Month: March 2016

Ravenna chose not to fly and instead ran with the speed of a Haste Spell, without needing to conjure and use Hare’s blood, the rare material component for the spell. She made the usual three hour run to the Fane of the Setting Sun in minutes. The Fane sat peacefully on its hill. Flowers bloomed in the hillfort and dotted the glacis. Nothing impended her progress to the gates, which were ajar. Ravenna ran across the plain before the edifice and approached the open gate.

A sentry waited. He wore no armor and carried a short sword sheathed by his side. The tall man said, “Welcome, citizen. I’m afraid most of the facilities are closed at this late hour, but you can find some nourishments in the buttery.”

“Why do you not defend against me, Ranger?” Ravenna snarled. “What is your name? I’ll have you called before your Captain!”

“I’m called Cyril. Cyril Kessa. My grandfather is the archer Banon Kessa. I hope to follow his path. My lady, I thought you a relation of Princess Erinnia! You are as beautiful. And…and…your red hair!” the dumbfounded Ranger stammered.

“I know not of your lineage! I might have been the Sorcerer of the Lachinor or an assassin!” she continued.

“My lady, the Sorcerer of the Lachinor lives only in our texts. He and the assassin ‘s guild are gone now a thousand years! Are you well? Should I summon the Curate?” the man said with concern.

“I’ll speak only to the Priestess Knarra. Unless madness has taken her as well!” Ravenna fumed.

Ravenna Nocerre welcomed the night skies of Donothor. She neared the guard post manned by the Curates of the Fane of tbe Setting Sun and Rangers from Lynden. She relished the thought of companionship for the remainder of her journey.

The sturdy stone structure loomed ahead.

Quiet…

The Continual Light Spell cast upon the narrow turret illuminated the area around the base of the structure.

Statues… new structures stood neat the sturdy keep.

Taekora?

The Magick light glistened on the stone scales and reproduced the beauty of the prismatic dragon Taekora, the great ally of High Priestess Knarra, the Aivendars, and the peoples of Donothor. A second statue stood near the massive likeness of Taekora. She stared at her own likeness! A memorial?

Where were the guards?

“Hello?”  She called into the silence.

The only answer was the gentle wind from the gap.

Porschianna rode out on her coach. She cast Charm Monster, Silence, Dispel Magick, Power Word “Kill,” and Harm Spells. All failed.

She bathed her persona with Protective Magick, wore light mail armor, carried a short staff with a thickened end which served as a mace, and stopped her carriage a hundred yards from the encroaching females. The sorceress unleashed the four wyrms and ordered them toward Taekora. The wyrms were flightless but they were fast afoot, resistant to dragon breath, and were unaffected by most Magick.

Knarra and Porschianna exchanged spells. Neither gained an advantage. Knarra drew her mace and walked toward Porschianna.

Taekora faced the charging wyrms.

“I hate ‘fang and talon’ to ‘fang and talon’ combat,” Taekora moaned.

“Not as much as I hate hand to hand,” Knarra commiserated.

Theandra quickened her pace and within an hour was standing within sight of the walls of Ylysis. The outer curtain of the massive fortress teemed with movement. She uttered another brief incantation. She conjured up an opaque globe of shimmering spheres. The colors appeared in the order of red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, and violet. The different colors flashed in a repeating pattern every heartbeat. The brilliance of the colors blinded anything in the immediate vicinity of the sphere which surrounded her. The sphere was ten paces in diameter; she could move about within the sphere and could command it to move forward. She cast another more detailed spell that required her to crush a small clay shield in her left hand as she conjured. A large translucent shield appeared and moved two paces in front of her. She began to move forward.

The guards upon the wall-walk surrounding Ylysis witnessed the formation of the Shimmering Spheres. The colors were beautiful but unnerving at the same time. The general appearance was that of a rainbow rolling toward the castle. She stopped a few hundred paces from the castle doors. There was loud recoil from the enceite, the quadrangle of Ylysis, and a huge flaming projectile raced toward her. The catapults were firing rocks molten by Magick.

