by Des Pensable
‘So are we going to fight or are you going to talk me to death.’ said Miranda.
‘No I don’t wish to fight you, if I did you’d be dead by now. We have no quarrel with you or your friend Aquitain, the gatekeeper of Astaria. We are here simply to balance the Panmagican force that has captured the town of Twin Towers in Mudrun. If they decide to leave Mudrun then so will we. However, the High Council of Yith will not allow them exclusive access to this world.’
‘Why did you attack our town of Turtlehaven and destroy it if you are as friendly as you make out?’ asked Miranda.
‘It may surprise you but not all Yith are the same. There are many factions within the Yith Empire and those that attacked your town belong to another faction. We follow the Goddess Lithgala who teaches peace and restraint. They are followers of Yith the God of Fire who teaches that only strength and courage prevail. They wish to fight while we are more tolerant and friendly.’
‘Why did you try to charm me?’ she asked.
‘I was hoping to avoid a fight as your friend here is very powerful judging by his spirit aura.’ He replied.
‘We have come here to free a friend. She is one of the Newman prisoners called Lash. We would also like to free the others if possible. I also came to collect some of my mother’s magic valuables.’ said Miranda. ‘If you are as friendly as you make out you will release the prisoners and let me take my valuables.’
‘Hmm. The valuables are no problem. You may take what you wish as no one has seen them except me. But the prisoners everyone knows about. That is more of a problem.’ He replied.
He thought for a while then said.
‘Yes. You are quite correct. If we are friendly it is only proper that we release the prisoners to you.’
Miranda was shocked. ‘You mean you’ll do what I want?’
‘Yes. You may take all the prisoners and your valuables and return to Mudrun or Moonmist if you desire. Tell your leader that we will cause no problems as long as we are not attacked. We would also be interested in a meeting at some stage. Perhaps you could send a messenger under a flag of truce to advise us of when and where.’
‘Now I’ll release your friend here but please ask him to show restraint. I will give you a pass that will allow you to travel through the gully but after that you are on your own.’
‘That’s … wonderful!’ said Miranda. ‘Who are you?’
‘I am Lord Asaba, the new Gatekeeper of Argenta.’ He said with a crocodile grin.
Lord Asaba kept his word. The prisoners were released and together with Miranda and Granddad escorted out of the gully and Granddad mass teleported them all to Templegate where a guard was dispatched to get Chantalot.
Shortly after arrival, Lash strolled over to Miranda who was talking to Granddad and said ‘I know you. You’re Dragonfly. I remember seeing you before Prendergrass changed you to look like a hag. So he’s got you in his bed now has he? I might have known he wouldn’t waste any time after I was captured. You can have him. I’m moving on.’
‘You’ve got it all wrong Lash. I would have left you there the way you treated me but I know who you really are?’ said Miranda.
‘What do you mean?’ asked Lash suspiciously.
‘Do you know who this man is?’ asked Miranda nodding to Granddad.
‘No, should I?’ she asked looking Granddad in the eyes.
‘I’m beginning to see what you mean, Miranda.’ said Granddad. ‘I hope that wizard bastard didn’t do any serious damage.’
‘What are you talking about old man!’ sneered Lash. ‘If you’re thinking of trying to get me into bed, forget it. I’ve had it with men. You only think women are good for one thing.’
Miranda felt a pulse of magic and guessed what had happened. She looked at Lash’s eyes and they were glazed over.
‘I’m going to have to take her for some repairs. Thank you for your help in getting her back. I’m glad we’ve had a chance to work together. Take care of Rob he’s soft and needs someone like you.’ said Granddad and he took Lash’s hand and they vanished.
Chantalot eventually turned up to find out where all Darkmantle’s men had come from and after hearing Miranda’s story gave orders to get them a meal and some accommodation until they could be returned to Darkmantle.
Miranda was pleased with herself. Finally she felt luck was in her favour. It was time to return and help Aquitain to work out a way to evict all the troops in Astaria but just as she was about to bid farewell to Chantalot and teleport away a wizard hailed her.
