by Des Pensable
‘Your father has been busy with a very important task and unable to see you for all of your life. It has caused him much heartache and sadness not to know his first and only child. The person you know as your grandfather stole you from here and has kept you away for reasons best explained by him. I know it has been painful and confusing to not know your father but it has kept you safe until now.’
‘Your father had intended to reveal himself to you on your safe arrival here but circumstances have changed. He has been keenly following the news of your exploits since you arrived in Mudrun. He is most impressed by your courage, will and determination. He has guided you here to help him on a very important mission but fears that your chosen may be in danger and he knows you love her very much.’
‘I have convinced him that you will wish to find her and ensure her safety before considering any tasks of his. He hopes that you will return with her so that that he can meet her and she him and then he will reveal all. Unfortunately, I must leave you. The fight on Mudrun outside the portal has alerted our enemies that something is happening. I need to divert their attention away from you until after you find Miranda.’
Aquitain was shocked. Nothing could have prepared him for this. What was going on? Why was his true father so reluctant to reveal himself? Was there some important memories locked up that he should know about? Who was this guardian? How did she get into his dream? Was he really dreaming?
‘You’ve just talked with him haven’t you? Who is he?’ asked Aquitain.
‘I cannot tell you that yet as it may influence your actions. Your relationship with Miranda was neither planned nor expected and consequently the game has become more complex and dangerous as it appears the Lady and others have included you in their plans. He is a little annoyed at this but is interested to see how you deal with any challenges without my help.’
‘Llanlorian, the gatekeeper has a treaty with the Queen of Moonmist but she is also a close friend of your father. She has valuable knowledge of Moonmist that can help in your search for Miranda. You may trust her.’
‘From now on neither your father nor I have any idea what is likely to happen. Aquitain you are an Agent of Chaos but not the type anyone will expect. Normally they are creatures of chaotic emotion, ill intent and hate. You are not. That has everyone confused. That is in our favour. Let’s keep it that way as long as possible.’ and the dream faded.
Eventually he woke. It might have been five minutes or five hours later he had no idea. What a strange and worrying dream he thought. The cat was still asleep but Llanlorian was out of her trance.
‘Ah you are awake.’ she said. ‘What an interesting situation we have.’
‘I have talked with your father. We wish to invite you to become a citizen of Astaria.’
‘What benefits would I derive from that?’ he asked cautiously thinking about the dream.
‘As a citizen you would be able to use Astaria as a base. You could use the gates freely to travel to Mudrun or Moonmist. You could learn much new knowledge. You would be adapted to the hostile environment of Moonmist averting its problems of memory loss and the dangers when one travels between worlds with different time attributes.’
‘And what do you gain from me?’ asked Aquitain thinking that it was all too pleasing to be true but remembering that the servant in his dream had said that his father lived here.
‘We gain access to your wonderful knowledge on magical item construction and you agree to never knowingly harm us and to defend us if we were in trouble.’
Aquitain asked several more questions and received beneficial answers. If there was a catch he couldn’t see it.
‘Okay how do I become a citizen?’ he asked.
‘Well we need you to swear a blood fealty to Astaria.
‘Just what does blood fealty mean.’ asked Aquitain hesitantly.
‘It means that I take a sample of your blood and when you give Astaria your fealty I put a geas effect on both you and your blood sample. While the geas is on the blood sample you cannot break your Oath of Fealty nor can it be broken or lifted from you. You are bound to Astaria until I release you or you die.’ said Llanlorian.
‘That sounds awfully permanent. I’ll have to think about it for a while.’ he replied.
‘Mmm.’ said Llanlorian. ‘You may consider our proposal for a while if you wish; however, I’ll tell you something that may influence your decision. A certain Elendari lord has captured your friend Miranda, and if he finds out who she is, she is likely to be tortured and killed. With my help you may be able to stop that happening.’
‘What!’ gasped Aquitain suddenly worried, ‘How do you know about Miranda?’
‘I know many things about her and her mother.’ replied Llanlorian. ‘Swear blood fealty and you will know more.’
Aquitain was torn in half. He hated the thought of swearing fealty to this woman, but he had to help Miranda if she was in real trouble and he had to do it quickly but first he needed to know whom he was dealing with.
‘Before I agree I would like to mindlink with you. Do you agree?’
Llanlorian looked a little undecided then agreed. He created the mindlink and saw her spirit aura. It was the spirit aura of a Llanllean wizard, bright green and extremely powerful, certainly the most powerful neutral spirit aura he had ever seen.
‘Well are you happy now.’ she asked.
‘OK, you win.’ he replied. ‘I will declare my blood fealty to you but if you are lying to me about Miranda then it’s on your head.’
‘Don’t be so dramatic, my little spiderling.’ said Llanlorian. ‘Every word I’ve told you is the truth and you’ve more to hear which may change your perspective a lot.’
‘What do I have to do?’
‘First we cut your finger.’ said Llanlorian as she took his right hand and pulled out a small jewelled knife. ‘Then we collect a small sample of you blood.’
She cut his finger and a small bottle appeared in her hand to collect it. She then wiped the cut with her finger and it healed.
