CHAPTER#72

The rocks were becoming more frequent, and Zel twisted her body to take them down a steep pass. They curled around a tall rock formation with deep crags. She spread her legs wide, the snow rolling up over her legs and onto her stomach. The ground was leveling out, but a large drop off was coming.

Mike shoved his free hand into the snow and they all came to a slow stop. Stumbling to their feet, Zel led him along an area with a twenty-foot sheer cliff above them. A ten-foot wide trail overlooked the valley below and a cave-like structure had been carved into the stone. Zel stumbled forward into it, collapsing toward the back wall. Mike was right behind her, the sounds of the mountain now vibrating the thick stone walls around their hiding spot. The world grew dark as the avalanche finally caught up to them, billowing over the rocks and filling the valley below.

Several seconds passed by, and the snow was mixed with water. Trees and rocks spilled out over the cliff, the sound deafening. Mike opened up his shirt and tucked Ratu inside to warm her up, then clung to Zel, praying that it would end soon.

-

Yuki narrowed her eye at the scene below. Astride the mighty Jabberwock, she watched as the sun stone sent out another wave of heat, nearby trees bursting into flame. The mountain was covered in smoke and steam, and she had lost sight of the naga.

Their fight had been intense and evenly matched, but Yuki had summoned the beast to her with a mere thought. Constructed of magic and clay, the creature wasn't technically alive, but it did have tremendous power of its own. At the arrival of the Jabberwock, the naga had thrown what Yuki had thought was a poorly aimed fireball. Dodging to the side, Yuki soon realized that the target had been a sun stone apparently dropped by the man she had sent down the mountain.

Intent on winning the fight, it was far more important that the sun stone be extinguished. If the fire spread, it could burn down the trees that led back to the house on Earth, trapping her here officially forever. Commanding large cyclones of snow, she continued to pile on her ice magic, frustrated at how much energy she was wasting on something so stupid. She knew all about the sun stone and its abilities and wondered why the fool had removed it from the Vault in the first place.

Beneath her, the glow of the stone was making the mountain look like a volcano about to erupt. Frustrated, she stuck a hand in her pocket and pulled out a deck of tarot cards. She cut immediately past the Major Arcana and began sifting through the cards of the Minor Arcana. She hated to be wasting so much magic on a stupid problem, but it had to be done.

An updraft caused the Jabberwock to buck violently, and she grabbed on to her harness. All three of her tails flared out behind her, sending a radiant wave of magical energy beneath the beast to stabilize it. If she was going to act, it needed to be now.

She pulled the Ten of Cups free. Scowling, she tucked away the rest of the cards in the special pouch she had pulled them from. She had a lot of free time in the tower, and she had spent a substantial amount of that time drawing tarot cards. This deck, however, was the most special of all. She had infused every card with powerful magic, each one taking nearly a month to craft.

The ice and the snow had been enough to absorb the immediate heat of the stone, but she needed to smother the nearby flames that kept feeding it. The easiest way to do that would require a rainstorm of epic proportions.

The card glowed an icy blue in her hands as she undid the magical lock that she had put on it. Commanding the Jabberwock to climb higher, she threw the card down, watching it pulsate with light as it sank into the smoke. The Ten of Cups she had drawn depicted the valley below beneath a large rainbow surrounded by cups full of water. The easiest way to summon a rainbow was to wait until after a storm.

This card had been a pain in the ass to make primarily because she had captured a rainstorm inside. Years back, on the back of the Jabberwock, she had spent hours trapping the stormcloud inside while high up in the sky, nearly falling twice. The storm in question had been particularly difficult because she had captured it during the height of monsoon season.

Down below, she heard a blast of thunder as the storm was released all at once. Through the smoke, she could hear the torrential downpour of inches of rain falling onto the mountaintop all at once and could see the immediate rush of water farther down the mountain. This spell would inevitably trigger mudslides and wreak havoc on the ecosystem down below, but that was a problem for someone else to deal with.

She waited, her eye on the glow of the sun stone. It gradually faded, the nearby fires extinguished. After several minutes had passed, the Ten of Cups was extinguished, and she could no longer feel the magic of the stone. With a heavy sigh of relief, she commanded the Jabberwock to circle, pulling the Ace of Swords out next. This card shimmered like heated air, and transformed into a longsword in her hand. The Jabberwock flew lower towards the clouds beneath and she swung downward, commanding the magic to release once more.

A powerful blast of wind cut through the clouds, causing them to billow apart and flee. Soon, she could see the mountain top and grimaced at the devastation. They landed, and she frantically rushed through muddy soil to the copse of trees that were all singed around the edges. Pushing through, she was grateful to see that the ones in the middle had been spared any damage from the fires or the flood.