Mana Mutation Menace (Journey to Chaos Book 3) (71 page)

Nulso's body descended. Possessed by Order instead of
merely empowered by him, it ignored the barrier that Nulso himself failed to
break. It slipped through the curtain as easily as Quando. Even Meza’s blood
chilled at the sight. When its feet touched the ground, members of both groups
felt primal rage, but the expansion of its spirit gave them fearful pause.

A lesser mage could expand their spirit to cover their
body in armor; this was the basic barrier. A greater mage could expand their
spirit into the surrounding area several yards and further if it was directed
at something. Sages, those venerable few who reached the limits of mortal
power, could protect a moderate-sized army. Even the avatars, gods of the world
with millennium of experience, couldn’t blanket more than a single city. This
enemy filled the entire village, all of its many bigger on the inside buildings,
and a large chunk of the surrounding landscape and sky with his presence.

It terrified them. It caused them to break out in sweat,
to lose control of their bowels, to cry, to panic. Some of the less hardy elves
ran away screaming, while others were too numb with despair to consider it.
Meza, Alexis, and their followers fit neither category. They recognized Order Terror
when they felt it, but never on this scale. The sheer size and depth stunned
them.

"Begone, Order!"

 Sagart stood cloaked in a dim golden-brown aura. In her
right hand was a staff bearing the Flower of Chaos at its head and in her other
was the
Elven Tome
. The staff's petals rattled on their own in a rhythmic
ching
. The letters on the cover shimmered. Completely unafraid and unbowed,
she approached Nulso's corpse.

 "Against me no weapon born of you shall
prosper!"

 "Foolish
priestess. You are too weak to stop me. All of the many gods you worship are
either occupied or similarly insufficient, and the one who is present at this
time will refuse to stop me. Resistance is Forlorn."

An ethereal stinger grew from his eldritch aura. It was
bigger than Sagart and poised over her. Then it plunged. She countered with her
staff. The resulting collision created a flash of light and power that
shattered the ground.

 "Lady Chaos is with me! Of whom should I be
afraid!"

 Sagart grit her teeth and pushed with all her spiritual
might. She was a veteran priestess who was fully trained in Chaoist Theology.
She had served in the Conversion War. She had freed many from Order's Subjugation
and experienced it herself. She had slain ordercrafters and toppled Order
Obelisks, but even she couldn't challenge Order himself in direct combat. All
she could do was slide the stinger aside and jump away.

 That one exchange left her exhausted both physical and
spiritually. She was unsteady on her feet and her staff of authority was
suddenly much harder to lift. Her nose was bleeding and her Seed of Chaos
couldn't stop it because it was busy repairing other damage. Her spirit
wobbled. The clash almost knocked it from her body, and she felt a great ache
inside of her as she tried to compensate for the astral/physical dissonance. Nulso's
corpse, other than looking vacuum-sealed due to Order's possession, was just
fine.

 "As
I said, Resistance is Forlorn."

 Undaunted, Sagart raised her staff and shouted, "All
things are possible with Lady Chaos! All who despair, know her hope!"

 Nulso generated more ethereal constructs and lashed out
at her with all of them. She ducked and jumped to avoid them, and when she
couldn't, she batted them aside with her staff.

 "All who are weak, know her empowerment!"

 She coughed up blood and Nulso connected solidly with an
ethereal fist. She flew backwards through the air and crumbled into the snow.

 "All who are hurt," she croaked, "know her
healing."

 Five order constructs pinned her down while five more
gathered earth and water from the environment. With his divine power, Order
manipulated their fundamental nature and crafted a Subjugation Collar from
them. Sagart stared defiantly at it.

 "All who are imprisoned, know her freedom."

 At the psalm’s completion, a wave of chaos radiated from
Sagart and across the village. It washed over the order constructs and made
them sizzle. It washed over Nulso's corpse and made it burn. It washed over the
frozen elves and braced them against Order's Divine Presence. Their eyes glowed
with Sagart's blessing and they leapt into action.

