Soul of the Sorcerer - Part Three: Daughter of the Dragon (13 page)

“YOU WILL NOT TAKE ME!” the Ebony Being said through gritted teeth, angry at itself for getting caught in this predicament. He ploughed his anger into his determination and slowly his will began to find cracks in the midgets mental hold.

“Quick Lameath!” he heard the midgets voice in his mind,  the female called Lameath stood and latched her eyes on his, he felt his soul fall into the deepest pools of admiration and desire he had ever felt.

How could he have loved another!

“My sweet, do not struggle!” she said reaching up with an arm and grabbing his leg, pulling him to the floor where her eyes could consume him far easier.

“What have we here!” JalTak’s voice transmitted through the air into his mind, “Daemon? Yes I think so, maybe one of Hozjoh’s? But more, much more, there is something of me...no the mistress about you...and something else…” The midget turned to look at Themisia intrigued “Something like her?”

The midget thought deeply. “Themisia I am intrigued enough for you to take the seed of this creature, I am sure the mistress will approve.”

“No...please no!” Themisia replied while pushing herself back into a hunched position against the rear rest of the couch she was on.

“NO...THIS MUST NOT BE!” the creature protested as Lameath pulled him by the hands towards the couch. “Come my love!” She commanded and cooed with equal measure.

“I don’t know how long I can charm him either, he is so strong!” she said with concern, while never taking her eyes from his. When she reached the couch next to Themisia, she knelt, without breaking his gaze and gently unwrapped the cloth from around him “My, my!” she said with a grin, “What a treat for your first time my sister!” Lameath then slowly pleasured him, all the time her eyes locked like beacons of cold fire onto his.

Inside his head the Ebony being screamed, his sudden arousal was the final straw and his consciousness ran from the light to the dark.

When she saw the being’s eyes turn black as night, Lameath pulled away from him with a gasp. He lifted her up and kissed her roughly, before tossing her to the side and making his way quickly to the other beauty with red hair.

Edala had watched transfixed at the strange battle that was playing out beneath her and she had placed her hand over her mouth in shock, when the Emperor’s betrothed had started to pleasure the creature.  She now watched in horror as, at first, the beast ripped the clothes from the girl called Themisia and then snapped the ankle chains with some magic from his black portal, before forcing her flat onto the couch with a hand around her neck and using his legs and other hand to force her legs apart. There was no resistance from the girl, only a short gasp of pain followed by tears from vacant eyes as he pushed himself fully within her.

Edala noticed that Lameath, too, seemed a little shocked, but the creature JalTak just stood with an evil grin fixed upon its face as it watched the brutal rape.

It did not take long for the being to finish with Themisia and it pulled away collapsing to its knees on the floor. It turned away from the scene of the crime and looked towards the part of the ceiling where Edala was concealed; a chill went up her spine when she witnessed the never-ending deepness of its black eyes. It seemed again that their eyes met and the creature grimaced, almost with a look of shame, before blinking and its eyes returned to the silver white she had witnessed minutes earlier. This time she was certain there was anguish.

Movement behind the kneeling being caught Edala's attention. The midget JalTak had reached a hand into its own black portal and retrieved a foul looking long dagger, with a serrated edge on both sides of the blade. It now approached the unaware naked creature from behind, blade poised to strike.

A sudden flash of white light blinded everything in the room for several seconds. Another Ebony being had appeared, smaller than the first, equally as hairless but absolutely a female. She too had just a simple cloth hiding her modesty, but she could not conceal her toned muscular body also riddled with tattoos.

She threw multiple blue electric darts at the midget, which again were fed from a black portal. The small creature threw a hand forward and a shield of swirling black energy just swallowed the darts. It was enough of a distraction, though, for the female to lean next to the male and in a second they both vanished in another flash of white light.

Edala took one last regretful look at the now sobbing Themisia before her attitude changed to one of determination. She moved swiftly along the edge to the next unbroken wooden beam, and carefully crossed to the other side of the room and up out of the window vent. She retrieved her rope, and when back at the chimney, hastily pulled off her clothes, stuffing them, with little care, into the bag.

She finally remembered the cruel torment inflicted upon her kin, the strange girl Themisia, by the Ebony Being and felt her anger rise.

“I will return for you sister!” she said with eyes full of anger, eyes of the dragon. She leapt into the air and made her way swiftly back to the market camp.

Kenelm’s journey on the back of his new pony called Maiden had been relatively swift, they were still following the well-worn path towards the school and he hoped to be there in the next few hours, hopefully before lunchtime.

