by Des Pensable
‘Do you think the urn has any magic on it?’ asked Aquitain.
‘I doubt it, they know very little magic,’ Miranda replied.
‘Do they have any fancy opening ritual?
‘Yes, yes they do, now that you mention it.’
‘Well I’ll bet you a good dinner it’s magical,’ said Aquitain.
‘I don’t gamble, wizard.’
‘Ha, that’s a joke. Everything we’re doing today is a gamble. There’s a good chance that it will work, but also a chance that it won’t.’
‘I trust in the Lady that our plan today will work,’ she said.
‘Let’s see if it’s magical.’ And he first used his power to detect the glow of magic, then his power to control light, reducing the light intensity in the area around them to near darkness.
‘What are you doing?’ Miranda asked urgently.
‘The morning sunshine is too bright to see if there’s anything magical around here,’ he said as he scanned the ground around them, then added ‘There, over there. There’s something magic in the ground.’
He allowed the light level to return to normal and quickly crossed to where he was detecting some magic glow in the ground. He carefully dug around with his hands in the loose, sandy soil, and outlined a circular object just beneath the surface. He cleared the sand away and unearthed a glazed brown ceramic pot an arm span wide, but only a hand span deep. Around the sides were etched symbols of power.
‘The Lady is on our side today. She’s revealed the urn’s location.’
‘I won a dinner! What are you going to make for me?’
‘You didn’t win. I didn’t take your bet.’
‘Yes you did. You said the urn wouldn’t have any magic on it and I bet it would. Look at the urn. It’s magical. I won the bet.’
‘All right you had a lucky guess, but that’s all.’
‘I think that we should take the urn to the cave now. We’re half way there, I’m almost invisible and we can teleport out if we have any problems.’
‘But that wasn’t the plan. We should stick to the plan,’ Miranda said.
‘Why? We’re ahead of where we expected to be. Let’s just drop off the urn. I’ll get my chaos matter and we’ll teleport back to the hideout. If the cats come it’ll be too late, we’ll be gone. I might even be able to get my body shell.’
‘It’s risky,’ she said. ‘There’s too much light. We’ll be seen.’
‘I bet you another dinner that we can do it.’
‘But that’s a stupid bet. If you lose and get killed you won’t be able to pay up.’
‘Well then, we’ll be even won’t we?’
‘You’re a fool, wizard. This isn’t a game. If we get it wrong then it’s our lives.’
‘Perhaps and perhaps not. Maybe your Lady doesn’t want us to die yet.’
‘If she lets anybody die it will be you, wizard, for being so rash and stupid. Come on then, lets get it over with; and I’m not getting you two dinners. If this works, maybe one.’ And she set off so that he couldn’t see the look on her face.
Aquitain smugly picked up the urn, raised it onto one shoulder and followed her as she carefully moved towards the rear of the village. When they reached the track they followed the tree line instead of walking in the open, and after twenty minutes they were at the top of the track across the open area, opposite the shrine.
There were no cats visible but they could see Aquitain’s body shell lying where he had left it, and all was quiet. Miranda shape changed to her jungle cat form and carefully scouted all the way around the edge of the open space to the right of the track. She then lay in the shade of the gully wall watching while Aquitain carefully made his way around to her. Nothing seemed out of the ordinary so he continued into the cave, keeping in contact with her through the mindlink.
He created light on Alpha and it became a torch. The stench would have been simply awful for a newman but it didn’t worry him at all. He heard a faint buzzing sound in there so he enhanced the light intensity and Alpha illuminated the cave once more. The pile of lizard bodies was just as horrible as ever but was now covered in countless flies and maggots, making it look almost alive. He could feel the feeling of fear change to one of expectancy as he walked into the area lugging the urn. The spirits must have recognised it.
He placed the urn next to the wall and headed to the last place that he had seen his ball of chaos matter, stopping dead in his tracks as he drew near. The ball wasn’t there. Instead, in its place, was a large cat claw two hand spans across. He activated his magic detection ability and cast his vision around the cavern. He saw some magic glow on the body of the dead druid but the cat claw in front of him was totally black, as if it was his chaos matter. He tried to get it to reshape, but it didn’t respond.
‘Miranda we have a problem.’
‘What?’ she responded quickly.
‘Something’s happened to my chaos matter ‘ and he sent her an image +
‘Are you sure it’s your chaos matter?’ she asked.
Just to be sure, he walked around the cave to all the other dead bodies not on the pile, and looked all about but found no ball of chaos matter.
‘No that’s it! It’s now a claw.’
‘Well what are you going to do? Leave it or take it? You have to decide quickly.’
‘I know. I’ve got a bad feeling about this. I’m going to tie a long bit of string around it and drag it over to me. If it doesn’t set off a trap, then I’ll pick it up and run out to you, and we’ll teleport back to the hideout.’
He found several lengths of rope, tied them together and made a loop at one end, and gently laid it around the claw. He then went to the other end of the rope twenty paces away and pulled it, snagging the claw and drawing it towards him. Nothing happened.
‘It doesn’t seem to be trapped. Something weird must have happened to it in here. Maybe it’ll revert to its normal state outside the cave.’
