“You have been on the surface too long, pale one,” Ahdis heard from behind her.
“And you have been in the dark too long if you think that you would ever find an advantage over me in anything.”
“Smug, just like the others…”
“As ominous as this all is,” Ahdis said, “and I hate to interrupt your big moment here, but can we get to the point? I have other urgent matters to attend to. As you said, I have been on the surface for a long time and I came here to Umuthi Omnyama to…”
Ahdis was suddenly struck across the chest and she was grateful that she hadn’t been controlling her Essence because the passive release of it gave her sturdy enough armor to avoid extreme heat or cold as well as a considerable amount of force. But she was taken by complete surprise when the stick of the black muthi struck her chest. The black muthi are skilled stick fighters and witches who wield death magic in the underground city of Umuthi Omnyama where the muthi citizens are ruled by powerful magic users. The muthi are humanoid dwellers of the Deep and they regularly interact with the surface because they dwell in pockets of the Deep that are relatively close to the surface, but they prefer the dark. Umuthi Omnyama is a particularly dark city where dark muthi reign at the behest of their Dark Witch Sorcerer. The black muthi are extremely comfortable in the dark and capable of blending into darkness and shadows when they haunt the surface of Agê’s Disc.
“You don’t belong here, Supreme!” the black muthi said and despite the pervasive darkness around her, Ahdis could feel it approaching her carefully. “There are no queens, no Supremes of the Sacred Dirt. Everything here bows to the Dark Witch Sorcerer and you Supremes do not know how to respect that. So either bow or be killed, I will give you those choices.”
Ahdis stood and her Essence shield disappeared completely. Her body began to glow pale white, illuminating the dirt road where the black muthi had stopped her. The underground city was large and Ahdis had only arrived to the outskirts when the black muthi confronted her. She watched the muthi squinting uncomfortably at the glow with the long wooden stick in its right hand. It wore dark armor that had been the exoskeleton of a large beetle that covered its shoulders, chest, and thighs. It had a mask that covered the lower half of its face, black to identify it as a death magic user.
“You were sent here to greet me, I assume,” Ahdis said as she lifted a hand that was inundated with ghostly white energy that increased the visibility around the two of them, and the energy coalesced into a ball of energy that surrounded the muthi. The muthi was covered in a hazy bubble that snapped its stick when the muthi hit the bubble with the intention of disrupting it.
“You are coward Supreme! Face me, your wits against mine. I would like to be the one to humble you, to send a message to the entire Disc that nothing is mightier than the Dark Witch Sorcerer and his black muthi!”
“So that is the meaning of this. Let me guess, the Dark Witch Sorcerer is making moves against the mmoatia and he is using the enemies of Tracia to make our lives difficult on the surface. The Dark Witch Sorcerer can’t hope to challenge Tracia on the surface, he would not even get past Pultine. And then there’s me.”
Ahdis slowly balled her hand into a fist and the smoky white bubble around the muthi began to contract. The muthi just laughed as the space around it shrank and its armor began to shatter its bones. Ahdis stopped the constriction.
“You will not leave Umuthi Omnyama,” the muthi said under great strain. “The Dark Witch Sorcerer will use your Essence-drained corpse to declare war on the mmoatia.”
“Drain me!” Ahdis screamed at the ball of the muthi and she lifted her hand to catch a stick being swung at her face. She gripped the end of the stick and swung it, exposing the black muthi on the other end as she slung it into another muthi who was about to launch an attack against her and they both tumbled away into the darkness. Others emerged, sticks slicing the air so fast that they were invisible, and Ahdis ended each of the stick wielders. When the attacks stopped, she turned her attention to the ball of the muthi still held by her Essence.
“The Dark Witch Sorcerer will come for you. There is no escape…”
Ahdis tightened the ball around the muthi and delighted in its pain.
“You will watch me end the Dark Witch Sorcerer before I end you.”
“She has overwhelmed the forces dispatched to the city outskirts, most esteemed Dark Witch Sorcerer,” the dark muthi said with obvious fear in its voice. It cowered behind the large black figure that leered over the edge of the balcony where it stood. They were in a large tower of the Dark Witch Sorcerer’s fortress and the Sorcerer was angry.
“Send them until she tires,” the Dark Witch Sorcerer said in a sturdy voice that cut through the dark and moist atmosphere around the tower. His voice was accompanied by vibrations that moved the environment around him and loose dirt rained down over the area.