 Five ordercrafter hunters grabbed the tendrils restraining
Sagart and spoke of Order's hypocrisy; attacking a licensed preacher when she
defended her flock? Outrageous! The eldritch light of Order, wrapped within a
helix of golden-brown emerged from their Order Negator Gauntlets and weakened
the tendrils. Five Guardians sliced through them with elven blades.

“Thank you, my friends. However, I can only aid you with
prayer now.”

“That’s more than enough, Sister.”

With that, they joined their fellows in the attack on
Nulso’s corpse. They fanned out and surrounded him. Forty guardians and forty ordercrafter
hunters against one possessed human. Guardian mages took flight to establish
positions above him and on the ground; their staves glowed with the power of
their spells and their hair shined to add a chaotic boost. Guardian warriors
trained spears and swords on the vessel; their blades shimmered with chaotic
runes more advanced than Eric’s or Kallen's. Ordercrafter hunters charged
lawful bolts. Nulso’s corpse gazed at the army assembled against him and said,

 “One fly is
no different from one thousand.”

The warriors charged. The mages fired their spells. The
ordercrafter hunters sapped his strength. Sagart boosted all of them with
prayers to Lady Chaos. Nulso’s corpse stood still, tanked it, and expressed
nothing but boredom. Its Order Shield, now Order’s Divine Presence, canceled
the kinetic charge of the weapon thrusts, absorbed the mana of the spells, and
ignored the denouncements of the ordercrafter hunters. These neophytes could
not hurt him if they tried for one hundred years.

Order flexed the fragment of his spirit that dwelled
within Nulso’s body; a fraction of a fraction of a fraction of his full power.
It was enough to scatter the neophytes to the four corners of the village and
render them unconscious. Only veterans of the Conversion War and those who had
traveled the world since then remained: Meza, a handful of his corps, Alexis, a
few guardians, and Sagart. It was to them that he addressed this proclamation.

“I have
come to establish true order. The people here are a powder keg of fear and
power. This ‘summit’ threatens to undermine a way of life and destroy a
culture. It will plunge this world into chaos. Stability must be preserved and
so you will be neutralized. I will erase your village from existence and
enslave its populace.”

Nulso's corpse waved its hand and generated a staff out of
thin air. It was sleek in shape and silver in color with no runes to be seen. He
thudded its butt on the ground and clouds of silver-grey smoke manifested in
his aura. Ten gathered around Nulso’s body like satellites around a planet.
More appeared in the sky like storm clouds blocking the sun.

 “No one
can hide from the All-Seeing Eye nor evade the All-Encompassing Hand: Resistance
is Forlorn.”

Order pointed his staff at the Sage Tree and the enforcers
scrambled. Like bloodhounds, they hunted anything holding a Seed of Chaos and their
first victim was Quando. Still recovering from his battle, he couldn’t fight it
off and it swallowed him. Now he was its prisoner and his Seed of Chaos was
once again being stolen from him.

 “Defense Pattern Gama!” Meza shouted.

“Yes, sir!”

“Follow their lead!” Alexis shouted.

“Yes, ma’am!”

The ordercrafter hunters chaosified their weapons and
attacked the enforcers in pairs; they recited chaotic doctrine and orderly law
to weaken them and then cleaved them with holy weapons. The guardians assisted
them as best they could, but even together, they were outnumbered. The bulk of
the invading army moved unopposed.

Enforcers swarmed the village and gobbled up its people.
They bypassed barriers as if they didn’t exist and invaded homes despite their
wards. The spells and technology that the elves developed for centuries counted
for nothing against them. These were minor gods and they were merely augmented
humans. Entire families withered and sobbed on their living room floor as their
eternal life was drained from them.

Annala watched the debacle happen. Of all the elves in
Dnnac Ledo, she alone was left unmolested. The Subjugation Collar, regardless
of the one powered by Noitearc, marked her as under Order’s jurisdiction and so
the enforcers did not consider her a target or a threat. She hated this
designation yet felt powerless to change it, so she did the only thing she
could.

“TASIO, TASIO, TASIO!”

The named god appeared at her side, but this was not
“Tasio the Pest.” Wearing a gold chestplate, gauntlets, greaves, a helmet, and carrying
a sword in each hand, he was dressed for war. His Divine Presence, normally
tightly furled, was now open. It shined with a light more glorious than any
Annala had ever seen. Standing next to him filled her heart with both hope and
despair and caused her to feel both pleasure and pain. This was “Tasio the Seraph
of Chaos.”

