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Ebony and Lavender: A Knights Quest
by StarbearerTM
More by this Writer
The world is changing around him and Sir Trunks of Capsule must embark on a quest with Mazuko Magician Gohan to right the evils they encounter. But darkness isn't always evil, nor is light always good.
Graphic Violence
Chapter 05: Where Sprites Fail and Magicians Shine
For a second Trunks turned to the magician, seeing the green barrier. The dark eyed Mazuko glared at him with onyx eyes hard as coal, but urgent as skyfall steel. “Hurry!” Gohan shouted. “Or we’ll be crushed!”
Tapion fluttered and squealed in horror at the block bearing down on them. For a split second Trunks cleaved it with his sword only to see another larger jagged piece dropping him in its solid blue shadow. From behind him he felt an arm grasp him, and yank him free, pushing him to the side. The mammoth block thundered down and smashed a wide crack through the ice. Right on top of…
“TAPION!” Trunks shouted, barely aware of the fact that the glowing barrier over top of him was maintained by the magician who had shoved him down to shield under it.
"”Stay under! The blocks won’t stop coming till…” Gohan hissed at him.
“But the sprite!” Trunks yelled, scrambling out from under. The barrier extended over him, bathing in its sickly green glow that lit up the ice so it shone like cave slime.
He could only see a faint flickering light from the heart of the massive chunk under which cracks were spreading. Dodging the chasm, he pressed himself to the wall to see the chunks suddenly grow smaller and smaller through the barrier. The knight felt the shadow of the magician besides him, whom he had NOT asked to shield him.
“You sword twerker!” shouted Trunks, spinning around on Gohan.
“You’re welcome, for saving our lives,” Gohan answered, narrowing his eyes.
“It’s all your fault! My sprite’s destroyed! Why didn’t you let me…?” Trunks ranted moving his hand to his sword hilt.
“Is that sprite worth your life and mine? It knew its mission was keeping us out of danger, but you didn’t listen to my advice… its fate is on your decision…” Gohan said with deadly calm, revoking his barrier that shrank behind his fingers. He snapped his magical book shut.
“Sword twerkers and staff humpers say such words,” Trunks gritted, sword pointing towards the magician who held up his book.
“Why turn your sword on me? You know that I’m speaking the truth, Sir Trunks,” Gohan said, shaking his head. “If you had listened to me, your sprite would have survived. This is indeed on your head…”
Anger boiled over at the truth. Of course he was right, but to say it to his face like a patronizing professor who had no idea what that sprite had meant to him. “SILENCE!”
Gohan snapped his mouth shut, and sighed. He fixed Trunks in a stare that showed he wasn’t fazed by the angry tantrum of a hot headed knight who wouldn’t admit his mistakes. Instead he held up one hand and said, “You’re inexperienced, Sir Trunks. There’s much of this world you’ve not yet experienced. You’d do well to listen more and accuse less…”
“That sprite was made by my mother! JUST for me! You have any idea how valuable it is?” the knight pointed out, fists tightening on the hit of his sword.
“You think I haven’t lost things important to me, Capsuler? Is now a time to argue about such thinks, or are you going to sulk and throw a tantrum like a spoiled brat whose toy is broken?”
“Spoiled… brat?” Trunks hissed, raising his weapon a bit.
“I suggest we avoid the rest of the glacier…” Gohan began, but Trunks swung at him.
“Sword twerking son of a Mazuko,” he hissed. Gohan moved back, dodging the blow only to hear the loud rumbling claim the rest of his and Trunks words.
“Not NOW!” Gohan barked. Out from underneath him Trunks felt the ground vanish and he slid downwards. Gohan as well felt the absence of solid ground, tumbling along with the knight into a gaping blue void. Snow gleamed up to veil the shrinking line of daylight as they fell.
He felt Gohan grab him, and then twist around. A chunk of falling ice split them apart, sending them to two different paths down before blackness hit. Gohan saw the ice that struck Trunks head and managed to utter a spell that glowed green around them so they reached the bottom no harder than two feathers falling. In the ice and snow he saw his breath misting from his mouth.
***
Trunks awoke to a dull green glow. Instead of freezing, biting cold and bruises, he felt warm all over his body except his face and nose. Forcing his eyes open he glanced around but saw only shapes and the green aura. He was laying under his cloak that had been spread over him. Searching for a sign of the magician his blurring vision just made out the shape of someone moving their hand along the wall and chanting a low incantation. Cracks glowed eerie green all the way up and down the ice walls.