Chapter 35 Skeletons in the Closet
‘Hello Your Highness, you may or may not remember me. I had the honour to fight with you and Captain Brown Bear at the Golden Temple Battle. Lord Aquitain named me the red wizard and it has sort of stuck. I am now known by all as the Red Wizard. The king has sent me to invite you to a council meeting. Lord Quab is on his way and we will escort you to the Council meeting.’
‘By the Powers,’ thought Miranda. ‘They love titles. I wonder why they are expecting me. Damn. I’ll bet Granddad is behind this. Damn. I’ll have to start thinking like Aquitain soon. Damn. Everyone will be trying to manipulate me. Well, let them just try!’
‘I do remember you Red Wizard and I would like to thank you again for your courage and bravery during the battle.’ replied Miranda not recalling him at all.
‘Thank you, Your Highness; my small contribution was nothing compared to that of you and Lord Aquitain. I look forward to when I might fight at your side once more. Do you require a cloak, Your Highness, it is a little chilly today.’
‘No thank you.’ she replied noticing Quab arrive and walking over to her.
‘Welcome err … Your Highness … Miranda.’
‘You decided to come back from the Crin hive. What’s going on Quab? What’s all this calling me Your Highness stuff?’
‘It’s Featherdown’s idea. Now that Mudrun is an independent world we all have to have titles so people from other worlds know who we are and who to talk to. Heteronymous the High Druid is now King of Mudrun. Featherdown is the Chancellor and High Wizard. I am now the Minister for Internal Affairs whatever that means. Chantalot is the Minister for Security.’
‘Once Featherdown heard about you becoming the contender for the throne of Moonmist from Lord Darkmantle, he drafted a proclamation stating that from that moment onwards you are to be treated as a visiting Head of State and treated accordingly. I also filled him in on what happened at your trial.’
‘Okay Quab lets go. I’m interested in finding out what’s on Featherdown’s mind.’
Fifteen minutes later Miranda was escorted by Quab, the Red Wizard and eight guards into a large room containing a series of rectangular tables joined end to end with enough room to seat about 20 people but there were only a few present at the moment.
King Heteronymous sat on the end and to his right were Chancellor Featherdown, Security Minister Chantalot and Granddad . All stood as Miranda entered.
‘You are welcome, Your Highness. Thank you for coming.’ said the new King.
Miranda nodded. ‘Thank you for inviting me, Your Majesty.’ she replied courteously.
Quab escorted Miranda to her chair immediately to the left of the new King and took the chair beside her to her left. Red Wizard closed the door and took guard outside.
Featherdown stood and created an eerie writhing mist within the room then nodded to the King.
‘With your approval Your Majesty we’ll get started.’ he said.
‘I’ve called this meeting as some important new information has surfaced regarding our troubles in Mudrun. You should all know about it as it is directly relevant to our current situation. I also suspect that Her Highness may have some new information to contribute. I caution you that nothing you hear here today should leave this room. Sol tell them what you told me.’
Granddad stood up and then looking a bit flushed and then sat down again.
‘I have an apology to you all. I am partly responsible
for everything that has happened on Mudrun. I didn’t know it myself until Aquitain mentioned something to me this morning. You may or may not know that some mind wizards have the ability to actively forget memories or information that they wish to hide. They can also choose to actively unlock those memories at a later stage and hence remember them.’
‘Some mind wizards also have the ability to manipulate other people’s memories. It seems that I had a lot of memories that were locked up by another mind wizard. After the meeting this morning I unlocked those hidden memories and made some surprising discoveries.’
‘You have all met my grandson Aquitain. He is not what he seems. He is something quite extraordinary. His mother is my daughter but his father was an elemental dragon.’
‘That’s impossible!’ said Heteronymous. ‘That’s a violation of the laws of nature. The Lady would have destroyed him.’
‘That is what I’ve been told on many occasions, Your Majesty, yet unbelievably it is true.’
