Agents of Chaos

by Des Pensable

  It soon became obvious from her comments that Yllandril was female and considerably older than Aquitain. She even had children of her own. Once she started talking she couldn’t stop. She had been alone in the soul crystal for a long time and now she had someone to share the ordeal with. Since neither she nor Aquitain had a body they didn’t need to sleep so each in turn heard the other’s life story, at least the parts that they were prepared to reveal.

  How long they took was hard to measure as time was different when trapped in a soul crystal and mind to mind conversation was much more efficient than normal communication. Aquitain learnt a great deal about Llanlleans and Yllandril. She was honest and likeable and a sort of sorcerer healer.

  Likewise she learnt a lot about Aquitain, newmans, Logicons and bears. They both learnt that while Llanlleans looked vastly different to newmans, the values that their species held important were remarkably similar. They both felt a reasonable measure of trust in each other. In real time several Moonmist days had passed.

  Aquitain quizzed Yllandril in detail about everything she knew about the mad spirit in case he was able to get out and needed to fight it. Yllandril thought that was quite funny, as she didn’t think it could be beaten. It had destroyed countless lives many quite powerful themselves. It had recounted the terror of some of them to her. It was totally deranged, sadistic, ruthless and very, very powerful. Two things stood out. It either pushed its victims out of their bodies causing them to die instantly if it was in a hurry or possessed them so that it could debase and torture them both mentally and physically.

  In her case it was the latter. It stayed in her body for weeks and did unspeakable things, which she refused to discuss. She described how it was able to completely cut her off from her own body as if her spirit was totally enveloped by its spirit. Aquitain had a clear vision of it forming a pocket or compartment within its spirit body where it restrained its victims almost like a soul container.

  After this morose topic had run its course they had got into a lively discussion on how mental energy interacted with matter. Aquitain had told her about the healing skills of his mother and had compared notes on the similarities and differences between how the Llanlleans and newmans practiced the healing arts.

  Aquitain mentioned that his granddad had great skills in reading spirit auras when Yllandril mentioned that spirit auras gave access to people’s memories. This immediately grabbed his attention.

  ‘Do you know how to block and unblock memories.’ He asked casually.

  ‘Yes it’s fairly common for mages to block and unblock memories in Moonmist. As a healer I was often called upon to block out bad memories and sometimes to unblock secrets.’

  ‘Can you read other people’s memories?’ asked Aquitain.

  ‘No. That is beyond me, although I have heard of others that can.’

  ‘Can you teach me to block and unblock memories?’ asked Aquitain. ‘I think that I have some knowledge that is blocked that may be useful to our current situation. I’ll teach you how to adjust the intensity of light in exchange.’

  ‘Well I can show you how it’s done but most people need to study for weeks to learn the details and you would need considerably more power to do it than is available in this crystal.’

  Yllandril explained how a spirit aura was the glow of a person’s spirit. You could normally tell their species, gender, mental disposition, general health, alignment towards chaos and order and size of their power source. Aquitain knew all this. It was what came next that was new.

  From memory she showed him how you could amplify the view of a spirit aura to examine it in fine detail using what she called aura magnification. A spirit aura appeared as a froth of bubbles of different sizes. Many of the larger bubbles contained smaller bubbles. She explained that the small bubbles were memories and the larger bubbles were groups of memories.

  The thickness of the bubble walls was important. If you used a memory a lot then its walls got thicker and the memory lasted longer. However, if you didn’t use a memory bubble and its wall got too thin then it could burst and the memories were lost forever.

  The most common way to block a memory was to use magic to make the walls of memory bubbles go opaque. Unblocking the memory was simply reversing the process. She said people with painful memories often blocked them unconsciously themselves but it was extremely rare to find anyone who could unblock a memory without outside help.

  ‘How do you know which memories to block or unblock?’ said Aquitain fascinated by this new insight into his own mind.

  She told him it was normal to put the person into a hypnotic trance then ask them to remember an item. As they did so the memory bubbles lit up and moved together into a cluster. It was then that you applied the power to turn the bubble walls opaque or tried to clarify them. Since people couldn’t normally put themselves into an hypnotic trance and see their own spirit auras, they couldn’t block and unblock their own memories.

  Aquitain wasn’t paying attention. The mechanism of how the Yith mantras of memory management worked suddenly became clear. He now knew why they only worked when you were in a state of autohypnosis and could guess how the remembering and forgetting process worked.

  The real problem was that he could only remember the first two mantras of Yith and he knew for sure that there were more. What memories were hidden from him in his own spirit aura? He had to find out. After all he could forget them again if he wished.

  ‘I need to see my own spirit aura. Can you help me?’ asked Aquitain. ‘I need you to send me an exact mental image of what you see.’

  ‘Let’s have a look at the detail. Good heavens. What have you done to your memory? There’s lots of it blocked and look at the thickness of the bubble walls. Some are so thick they’d exist long after you died.’

  ‘What happens to the bubbles after you die?’ queried Aquitain becoming side-tracked by his own curiosity.