“We… we’re trapped, aren’t we?” Trunks rasped, surprised he could actually sit up from a fall of Dende knows how far.
“Certainly looks like it,” Gohan said, not facing him. “By the way, did you know that snore when you sleep?”
“I don’t SNORE!” Trunks snapped. A hard lump formed in the knight’s throat. Gohan’s words from earlier were still in his mind, eating away at him. Why hadn’t he listened to the Mazuko? More strange yet was that the Mazuko hadn’t abandoned him and he was covered up in that warm cloak. Unless the Mazuko was just as trapped as he and they were entombed in miles of ice and snow overhead. Judging by the lack of light, and the way his breath frosted.
“How deep?” Trunks asked, coughing.
“At least 2000 rods. Capsule standard…”
“Fewmits. Buried in ice….” Trunks cursed. “I don’t suppose you know some spell to get us out, magician?”
“It’s not all that easy,” said Gohan shrugging, licking his finger. He turned another page and raised his hand to whisper something else. Portions of wall rose and fell but failed to budge.
“But… but you’re a Mazuko…” Trunks insisted, tugging the cap down sufficiently to cover his ears. He caught sight of his reflection in one of the sheets of ice, noticing the two small devil horns the cap had. Of course he’d seen them before, but this magician’s sense of humor was getting on his nerves.
Licking another finger, Gohan turned a second page. He glanced up from his book and said with a small smile that Trunks was sure was patronizing, “That I am, Capsuler. What do you think I’ve been doing while you’ve been asleep? This ice is unstable and slushy at its heart. It shattered because of the rhythm from your running, and from the presence of…”
“All right, all right! It was a mistake… but… couldn’t you bust it up with some magic missile or some fire spell?” Trunks asked, glaring at him calmly looking back as if the urgency of the situation hadn’t hit them yet.
“Magic missiles would disrupt the precarious piling of the ice and snow on top of us,” Gohan said as he pointed to the maze of green cracks that shone. “This needs more understanding of how it’s balanced…”
“But we could tunnel out somehow?” Trunks said, shakily pulling out his sword and raising it.
“You see those cracks glowing there? They lead to the ceiling of our little room,” Gohan interrupted pointing up. With an intense glow he showed the dimensions of the room, and the spider web cracks that were melting and compressing.
“Only 20 rods high,” Trunks mumbled, shaking his head. “But I could use my sword to chip away…”
Once his suggestion passed into the silence he saw Gohan’s lack of nod, hearing only a small ‘hmm’ of acknowledgement that suggested to him that this magician was less than impressed. What did the magician expect? He’d just woken up, for Dende’s sake. What did he have to do? Pull the Moon Bridge out of his backside?
“Rather deep and even if we could climb out, it’d take a lot of energy,” Gohan said realistically, tapping his chin. “We need to…”
“We can’t just sit here,” Trunks grumbled, shaking his head. Irritation arose yet again.
“I would recommend it. That was a nasty fall, and you may have recovered, but if we did try to dig our way out you need strength and stamina…” Gohan said, glangcing down at his book once more, not looking up at Trunks. Almost as if he expected him to lay down obediently, Trunks wondered. Well he wasn’t one of the magician’s pet dragon familiars, by the Moon Bridge.
“Fine,” Trunks muttered, digging in his pouch. He extracted some of the capsule way-bread, started munching on it before making sure to toss a piece to Gohan. The slightly minty dry taste melted into the pouch he dipped it into, taking up some of the jelly.
The Mazuko caught it and nibbled it slightly, saying, “Thank you.”
“I guess it will take a few hours,” Trunks mumbled, continuing his improvised meal. He poured water out of his flask into a cup from the top and held it out to the other.
Gohan took the offered water, bowing his head. While both carried food, Trunks hoped to break the silent tension with the food sharing. It was the polite way to do things, and the Mazuko way, was it not? Since the magician had bothered to conjure up a blanket or pull one from his bag it was the least he could do. Trunks wasn’t sure if it was just his own concern, or his call to flight that made his heart start to pound a bit more.
Every capsule warrior or every knight or fighter in general had the flowing of the urge that sped up their breath, the flow of their blood, and every body energy called the ‘call’ to battle. It sat halfway between fear and the impulse to act. Knowing how to interpret that and pull the right muscle or action out without thinking was the challenge of most knights. This call was undefined. The air was not particularly thin, but he felt as if something else was weighing down on him other then the rods and rods of ice above them that was now their roof.
