The Prophecy

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Simon Andrus stared at the newly arriving slave caravan just clearing customs.

He was almost gleeful as he anticipated the reward to come his way when he delivered that bitch into his master’s hands. It had cost him dearly, but he had received word the ship captain he had bribed had done exactly as they had planned, and managed to scuttle his ship in a Valdoran harbor, stranding the princess in a foreign, and hostile land. Gregory’s message indicated she had even already been branded and collared, thanks to her too trusting maid.

Of course, their entire journey had been a ruse. The redheaded bitch had thought she was journeying to meet the prince of K’Zir, to formalize their betrothal ere they were wed. He had carefully crafted his scheme to ensure her royal sire was distracted, and unable to travel with her, and thus unseat his plans. In fact, the ‘prince’ she had been corresponding with all along had been one of his agents, using stolen seals and parchment to play the right role, and flatter her into accepting this affiancing.

Only now he was Not quite so confident.

Strange omens and happenings had the entire region upset. Just a few weeks ago, the night had abruptly turned to day, and the area magic guilders had all rushed off to H’r’lyn soon after. They had not even been gone more than a full two weeks when it seemed the very earth was shaken by a great earthquake.

Half the area was in ruins, and Nobles and guilders on both sides of the border of Kybera, a city with sides in Valdor and K’Zir, seemed as panicked as the rabble in the streets. Especially with the magic users, and most of the priests gone, and thus unable to supply any explanations. Those lower caste priests left to advise the usual supplicants could only scratch their heads, and bemoan the fates along with the rest of the common mob thronging to their temples in search of answers, or at least mercy.

Men spoke of the end of times, and gods anger.

Simon was more practical. He just wanted to know where his goods were. He had not seen Captain Gregory, a man that should stand out well enough in the lot of armed freemen leading their wares to the local slave guild. Nor did he see the manbeast the captain had lamented about, fearing he might rape the princess ere they arrived at Kybera.

Taking a chance, he approached the guildsman, a tall, burly bear of man, and bowed low to him just in case, knowing some worthies traveled in disguise at times. “My pardon’s, sir,” he addressed the big man.

“What is it, man,” the man growled, obviously impatient as he looked around for someone else he was clearly expecting.

“’Tis just that…..are you the guild caravan from Kybera,” he asked.

“Aye, and what of it,” Thomas Clarke demanded of the gaunt, sallow man that was as bald as a newborn, and had a look he did Not care for at all.

“’Tis just….I was expecting a companion to meet me, and he mentioned he was traveling with you. Captain Gregory? Ian Gregory?” Thomas shook his head as the men around him purposely looked away. “If he was your friend, man, I’ve ill news for you.

“He was taken by leeches in the foothills of the Gray Mountains. Still, we dispatched the poor soul, so he won’t be suffering in the next life as a soulless parasite.”

Simon shuddered, knowing well enough what leeches could do to a man. “And….And the women traveling with him,” he asked.

Thomas frowned as the man looked a bit more pensive Now, and felt a surge of distrust to go along with his already growing dislike. A former man-at-arms, and used to following his gut, he shook his head. “I cannot say,” he told him bluntly. “After the leeches struck us, we fled over the pass, and it was nigh well every man, or woman, for themselves.

“I lost a lot of good men, along with those lasses.

“The fortunes of life in this land,” he shrugged.

Simon swore beneath his breath for a moment, and Thomas read more than concern in his manner.

“I am sorry for your friend. Still, as I said, there was little we could do save ensure your friend did not suffer in the next life.”

“I understand,” Simon said, shaking his head at his loss. “Still, you came across the Gray Mountains. Mayhap you can explain these odd goings on that have drawn the magic workers and priests off to H’r’lyn without explanation.

“Did you see aught…..?” “We saw leeches,” Thomas spat. “And now I see my own companions, so if you’ll excuse me,” Thomas said as he walked away, leading his men, and the carts they guarded down the crowded streets still being cleared of rubble where more than one building had crumbled during the recent ground quake.

“Of course. Thank you, sir. For the news,” he said gruffly, feeling far from elated the women had likely ended up victims of the same leeches that had slain that fool Gregory.

Simon swore again as the caravan passed him, Not one man looking his way, though a few of the slave girls, who still looked more than numb by whatever they had seen, stared his way with glazed eyes in set expressions.