‘Now you swear an oath of fealty to me.’ She talked in a language he didn’t understand. ‘Now you say. I swear by my blood and my life, fealty to my liege Lady Llanlorian, I will honour and obey her, I will serve and protect her and never consciously take action to harm or obstruct her will in any way.’
He took the oath. There was a surge of magic but he felt nothing more.
‘Now you will become a citizen of this gateworld.’ she said.
‘Say after me, I swear to honour the laws of Astaria. As its servant I will always strive to keep Astaria in fair condition, I will take no action to damage Astaria and I will be impartial as to who uses it. I renounce all other worlds. I wish to become one with the Astaria.’
He swore the gateworld oath and felt another surge of magic and a passed out.
While he was unconscious Llanlorian carried out another ritual over his inert body and placed a small parasite on his back which blended in like a chameleon.
Chapter 17 Welcome to Astaria
‘Welcome to Astaria! You have been reborn. You may feel different as your guardian has left to help your father?’ stated Llanlorian.
‘I felt a little dizzy at first but now I feel quite all right, thank you, err … how do you wish me to address you?
‘You may call me, your Liege.’
Thank you, my Liege.’ replied Aquitain but he was worried something in his mind had changed and he wasn’t sure whether it was for the beneficial or detrimental.
‘You are full of surprises. All of the others that I have acclimatized to Astaria were violently ill, in some cases for days. Is your source intact?’
Aquitain looked internally as usual and was very surprised at what he saw. The capacity of his source was larger. It was about twice the capacity that it was before. After he had a rested and meditated he would have more power than he had ever imagined. The problem was of course that he hadn’t learnt any new powers yet so from some points of view
more power wasn’t greatly useful at the moment.
‘I’ve got a larger source than before, my Liege.’ he said still not believing that it would or could fill to its new capacity.
‘Hmm … yes I can see that. I thought that might happen. Something or somebody was blocking or restricting the size of your source before and when you became Astarian all the blocks were removed. Let’s see what else you can do. Who is presently in our gate world?’ she asked.
Aquitain could see the spirit auras of a number of creatures. He was mindlinked to them.
‘I can see you, a gnome, a cat, six constructs and a few … rats, my liege.’
‘Good. Now how many can you see outside the gate.’
‘I can vaguely see the spirit auras of several newmans and some animals on the Mudrun side and a lot of Elendari on the Moonmist side.’
‘Excellent.’ she replied. ‘You will get even better at detecting people outside with a bit more experience.’
‘Wait. We have more than two gates. We have … several gates but I can’t see anything outside them.’
‘That is enough. Do not concern yourself with the other gates. They are my concern alone.
‘As you wish, my Liege. I assume that I may use the other two gates?’ he said but thought the opposite. He would make it a high priority to check out where the other gates went.
‘Yes you may come and go to Mudrun or Moonmist as necessary. The gates will open and close on your mental command. They will also open on their own accord each full moon on or about midnight and stay open for up to 5 days, depending upon traffic.’
‘Am I understanding you correctly, my Liege? You inferred that I have control of the gates.’
‘Yes, you are correct. You may open and close the gates to pathway one at will. Don’t abuse the privilege or I will take it away! If you please me I might consider giving you access to other powers that will work within Astaria.’
‘Thank you my Liege’ said Aquitain.
‘Is there somewhere that I might sleep and store my belongings, my liege?’ he said becoming quite interested in the new arrangement.
‘Yes. There is a small village here. At one time it was occupied, but at present no one resides here except Rat Catcher, Asterix and myself.’ said Llanlorian.
‘You may pick any building you wish to live in, except mine of course, while you are here. However, I don’t expect you to get too settled as you will want to go to Moonmist.’
‘Who is Asterix, my Liege?’
Suddenly a white bearded gnome appeared in the room a few paces away.
‘You called, my liege.’
‘Aquitain, this is Asterix. He looks after maintaining the gate equipment and buildings. Asterix this is Aquitain. He is now a citizen of Astaria and has agreed to help us look after Astaria.’
‘Aquitain, you have complete run of the place, except for my quarters. You may only enter them on my request. You have one hour to look around and find somewhere to live then we will discuss your mission on Moonmist.’
‘Asterix, can you please show Aquitain around and explain anything that he wishes to know about the place.’
Before Aquitain could say another word she disappeared so he turned to Asterix and said
‘Nice to meet you Asterix.’
Asterix looked at Aquitain and said, ‘You must be crazy. Why would you want to live here? Nothing happens from one year to the next. There’s no one to talk to and nothing to do but work. Let’s go, I’m busy, I’ve got too much work to do. Where do you want to go first?’
‘Lead on.’ said Aquitain.
‘Let’s go to the village first.’
‘You’ll have to hold my hand while teleporting until you get your bearings.’ said Asterix.
‘You can teleport anywhere within Astaria at will, that includes the two active paths and nodes.’
‘What do you mean by paths and nodes.’ asked Aquitain.
‘Well a path or pathway is a physical connection between the gates leading to two different worlds. When you entered here you came in the Mudrun gate onto path 1, while it was connected to Moonmist. We have eight paths. That makes us a Niner.’
