Only then did the Alfar raise shields, pulling hard on the elements around her to form them.
Just the elements around her, my brain realized, beginning to understand the little Alfar’s predicament. Despite my forming ideas, I kept my face carefully neutral and took a step backward as if intimidated by the bald little woman in front of me.
I could hear the wet snick of the eye blinking, behind me.
“You know, we don’t have to do this,” I said, as she raised a mage ball and I pulled up my own shields, encompassing the eyeball to be on the safe side. I was pretty sure the creature could take care of itself, but still. The thought of a mage ball in my own eye made me squicky.
“Of course we do,” Phaedra replied, pulsing magic into her mage ball.
“But we don’t. The creature isn’t even a weapon. It’s actually really nice,” I said, realizing how inappropriate that sounded as soon as it was out of my mouth.
Well, nice in a “destroy a big chunk of the world despite itself” kind of way, I thought.
“Of course it is a weapon. Either it wipes out you and your allies like a scourge, or it gives me its power. Either way, I will destroy you and everyone like you,” Phaedra said, as she volleyed mage balls at my shields. I absorbed them without effort. Her balls aren’t nearly as full as they normally are, I thought, to my libido’s vast amusement.
“But it’s not evil,” I repeated. “It’s not even really imprisoned. I mean, it is, but that’s because the Alfar made it look that way.”
She blasted away at my shields for a bit, before coming up for air to regroup. Once again I felt her pull at the elements. I knew, then, what was wrong.
“I know, idiot halfling,” she said, clearly fed up. If she was smarter, or a better actress, she wouldn’t act so put out about not having been able to take me down already. But luckily she was Phaedra—evil and cunning, yes, but not the most diabolical devil in Hell, by any means.
“You know?” I asked, trying to keep her talking as I figured out my strategy.
“The stupid thing blasted its thoughts into every supernatural in Rockabill. We all saw its lies,” she said, her face a mask of rage.
“Really?” I asked, surprised that the creature had made common the truth it had shown me. “It showed everyone everything?”
“Yes,” she said, obviously fuming. “Although I am sure very little of it can be believed.”
“Really?” I repeated, stupidly. “You mean the whole thing? With the creation of the earth? And the supernaturals really being mutant humans? And the Great Schism? All of it?”
“Yes!” she growled, her face spasming with rage each time I adumbrated.
It sucks when your ideology turns out to be false, I thought, understanding her anger for what it really was—fear.
“If you experienced what I did, then you felt what it felt. More important, you felt what its host, the man who became a selkie, felt. You know it can’t be lies,” I needled.
“Anything can be a lie,” Phaedra insisted, almost shouting. “Anything can be created. Nothing can be believed, and that was lies.”
“If nothing can be believed, then why does the creature have to be the one lying? Why can’t what you’ve been taught about your origins be the lies?”
I realized how hard this had to be for Phaedra. Yes, she was a nut, but she’d been taught that the Alfar were far superior (and unrelated) to both humans and other supes. The creature’s version of things went against everything Phaedra had ever been told and what she’d based her whole life upon.
She actually turned purple at my words. It was an interesting choice of complexion, considering her blood-red eyes.
“We are not humans!” she snarled, and I felt her magic blast at me as she pounded against my shields with both force and well-aimed mage balls.
Gotcha, I thought, feeling her pull once again, and despite her having lost her temper, at only earth and water.
“You should really calm down, Phaedra,” I said, once she’d spent herself and had to recharge. Like me, she could pull water from the air, cocooned as we were by water in this ocean cave. Water that also kept out most air-elementals. What there had been, she’d probably already hoovered up. “Being human’s not that bad.”
She snarled again, her face a mask of inhuman rage.
“And besides,” I said, before she could answer back with either mage balls or words, “you’re going to burn yourself out.”“I am Alfar, you stupid bitch. I will burn you out!” she yelled back at me, eyes manic with hate.
“No,” I replied, calmly. “You won’t. You can’t burn anything, not down here. You’re surrounded by water, dampening out your fire. And you’re cut off from air, as we’ve not had a fresh gust of anything but your own gaseous bellowing since we came down here.”
“I still have earth, and I still have water,” she said, but more quietly. She’d gone on the defensive, not that it mattered.
“No, you have only earth,” I said, and then I struck.
Using the same trick I’d learned from Trill and the kappa, I pulled the ocean over to my side. It was like playing string with a kitten: Every time Phaedra reached—expending power—I drew the water’s power back to me, out of her grasp.
Ever the Alfar, meanwhile, Phaedra wasn’t able to accept that I could best her with my own element. And instead of backing down and using her remaining element, like a sensible person, she just kept reaching.
And I kept shutting her down, till she was panting, her shields severely weakened. Only then did she back away and pull from the earth at her feet.
“There you go,” I said, smiling sweetly at her. “That’s a good girl. Now you know what it’s like to be one of us, with only one element.”
She growled something incomprehensible but almost certainly obscene as she pulled and pulled and pulled…
“You’re so slow,” I said, elegantly pulling my own water mojo around me like a cloak. “Not used to just having the one, are you?”
She snarled, lobbing a rather ineffectual green mage ball at me. It reminded me of Anyan, and I felt my own flare of temper.
“And so weak,” I jibed, trying to keep her off balance. But I was also telling the truth. I knew she wasn’t the strongest Alfar, but being able to pull from and combine all four elementals made her far more powerful than the majority of us single-elementals. Now she had only earth, and it didn’t appear as if she could hold too much of the element’s power at one time.
She’s got small earth pockets, I mused. While my own dear water pockets are generous.
“Are you going to talk at me all night, or are we going to fight?” the little woman asked finally, pulling herself upright.
She called that one, I thought, having fully intended to talk at her for as long as possible. But she didn’t need to know that.
“Oh, we’re going to fight, all right,” I said, baring my teeth in what I hoped was a predatory smile but I feared might look like I was requesting a spot spinach-check. And then I started pummeling her.
[Good, Jane, nice form,] the creature’s voice spoke in my mind, nearly causing me to lose my concentration. I’d almost forgotten about it, lurking behind me.
Thanks, I thought, as I kept pulling water-elementals away from Phaedra whenever she tried to reach, using them to recharge even as I launched barrage after barrage of mage balls. Phaedra’s shields were absorbing them, but she was weakening.
[What you need is a weapon,] the creature stated, and I thought of Blondie’s killer (literally) sword. The creature chuckled.
[No, you’ll not be able to create that sword. That’s a real weapon, forged by my surviving child. That’s part of her magic as much as it is the physical world. You need something different. Something made for you.]
Like what? I thought, as I kept Phaedra busy with a fresh volley of zinging mage balls.
[How about… this,] the creature said, as in front of me appeared a two-headed ax.
“An ax?” I said aloud, my voice unable to hide my scorn. Me with an ax? That’ll be like an episode of outtakes from the ill-fated Jane the Barbarian.
[Actually a labrys,] the creature informed me.
“See, I don’t even know my axes. That’s exactly why you need a different champion,” I said, nearly nicking Phaedra with a mage ball. She’d been distracted by an ax appearing in front of me, out of nowhere.
[Just take it. See how it feels,] the creature said. I think I was trying its patience.
“Fine,” I said. “But if I chop off my own leg, I’m hopping after you.”
The creature stayed silent as I reached out my hand. As soon as my fingers made contact with the haft, all my nerves—and my magic—sang. It felt like the ax had been made for me. The wood felt perfect against my skin, but it’s also like I recognized the weapon, on some primeval level.
Holy shit, I marveled, as my hand closed around the ax’s handle. Power surged through me and the wood of the handle seemed to mold itself to my hand.