He could imagine that it was slowly sinking down. In a matter of hours if they waited too long it might crumble or shift if the ground itself moved as it had. Or if some trader or beast above deciced to walk just the wrong way…
*Dende forget that,* Trunks decided, sitting up as straight as he could. He pushed the call through his body, willing himself to rise. He gripped the hilt of his sword which had been leaning up against the wall, and hefted it up.
Gohan finally glanced up from his book and asked, “Capsuler?”
“Go back to your book, I’m fine,” Trunks huffed.
“I still don’t recommend hacking at it with that sword,” Gohan reprimanded, waggling his finger. “The cracks are still showing the ice around us is settling. The pressure of the ice will melt and refreeze…”
“But we have to start digging,” insisted the knight, arms spanning out. “To avoid being crushed or suffocated!”
“You are right about us being buried. But we have to consider ALL of our options because of the predicament you put us in, and think of the consequences of what each decision would mean before making them,” Gohan warned.
Near the wall Trunks had raised his sword to start digging in a specific crack. Only the weight of Gohan’s words stopped him from hacking away. Thanks to his advice they’d survived, but if he’d listened to the Mazuko would they have fallen? He so completely trusted Tapion’s warnings over the Mazuko. Now they were buried in a tomb of ice with little hope of rescue, and a pissed off Mazuko wasn’t what he wanted to be stuck with.
No, the magician knew some way out. He had to be thinking of one hadn’t he? For his credit he hadn’t left, but he couldn’t anyway. Which meant his magic had limitations. The knight then asked, “Aren’t you going to DO anything?”
“I have been, as I’ve said before. We need to think of a plan together, or else we will be down here for a very long time, Sir Trunks,” said Gohan. “If you have any better ideas, now is the time… but if you’re going to berate my strategies it will avail you naught.”
Those words slammed into him with the force of a gut punch. His eyes stung but he refused to acknowledge that they were the precursor to tears. More weight pieled down onto what he realized was his soul. It squeezed the breath from his chest just as badly as the stern repremands from his father, Prince Vegeta. Something that he couldn’t ignore and usually would move into fights or tricks. Hand pressed to his face Trunks heard the cold facts and mumbled, “I… I’m sorry…”
“Pardon?” Gohan asked, only turning the slightest bit around.
“I said I’m sorry. This is my fault….” Trunks said louder, throat and eyes stinging at conscience or cold.
Gohan turned around more fully, and strode over to him. As the glow that shined from the orb floating near Gohan’s shoulder illuminated their small world he saw and felt the weight of the cloak was actually a blanket. A few of the Mazuko symbols decorated it. For a moment Trunks wanted to toss it aside but he was cold, and at the mercy of the magician.
“Your inexperience and pride was your failing, but it was an honest mistake, which I’m sure you’ve learned a great deal from,” said Gohan gently. He hadn’t expected that. Why did that Mazuko have to be nice all of a sudden. No, it wasn’t him being nice. It was another veiled taunt! It had to be!
Not sure if he wanted the words that were intended to comfort but sounded patronizing Trunks boomed out, “But thanks to me we’re STUCK! For Dende knows HOW long!”
“Think of it this way. We’re still alive, and conscious. There seems to be enough air to breath at this depth,” Gohan answered, not acknowledging but not berating.
“I said I’m sorry… I shouldn’t have called you those names. It was in anger and I was hurt…” Trunks began, but the Mazuko shook his head.
“I accept your apology, Sir Trunks,” Gohan said simply, bowing his head.
Once he said this, Trunks felt a bit of the tightness in his throat ease. He released a long breath that exited in a plume of icy mist that drifted sideways. Wait…. He combed at his long tresses, and removed a single lavender hair. Gohan watched amused at him clutching the blanket around him while holding the hair left and right.
“There’s a draft this way,” Trunks whispered, nodding at the gloom to their left.
“And?” Gohan asked, holding his magic book that he opened up. Licking his finger he turned to another page.
“We may not be trapped as deeply, Mazuko. There may be a tunnel or a gap we can walk through… and possibly…” Trunks said. “Air has to come from somewhere and it feel fresh…”
That slight smile came over Gohan’s face, at last changing the tense mood even more. Why did he enjoy seeing that blasted Mazuko smile? He shouldn’t think such things. Gohan said, “Indeed, that is true. Not bad Sir Trunks.”