He stalked off to the inn where he was staying, wondering how to proceed now. He had all but promised his master a special gift for his ceremony. A ceremony that required the kind of gift he had intended. The earl was not going to like it that Simon failed to produce that gift. Especially as he had hoped to ensure Valdor was overtly blamed for the sad ending of the T’Gollan princess supposedly betrothed to a certain prince that would have allied two enemies of Valdor. When war broke out, K’Zir could feed arms and mercenaries to both sides, and his master, a supplier of both, would become even more wealthy.

True, the princess had died, it would seem, in Valdor. Only it was in such a manner that nothing would be able to be proven. Nor could K’Zir profit by her death. Not as things stood. He grumbled to himself as he headed for the inn, and tried and tried to think of a way to yet profit by this dire news.

“Heed me,” the tall, white-haired woman with silver eyes shouted at the anxious assemblage that filled the large chamber in her public hall.

She stood before them in pristine gown and robe of white, she presented a striking image compared to the rumpled, tousled men and women before her that had yet to truly assimilate all that was happening around them. The magic sensors around them were all but reeling with the display of power radiating from the North, from the Gray Mountains.

That meant only one thing, of course. Her accursed brother had taken the Maker to Nordstrom, just as she had suspected. Not even those enchanted walls had been able to mask the sheer energies that had roiled across the land just a week past when the very earth itself shook so violently she herself almost feared that her brother had allowed his charge to somehow threaten the world itself.

The shaking stopped, though, and by then, those already arriving to discuss her summons on the matter of the night turned to day Now had even more to fret over. They were all confused, and uncertain, and even many of the elders that often scoffed at her lead were looking pitifully lost.

“You should all know,” she told them, her eyes flashing brightly as she stepped off the speaker’s dais to venture among them. A calculated step that made her seem more one of them, though, in truth, she had always felt their superior even when she had been a mere Novice. “I have unmasked a Maker.”

“A Maker,” Sir Winifred, a former guild master whose waning might let her unseat him to take her current station in the guild this past season gasped. “How did he manifest before we found him? Where is he…..?” “Hold your questions, my friends, until I finish,” she addressed them purposely, making it seem she did share their concerns. “As to the Maker, he….is a she.

“A young female, one overlooked by your continued bias toward my gender, and behold what has befallen us because of it,” she accused them all.

“Worse yet, my agents tell me the Maker, obviously, was the cause of the world spinning back upon itself, and that she has been secreted……

“In Nordstrom,” she told them all with a grim tone after a dramatic pause.

The murmuring rose again as she fell silent, letting them absorb that piece of information.

“She must have been the cause of the quaking, too,” another, younger man said, clad in the robes of an acolyte priest.

“Aye, I believe that is likely,” she nodded at him, appearing as solemn, and grave as the rest of her company.

“You are the head of this guild,” Sir Winifred all but accused her in his tone. “What do you intend we do?” “What can we do,” she asked. “We all know the policy of the guild.

“All suspected, or confirmed Makers are to be put to death ere they can manifest, and possibly threaten our world. Only we had not one inkling of suspicion that a female Maker had even been born. Let alone that she was right here in Valdor.”

“We must approach the elders of Nordstrom,” someone decided. “Even they must realize what has to be done.”

“Ordinarily, I would agree,” she told the speaker. A fourth level witch from Easton if she recalled her faces properly.

Names meant little to her. Only places. And power.

This one was no threat to her.

“However,” she went on. “As my agents has learned she is in Nordstrom, so, too, did they learn she was taken there purposely.

“By my brother K’Viit.” she said with a purposeful sneer of his lycanthrope name. Not one person in the guild knew she had been the one to curse him, though they often fretted that he stayed so open about his curse when his shame should have sent him to the shadows even in a land that tolerated his kind out of expediency.

“This does not bode well,” Sir Douglas Sanders, a younger, third level magic user who was rapidly growing popular among the guild. Too popular for her liking. Rumors had him unseating her in the next guild gathering if things continued as they were. She had been distracted by pondering how to deal with him, and thus excused herself from Not detecting the Maker herself until belatedly.