“Of course, all dark muthi and their slaves descend on her position. All of Umuthi Omnyama give themselves for you Dark Witch Sorcerer, so that you may know glory.”
The sorcerer smirked. “She will have to kill you all to face me, and that will break her good nature to slaughter so many innocents. Then I will arrive to take her.”
The Dark Witch Sorcerer laughed maniacally and it echoed across the city as all of the buildings emptied into the streets, the denizens–whether controlled by something more powerful or just itching for a fight–headed in droves in the direction of Ahdis who waited for them.
Among the crowd, was Shini, a powerful Essence wielder who came to Umuthi Omnyama because he heard rumors about the Dark Witch Sorcerer’s plans to humble the Supreme Mmoatia Ahdis, and Shini had always wanted to meet the infamous pale one who was known all around the Deep as the protector against injustice. Shini was born on the surface in the vicinity of the Yumbo Knolls to a yumbo mother and muthi father. He had leathery, flesh wings that grew from his back that he normally concealed by wrapping his body with them, and he only revealed them when he found himself falling or in need of quick escape. The muthi that he grew up with, including his father, didn’t have wings. He looked like his father with dark skin and long, rough hair that grew up and was a light shade of brown that sharply contrasted with the darkness of his skin. Most muthi are born with pale brown skin, but the skin of a dark muthi is considerably darker and Shini had inherited it from his father. He had the angular facial features of his yumbo mother and his features were striking in a way that some found unattractive, but he had a bearing about him that commanded respect.
Shini was surprised at the activity in Umuthi Omnyama. He had been staying at an inn near the tower of the Dark Witch Sorcerer when powerful magic swept over the city and sent everyone out into the streets with a bloodlust for the Supreme. He hadn’t been impacted by the magic, he was a serious student of the Essence manipulation that his mother had taught him as well as the death magic that his father favored, so he always went about with wards covering him to protect against unwanted influence. He followed the droves of muthi, including male and female, old and young, who were eager to lay hands on the Supreme, though Shini knew that none of them stood a chance of even approaching. It troubled him to see them all marching to their deaths and soon he was flying above them toward their destination. When he saw Ahdis on the outskirts, she was alone and a misty white ball hovered near her. Shini landed and approached Ahdis carefully with his hands up.
“No stick?” Ahis yelled at him from a distance.
“I am not of the crazed masses headed your way, Supreme. I am Shini, and I have come a long way to find you, Ahdis, the Immaculate. It is unfortunate that I am meeting you under these circumstances. Are you aware that the Dark Witch Sorcerer has sent all of the muthi of this city to attack you?”
“Let them come…”
“You are not a butcher. There are children on their way here.”
“I came here to talk with the Dark Witch Sorcerer. Anyone in my way will die,” Ahdis said.
“Then go to the sorcerer,” Shini said. “I think that he is sacrificing the entire city to tire you out. The muthi here are not all evil villains to be slain and some would benefit greatly if you free them. You can remake Umuthi Omnyama so that the black muthi aren’t in control of muthi just trying to make a life. I will help you, Ahdis. I will face the Dark Witch Sorcerer by your side and finally end his evil reign.”
“Why do you care, Shini?”
“This is the city that bore my father, and it has welcomed me over the years when I am shunned from the surface as a monster.”
Shini was much closer to Ahdis by that point and the sound of the approaching hoards was intensifying. He had lowered his wings, but they were still impressive at his back. She didn’t see why anyone would consider him monstrous.
“There isn’t much time,” Shini said and he beat his wings to levitate from the ground. He extended a hand. “Let us go and stop this at the source.”
Ahdish flapped her wings and stared at Shini in the eyes. She used her immaculate skill to touch his mind and she was inundated with his history, flashes of his friends and family who loved him, his enemies who hated him, his victims who would never savor the Essence again. He wasn’t evil, but he had done horrible things in his past, horrible things that he carried and wanted to atone for.
Ahdis nodded at Shini and then took off toward the tower that was close to the city center and Shini was not far behind her, both flying as fast as they could toward the Dark Witch Sorcerer. As they flew, Ahdis heard wailing below, like the masses were screaming in agony, and when she looked down, she was surprised to see the droves of people who had been marching to the outskirts now flying awkwardly. Ahdis stopped and released her Essence shield that encompassed Shini, and then she sent out thousands of balls of hazy white that smashed into the muthi, surrounded them, and then brought them to the ground safely.