With Mayard aboard Syrrth eased to the ground. Urra with Rhiann and Shyrra with the Shapechanger-Lennard followed. Three armed centaurs greeted the Cloudmares and their riders. The largest stood centrally and bore the visage of a man’s’ torso attached to the body of a horse at the withers, where the horse’s neck would be; others of his type stood heavily armed a few paces behind the greeting group. The powerful gray male carried a huge halberd. To his left stood a male centaur with a human body and legs joined at the waist with the hindquarters of a horse. This palomino colored male carried a longsword. A third centaur, a beautiful strawberry roan female. had human forelegs terminating in hooves. Her pinkish flowing hair closely matched her hindquarter coloration. She carried a wicked scimitar. Two snow-white winged centaurs hovered above the threesome and carried longbows with nocked arrows. Excepting their beautiful wings, the flying centaurs resembled the large male with the halberd. A blue Pegasus flew between the snow-white winged centaurs. He carried no weapon and looked back toward the walled edifice surrounding the Hanging Gardens.

Mayard Klarje approached the large gray with the halberd and said, “Why the show of force, Chiron? Does an old friend deserve such a greeting?”

The centaur lowered his halberd and addressed the approaching sorcerer, “Oh, it is you, Mayard. Our Cloudmare friends have never borne enemies to our gates, but I wasn’t sure we were seeing Cloudmares approach. Ill winds blow from Thynna. The Three Sisters have tightened the guard to protect the Gardens.”

 

He gently rubbed his daughter’s head and kissed his life-mate’s cheek.

“You must stay within the ten foot thaumaturgic circle that I’ve drawn upon the floor. Do not come to me. Do not stray regardless of what you see or hear!” Klarje urged.

“Our judges can show mercy. Do you think this entity will show you mercy? Is the fiend that approaches of Nature or Magick? It is certainly evil! Magick! Had our world never have seen its coming!” Cassi Klarje pleaded as Wyndam pulled away.

“I must do what I can. There is nothing left for it,” Wyndam said resolutely.

Cassi cried as she watched her life-mate gather material components from the old tattered bovine-hide container that had passed down through generations of his family. The sorcerer gathered his robe, an old staff, and a small phial of water.

Wyndam conjured, placed a small ball of dried Phoenix dung on the floor, and ignited it with a flint. The dung smoldered and permeated the air with the very pleasant scent typical of the beautiful rare white birds. A pleasant blue glow surrounded the circle he had drawn on the floor of his pastoral home and covered the faces of Cassi and little Morianna. Wyndam completed the Protection from Evil Spell. He then uttered an incantation, rubbed a small drop of mercury over his robe, and completed the Resist Fire Spell. Although unsure how much the spell would help against the ring of fire that observers said surrounded the massive Fire Demon that approached Lakeside, Wyndam knew it helped against fire-based Magick.

Mayard led Rhiann across the cleared area and into the nearby woods. They came upon the merchant Lennard, who held three large misty gunmetal gray equines by ornate bridles.

The beasts’ three huge eyes were the reddest things Rhiann had beheld in his young life. The three eyes sparkled like red diamonds, the rarest of Sagain’s jewels. Mayard said the middle or third eye was blind. Rhiann found gazing upon the intriguing beasts pleasant and touched the nearest shadowy creature. Surprisingly his fingers met resistance from the ghostly equine form.

Rhiann asked, “Is that the Shapechanger who attacked you in Lennard’s store.”

Mayard answered, “One and the same. He’s become a steadfast ally. Of the many facades he might project, he figured looking like old Lennard might worry you the least. He’s quite good with  steeds and procured the services of these three.”

Rhiann commented, “Those beasts lack wings. I though you said we’d fly to the Hanging Gardens.”