He looked at her and she was overcome by a sudden and
intense adoration. With one sword, he pointed to an enormous cloud of silver-grey
mist; scores of enforcers were converging on their location.

“BUSY!”

He flew into their midst like a bolt of divine judgment.
Piercing their formation, he hacked and slashed. Where two elves had to work
together to defeat a single enforcer, Tasio smote them with one strike each.

Annala bowed her head and prayed for his victory. This
action triggered a routine in the Subjugation Collar and it began to choke her.
She yanked at it and gagged as it strangled her. She fell to her knees as her
vision went black. Tasio then appeared unbidden and tapped the collar with the
tip of one sword. It stopped immediately.

“That’s an
advantage. Use it!”

He flew back into the enforcer cloud and his Divine
Presence was soon lost within theirs. Annala knelt on the ground, watching him
and wondering what he meant. The Subjugation Collar shut down her magecraft,
Seed of Chaos, and spiritual power. It choked her for praying to a chaotic
deity, so she couldn’t even provide back-up support like Sister Sagart. All she
could do was watch her aunt and Meza.

The two of them fought Order and ten of his drones.
Without any backup other than Sagart’s prayers, they attempted to destroy Order’s
vessel before he enslaved their village. Meza’s order-negating blade sapped the
strength of the enforcers but couldn’t dull the Divine Presence surrounding
Nulso’s corpse. Alexis’ order-destroying blade slashed through enforcers but
couldn’t pierce the defense Order put around his current vessel. The vessel
itself was free to strike with its staff or pelt them with mana bolts without
fear of retaliation. It reminded Annala of a video game boss that spawned
minions and possessed a body impervious to conventional harm. It required a
trick, a special skill, or a rare item.

She touched her collar and shook her head. It was
impossible. She was a powerless apostate. Even if she was right about her
possible action, it wouldn’t do anyone any good and would only place herself in
great danger. The horrors she saw in Eaol’s vision could come true!

Above the din of battle, Tasio called to her.

“
You may
not believe in my mother, but she believes in you, and so do I.
”

As Meza and Alexis continued their futile assault, more
enforcers arrived. By now, they were numerous enough to create their own curtain
to surround the village. Where the first prevented anyone from entering, this
one prevented anyone from leaving. Be it by primitive legs or the high tech
Arch of Kresnik, escape was impossible. Like Roalt Castle before it, Dnnac Ledo
now existed in its own dimension, separate from the rest of Tariatla. There
would be no cavalry coming to the rescue.

Order's invasion was overwhelming. Both Meza's
ordercrafter hunters and the village guardians were spread thin. Even the
civilians had taken up arms to fight against the invading army, but it was
still not enough. As the battle continued, four enforcers ganged up on Alexis.

Mustering her courage, Annala stood, hiked up her skirt,
and ran forward. She had to do this; she had to because there was no one else. It
was fear for her aunt that compelled hers; her aunt and herself. She feared
that what she saw in her vision, and what happened to Alexis in real life,
would come to pass once more. Thwarting such a nightmare was worth any risk.

The enforcers ignored her because she was designated as a
slave. The Order Shield was as thin as air to her. Order himself didn’t notice
her until she was under his nose. She slapped him across the cheek and shouted,

“Hypocrite! Your host stalked me for months despite the
local government’s laws against stalking
and
the laws against private
ordercrafters. He disrupted my life, sowed disorder in my community, locked
this thing on my neck against my will, and kidnapped me. You yourself
disapproved of that last one! Now here you are vandalizing like the original
vandals! How can a being that protests to embody Truth and Rule of Law defend
against such hypocrisy?”

Order hesitated. His pilfered body stopped moving and his
aura dimmed a degree. Lacking his direction, the enforcers also lacked his
vitality and elves all over the village suddenly found themselves an easier
fight. Alexis fought her way out of her silver vapor cage and Meza banished the
ones that attacked himself. Nulso’s body stone alone, except for Annala.