Quoth felt it long before the insects arrayed against him stopped their attack on the dome- the box was about to collapse. The wild card in all of this had finally been declared, and it seemed that for once it was The Fool, inverted. The game was soon to be over, and he was going to lose. He slumped down a little in his chair, twirling his orange coffee mug by the handle, beak resting on his other hand. "Ah, well. Can't win 'em all, I suppose."
The loss of the box wasn't utterly unexpected. What did chaff him a little was the halt of the attacks on his shield. Someone, likely the Loa, he suspected, had realized what he was playing at, letting them pummel his barrier. Just another minute, and he could have redirected their energies one more time, pushing the rift open wide enough to flood the area with wraiths from his world.
Still, he had one trump card remaining.
He rose from his wicker chair, letting it disappear as the box's roof blasted open in a cone of white light, the sides toppling over one by one. "Time for the grand finale," he muttered to himself, turning to face Byron and his friends.
Kathy's first thought when the white light cleared was, I have walked into the mouth of madness, and was not consumed. Her next thought was, what is that rift in the air? Byron stumbled against her, barely catching himself on his hands and knees as he dropped toward the ground. She'd felt how much magical force he'd used in blowing the pocket realm open, and had been staggered by it. That he wasn't unconcscious spoke of the depth of his power reserves.
Yet there stood Quoth under a protective blue dome of his own energies, around which stood arrayed almost three score of dragons, hundreds of wee folk and a handful of faerie. A trio of voodoo spirits, Baron Dimanche's fellow Loa, she assumed, were also there. Yet the dome appeared unscathed. A quick probe with her magical senses only confirmed this.
"Well, well," Quoth intoned cheerfully, his microphone in hand. "Look at this, ladies and gentlemen! Back from the dead, Gatech and King Ovin, your heroes of yore! Oh, and half the folks who went in to save them," he added as an afterthought, mocking the company. "You did far better than I thought you would, Byron. You're not long off from being just like me." The raven-thing cackled like a lunatic, slapping his leg and guffawing. Byron maneuvered into a seated position, barely able to lift his head.
Kathy's anger at Quoth quickly burst over in fury. She took one step toward the dome and screamed, "He's nothing like you! He would never abduct and torture and kill people on a whim! He wouldn't enslave an entire Plane just for his own personal amusement! You're a monster!"
"Oh-ho, what's this," Quoth replied, vanishing and reappearing under the dome in a cupid costume, replete with heart-shaped arrowhead notched. "Young love, so sweet!" He released the arrow, which flew through his dome, causing a momentary ripple before he whirled about in a cloud of black and white, returning to his usual form. "As for him not being a monster, that's where you're wrong, Kathy Potts," he said, stretching needle-filled smile appearing once more. "Yes, the box is gone. Yet, only your group is here. What do you suppose happened to all of my other playthings from other worlds, hmm?"
Kathy gasped, hands flying to her mouth. "No," she rasped.
"That's right," said Quoth, folding his arms over his chest. "They're all dead. When the box collapsed, so too did the chambers within. He has slain thousands just to expedite your escape. Congratulations, Byron! You're a mass murderer, ha.ha ha ha haaaaa!" Quoth cackled on, leaving everyone around to be stunned by his revelation. But his laughter didn't last long.
"You're wrong," Byron said quietly. His voice managed to be both quiet and forceful, cutting through Quoth's noise and the murmur of the allied forces. "They're not dead, because of what I wrote for the manifestation card." Quoth was now glaring at him, beak shut tight. Byron trembled, but with Kathy's help, managed to stand up. "Do you want to know what I wrote?"
"Byron?" Kathy could feel him shaking, still too weak to try anything on his own.
"I wrote, 'Release the prisoners'," Byron said dreamily, his eyes half-lidded, mouth twitched aside in a confident grin. "I imagine everybody's back where they belong." He gave a weak chuckle. "I guess you didn't think of everything, did you?" Quoth's brows knitted, eyes narrowed, and he pointed his microphone toward Byron and Kathy like the tip of a sword.
"Shut it, brat," Quoth snapped. He waved his empty left hand in an arc behind him, and an unseen force blasted the allied forces back, tearing holes on dragon wings, crushing hands and feet in several faerie and forcing magical energy out of the bodies of wee folk. Only Selena and her children were far enough away to escape damage entirely. Quoth's dome was gone, but Kathy knew he could erect it again in a split second. "Do you see? If you defend yourselves, I will use that power to tear open the rift, allowing my master to come through. If you don't, I will kill you all. Either way, I win. It is checkmate, you insignificant insects," he screamed. "You are finished!"