‘Er .. I’m not sure I know what you’re talking about?’
‘Didn’t they teach you anything about gate worlds when you were in wizard school?’ asked Asterix.
‘No.’ replied Aquitain.
‘Damn stupid the educators these days.’ said Asterix.
‘Let me think. This is how it was first explained to me.’
‘Imagine our gate world is a shaped like a ball. Now imagine inside the ball was a box, where the eight corners of the box touched the inside of the ball. We’ll call them nodes. Now there’s a bit of space between each of the six outer faces of the box and the inside of the ball, right. We’ll call them path areas. This gate world would be called a Sevener. It’s got six path areas and a living area inside the box.’
‘Well our gate world is a Niner. It’s got eight path areas and a living area inside an eight-sided box. You’re in the box now.’
Asterix then teleported them to the middle of the town’s main street.
The whole place looked like a giant cave. There was a huge moon-like disc in the center of the cave ceiling giving off a yellow light. Down both sides of the street were shops. All empty. It was a ghost town. He walked down the main street and looked down the street to the right. The buildings were all smaller. It looked like the street that he had seen when he had visited the gnomes’ town with Chantalot. In fact, if the lighting were different he could almost visualize the gnomes walking in the street.
‘Can you change the lighting?’ asked Aquitain.
‘Yes, we can have a blue sky with a sort of sunrise and sunset if you want. Currently we have a day period and a night period. Nothing exciting. This is day.’
‘What happened to all the people?’ asked Aquitain.
‘Dunno. It’s been like this ever since I’ve been here.’
‘How long have you been here?’
‘A bloody long time!’ he replied. ‘Occasionally someone like yourself comes but not for long. It drives them nuts.’
‘Why hasn’t it driven you mad?’ asked Aquitain.
‘I’m a gnome engineer. I don’t mind the quiet and like the work. It’s interesting maintaining a whole world you know. There’s always something to do.’
‘Why hasn’t she got more people to live here?
‘Dunno.’ replied Asterix with a smile. ‘Maybe they’re too tempting. She might eat them.’
‘Are there any shops with magic foundries here?’
‘Yeah.’ replied Asterix. ‘There’s an area where there are several shops that probably used to make and sell magic items. I’ll show you.
They walked for a couple of minutes then came to a cluster of magic shops. Some still had signs up. Aquitain entered and checked through all of them. There was a wealth of equipment and several magic foundries. There were even boxes and jars of magic ingredients and in some cases quite rare ones at that.
He finally decided on Widdershank’s Magic Supplies, on the corner of the main street. That’s where he would stay. It had a similar layout to his family’s shop back at Panmagica. It brought back fond memories. If only there were people here, this would be a wonderful place to live. It obviously had a dark secret. Maybe after he sorted out the problems on Mudrun and Moonmist he would find out what it was.
‘I like it here. Can you clean up this place up while I’m away?’
‘I’ll put it on the list but it’ll probably be a year or two till I work my way down to it.’ replied Asterix.
‘Oh. Well don’t worry about it. I’ll look after it. Maybe I could borrow one of the constructs?’
‘You can have the whole damn lot if you like. I’ve never used them.’
‘What! Have they been maintained?’ asked Aquitain.
‘Nope. Never seen them move since I’ve been here. I don’t like them things. Got no souls. I won�
�t use em.’
‘Can I see them?’ asked Aquitain.
Aquitain was amazed. He had grown up around constructs. He had played with them and used them for all sorts of repetitive and heavy work since he was a child. To have six of them sitting here unused for decades was crazy!
They walked down the main street then off to a side street and there they were. Two giant iron constructs shaped like Newmans but standing four times the height of a Newman all covered in fine rust. There were two large stone constructs shaped vaguely like Newmans, standing three times the height of a Newman but one was bent over at an angle. Finally there were two smaller ones made of brass about twice the height of a Newman.
‘I call this place the street of statues.’ said Asterix.
‘Where are the control bracelets?’
‘Possibly in the armoury.’ replied Asterix.
‘Take me there.’ said Aquitain feeling rather excited as they teleported.
The armoury was obviously out of bounds to whoever lived here originally as it was located in the ceiling of this place, in one of the corners. They appeared in a large room. Along both sides of the wall were racks of weapons and armour, enough to equip a small army. At the end of the room was a door with no handle or keyhole. Asterix looked at it for a minute then said a word and it opened.
‘This one’s got a magic lock on it. Resets itself after a couple of minutes. Got stuck in here for a while the first time until I realized I could teleport out.’ said Asterix. ‘This is where some of the quality stuff is.’
Aquitain was amazed. The whole room was full of magic weapons, armour and various other items, but no rings, necklaces or bracelets. Dozens of pieces worth a fortune lay around collecting dust. He felt guilty just being there. It was a hoard a great dragon would be proud to own. As a gatekeeper he could probably use anything here he liked. Then again what use was any of it to a Llanllean? They didn’t make suits of armour for spiders although there were some sets small enough to fit a gnome. He wandered around picking up bits and pieces. Some needed repair but he couldn’t find any bracelets.
Suddenly, Llanlorian appeared with a smile on her face.