“Thank you for protecting them,” Shini said. “But I think it’s clear that the Dark Witch Sorcerer will not let you confront him until the entire city is neutralized. I will take care of them, you continue on to the tower.”
“What will you do?”
“I’m hoping a sleep spell will do the trick, but I’ve never tried it on such a large scale.”
Ahdis nodded at Shini, then turned her attention to the tower. Shini focused down on the hordes and he began to move the fingers of his hands, eight digits on each, into very precise formations. As he moved his fingers, his arms moved in wide concentric circles in front of him and his aspect manifested as lines of dark green energy with veins of black that became an intricate pattern in the air. When he was satisfied with the pattern, he put an open hand in the middle and there was an explosion that sounded like a loud pop, followed by a mist of dark green that began to disperse and settle on the feral hordes whose bodies went limp on contact.
But not everybody succumbed to Shini’s sleep spell. Powerful black muthi shielded themselves against the spell and about a dozen of them flew after Ahdis, hurling balls of black fire at her until one connected and stopped her before she reached the tower. She faced them after recovering from the blow and they all hovered in the air.
“Fight us, coward!” one of the muthi yelled. “You have not earned the honor of dying by the hand of the Dark Witch Sorcerer!”
As he yelled, two of the black muthi extended hands that shot powerful bolts of energy at Ahdis and they crashed into her white armor with a wrenching sound. There were sparks of light that delighted the black muthi who assumed that the magical bolts of energy had harmed Ahdis, but when the lights dissipated, Ahdis was still nestled inside of her white armor unscathed.
“Go now,” she said. “My quarrel is not with you. All of you will die unless you go back to the city. I am only after the Dark Witch Sorcerer.”
One of the black muthi flew at her quickly, the fingers of its hands lengthening to sharp points intent on ripping into Ahdis, but Ahdis grabbed its neck when it was close and squeezed so hard that she began to wring the death magic from its body. She grabbed hold of it with her other hand and managed to twist the muthi like a rag doll and the death magic dribbled away like globs of slick, black oil. When the muthi’s body was completely dry of its magic, it turned to dust in her hand and Ahdis wiped her pale face with the dark magic, leaving streaks of it on her cheeks.
A few of the muthi retreated at the fearsome sight of Ahdis, but they were consumed by black flames before a voice boomed loudly and shook the area.
“Fight her or die!” the Dark Witch Sorcerer yelled from atop his tower.
“That is the master you serve?” Ahdis asked the remaining black muthi. “That is true cowardice. He makes you die because he is not powerful enough to face his enemies.”
“Attack her!” the Sorcerer yelled again.
“I am going to the tower so that you all may live.”
Ahdis flew away toward the tower and none of the black muthi followed her. Instead, they pooled their powers and created a shield against the punishment of the Dark Witch Sorcerer.
She spotted him on the ledge of the tower and Ahdis flew as fast as she had ever flown to that point with both her fists–that were lined with her armor–extended and she crashed into the tower just under the ledge, causing it collapse.
“Thank you,” Shini said when he landed in the outskirts of Umuthi Omnyama where he had first encountered Ahdis. The large, black form of the Dark Witch Sorcerer was bowed at her feet, and there was a ghostly white orb floating nearby. When he was close, Shini saw through the ghostly white surface of the orb and he winced; the mangled body of a black muthi was crowded inside.
“Don’t mind that,” Ahdis said. “I am only fulfilling my promise that it would watch its precious Dark Witch Sorcerer die.”
Ahdis ripped the head from the Dark Witch Sorcerer and she filled the cavity of his body with her ghostly Essence. The body began to bloat and then it exploded into dust that was quickly absorbed into Ahdis armor. The head of the Dark Witch Sorcerer screamed loudly and unceasingly until Ahdis absorbed it as well. Then she balled a hand into a fist that forced the orb that contained the black muthi to condense into a speck of white that eventually disappeared completely.
Shini looked at Ahdis with awe and fear.
“You have absorbed the Dark Witch Sorcerer,” he said with bemusement. “He wasn’t as strong as you, but he was a vessel for arcana that predates even the mmoatia, ancient secrets of the Deep and of Death Magic. Can you contain such power? The very nature of it can be corrupting.”
“I hope that I can contain it all,” Ahdis admitted and she put a hand to her head like it was reeling. “I am regretting acting so rashly, I am seeing things that threaten to overwhelm me. Tell me what you know of the Dark Witch Sorcerer’s arcana.”
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