we? Come now, surely you don't believe that you can save him by yourself."

Kali glared at Nwon-Knu.

"Well if that's the case, then we'll just have to force you. Guards?"

Ganralf and Mayonaka appeared out of the shadows and headed straight towards Kali. Keeping calm, she backed away towards the door. She felt herself hit the wall, and quickly started to feel around for the doorknob. Finding nothing, she turned and saw nothing but gray stone. Eyes wide, she turned around, but could do nothing. Mayonaka and Ganralf were already there, right in front of her. They grabbed her and dragged her back towards Nwon-Knu.

"No! Let me go! I won't do anything you force me to!" She struggled to free her grip, but they just held on harder.

"It seems that you're wrong." She grinned evilly. "Come on, let us finish her demon ceremony."

"NO!" Kali's scream echoed all through the stone halls of Nwon-Knu's mountain castle. Gary looked up in hope.

"Kali! I'm on my way!" With a new burst of energy, he hurried off through the tunnels, leaving the other three behind.

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