“No, Sir Douglas, it does Not,” she agreed. “That is why I wish you, and a few select others to accompany me to Nordstrom to petition the wolven elders. We must impress upon them the seriousness of this matter, and end my brother’s interference in this guild’s business once for all,” she added, just to sound objective about the whole matter.

“I agree,” the old fool Winifred spoke up just as she expected he would do.

She nodded, and looked around the assembly as she added, “While I value Sir Douglas’ skills and knowledge, I will select only two others, and call for experienced volunteers to fill our escort. This matter is too grave to demand the young, or inexperienced attend us.

“Not when a misstep could cost us all dearly.”

“Agreed,” Douglas voiced, his blue eyes studying her in a direct manner that never failed to annoy her.

Let him stare, she decided. She intended that every guild elder she took would be her direct, and immediate rivals. Then when something happened to them, not one person would be surprised that they did not come back considering the hazardous nature of their mission. She, however, intended to come back both with the Maker, or her power. And all threats to her own power crushed completely.

“Then let us prepare for the journey,” she told her alleged peers. “For I fear ‘tis a grim path we are taking. One we must tread carefully.”

“For once, we are agreed,” Douglas Sanders told her with a solemn nod.

She glanced his way, but dismissed him. She knew of his way of trying to unnerve others with that penetrating gaze of his. She knew better. He saw no more than anyone else in the room. He just liked to pretend that he could. She knew, because she often employed the same methods when dealing with novices, or pretenders.

“We leave at dawn tomorrow,” she told them. “Now, I must go to prepare myself. Those of you chosen, or willing to follow, should do so likewise.”

She left the room with a regal spin on her heel, her robes billowing out around her as her acolytes ensures those before her made way. She moved purposely, but without looking harried, or hasty. She moved like a queen. Or one soon to be queen.

Queen of the world.

Or so she imagined herself in her heart of hearts.

Marion stared out at the flat, grassy plain that was lit by the sun just rising to its zenith. She welcomed the day’s heat as she tried to understand all that had befallen her in the past few weeks. Her, and Lady Winters. She refused to think of her just as Lady anymore. She feared doing so might yet lock the poor princess into a role she had never been meant for until she was betrayed by those that were sworn to protect her.

Even her, she knew.

Inadvertently, true, but true all the same.

The words of that maddening prophecy seemed to echo in her mind as she stared out at the seemingly peaceful plain that until last night had been a towering, and foreboding mountain peak among a great mountain range that the wolven claimed were first raised by Lord Walker.

And now leveled by his heir.

Most of the city stared at her in awe now. None of them seemed to realize she had not done this on purpose. She had been in the throes of a nightmare. Just now, she still felt as if she were dreaming. A waking dream, though. One in which she had to be careful of every thought, or stray word she uttered.

Twice now she had manifested the power everyone claimed she now held, and she supposed she must. Both times had been involuntary. Both times had been accidental.

Now she had that infernal prophecy, confusing and cryptic as it was, to plague her, too.

“Meditate, and rest your mind,” Agatha suggested, as if she could just turn her churning thoughts off at will.

It did not help they had later shown her that ship’s log discovered among their own gear.

Captain Gregory had seemed so nice, too. So helpful.

Too helpful, it seemed. His words still filled her mind, too, and they were damning.

“I have met the agents I was supposed to find after scuttling my ship. All is going according to plan. The Valdorans did Not even realize the damage to the vessel was done purposely, rather than by the storm that conveniently came up.

“I shall make triple the profits after this journey, for I’ll be selling the cargo for salvage, along with the bulk of the crew I tricked into slavery. When I return I shall be likely be recompensed for the ‘loss’ of my ship, too, and then there is the pay for delivering that spoiled bitch into her waiting master’s hands.

“The maid is just another bonus. I’d not mind a try at her, but for now, I am keeping my distance. I can’t undermine my own cover by giving in to desire now. Not when I’ll soon have enough to own a dozen slaves like her.

“I still want to laugh every time I see that trusting wench acting the pretty lady. She actually thought the brand and collar I gave her were false. In truth, her pretty mistress is now just a pretty slave, as she will soon be, sold to the K’Zir master I contracted with at the start of this journey.

“A quick trip across Valdor, and I’ll be wealthier than any ship captain alive. Mayhap more so than any king. The fool is paying well to see the princess arrives pure, and untouched. Whatever he wants with her, I care little. I may keep the maid for my own sport, though. She looks to a fine fuck.