  ‘Well most people can’t refresh their memories so the bubbles degrade quickly and burst and their memories are lost. In some ghosts and malevolent spirits their pain and hatred is so intense it actually thickens and maintains the walls of their painful memories. In their cases they forget everything except what they choose to hate. If you could block their memories they could pass beyond peacefully.’

  ‘Can you show me my spirit aura.’ said Aquitain and when he saw it he was shocked.

  ‘What are you doing? That can’t be me.’ His spirit aura didn’t look remotely like he remembered it when it was shown to him by his Granddad. It was something else entirely. The thing that scared him the most was it looked ominously powerful. What had Llanlorian done to him in Astaria? Was this the mark of his father? Was this the mark of an Agent of Chaos or perhaps something to do with his becoming an Astarian citizen? That calmed him a little. That must be it. Llanlorian had said that she might give him more powers when he came back to Astaria. Maybe he already had them and they just needed her to unlock them.

  ‘Can you please let me see the detail.’ he asked.

  When he saw the detail he was again shocked. It looked nothing like the memories that Yllandril had shown him. His were thick-skinned bubbles that would take a long time to decay. Several large bubbles and lots of medium and small bubbles were opaque. He concentrated his thoughts on the guardian. A large number of bubbles lit up and began to cluster. He noticed one large one in the cluster was totally opaque and had a very thick wall.

  ‘It looks like I have lots of memories of the guardian blocked. That would certainly be the case if she had been with me all my life.’ he thought. ‘I’ll have to check them out but not now.’

  He thought about the mantras of Yith and noticed dozens of small bubbles clustered together, most of them opaque. Among them was a medium sized opaque grey bubble with thick walls and a small bubble that was golden when all the others were various shades of white or creamy yellow.

  ‘Why is that bubble golden?’ He asked but she didn’t answer. Instead she cut off co
mmunication with him.

  ‘What have I done.’ he pleaded but she wouldn’t answer.

  Chapter 24 Mistaken identity

  After a couple of days Prendergrass declared that Miranda was successfully altered to her new identity as Dragonfly and she moved to share a room with Lash who wasn’t exactly thrilled about the arrangement.

  She spent several days learning to play the part of Dragonfly by accompanying Prendergrass on his daily rounds. In general she found the estate seemed to be well run and efficient. However, there were too many soldiers around to guard the estate and the ones present seemed to be training hard as if they expected to see some action soon.

  On one occasion she quizzed Prendergrass about how he created illusions. He told her that he had to memorize a page of high Draconic which was basically a recipe on how to manipulate magic essence to create the illusion effect. Then he would use a key phase of high Draconic that would activate the recipe causing the effect.

  She then asked how a sorcerer might do the same thing. His reply was very interesting. The sorcerer didn’t have to memorize the high draconic recipe each time they wanted to use it as it was somehow etched into their memory. All they had to do was use some mental token to activate it and draw from the magic essence that their body had accumulated.

  Tain had placed in her mind a very powerful magical illusory image, as a token of his love. It was his passion flower that acted as the token to activate her little illusionary bear defender. He had saved her without even realizing it.

  In the odd few minutes that she found herself alone she began to create illusions. She had always known that she could have been a sorceress but her mother wouldn’t allow it. The torture session had somehow imbued her with the ability to create illusions; her body supplied the magic essence to fuel her creations and the passion flower allowed her to trigger them.

  She first created animals that she knew from the jungle and adjusted their sizes and appearances to look more dangerous to scare people then for amusement had them do crazy things like dance around or grow wings and fly.

  At the suggestion of Lash they had several weapon sparring sessions. Miranda took the time to brush up on the use of the scimitar, her favourite weapon, while Lash seemed to be skillfull at a wide variety of blade weapons and expert with the whip. When she wielded the whip in one hand and a short sword in the other she could readily disarm or trip even the best of Darkmantle’s fighters earning her considerable respect amongst the troops.

  The mock fighting with Lash was very useful to Miranda. It showed her that if she ever had to fight Lash seriously she would have to use magic or cheat otherwise she would lose.

  In the current session she was covered with bruises and sweating heavily as she traded blows with one of Darkmantle’s fighters. They all considered her to be no better than an average fighter and she didn’t do much to change their opinions. She wished that she could shape change. She would like to see the expressions on their faces if she changed to a big cat and went after them.

  At the end of the session Prendergrass appeared and called both her and Lash over for a quiet chat.

  ‘I’ve just talked to Darkmantle. He wants the two of you to go on a short mission with some of the troops to harass a group of Llanllean rebels who have been causing the Queen some trouble by attacking outlying villages.’

  ‘Llanlleans are a type of giant spiders that can grow as big as Mudrun coursers. They’re very dangerous as they are born fighters, quite intelligent, they can shape change to look like Elendari men or women and some of them are expert sorcerers. Their bite is also very poisonous, so be sure to take a vial of my antidote with you.’

  ‘Are you coming with us to counter their magic.’ asked Lash.

  ‘No, I have other business to attend to. However, I’m told you will have magic assistance from a powerful new Llanllean wizard, supplied by the Queen, whom I haven’t met yet. I want both of you to keep well clear of him.’

  ‘More likely it will upset your plans.’ thought Miranda but she said nothing.

