Chapter 7: Sand spirits are coarse folk and generally, catchy songs don’t catch your voice.

 

 

Lupix stepped forward, awed, Koul pulled her back as the sand before hourglass swirled viciously in front of her. The formed into a writhing twist of snake heads on one body, all made of sand, and completely without eyes. These heads lashed about, this way and that. Lupix and her band collapsed backwards.

 

These were spirits of sand, sand being a lesser element, didn’t have one singular powerful spirit.

“Who dares to brave these depths, whatever folly brings you, we shall end you…” The spirits cut off on getting a closer look at Lupix and the band.

 

“Oh, you guys, you’re late.” One of the heads said with disappointment.

“You were expecting us?” Koul questioned.

“The lady told us of your coming” A head looked at the Spirit of Fire.

“You’ve done well to get here”

“Have they really, seems to me that weird creature did most of the legwork”

“Huh, true enough that”

“Well then, you have done well to have been ferried here without messing up” One head said, ending the argument.

 

Lupix, during this had mostly ignored the squabbling and vaguely insulting sand spirits, her attention was fixed on the Spirit of Fire.

“She won’t wake up, will she” Lupix said, a little saddened.

A sand snake head slid up to Lupix’s shoulder.

“No, she won’t, she sleeps till the sand in the hourglass runs out, then she will awaken”

“It is part of the cost of a spell, to keep her hidden, to deny power to the Firelord. She weakens all flames by this, but she could not do nothing while the Firelord raged.”

 

“We are anathema to flame, we snuff it out, silence its crackling song”

More heads coiled around lupix.

“So, we hide her from his gaze, he desires her power, but he will not have it”

“He fears us.”

“He is filled with many fears”

 

Koul was getting worried as Lupix was almost out of sight for all the sand spirits swirling around her. Lupix herself felt weak in the head.

 

“Do you know? He became what he was because he became enchanted by the brightness of his own flames…”

“But now he glowers and smoulders within dark sooty armour”

“He worries that his splendour may be taken, that it may be surpassed”

The sand spirits seemed to think this hilarious, and all gave a curious rasping laugh.

 

Lupix was finding it hard to keep her eyes open, the sand spirits danced before her eyes.

“You know it now? Don’t you?, why he hunts your kind, he hunted his own kind too…”

“He would tear down the Inferno Mountain, but he fears those protecting it, those around it too”

“He’d raze it to the ground… just like wolfheim”

 

Lupix thought she heard Koul yelling but Lupix fell asleep as the sand closed over her.

 

 

 

Lupix was standing before a glass sphere, around the sphere was the sand spirits, they were grander , bigger, and seemed to meld from sand into glass, then into the sphere. Floating asleep in the sphere was the Spirit of Fire.

 

Lupix would have spoken, but the sand spirits were not willing for that to happen.

“We have composed the song that will let you sing without fear, us spirits and the lady.”

“You must learn it before you leave here.”

“Well, at least you must learn the first part, the singing, the part after that will have to come from the heart, and be done with the right instrument. You’ll know what to do when the time comes”

“Here, he will not hear you sing, nor will his minions”

“But don’t forget, this will be but a dream of singing”

“The real thing will have quite a bit more spark to it”

 

The heads finished talking, and began to sing.

It took Lupix only moments to understand, before she joined in too…

 

Meanwhile, Koul was losing his cool. He had tried to dig away at the sand covering the princess he served, but Lupix remained buried. He had used his claws, he had used his claws transformed, he had bashed his drums, he had beaten out an earthquake on his drums while transformed.

 

Still, he could not dig her out, then, just as despair was taking him, the sands unceremoniously spat Lupix out.

 

Lupix now wide awake, coughing spluttering and pawing sand out of her eyes and fur, opened her mouth to speak.

 

Nothing came out.

Koul and the conepeople looked worriedly at her as she mouthed, trying to speak. She shut her mouth and frowned.

Koul gave a monsterous growl.

“Show yourselves spirits, and give the princess back her voice lest you face my wrath!”

Koul’s body shook and shuddered with power.

 

The spirits of sand appeared above the huge hourglass.

“Calm yourself, we have not taken her voice.”

“it is merely the weight and power of the song she holds in head that has stripped her of words.”

“She holds the song to let her sing freely”

“She will be fine once she sings, though, apart from what she knows she still needs, two things are required one we can give to you now”

 

The spirits grew silent.

Koul, being quite shaken by these events, growled at them.

“If you can give it, then give it and let us be on our way”

 

One of the head hissed at Koul.

“Ungracious and impatient creature”

“Well, one of us must do it”

“Not it”

There was several not its, then one final head, later after the rest;

“Not… ah, well, guess I’m up then”

 

 

With that, it thrust its head through the top of the hourglass, which had no lid. It spun through the Fire Spirit, going whitehot, then, it flew out of the hourglass, even as it’s neck which had connected it to the others lost its form and fell apart in a glittering stream of sand.

 

The head thudded into the sand near Lupix and Koul. What was before them was glass in the shape of a snake’s head, and inside, white sand that you could mistake for pure snow. It cooled unnaturally fast. The spirits of sand looked solemnly over it.

 

“Do not let the sacrifice of our kin be in vain.”

“Now take those remains.”

“You need not do anything special with them.”

“Just have them with you when you sing, the magic will make use of them.”

 

The heads vanished into the sand, one by one, until only one was before them.

“You just need to find the perfect place to sing, I’m sure it won’t be hard, you must already know”

The snake head drew close to Lupix.

“He should be waiting there for you”

 

“The Firelord?” Koul wondered.

The sand spirit laughed.

“He would not have the presence of mind, nor is he the kind to wait, no it is not him, if you think about it, you should guess who is waiting, now leave.”

 

The head collapsed and the sand returned to the sand of the small cavern. One of the sandy walls opened up, making a tunnel. A bit confused and shaken by what they had experienced Koul and Lupix walked down the tunnel.

 

They returned to pick up the conepeople who had fainted very early on, then finally made their way out for sure.