“If your magic can tell us how deep we are, can it tell us where this air is coming from? I mean the size of the cracks and if…” Trunks asked.
Gohan nodded, before he opened his magic book. Green energy fluttered around him and wafted on his hair, and his eyes glowed turquoise. In the Mazuko tongue he chanted a spell along with a gesture Trunks guessed was a summoning. A ghostly form precipitated from the frozen breath they both exhaled and formed a gargoyle shaped creature. At a nod from Gohan it became green haze and seeped towards the air current.
Surprise dilated Trunks’ crystalline blue eyes, the same color as the ice around them as he asked, “Is that what I THINK it is?”
“Ice elemental. The spirits here can be convinced to help, if speak to them politely,” Gohan murmured, his eyes closed. So far Gohan hadn’t used potions like a druid or wizard. Trunks had started to catch onto the nature of the magician. But one could never tell the true extend of their powers since they had the force of the elements of space, time, earth, fire, air, metal, water, spirit, shadow, light. He’d worked with druids that had the potions and the animal spirits of air and forest. Or the sorcerers channeling the might of their ancestors and the ghosts and demons of the dead, borrowing their powers. Even clerics with the holy might of their gods behind them. But the Mazuko was a huge unknown.
“What were you using to make the cracks glow earlier?” asked Trunks, scratching his head.
“Similar idea,” Gohan said dismissively. “But this one can report back.”
“Then why didn’t you use it earlier?” asked Trunks, blinking.
“It was your suggestion that there could be a way sideways, was it not?” Gohan asked, with a small smirk. Trunks stomach and heart flip-flopped. Damn it. He was irritating. He didn’t like the Mazuko, he really didn’t. But that warm feeling was something else.
“Mmmnnn,” Trunks grumbled and nodded, taking in the room around them. He glanced high and low for any other possible ways out. Trunks tightened the blanket around him as it seemed to grow even colder.
“Can you sense the way we’re going?” Trunks asked him after a time of silent contemplation while Gohan continued to scan the progress of cracks. The onyx eyed magician nodded, turning towards what was north.
“Is there ice between us and a cave?” Trunks wondered.
“Indeed there is,” Gohan said.
“Do you know the thickness?” Trunks asked, attempting to quell the interest in his voice.
“A good 200 rods,” clarified the magician. “Far better than the ice above falling on us. This part of the glacier is more stable. Your idea of digging out is improving.”
“Can you make fire hot enough to… wait, I’ve got something even better here,” Trunks wondered before he reached into his pouch and pulled out a few flasks of oil.
“Now you’re thinking more productively, Sir Trunks,” said the Magician with a small nod. “But we have to control the fire and it must be of sufficient temperature and duration… the ice still will melt and need to go somewhere… and it is much thicker that some digging will still be required.”
“I could use my dagger instead of the sword. Chip away and you can watch the cracks so I know if we’ll have a cave in,” Trunks said, determined to do something useful in light of that big mistake he’d pulled. A knight had to prove himself when he did wrong, and Trunks was no exception.
“Even better,” Gohan agreed, his dark eyes open and empty of recrimination. However that small smile hinted that he was just homoring him, Trunks supposed.
“Well… you could summon your dragon and have him use fire to melt at the ice,” Trunks began. Gohan smiled at this.
“But we will have to help spell him, and he’ll need some food,” said Gohan watching Trunks pull something out of his pouch.
“I’d brought these to sell or trade for money,” Trunks said as he held out a handful of glistening red, blue and green that were turned to a gleaming hue of green spectral flashes.
“I didn’t say you’d have to provide the food,” Gohan began, but Trunks shook his head.
“Silence, just let me give them to him. It’s my fault we’re in this mess…” Trunks grumbled.
Gohan merely smiled and said, “There’s no need for calling Icarus. We are perfectly capable of solving this conundrum if we put our minds to it.”
This provoked a raised eyebrow from Trunks, who quipped, “Any other reason not to use him?”
“He’s not suited to cold weather like this. Besides, a controlled fire is far more effective,” Gohan answered, his voice lowered in volume, and tinted with a bit of a laugh that sounded promising.
“So Mazuko, you agree with me? Am I conscious?” Trunks joked, actually laughing.