When he had reeled it close enough he reached down and picked it up. Immediately, his sight went black and he lost all feeling in his body. His first thought was that the claw was a soul container and his spirit had been sucked into it. He was still mindlinked to Alpha and Miranda, so he asked Alpha to send him an image of what it could see. He had vision again. Alpha was sitting on the head of a giant black jungle cat. It used a paw and knocked Alpha onto the ground and looked at it closely. Alpha’s brightness faded to a normal yellow lantern intensity.
Aquitain got a close look at its face. It was huge, its shoulders were as tall as the height of a newman, and its eyes glowed with green flames. It decided that Alpha was some type of light crystal, so left it lying on the ground and padded off silently to the entrance to the cave.
‘Miranda there’s a huge cat in here. Turn into an eagle and fly away from here immediately.’
‘I won’t leave you,’ she said. ‘I’ll fight it.’
‘No. Miranda. It’s possessed me. My body is now its body. I’m inside it. Fly away. I think that it knows you’re out there. It’s crouching by the cave entrance listening. It’s going out.’ Aquitain quenched the light on Alpha and directed it to discreetly follow the great cat.
Miranda stood nearly invisible about fifteen paces away from the entrance of the cave and saw the great beast emerge wearing an amulet shaped like a large cat’s claw around its neck. The whole area for a hundred paces around the entrance to the cave had filled with a cool, unnatural fog. She saw the green flame in its eyes as it looked at her. She cancelled the camouflage magic, changed to her newman form and went down on her knees.
‘Hail, mighty Jacintra, Mother of all Cats.’
‘What are you doing here, servant of the Lady?’ asked Jacintra using mindspeak.
‘My friend and I were here to burn the bodies of your followers and conduct the ritual of the dead so that they might find their way to their ancestors, Cat Mother.’
‘Why would you do this? You owe me no allegiance,�
� Jacintra replied.
‘I do it out of duty in the name of the Lady, for they have spread and nurtured her seeds across the land. I do it out of respect, for they are always respectful to others. I do it out of love, for they have always been kind and gracious to me. I would honour them in the name of the Lady, because there is none left here to help their passing. They did not deserve the foul deed done here, and it will be my pleasure to direct my colleagues to search for and deal out justice to whomever committed this monstrous crime.’
‘What of your friend? He is not a servant of the Lady!’
‘His heart is pure. He gave his effort freely on my request and asked no fee or favour.’
‘How is it that a Preserver walks with an Agent of Chaos and calls him a friend?’
‘He is no Agent of Chaos. Cat Mother. He is but a weak and lowly wizard.’
‘Do you doubt my word child?’
‘No, Cat Mother! If he is as you say then he has disguised it well, as I have seen no evidence of chaos in his nature. I would plead for his life, as he has done nought but to help in honouring your people.’
‘What is your friend’s name?’
‘He is called Aquitain, Cat Mother.’
‘Hmm ... that is a name of power. There is some scheme at work here. I will consider your request for his life after we have paid tribute to my people.’
‘I need to move another dozen bodies to the pile Cat Mother, before we burn it, but I cannot breathe the toxic air.’
Jacintra strolled into the cave, and every dead body not on the pile flew through the air onto it, causing a great cloud of flies to explode out of the cave’s entrance. There was a spark-like crackle in the air and all the flies fell dead.
‘Call your fire,’ said Jacintra. So Miranda gathered wood and started a small fire, then began singing a strange but magically powerful song. Moments later two small red lizards covered in flame crawled out of the fire, grew to the size of a horse and stood several paces from her, waiting for her to speak.
She spoke in a language that Aquitain had never heard nor understood.
‘Welcome, fire brothers! In the name of the Lady I have a job for you. Burn the pile of bodies in the shrine so that we may collect their warm ashes and send our friends on their final journey.’
The fire salamanders said nothing, but strode into the shrine while both Jacintra and Miranda retreated back twenty paces from the shrine entrance. A thick black stream of stinking acrid smoke swirled out of the mouth of the cave for some minutes, passing high up into the sky before it began to diminish and finally stopped. The two salamanders left the cave, paused, looked at her for several seconds, then vanished.
**
Half a league away, in an underground cavern, a sergeant wearing civilian clothes reported to his superior.
‘Your Holiness, our scout on the surface has reported smoke from a fire near the cat shrine in the gully to the south.’
‘Really! That sounds like someone may be there to investigate the disappearance of those large rats.’
‘Wizard Fental, change to an eagle and fly down and have a look, please. Don’t do anything yourself, just look and report back here on what you see.’
‘Yes, Your Holiness.’
**
Miranda followed Jacintra into the shrine, followed silently by Alpha. The room and the air in it were warm, and the horrible smell of death much diminished. Jacintra looked at the still glowing heap of ashes and a small cloud of cold fog appeared, cooling them rapidly.
‘Mix the ashes,’ said Jacintra.
Miranda looked around the room for something to scrape the ashes together with, and ended up using the square top off the box that Aquitain had stood on the previous day. She swept all the ashes into a heap and stirred them around with her hands until they were thoroughly mixed, then looked back to the great cat that sat watching her.