Mayard answered, “Cloudmares don’t need wings. They blend in well with the clouds. Urra, Shyrra, and Syrrth are Maranna’s friends. They graze near her home Cragmore. They have agreed to carry us to the Hanging Gardens and allow the bridles to help us hold on.”

An invisible Maranna responded, “Now, be fair. I’ll release the guards when you are finished playing.”

Rhiann relished every word spoken by the unseen siren and chagrinned when quiet footsteps heralded her departure. Mayard and Rhiann placed earplugs near their ears. The warm, fuzzy, squirming little creatures snuggled into their ear canals and effectively deafened the two sorcerers. The duo peeked around the corner. Then the winged woman appeared near the guards at the gate. Her exquisite lips began to move. Before the guards had time to react, they fell under some type of spell.

“She’s a real asset,” the young sorcerer asserted. His comments fell on Mayard’s deafened ears. The gently undulating winged female sang and mesmerized the guards. Rhiann and Mayard Klarje saw her lips moving but could not hear the siren’s sweet song. Maranna smiled and winked as they joined her. The guard uttered the command to remove the Wizard Lock and the three walked effortlessly through the gate and across the illuminated area before Thynna’s Great Wall. Mayard and Rhiann removed the earplugs.

The winged female smugly furthered, “Works every time.”

She flapped her beautiful wings gracefully, ascended, and flew away.

Rhiann found speaking difficult. The Siren flashed a coy smile, pushed her soft chest against him, and gently rubbed the cherry-red, heart-shaped birthmark on his face. Her beautiful wings answered the question “how’d she get into Thynna?” Still… the guards should have seen her! Nature’s flying beasts usually avoided the skies over the city of Magick. The donjon towered over the inner ward and provided views of the city for archers stationed on its pinnacle. Numerous structures rose above the height of the bartizans in the outer curtain. The Fly Spell was rather common knowledge. Usually at least one sorcerer patrolled the skies over Thynna using the power of the dweomer. Of course “Flying” required the sorcerer’s undivided Magick attention and fairly quickly exhausted the spell caster. Arms were not wings! The Fly Spell had little utility outside Thynna’s friendly confines. Flying wasn’t worth the risk of becoming a meal for airborne predators like Rocs, dragons, wyverns, Hippogriffs, Manticores, three-eyed Roc-eaters, Pteranodons, Pterodactyls, Windwalkers, Djinn, Efreet, Devils, Pegasi, and Condors. One touch from the dreaded Tuscon meant sudden death!

Mayard said, “The walls of Thynna do not bar entry to my winged female friend Maranna. Maranna simply flies over the wall unnoticed. She is like a great cat in the dark, and then she is the darkness. She is like a great bird in flight, if she is noticed at all.”

Mayard extended his left hand and suggested, “Put these in your ears.”

Rhiann saw the wriggling bugs in his uncle’s hands and muttered, “Yuck! Earplugs! Must we?”

“Yes, you’ll understand,” Mayard uttered.

A wonderfully melodic feminine voice added, “They won’t harm you, Rhiann, and neither will I.”

A feminine person joined them. The lovely longhaired creature was so stunning that he had to catch his breath. She overwhelmed all his senses with her looks, voice, and pheromones. Long reddish-orange locks flowed down her neck and crossed over to the front of her chest, falling far below her curvaceous perfect breasts. There was radiance to each beautiful hair, as though every strand lived separately. Her voice was beyond description. His mother’s words had always soothed the pangs of scrapes and abrasions, which he had suffered during his play. But what he heard now was beyond the comfort of Caye’s most tender words. The youth would amble off a cliff should she request it. Her beauty differed from his mother. She had…soft feathered wings had sprouted naturally from the small of her back. Her wings extended almost involuntarily, and a soft plushy tail swished gently behind her as she talked. Rhiann felt unfamiliar stirrings in his essence. A Siren… his first encounter with the Old Ones.