Durn launched forward on her signal, skidding across the floor in a wave of spiked stone straight for Hern. The Spiritualist flicked his finger, and vines, the same vines that had trapped Miranda earlier, exploded across the rock spirit’s surface. Durn’s charge ground to a halt as the plants doubled and tripled, trapping him beneath a swirling nest of woody growth. But Miranda was already moving. She crooked her left thumb where Kirik’s ruby flashed. At her signal, the stone glowed like a forge and crackling heat poured off of her hands. A moment later, Durn, and the vines tying him down, burst into a pillar of orange flame that blackened the tower’s peaked stone roof. The vines fell away instantly, shriveling in a cloud of resinous black smoke and tiny screams before pouring back into the deep green stone on Hern’s middle finger. Hern paid them no attention, raising a large blue-green stone on his opposite hand that began to flash blue-silver as he whispered to it.
Miranda jerked Kirik’s fire away just in time, as a massive torrent if icy water drenched the place where the pillar of fire had been. The fire poured back into her ring, but Durn, now free from the vine trap, ignored the water that was raising great clouds of steam from his scorched surface and went straight for Hern. Just before the enormous, enraged rock pile reached him, Hern grabbed a heavy crystal hanging from his neck and shouted a name Miranda couldn’t make out. As the word left his lips, the entire tower shook, and the stone wall behind Hern burst open, punched open by a great stone fist. Miranda could only stare in amazed horror as she realized what it was. That hand belonged to the stone spirit that was wrapped around Hern’s tower. With amazing speed, the enormous stone hand grabbed Durn midcharge and lifted him in a crushing grip. Durn cried out as the hand tightened and chunks of him began to crumble and fall to the ground.
Miranda thrust out her hand, calling the rock spirit frantically back, but as she moved to help him, Hern made a throwing motion with both hands, and a ring of blue fire roared up around her. Miranda shrank back from the blistering heat and shouted for her wind spirit. Almost before she’d said his name, Eril burst from his pendant and hit the fire full force. He spun in a circle, crushing the flames under a roaring wall of wind so that Miranda could jump out. As she jumped, a cool mist flowed out of the round sapphire on her ring finger. The mist fell like a blanket, smothering the blue fire in an oppressive curtain of water. By the time Miranda landed, the inferno was nothing but a circle of scorch marks on the floor. Panting, she whirled to face Hern, bringing her right hand up. Skarest, her lightning bolt, was already crackling. But as she prepared to launch him, Hern snapped his fingers and a wall of water sprang up in front of him.
Miranda hesitated. Striking water was dangerous for her lightning. At best, it would be horribly painful for the spirit; at worst, it could diffuse Skarest permanently.
Hern caught her hesitation and seized the opportunity. “Enough!” he said. “With that lightning bolt, you’re out of spirits, unless you’re going to bring your little moss spirit into the fight. I, on the other hand, am just getting started. I’ve already shown I can counter everything you throw at me. If we keep going, I’m going to have to start breaking your spirits one by one, beginning with that pile of rocks.”
As he spoke, the enormous fist holding Durn tightened, and the rock spirit made a gritty, pained sound. Miranda clenched her teeth, but did not lower her hand or stop the arcs of lightning crackling over it. From behind his wall of water, Hern arched an eyebrow at her.
“Fire at me,” he said, “and your little lightning spirit will fizzle before he gets ten paces.” He crossed his arms over his chest. “You know that, and so for all your posturing, you won’t shoot. I’m calling your bluff, Miranda Lyonette. The day of your trial, you were willing to throw away everything to save your spirits. You wouldn’t risk killing one of them now, just to get to me. Lower your hands and I’ll let the rock spirit live.”
“Don’t do it, mistress!” Durn cried, struggling against the larger stone spirit’s grip. “You fought for us; we’ll fight for you!”
“The rock is right,” Skarest crackled. “You came for us like we knew you would. We’re not going to be the ones to let you down. Shoot me.”
“No,” Miranda whispered. “Hern’s right; you’ll die. We’ll find another way.”
“We don’t need another way,” the lightning snapped back. “Look at the water. The spirit he’s using as a shield is trembling. For all hitting the water will hurt me, it’ll hurt the water twice as much.”