“As to the little princess, I’ll enjoy delivering that spoiled child over to……”

“How are you feeling, lady,” Agatha asked her as she seemed to just appear beside her, or so it seemed. Then again, she might have, knowing her skills.

“I am fine, Agatha,” she sighed, Not looking away from the plains. “Still trying to make myself believe I did…..that,” she gestured helplessly at the flat plains stretching out before them.

“You did, Lady Drake.”

“You need not call me that any longer, Agatha. We both know I am not….”

“You were always my lady,” the older witch told her. “You always shall be….here,” she said, touching her chest.

“You honor me,” she smiled sadly. “Yet, were it not for me…..”

“We are where we are supposed to be, my lady,” she told her. “I believe that, as do the city elders.”

“Well, about that…..”

“Have you given any more thought to……?” “The prophecy?” “Well, it seems pretty obvious to me. Especially in light of the events of the past few weeks,” the woman smiled faintly. “I was referring to the dream. The guidance Lord Walker gave you.”

“Do you truly believe it was truly him? That he somehow came to me in my dream after all this time?” “Aye. I may be but a second class magic worker, my lady, but I have seen things that make such visions seem rather commonplace.

“At least, in comparison to…..”

“Lifting the sun, and shaking the earth so that…..how did it go? The mountains are humbled?” “Aye,” she nodded, the words of the prophecy still filling her mind, too.

“I still cannot believe these….people have been waiting for me all these years.”

“So far, ‘twould seem you are fulfilling their prophecy, my lady.”

“Aye, I know.

“On the day the sun rises twice, and the mountains are humbled,” she began, recalling the words etched in stone in the wolven temple.

“Then comes a lady who is not that shall rise as mother to a land she did not birth,” Agatha went on.

Marion nodded, and together they finished, “Then shall past become present, and present past to spare a slave who is not.

“And the walls of Nordstorm shall once more become the center of all lands.”

“Aye, the parts about the lady, and the slave could be Lad…..I mean, Princess Miranda, and myself. That is plain enough.

“But being a mother of a nation? Making past and present become one? It’s all…..so much,” Marion sighed. “Too much.”

“I sympathize. Still, you have to know there is little doubt in anyone’s mind.”

“Which explains the honor guard,” she sighed again, looking down to where no less than a half dozen young wolven armed to the proverbial teeth were waiting for her. Her escort.

“You must realize the guild will have noticed both that sudden sunrise, and now this earthquake. Soon, word is going to spread about the mountains in this region being leveled.

“And, my lady,” Agatha paused as if considering her words.

“Aye,” she asked wearily as she looked back out at the plains.

“My lady, by now, the guild will be sending someone here to investigate. You’ve obviously not Noticed, but you’re radiating such powerful energies that even I can feel your presence even when across the city.

“’Tis likely that even these walls cannot contain your manifesting might by now.

“The guild will sense you, and they will come. And, of course, there is the White Witch.”

“I hadn’t thought of that,” she sighed.

“Have you thought about who Lord Walker meant yet,” she asked, trying to distract her from even more worries that might upset her, and cause inadvertent damage around her.

Even Lady had grown cautious around her of late after waking that day to find their room virtually destroyed. She remained ever dutiful, and didn’t mind helping serve others in the house where they had been given shelter, but she now possessed a guarded manner whenever Marion appeared.

“Agatha, I don’t know what to do,” she said at length. “I’ve thought, and thought, and while ‘tis plain that the princess is the betrayed, I cannot fathom who the betrayer might be.

“Obviously, I played a role, but ‘tis the monster in K’Zir that engineered this madness to blame at the heart of this affair. And as you know, the captain did not disclose his name.”

“Aye. It struck me odd that he should disclose so much, and yet not put down a name.

“Lady Drake, it strikes me that it must mean that either he was simply being cautious, or he feared this man too much to name him even in his log.”

“Then why pen what amounts to a confession at all,” she frowned. “No. We are missing something. Something important. I can feel it.”

“I do not doubt you. Mayhap Silver can help you? He is the high priest of his people.”

“Aye, but so far, it does not seem I have helped anyone,” she sighed as they turned to the stairs that led down to the courtyard. “I have only brought danger to all of you.”

