With her instructions given, she focused her attentions to
the task at hand and envisioned a sphere filled with the light and love of the
Spirit. The goodness of the Spirit was
the ultimate antithesis of the Valkea’s darkness. Confined within the sphere, the Valkea
wouldn’t be able to press her attack for her dark powers would be neutralized
just like a shadow vanishes when exposed to direct light. Flindra used the recent experience she’d
gained when she’d cut off the power of the Nameless Ones to rescue
Heleena. During that confrontation, she
had sought to isolate the child from the control of the Enemy; now in very much
the same manner, she would isolate the Valkea from the source of her powers. It was perhaps a soft approach to a battle,
but she expected it to be an effective one.
After she rescued Heleena, Ghesor had complimented her on
her choice of an indirect approach in that contest with the Nameless Ones. He had explained that there was great wisdom
in setting the indirect to act directly and making adversity act as an
advantage. History showed that those who
triumph in a confrontation knew beforehand how to analyze the indirect and the
direct and to use it to their advantage.
It had taken her some thought to figure out the full import what he’d
been saying, but now she understood his wisdom.
Acting contrary to what was expected in a battle, in and of itself,
created an advantage. It was a superior
strategy to appear soft and indirect when an enemy anticipated the hard and
straight, and unwaveringly direct when the opposite expectation held true. She thought of Ghesor’s lesson on strategy
and focused her thoughts on the light of the Spirit to counter the darkness of
the Nameless Ones in her indirect challenge of the Valkea.
Kalmar had an instinctive and keenly sharp sense of
justice. As the King, he was in fact the
highest judge in the land and what the Valkea and her wild horde had done was a
crime against all of his people. She and
her band needed to be neutralized so they couldn’t carry out the evil designs
of the Nameless Ones. Revenge was not
justice - in truth it fed into the Darkness - but it became necessary to
isolate and destroy evil to prevent it from inflicting harm on the innocents of
the land. He tapped into the righteous
fury he had felt when he’d learned of Blazina’s ordeal and the infuriated
outrage that had filled his heart at seeing the nightmare spawn of the Valkea’s
horde born to threaten and torment his people.
His anger was not hot and reckless; rather it was cool, patient, and
focused. He fed this energy into his
vision of inexorable justice. Calling
upon his anger to fuel his attack was akin to a taproot finding a deep well of
water, which drew strength into the branches high above. He had passed judgment on the Valkea and was
now readying to carry out the sentence.
Knowing that the very concepts of truth and justice would be an anathema
to her, he focused his thoughts on these things to fill his zone projected
around her with an environment that would surely weaken her.
Gegen was a soldier and his mind was conditioned to think in
terms of defensible lines and barriers.
A strong wall could keep an enemy out, or in, as the situation
required. He sensed what Flindra and
Kalmar were planning and understood they were focusing their energies on
conditioning the space within a tight zone around her to neutralize the
Valkea’s strength, but their efforts would only succeed if the barrier itself
held. Thus, he concentrated the full force
of his thoughts on creating an impenetrable barrier that the Valkea could not
hope to breach. He thought of stone -
freshly quarried granite – a rock free of any planes of weakness. Granite stood at the root of most mountain
ranges and bore the weight of incalculable tons. This was the stone, which was the first
choice of masons and the rock that was capable of standing inviolate for eons.
He thought of the properties of granite and incorporated all
these characteristics into his vision of the barrier they would soon be
projecting around the Valkea. He had
come to understand that fighting with the crystals was doing combat within the
realm of thought and imagination. He
knew full well that he wouldn’t actually see granite appearing to entomb the
Valkea, but he accepted with faith that the attributes of granite could be
called into existence around her. He
focused on these things and awaited Flindra’s command to attack.
In took but a moment for the three champions to prepare for
this battle and Flindra could feel when they were ready.
“Now,” she commanded.
Acting in perfect unison, they attacked and surrounded the
Valkea with their combined wills.
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