The king looked at Miranda and asked whether she knew about it and she just nodded yes.
‘How could something like this happen?’ asked the king.
‘In a most unusual way.’ said Granddad. ‘He was born by the joining of the spirit of my daughter and the dragon inside a soul crystal. A very unusual soul crystal not made of any material that I have ever seen.’ And he pulled a silver coated Alpha out of his pocket and placed it on the table.
‘This is where Aquitain was born. This is Aquitain’s body.’
‘You’re joking!’ said Chantalot.
‘No I’m quite serious. You see my daughter found this crystal hidden in a cleft in the wall of our first house after a spirit in it had whispered to her in her sleep. How long it had been sealed in there or who sealed it is still a mystery but shortly after she released it a Newman wizard entered my house to reclaim it. My daughter tried to stop him and was killed and unknown to me at the time her spirit was sucked into the crystal.’
‘I arrived at what I thought was my daughter’s murder just as the culprit was leaving. I managed to trace where he went and went after him. When I arrived there had been a battle and the Newman wizard who turned out to be a dragon had won but was weakened. I challenged him but for some reason he refused to fight and in my anger I killed him burnt his body and set a false trail so as to not have them follow me. It apparently worked as no one ever found me.’
‘It was one of the happiest days of my life when I sent a mindspeak message into the crystal and had a reply from my daughter. She told me that there were two dragon spirits captured in the crystal together with her. One was the spirit that was originally trapped and had contacted her while she slept and the other was of the dragon that I had killed.
She also told me she was a mother by one of them. It took me two years of study to work out how to get her and Aquitain out of the crystal. Since neither of them had bodies I had to find new ones and that took another six years. Aquitain was eight years old before he got his Newman body.’
‘That explains it! ‘ thought Miranda suddenly. ‘That explains why he felt so at home when he was placed in the soul crystal in Moonmist by the malign spirit and why he is happy running around as a little crystal statue.’
Sol continued.
‘It was shortly before Aquitain got his new body that I discovered he had an unusual problem. You see Aquitain’s mind and spirit was grafted onto the body of one of the dragon spirits, the spirit of the dragon that I had killed in my fight. I asked for an explanation and got two. Unfortunately I tended to believe one and have only just realized that maybe I should have believed the other.’
‘The first explanation was given by the spirit of the dragon that been sucked in after I killed it’s physical body. It said that it was an avatar of a greater spirit that had been asked to retrieve the gem. It apologized for the death of my daughter. It said that my daughter’s spirit had accidentally been trapped in the gem and it had not fought me as it was directed by its greater spirit to give me the gem. By killing it in anger I had trapped its spirit in the gem.’
‘It said that the gem was a prison made to trap and catch the other dragon’s spirit. The prison could only be opened by the power that made it but it had a weakness. Any sprits captured other than those of stone dragons could in theory be retrieved. It said that it had asked my daughter if it could borrow some of her spirit to defeat the trap mechanism so that it could escape and she had agreed but when they joined spirits Aquitain was accidentally created. This was against all known knowledge as the joining of stone dragons and newmans was forbidden.’
‘The second explanation I got from the other dragon’s spirit. It said that the dragon spirit had forced itself upon my daughter’s spirit in a purposeful manner to provide a reason why it should be released. In other words Aquitain was the result of my daughter being spiritually raped. My daughter doesn’t know who to believe.’
‘This caused a great dilemma. Both my daughter and I wished to have Aquitain released from the prison gem but which explanation was correct. I chose to believe that she was raped. I demanded that all the avatar’s powers be blocked and that it never have access to Aquitain once he was released. We wanted Aquitain to have as normal an upbringing as possible. The avatar was only allowed to be awake while Aquitain was asleep. Surprisingly it agreed and all its powers were taken away.’
‘The avatar generally kept with the deal and I got tired of ensuring that it slept while Aquitain was awake. Eventually I decided to turn Alpha into a fake memory crystal and passed control of Aquitain over to the dragon spirit remaining in the gem prison.