“Lady, you saved all our lives when you raised the sun. You have started the fulfillment of a prophecy held as promise by untold generations by the wolven here, and given them a hope we cannot even begin to understand.

“I trust you,” she said, putting a comforting hand on her shoulder as they descended the steps.

“You know what I mean,” she groaned, looking down at where Duncan was playing a flute for several lycanthrope children as they danced around his feet. “I mean, like Duncan.

“Why can’t I just…..?” “Lady,” Agatha warned her.

“Just restore him to his former self,” she finished before the warning could be voiced as she gestured at the dwarflike man.

She froze halfway down the steps as they both turned toward Duncan as he suddenly cried out as his playing stopped mid-Note. The children hooted and howled as they accepted this as part of the game when both women realized in the moment they turned toward him, Duncan had simply changed.

“Merciful gods,” Agatha gaped as the short, gnarled dwarf of a man she had known for so long stood half naked in ragged garb that shredded as he had abruptly grown out of his small garments, and regained both height, and lost youth as the years melted from his lean, handsome frame as the sandy-haired man looked down at himself with silver eyes filled with surprise.

Then he looked over at her, and started howling in laughter as he danced around as if stricken mad. She rushed over to his side, Agatha, and her honor guard directly behind her, and Duncan seemed quite sane as he stopped at her approach, and impulsively hugged her.

“’Twas you, wasn’t it, lady? You’ve done what none other could do,” he laughed again as he released her.

“Just remember how you ended up cursed,” Agatha told him when he looked toward her with a wide grin, acting as if he might just embrace her next.

“I have forgotten nothing, mistress,” he smiled hugely, and stepped back to bow low to her. “Just….allow me to offer a belated apology for ever…..forcing an issue that should have been respected.”

“You were not entirely at fault,” she told him gently, unable to help but smile back at the lean, handsome man she remembered from years ago.

“Let that wolf try and mock me now,” he grinned.

“Your mother will certainly be surprised,” Agatha commented, not about to join in mocking K’Viit in the heart of a city of wolven and lycanthropes.

“Won’t she,” he agreed. “Now, I’d best go find more suitable garb,” he grinned. “And again, my thanks, Lady Marion. I am forever in your debt.

“I am yours to command,” he went on as he kept bowing to her.

“Go get dressed, ere you make an ass of yourself again,” Agatha prodded him, seeing the uneasiness on Marion’s face.

“What is wrong now,” Agatha asked carefully. “You did well. Duncan has spent more than a score of years trying to find a way to break the curse on him. Even his mother couldn’t do it, and she’s likely the most powerful magic worker I know of late.”

“But….I didn’t intend…..”

She shook her head violently. “I know you kept telling me just a word……

“I didn’t really believe such things were possible, though,” she gritted out, looking pale.

“Mayhap you should rest,” Agatha suggested.

“No. No, take me to Silver,” she told her, looking rather desperate just then. “Ere I do something else that ends poorly. I have to learn…..I have to stop this somehow.”

“Lady,” Agatha told her quietly. “You cannot deny what you are, any more than the sun can stop shining.

“You are a Maker. There is little doubt of that now.”

“I have to…..to think,” she stammered, still shaken by what a simple careless word had wrought. Not that she wasn’t happy for Duncan. She was just suddenly aware of how horribly things might go if she were angry, or upset.

She truly did have to watch her words. Her very thoughts.

Or she might just unmake the world, just as they had all claimed.

“And I don’t want to rest. I might….have another nightmare,” she shuddered, thinking of the flat plain that Now stretched out around Nordstrom.

Fated to become the center of the world once again by her will.

Only she wasn’t sure if that was good news, or just the precursor of another disaster like those that Lord Walker confessed. She just didn’t know. And that scared her as much as the idea she had such power hiding inside her, and always had, just biding its time until Now to manifest.

“Stay calm, my lady,” Agatha willed her to relax, having found her own abilities were being augmented just by being in Marion’s presence. “I shall take you to Silver. I’m sure he can help.”

Marion nodded, and they turned toward the temple as her guard followed in silent wonder. They, too, had seen the small, old man turned into a tall, young freeman in his prime in an eye blink. It was beyond wondrous. While their Great Mother was obviously distressed, they could not help but feel this was a good omen. Their Mother was powerful, and growing more so with every day. They could not help but view that prospect as a good thing.