‘Place the urn beside the ashes and open it,’ commanded Jacintra. This was the part of the ceremony that Miranda couldn’t remember. She had only on one occasion attended a funeral where she had been allowed to see the full rites, and something had distracted her at the moment the urn had been opened. She retrieved the urn and placed it beside the ashes then stopped. She could see the magic symbols on the outside of the urn glowing, and guessed that if she did it wrong something bad would happen to her.
Aquitain had watched everything and was watching now. He saw her hesitate. ‘What’s wrong?’
She was surprised to hear his voice at first, then remembered that even though the Cat Mother possessed him he could somehow see what was happening.
‘I can’t remember the opening sequence,’ she said. ‘Is that bad?’
‘Yes. It might be. The symbols around the urn were protective and were probably designed to harm anyone not authorized to open the urn.’
‘Now do as I tell you,’ he said. ‘Look at the urn carefully then imagine that I’m looking at it. Good now, rotate it a quarter the way and look at it carefully and imagine I’m seeing it. Good now do the same for the next two quarters.’ Miranda did this and waited.
‘There are eight symbols. That is good. Four of the symbols represent the four winds and the other four represent the four elements. I’ve got it. At least I think I have,’ and he sent her an image of a symbol. ‘This is the symbol of the north wind, rotate the urn until it faces north.’
‘I’m not sure which is north,’ she said, a little scared. ‘We’re inside the shrine - I can’t see the sun.’
‘Don’t panic Miranda. Think of us walking through the village, then up the path, then seeing the entrance to the shrine. Which way did the entrance face?’
‘East of course, to catch the morning sun.’ And she rotated the urn so that the north wind faced to the north.
‘What’s next?’
‘Well, you have to stand opposite each of the symbols of the elements and tap the lid. This is the tricky bit. I think the sequence will be stone, fire, water and air. Is there something else you should do before you open it?’
Miranda thought for a few moments, trying to visualise what she had seen three years ago. Yes she remembered. The shaman had sprinkled water on the ashes to bless them. She looked around the room for a water barrel, and seeing one she went to it, filled a clay cup that had lain near it with water, and brought it back to the Mother of Cats.
‘Would you bless this water please, Cat Mother?’
Jacintra nodded and the water turned golden for a moment. Miranda returned to the ashes and excitedly sprinkled water over them, telling them that that their lord blessed them; then she asked Aquitain to show her the shape of each of the four elements. She moved around the urn to face each symbol and tapped the lid with her finger. As nothing bad happened, she took hold of the knob on the top of the lid and lifted it off. It worked! She remembered the rest of the ritual now.
She took a handful of ashes out of the urn and sprinkled them over the new pile of ashes, then took a handful of the new ashes and sprinkled them in the urn and mixed them together with her hand.
‘Our spirits are the essence of air, Our bodies are the essence of water, Our lives are the essence of fire, but in the end we return to the essence stone from whence we came. Your Lord awaits! Hasten and don’t look back, for a new future lies before you. So sayeth the Lady.’
The ashes in the urn turned pure black and burst into a cold fire, and the spirits of the dead in the room turned to a mist which was sucked into the urn.
‘Well done Miranda, servant of the Lady! From this day forth you are a friend of the cats and you may take cat form at will. Use it wisely. The fate of your friend is not mine to decide. I shall return him unharmed. I repay him for the loan of his body with the loan of mine. He too may take cat form at will. There is a treasure hidden within these walls that may help his cause, however I must warn you that danger threatens.’
The spirit of the Cat Mother flowed out of Aquitain’s body like a mist and disappeared into the black of t
he ashes in the urn. The claw shaped amulet around the Cat Mother’s neck reshaped to Aquitain’s ball of chaos matter and fell to the ground. The magic symbols on the urn disappeared, the ashes regained their normal appearance and a small whirlwind lifted them out of the urn, carrying them out of the shrine and scattering them over the ground. Aquitain changed form to his newman shape and excitedly raced over and hugged Miranda, and danced around with her.
‘You did it! You actually did it! You were amazing! I’m so very proud of you, cat lady. Maybe now that bitch cat will stop pissing on our hideout hatch.’
Miranda was thrilled! Her heart pounded, and she was more excited than she could ever remember. Her spirit wanted to take flight. What was it about this wizard? He scared her at moments, but at other times he made her feel more alive than she had ever felt. She smiled and hugged him back. ‘I couldn’t have done it without you. How did you work out the ritual to open the urn? I can’t believe a wizard could do that. That was truly amazing.’
‘It wasn’t that difficult. It followed the sequence of the creation myth taught by the religions in Panmagica. In the beginning the gods created the worlds of stone to represent stability and law but it was lifeless, so in the passion of their anger they created fire, the opposite of stability, and mixed it with rock to form water; from the water they formed the bodies of all the trees and plants and animals. But these still had no passion, so in their anger they mixed the fire and the water to form air, and from the air they formed the spirits of the newmans and instilled them in the bodies of water so that they would have true passion. But they found these newmans were unruly and ignored the gods, so they created the faiths so that they would know the law.
‘You used the reverse sequence to give closure to the dead.’