That seemed to work well, however, in hindsight it was a stupid decision as we never knew why the other dragon spirit was imprisoned in the first place. It seems that it has played its own game. Even to the extent of blocking my own memories of certain events. It is likely to have blocked memories and possibly planted false memories in Aquitain, the avatar and other family members.’
‘As a result I have no idea what Aquitain may or may not do. I sincerely apologize for my errors in judgment.’
There was absolute quiet for several minutes as everyone mulled over granddad’s revelation.
‘What do you think Your Highness?’ asked Featherdown pointedly.
‘I have never met this avatar bound to Aquitain although he has mentioned another spirit that he believed was his guardian. If it meant to harm Aquitain it has certainly had enough opportunity so I have to assume that it is benevolent. The manner of birth of Aquitain suggests that it is Aquitain’s father. The very fact that it allowed you to take away its powers and not associate with Aquitain all its life suggests it never had any ill intension towards your daughter or Aquitain. It sounds like something that a parent might do for its child.’
‘That is now my conclusion also.’ replied Granddad with tears in his eyes. ‘I have treated my grandson’s father with derision and contempt all of Aquitain’s life. I just hope they can find it within themselves to forgive my stupidity.’
‘If this all started in Astaria why didn’t it end when Aquitain and his father returned?’ asked Quab.
‘Aquitain came to the conclusion that some gods were involved in whatever is happening on Astaria. If that is true and his father is an avatar then … that is why I was sent away. They are worried that I will get hurt!’
‘How does Moonmist fit in?’ asked Featherdown.
‘The Mentarin have a city on Moonmist. They also have a factory there which they use to produce cheap magic items for sale elsewhere. They have been keeping its location a secret from the people on Moonmist for ages.’
‘I knew it!’ said Quab. ‘That’s what we’ve been exporting for years to the Panmagicans through the gateway at Twin Towers. All those sealed containers were magic items for sale in Panmagica.’
‘Ah.’ replied Granddad. ‘That’s why I got kicked out of Panmagica. Rob discovered their secret and they traced him back to me. Maybe Rob has been made the gatekeeper
to stop the supplies passing through Astaria.’
‘That would have serious implications for the war between the Yith and the Panmagicans.’ said Heteronymous. ‘That might explain why the Panmagicans are upset and have captured Twin Towers. Perhaps they wish to attack Astaria itself next. Perhaps the Yith are here to stop the Panmagicans attacking Astaria?’
‘There could be another reason the Yith are here.’ said Quab. ‘Shall you tell them or I, Your Highness.’
Heteronymous nodded to Quab.
‘Well it seems we have some large farms up the north. They produce medicinal herbs that we have been selling to the Yith. What they didn’t know but are likely to know now are that we also grow a plant called Lizardbane. It is a narcotic to the Yith and we have been selling it to the Panmagicans. It’s not hard to guess what they have been doing with it and it could be one of the reasons why the war started between the Panmagicans and the Yith in the first place.’
‘By the Powers are you people crazy?’ shouted Granddad. ‘That stuff sends the Yith mad. It’s the cause of half the troubles in the Yith empire.’
Heteronymous seemed unconcerned.
‘It solved a problem for the Druid Council. It kept both the Panmagicans and Yith from coming here. You don’t understand how important Mudrun is. Mudrun is the centre of creation. The Creator himself stood here while he created everything else.’
‘What!’ said Granddad. ‘How do you know that?’
‘It is the central druid dogma. The druids searched for this place for thousands of years until someone told them where it was. We came here and found it destroyed. Hardly a living thing much larger than an insect and hardly a plant other than mushrooms had survived.’
‘The Inter-World Druid Council sent hundreds of druids here who have been working nonstop to return it to the wonder it is today. We believe the Gods had a fight here causing the destruction. We suspect the little people know what happened and possibly even why but none have ever revealed it to us. They are extremely resistant to mind probes. The temples are somehow involved. There were once dozens of temples like the one not far from here. There are only two in functional order left. Someone destroyed almost all of them.’