Tanya was staring at the six chosen to create the seven needed to form the mystic circle to forge a link in the ether to travel as far as Nordstrom. For even though they couldn’t penetrate those sacred walls, still, they could transport to the plateau without having to climb the towering cliffs like common seekers. Or they should have been able to do so.

Yet as they stared at one another, it was plain their second attempt to open the mystic path to Nordstrom remained closed.

“This bodes ill,” Douglas stated needlessly, and she had to bite back the impulse to issue a scathing reply.

“Aye,” was all she stated. “The only things that might prevent our journeying to that city is either that it has been destroyed, or…..”

“Or we are being purposely blocked,” Lady Tara Bishop, a second-level witch, and her one, true rival of late supplied.

“Aye,” she finished. “And as I still feel the enchantment of those forbidding walls…..”

“But….how can we be blocked,” Douglas protested. “Our combined might makes us more than a match for anyone that might even be aware of us. Which I doubt they are as yet.”

Tanya and Tara both stared at him.

“There is more than one way to block a sojourning link,” Tara spoke up first. “It can be purposeful, or incidental.”

“Incidental,” Douglas frowned, making the white witch decide Douglas obviously didn’t know as much as he pretended. Which was as she suspected all along.

“She means, Sir Sanders, that either the block is an unconscious one on the Maker’s part, or…..something about our destination has changed so radically that not visualizing it makes travel impossible, since that place we seek may not even exist any longer.”

“The earthquake,” he realized.

“Aye,” the two witches nodded in tandem, then stared pointedly at one another.

“What do we do,” Lady Samantha Wright asked, a third level witch that was showing some promise of even greater power of late as she matured. Yet another rising threat she was eyeing.

“We have little choice,” Tanya said gravely. “We must inch our way. Transport to a place midway, or close to Nordstrom, and if need be, travel on from there by foot if we cannot reach a second, or third stopping off point.

“I concur,” Douglas nodded as if he knew what he was talking about.

Tanya said nothing, but she noted the knowing glance from Timium, the young male acolyte that showed far more potential than his former master had realized when he surrendered the young man to the magic guild after he found the slave could summon anything he desired with just a thought. Too much for Tanya’s liking, which explained his place among the other adepts she had selected.

The other three were volunteers of some age, and experience, and little threat to her. But the three older men were also a power to be reckoned with all same. For Gara, Tilgar, and Moshim were the eldest members of the guild, and as they voted, so voted most of the council.

There had been a time when they had supported her, and backed her appointment. Now, however, they were starting to reconsider their stance, and look elsewhere as time for a new guild leader came. Tanya, however, was not going to just give in, or give up. Once she had the power of the Maker on her side, not even those three old mages would be able to stop her.

“We shall quarter the sojourning,” Tanya finally suggested. “And take the first quarter, and so on, until we are able to ascertain just what has happened that blocks us from the walls of Nordstrom.”

“’Tis a wise plan,” Tilgar nodded his agreement, his thin, gray beard bobbing with his movements.

“Then let us first focus on Senica, which is close to the Andrus River, and a portion of the way we must go.”

She eyed the six around her, and let her mind fill with the image she sought, and summoned the power into their circle. “On the third bend of the river near that great city, let us see beyond this place, and into the next.”

“I feel it,” Tara told her needlessly, for all of them now visualized that land, and the sparkling, blue river that flowed past the city walls of the last, great city before the foothills rose toward the Gray Mountains, and the forbidding heights were few traveled for fear of leeches, or wolven.

Closing her eyes, she felt her way through the ether, and led the others as the accepted leader of the guild, and their band. When she opened her eyes, she was standing on the banks of the sparkling river, and breathing the fresh air of the open countryside. To their right, the city walls rose out of the grassy plain, and men atop the walls barely even glanced their way, so used were they to the coming and going of guild mages.

“By the Ancients,” Gara, a balding hulk with one eye gasped as he stared North. “The mountains! The mountains are….gone!”

Tanya turned to face the direction he stared, and felt a frission of fear and anticipation as she realized he was Not exaggerating. As far as the eye could see, the plains stretched out before them. There were rolling hills here and there, but the foothills were all but level, and the high slopes of the mountains that should be shadowing the city in their presence were simply…..gone.