His belly rumbled reminding him that he had finished the last of his rations the day before. “It’s alright for you my girl, there’s plenty of grass to fill your belly!” he said with a gentle pat on Maiden’s neck.

Up in the distance his eyes could make out something, possibly a collection of tents. “That’s strange maiden, why would anyone camp this close to Arrenloft?” He nudged the horse forward and after about fifteen minutes he could discern, not only ten to fifteen tents, but probably, around two hundred people. As he got closer still, he realised that the majority of these were apprentices, with a number of monks, masters and some of the school guards.

On seeing him approach a guard ran forward “Stop there! Who do you stand with?”

“I am a monk of Arrenloft, no less, no more, my friend.” Kenelm replied a little confused.

“Do you stand with Brother Kenneth or Brother Justin?” The guard elaborated.

“Oh I see, that little ditty is playing out is it? Surely Brother Nial has made the appointment and that is final?” Kenelm asked.

“Unfortunately, my friend, dear brother Nial was murdered in his bed before he could claim for me.” The familiar and friendly voice of Brother Kenneth made Kenelm smile and he climbed down from Maiden to walk past the guard and grip his old friend’s arm in greeting.

“Good to see you brother Kenelm”

“And you, my friend, now tell me, what the hell is going on here?”

“Come to my tent and we can share our stories over ale and some food. I particularly want to hear any news you may have about what happened at Seadawn and Seaguard, as we have only rumours and hearsay. There have even been whispers that a Sorcerer broke into King Joran’s laboratory and has stolen the forbidden tomes!”

Kenelm handed Maiden’s reins to the guard and followed Kenneth with a growling stomach and an inconspicuous whistle. After a few yards he put his arm on Kenneth’s shoulder “Friend Kenneth, I hope you have a great deal of ale, because you are really going to need it!

Darrion was some ten leagues further south from Kenelm, preparing his next translocation which would take him to the school. Although he knew the school layout very well, therefore not really needing to scry a location to translocate to, Darrion decided that it would be safer to check that no one was in the area he intended to travel to. He daren’t think what would happen if he tried to translocate to a spot where someone was already standing.

He had chosen the very familiar bathing cavern and he smiled at the memory of seeing his wife naked for the first time. The sooner he could deliver all his notes on Stonehenge and get back to her the better.

The cavern was empty, it being too early in the day for baths. He therefore pictured an area in the very centre of the baths and began the spell;

“Zephyrair, Zephyrmight, from my mind, far of sight, carry me there, true and right!”

He appeared exactly where he wanted and because the distance had not been too extreme there was only a small spot of blood to be wiped clean. Stuffing his hanky back in a pocket within his jeans, he made his way through the exit and past the towel storage area up towards the central tower of the school.

He was a little surprised to find the passageways devoid of any of the inhabitants, especially the apprentices who outnumbered the masters and monks several times over. He decided to head towards the canopied dining area assuming that perhaps everyone was at breakfast.

As he neared the passage that lead into the area a single loud voice which he recognised immediately to be that of Brother Justin, caused him to slow and listen.

“My brothers we must not be hasty, it is the easy path to wipe out those who would oppose us. The path to total victory, however, is to instead stealthily bring those against us to our cause...there is too much magical power out there to waste.”

Darrion continued carefully and as quietly as possible, his ears pinned on every word. There was some bickering between other voices, until one that Darrion did not recognise responded;

“My brother Mordja, as you are the Master’s right hand, we will support you.”

Darrion froze, a shiver running up his spine…”Mordja!” he whispered to himself, shock and concern on his face at hearing the name of the Possessor Daemon who had caused them so much pain and suffering.

The air mage turned on his soul vision and carefully edged closer to the door that would let him see into the dining area. Finally, he eased his head out and groaned inwardly at the sight before him.

Mordja, in the possessed form of Brother Justin, was standing in front of the top head table which sat on a stone stage higher than all the others. He was listening to four possessed master mages, who were standing on the floor below, one from each of the disciplines, all of them male. Behind them, on the benches, sat about forty of the apprentices, a number of monks and a few more masters. All of these were sitting absolutely still with eyes staring blankly towards Mordja and the Staff of Arren, in possessed Brother Justin’s left hand. Mesmerising streams of white light danced out from a small crystal ball, at the head of the staff, directly into the eyes of the frozen watchers. Darrion prepared himself to flee should one of the beams of light approach, but fortunately none did. As his eyes adjusted he began to discern a small swirling circle of darkness above them, it was only about seven inches across and flickered with instability.