During his raving, and even before, when his dome had been up, Kathy had been surveying everything about their situation. Daggeuro held Boon and Bane ready, but she knew his legendary weapons and skill couldn't touch the demon before them. Gatech and Ovin, the most powerful magical beings in all Ether, paled in the face of Quoth's power to warp reality itself. And that brought her attention to the rift, a wound on the skin of reality.
Except it isn't quite like that, she thought. It's more like a crack in a wall, and that crack let Quoth come through to this reality. By this point, Quoth was at 'defend yourself' in his spiel, and a single observation clanged in Kathy's mind as though she were standing in a bell tower and someone had struck the bell with her standing inside of it.
Cracks in walls are inanimate.
Having months since mastered reaching out with her magical senses to use the Awakened power of animation from a distance, she grabbed hold of the rift with her power, pulling it up close behind the raven-thing. Quoth yelled, "You are finished!"
Kathy took one step forward, half-carrying Byron with her. "Quoth," she said calmly. "You know my name. Do you know what my Awakened power is?" The raven-thing blinked rapidly, his expression turning perplexed.
"Um, yes. Yours is the power to manipulate and animate inanimate objects," he said, his tone now academic. "Fascinating, but not all too useful in situations like this."
"Well, now, I wouldn't say that," Kathy replied, pointing over Quoth's shoulder. The raven-thing turned around, and found the rift reaching out for him in the form of a grappling hand.
"Well, shit," he managed before the hand-rift snatched him up. Quoth vanished, and the rift began emanating a low, vibrating suction sound, pulling the air around the allies toward it. Kathy's power was knocked aside, allowing the rift to return to where it had been, pulsing in midair.
"Is, is it over," she asked.
"No," King Ovin intoned, floating toward the rift with Gatech right behind him. "The demon has been pushed back through, but with time he can return if the rift isn't sealed. Gatech?"
"I do not have such power," boomed the Dragon God. "But he does," he said, pointing one massive claw at Byron. "His Awakened power is similar to Quoth's. This point in reality was already weak; Quoth merely used his abilities to produce a crack big enough to squeeze himself through. To seal it will require similar power." Kathy knelt down beside Byron, one arm draped protectively over his hunched back.
"He can't," she replied. "He doesn't have the strength." King Ovin fluttered down toward the human couple, landing where their knees met.
"I do," said the diminutive King. "Byron, if you will it, you can lend me your Awakened power for a short time, long enough to seal the rift. But you must be certain you wish me to have that power. No fairy can borrow powers not given in full confidence," he cautioned. Byron snorted a half-laugh.
"You have my fullest confidence, and permission," he said. Byron's body shivered, a pale orange light passing from his mouth, flowing over King Ovin. Kathy felt her insides squirm as she watched, and grunted, easing Byron, now unconscious, to the ground.
Daggeuro, his family now with him, stood a few feet away as Ovin rose into the air. "My liege, I cannot permit you to do this," he said gravely. "What you intend, it will-"
"I accept the cost," said Ovin with authority, winging away toward the rift. Kathy looked up at Daggeuro, heart racing.
"What's he talking about," she blurted.
"Kathy, the amount of power needed to seal such a wound in reality is too much," the kennin warrior said. "King Ovin will succeed, do not doubt that. But he will die in the process." She tried to get up, slid Byron gently to the ground.
"He can't," she shouted, surging after the King. Daggeuro, Selena and their children all caught her up, holding her back as she watched, helpless, the fairy monarch floating toward his fate. "Not after all we lost, all we did!" Gatech swung his golden head down toward her, facing Kathy over Daggeuro's head.
"The Plane suffered for many years because of the demon, Quoth," said Gatech gently. "He knows this. King Ovin goes now to do what only the greatest kings in all of history could- he is going to protect his people."
King Ovin reached the rift at last. Kathy expected flaring lights, explosions, great vortexes of power crashing across the Gray Wastes. She felt certain that everyone would have to clear themselves far back from the diminutive monarch and the rift that threatened his world.
But there was none of that. Instead there was a mind-numbing pressure that burst out in a wave, knocking everyone flat. Kathy groaned, trying to sit up, but she found she couldn't. She felt as if a hand of iron pressed down on her chest, pinning her to the ground.
A minute later, the pressure was gone, and she popped up like a cartoon character sitting up in bed. Kathy's eyes immediately began tearing up as she watched King Ovin fall towards the ground, trailing gray smoke in his wake.
Once, there was a king who paid the price to save everyone.
His name was Ovin.