“The Maker did this,” she realized. “When the world shook, she was flattening the great peaks as a child flattens a sand castle,” she exclaimed in wonder, and No little envy.

“First, the sun. Now, the mountains,” Gara rasped. “If her power continues to grow, we may not be able to stop her.”

“Do not think on it,” Tara cut them off. “We must be of one accord, and one mind if we are to face this threat, and neutralize it.

“If we doubt, then we shall surely fail.

“Remember our cause, and remember what we do is for the sake of the world. Not just ourselves.

“The Maker must be neutralized.”

“The Maker must be neutralized,” they all echoed, combining their wills and power.

“The next step will be Elvantia,” Tanya told them. “Perhaps it still stands,” she remarked. “If not….”

“Leave the doubts behind,” Tara reminded her. “We will do what must be done, just as you have said. Can you feel the hamlet,” she asked as she closed her eyes, and visualized the smaller city that was the last outpost before the trails that led into the high peaks and passes of the mountains that were no longer rising before them as they should.

“The city….is a faint echo of itself,” she said as she closed her eyes, too, and searched for its familiar presence. “I cannot manifest the place it should be…..”

“Then think of a place in the city. A….An inn. A familiar room.”

Tanya immediately switched her visualization to the local guild temple. “The inner sanctum of the guild hall,” she said, not opening her eyes. “It still stands.”

“Yes,” Douglas nodded, adding his voice now, though his shock still echoed in his tone. “I feel it, too.”

“Then we focus on the guild hall’s inner sanctum,” Tanya said as if they agreed in tandem on that destination.

A moment later, they were surrounded by fifteen frightened novices all begging mercy, and aid as they babbled like frightened children. Finally, Douglas shouted for silence, his the only voice to carry over the babble, and the novices who had been left alone when the guild elders had rushed to H’r’lyn to consult over the matter of the strange sunrise.

“Now,” Douglas said firmly as if he carried the authority of their group. “You,” he pointed to the older of the novices who barely looked sixteen. “Tell us what has happened here.”

“Just before dawn,” the youth shuddered, “We were woke by a dreadful wail that seemed to echo through the very air. Then the world shook so that we thought the end time was upon us, but it finally stopped, and with it, that hellish shrieking.

“And then….then….the mountains were just….gone.”

Douglas followed his gaze to a cracked window where stained glass should have been set, but only jagged shards remained Now. Outside, the image was of a small city in ruin, and an endless, grassy plain. The scene at Senica was Now confirmed. The mountains were truly gone. This far, at least, though they were still only just halfway to Nordstrom.

“Lady Tanya,” Timium spoke for the first time, the young adept using a respectful tone as he addressed her. “I believe we must now consider the second half of our journey may well be on foot.”

“He’s right,” Tara nodded. “I have not any sense of T’biaz, and that would be our next point of reference. It….It simply isn’t there.”

“Yet Nordstrom is still there,” Douglas said, shaking his head. “I sense it, but cannot visualize it. If only we could….”

“Try to jump blindly, and we may never see you again,” Tilgar reminded him.

Douglas shook his head. “Traveling on foot will take us…..days.”

“At the least,” Gara nodded agreement. “Still, we may not have any choice. “The young adept is right. I have not gotten any sense of T’biaz. That place is gone from this world.”

Tanya again shivered at the sheer power it would have taken to manifest such change upon the world. It was not fear that gripped her now. It was anticipation, and envy. Such power under her control would give her the ability to shape the destiny she had long sensed was hers, and hers alone.

“If we must travel so, then let us not delay the inevitable.

“You, young novice. Seek out any transportation to be had for us. We must reach Nordstrom without delay, for that is the source of this chaos, and that is the reason for our appearance.

“Go, and go quickly.”

“As you command, lady,” the young novice bowed deeply, and all but fled from the powerful personages that had appeared before them.

“Best we rest while we can,” Moshim suggested, the dark-skinned Frank spoke for the first time. “We will need all our energies for what lies ahead, and our journey will be wasted if we are not rested for what lies ahead.”