  ‘When do we go?’ asked Lash looking rather excited.

  ‘Early tomorrow morning. You had better see the weapon master and get yourselves equipped right away and see the Captain about where they are meeting. I’m sure he will be glad to have you two along.’

  ‘Dragonfly, I want you to come to my rooms when you’re finished. I have something for you.’

  After getting a suit of leather armour, a nicely balanced scimitar and other supplies and dropping them off in her room, Dragonfly quickly hurried to Prendergrass’s rooms. What did he have for her?

  ‘Come in and have some tea with me.’ he said in a pleasant voice.

  He poured her a cup of hot tea then walked to the middle of the room and began a long involved ritual which resulted in the room being filled with a light fog then began a second ritual which resulted in a spirit dog-like creature being conjured into the room. After instructing it to patrol he returned to his chair.

  ‘I have put up a ward that will prevent people from listening in to what I have to say in either this or any coexisting planes of existence. The spirit hound will ensure that we are not disturbed.’

  ‘You have no doubt wondered what is happening. Why I haven’t changed your memory and why I have taken you with me these past few days. If you’ve been observant you would have noticed that Darkmantle has been preparing his troops for something. You may be surprised that I don’t know exactly what he has planned but I suspect that it’s something to do with the Queen’s ball, possibly some new entertainment.’

  ‘However, I do know that he is concerned that your mother may show up or interfere in some way so he’s likely to use you as bait in his plan. I’m not happy with that and consequently, I’m going to give you a chance to escape.’

  ‘I am being sent off on a useless errand to get me out of the way. I will not have the opportunity to see you again before the ball and consequently I cannot help you while you are at the ball. You may not survive the ball. So I want you to escape during the attack on the Llanlleans tomorrow.’

  ‘I want you to go to the entrance to Astaria and travel through the gateway back to Mudrun. I will give you a ring that you can use as the toll and a fake pass to get through.’

  ‘Why are you doing this?’ asked Miranda.

  ‘Let’s just say I’m getting old and I’ve witnessed Darkmantle’s excesses too long. I’m originally from Mudrun but I’d die if I returned. He despises newmans; he considers them as inferiors and no more than animals. His favourite pastime is blood sports.’

  ‘OK, assuming I believe you.’ replied Miranda.

  ‘I’m a stranger to this world. How do you expect me to find the gateway and what if it’s closed?’

  ‘I have already solved those problems for you.’

  ‘Firstly I have here a bracelet of return. It is a teleport bracelet that will bring you back here if you are injured. I have made several of them to equip the raiders tomorrow with a way to escape quickly and easily. Yours, however, is different it will also teleport you to the entrance to the gateway to Astaria.’

  ‘Secondly, I have a portal stone that should open the gateway even if the gate is closed. I’ve had it hidden since your mother escaped this world. At one time I had thoughts of leaving here myself but things did not work out as I had planned.’

  ‘Why don’t you come with me?’ asked Miranda.

  ‘I wish I could but I know that your mother hates all male wizards with a vengeance and we go back quite a way. I’m afraid it would be certain death if I were to set foot in Mudrun and I’m not in a hurry to meet my maker.’

  ‘I guess you’re right.’ replied Miranda with a sigh.

  ‘OK. I’m in. Where’s the bracelet and portal stone and can you please remove the tattoo from my back.’

  ‘Okay but remember you must leave and not come back its much too dangerous for you here.’ said Prendergrass as he used a transportation power to retrieve the magic
items and a dispelling power to remove the tattoo blocking her shape change ability.

  Early the following morning Miranda, Lash, the captain and a dozen well-armed troops waited expectantly for the mage to turn up. A few minutes after the allotted time, Darkmantle arrived with a small Llanllean spider about the size of a small dog.

  Lord Darkmantle gave a short speech about their duty to help the Queen rid the kingdom of rebels who were becoming a plague on their society and introduced the small spider as Aquitain the wizard. He would give them magical support against any rebel magic users. They were to protect him where possible but keep out of his way. He then went into details about the mission such as where they were going and what they expected and the like.

  Miranda nearly had a heart attack. Aquitain was a totally alien name to Mudrun let alone Moonmist. It was just too much of a coincidence. Was it really her Aquitain? If it was he wouldn’t recognize her as she was still transformed to look ugly and had the glamour on to look like Dragonfly. Aquitain would be courageous enough to follow her here and search for her. It would be just like him to act as a field wizard. If it was him then they could escape together and work out a way to retrieve Zephira. If it wasn’t then it would compromise her plan to escape and possibly lead to her death. What should she do?

  There was also another problem. Lash didn’t know she was Aquitain’s cousin since her memory had been wiped. She was unlikely to want to go with him. She would more than likely attack him and possibly even try to kill him.

  Miranda would have to try and get Aquitain’s attention before he tried to contact Lash or there would be real trouble. Lash noticed that Dragonfly was not listening and decided to wake her up with a discrete kick to the shin. The sudden pain snapped Miranda out of her thoughts and she gave Lash a dirty look. On second thoughts she might leave Lash with Darkmantle, since she seemed to revel in her new identity as Princess Bitch.