Darrion’s face was grim, Mordja must have worked out a way of opening a Daemon portal similar to the Sorcerer Spell he had studied with Master Sheu in the forbidden tomes. Originally Hextar had somehow used five fire mages. He slowly eased back from the doorway and drew a deep breath; if Brother Justin and the four masters were the only Daemon possessed, maybe he could use one of the forbidden air spells to destroy them. If it had just been Justin he might not have thought twice about it, but to murder four fellow masters...he remembered the time when Lloyd had opened the first Daemon portal fully, doing it because he had not wanted his loved ones to be tortured by Hextar and the Daemen. Some would argue that Lloyd’s decision that day had been wrong, many thousands had suffered and died because of it; Darrion wondered if he was one of those who doubted the decision made by the young Sorcerer on that day.

He lifted his head with hard eyes and whispered the words to open his portals. “Zephyrair, Zephyrmight…” he then began to pull in as much energy as he could muster; he was glad the translocation had been such a short distance as he had plenty of power left.

He pulled and pulled until his very skin seemed to shiver with electrical energy, the air master in jeans and tee-shirt then stepped firmly out into the canopied area, Brother Justin’s, and presumably Mordja’s, mouth dropped open in surprise at the power enshrouded Being standing before them; hair standing erect, static electricity snapping between every strand!

Kenelm sat with an expectant smile, he studied Brother Kenneth’s face while he waited for the older Monk to respond. The shocked man was an open book, every concern at the story, Kenelm had told, registering as a flicker of his downturned eyes or a twitch in his frown.

“I am sorry friend Kenneth for the shock I have caused, but I suppose it is the curse of our separation from the rest of the world, up here on the loft.”

Brother Kenneth’s eyes looked up from the floor, on which they both sat, they then focussed on Kenelm’s.

“A Sorcerer and the realm torn asunder by Daemen... I feel bad that we at Arrenloft were unaware and provided no aid!”

“It is of no concern now my friend, yes lives have been lost and Arrenloft’s aid would have made a difference, but the past is the past, here is now and I would really like to know why half the school is living outside in tents with no furniture!”

Kenneth, refilled their tankards with ale, took a sip before replying.

“It was a couple of weeks ago when Brother Nial was found with a dagger buried to the hilt in his eye. We quickly undertook the vote to decide who should next lead and Brother Justin won by the slimmest of margins. As you can imagine there were a few of us who were unhappy with this. Justin, although competent, has always had an air of arrogance that rubbed many up the wrong way!”

Kenelm nodded in agreement.

“He had been even worse in the weeks leading up to Nial’s murder and I for one, and not alone I might add, felt that Justin may have had a hand in it. But I bit my tongue. Or did until I discovered he had somehow swayed four masters to undertake special magical experimentation working on new spells...totally breaking our tradition and law...It’s then that events turned very dark. When several of us monks and other masters challenged the group of five, as we called them, they struck us hard with a multitude of spells, killing many. Also, Justin has somehow learnt the power of the Staff of Arren and he began to use it to mesmerise many. Totally unprepared, those of us who were not under his spell - so to speak - ran like crazy and evacuated as many as we could, grabbing provisions on the way. We have been here ever since, trying to work out a way back in to take the school, without killing more than we have to.”

Kenelm thought for a moment before responding. “Did any of the mages on your side manage to view
the five
with their soul vision?”

“No it all happened so fast, why?”

“It just sounds to me like they may be possessed by Daemen. It’s a shame I can’t teach you the new way of translocating that Lloyd and Bethany have developed. You could have travelled groups of even non air mages from here to anywhere within the school in an instant and undertaken a surprise attack.” Kenelm responded.

Brother Kenneth frowned; “I am worried that our long held traditions are being ignored by so many, including the wise.”

“As was I my brother, as was I. But great threats can often only be overcome by great imagination! I for one will no longer challenge a return to the free investigation of magic, when I witnessed not just the magic of the Sorcerer, but the way he used it against the Daemen...” Kenelm said remembering the tornadoes Lloyd had filled with magically charged sharp objects…”It was like watching a God!”

“So what can we, here, do against these Daemen?” Kenneth asked intrigued.

“Well they seem susceptible to the electrical energy summoned by the air mages, Lloyd even charged swords with the power; this seemed to prevent the regeneration of the monsters’ severed limbs” Kenelm replied.

“Then let us not hesitate any further!” Kenneth stood and left through the tent flaps…”ALL MASTERS, APPRENTICES AND GUARDS TO ME! WE HAVE WORK TO DO!”