“Heh, if you can crack jokes Capsuler, your head isn’t as hard as the rocks or ice around us,” the magician joked with a half-smile that made the knight tingle a bit.
“So… what’s the situation? What does your magic tell us, hmm?” Trunks then asked.
“There is a passage, but it is only the breadth of your shoulders, Sir Trunks,” Gohan reported. “It runs down the length of the mountain, and into a set of caverns…”
“Caverns?” Trunks asked.
“Yes. Ridges under the glacier that were made by rocks scratching over time,” Gohan informed him. “Sometimes there are even ice caves that have been hollowed out into the rock itself as the ice retreats and expands over the centuries…”
Such speech weighed on Trunks mind. He heard of things like that before, but it was foreign to worry about such things unless they were the word of gods. Or spirits. Dende was behind such things with his powers. But taking away the agent who did those things removed the sense of it all.
“Retreats and expands?” Trunks asked, frowning a bit. “I was under the impression that the ice was present for thousands of annuals…”
“Even longer,” Gohan continued to explain to him, nodding a bit.
That notion of spans of time longer then tens of thousands seized his attention. Indeed his mother Princess Bulma had speculated the World had existed for as long as the Moon Bridge that some believed held up the dome of the heavens. She speculated there was no celestial dome but that the heavens were bottomless and the bridge spanned the entire face of the world itself.
“Milliards even?” Trunks whispered in the green glow and whistling of the wind in the shivering air. He dared to step into Gohan’s shadow at that moment, forgetting his dislike of the magician.
Nodding his head the Mazuko murmured, “Indeed. The great spans of time are immeasurable to some, but not insurmountable to others...”
“Elf kind know of such things,” interrupted Trunks. He had heard Juunanago, brother of Juuhachigo speak of the long histories, and the age of elves such as he. They lived in their timless hills from what he remembered Old Master Roshi the Bard regaling him with tales of.
“Few have the time to wonder about such things, or the people and civilizations that lived in our world before us. Or those that will come long after our kind is swept away by the fires and rays from the heavens above the heavens… or as I see them, the space between worlds,” Gohan rambled on.
“In between where the wizards cleave holes and shift through the gates and portals,” Trunks muttered.
“But we don’t want to spend such lengths of time talking about things when we’ve a tunnel to dig,” Gohan said with a clap of his hands. He flipped through a few pages of his book and settled on one. “Phosphorous illuminatus pyros…”
Trunks saw the green fire concentrate over the surface of his hand, which Gohan approached the wall with. Around the fist and finger he directed the warm to a small area. Ice dripped and flowed away from the force of the heat. “Dig there,” he muttered to Trunks who pulled out his dagger. He began to chip away.
The green fire heated his blade to a degree, and Trunks blinked. “A hot sword through… wait… you could simply heat the blade…”
“Correct,” Gohan said nodding. He smirked a bit and the blade of Trunks dagger increased in temperature till touching it to the wall caused steam to rise from its contact. It hissed and spluttered at his constant pressure.
“Pyros in habitus…” he chanted. “Chip away steadily, but not too hard. I’ll loosen the ice this way.”
As Trunks applied the force of his dagger he watched the Mazuko using his two hands alight with fire itself. The clouds of steam were focused just ahead but Trunks was starting to sweat. His throat was dry. He saw Gohan pull out a small container and set it down to let the water drip into it. Getting the same inspiration he pulled out containers and let them drip full of the water he guessed they may need.
But how long would Gohan’s conjured fire burn? Could he sustain that heat for the hours it would take? The Mazuko narrowed his gaze, intently focusing the fire so it melted away the ice steadily. He continued to chip, digging desperately for the hope that they could take less than a day, but guessing that it would take at least two at this rate.
Trunks would have spoken to him, but he wasn’t sure what he wanted to say to a Mazuko. All he wished to do was dig and focus all his energy on getting them out. He dared to glance occasionally at the Mazuko steadily burning his way through without complaint. Damn he was pissed, but he knew that Gohan was right. It was his fault, but he was shocked he had not been abandoned. If the magician had the power to melt the ice he could have left Trunks hours ago.
*Yet wait, Dende bless it! He had stayed.* At least the prospect of wealth or curiosity kept him going with this uneasy alliance. Maybe since he was useful Trunks could at least trust he wouldn’t abandon him… or kill him until he had a good reason to.
That power was intense. No, he didn’t admire it. That was just a trick.