“I agree,” Tanya told him. “Are there still quarters standing we can use,” she asked the remaining novices. “Food, and drink available?” “There are yet a few safe rooms, lady,” one of the novices assured her. “And we shall find you all you desire. Just give us time, and in the meanwhile, Isha shall show you where you can rest,” he told her as the youngest novice, barely ten, stepped forward to bow low, and offered to lead them.

None of them hesitated. The near blind leaps through the ether had exhausted all of them, and the shock of learning what they now knew as fact had only added to their fatigue. They did need to rest, and recover, or they might yet fail in their missions.

And Tanya had no intention of failing. Not when it was now plain this Maker was everything she had hoped, and much, much more.

Lady served her at the table they were given in a great hall as if she were a true slave.

The wolven, and even her own companions, K’Viit included, looked on Lady as just another body slave. A devoted servant. She knew better. Just as her lover, and companion knew better. Earlier, she had asked him about trying to restore her charge to her true self.

She wasn’t that surprised he demurred, but his reasoning was valid.

“Remember that we’re still in Valdor,” he had told her. “Restoring her here will do none of us little good, and might cause more harm. Leave her as she is for the moment. At least, as she is, she is safe, and content.”

She looked up as the smiling face of her dutiful slave met her gaze as Lady filled her glass with a sweet wine the wolven had provided with her meal. she was, in short, doing the very things she had once done for Princess Miranda. That pampered girl had never quite so appreciative of her efforts though. Nor could she forget the pleasure she had experienced with her the night K’Viit had taken her. It made her wonder if she ought to leave her as she….

No. she did not have that right. For now, as K’Viit pointed out, she was better off in he innocuous, and apparently unknowing state. She would be restored, though. Marion made that promise to herself even as she smiled back at the young redhead who now wore the soft linen dress of a servant without the slightest complaint.

“That will be all, Lady,” she told the young redhead. “You may go and tend your own needs now,” she told her as one hand rested on the very solid mound that now swelled hugely beneath her gown. It had been just over two months, but already she looked at least six months pregnant, and her appetite was ravenous at odd moments.

Or maybe it was the inadvertent use of her power.

“Thank you, m’lady,” she curtsied low, and then headed toward the kitchens to seek a meal for herself.

Slaves and servants, after all, did not eat among the masters.

A part of her, an increasingly small part of her, remembered being the mistress. Remembered being a lady of wealth, and prestige.

Only that part was dying more each day since the moment that old witch had bewitched her collar, and made her an obedient slave to her mistress. That obedience seemed to be growing exponentially all the time, so that by now she only dreamed of serving her mistress, and thought nothing of her possible freedom any longer.

In truth, the idea of freedom seemed strangely sour to the servile spirit rising within her that was focused solely on her mistress’ will and pleasure.

It was strange, but she had to strain now to even remember her sire’s face, or his feeling for her. Did he even have any feeling for her? She wasn’t sure. She remembered lectures, and a stern, often dour visage that was blurred even now by a fading memory, but little else.

When she thought of Marion, though, she remembered everything.

She remembered her first day that she had come to her, and interpreted it now through her new status. She remembered only the fact she had squandered her treasure, the loyalty and wisdom of her mistress when she had a chance to learn so much. Just as she remembered every order given her since she had been collared, and her mistress had prepared her for her life as her servant. Her slave. Yet strangely enough, every order had brought her closer and closer to a sense of joy that she was found worthy enough to serve her beloved mistress. That she was found worthy of standing beside her in even her great quest made her preen with pride.

A slave’s pride.

She entered the kitchen, and the cook, a human woman, stocky, and yet friendly, pointed to a steaming bowl of spiced porridge on a counter, and told her, “Eat your fill, lass. You’ll likely need it the way things are going of late.”

“Thank you, mistress,” she called her as she called all free women now before turning to take her bowl to a corner to eat.

“You may use a spoon, lass. We are not animals here, whatever the appearances,” the woman told her with a tolerant smile.

Lady thanked her again, and took an offered spoon from one of the young wolven males who was helping in the kitchen. He seemed younger than she, and yet stood taller by several inches. He also eyed her with a gleam in his dark amber eyes that she understood quite well of late since watching her mistress, and her feral lover.

“I am sorry,” she told him with a smile as she began eating. “I am promised to another.”

Even as she spoke the words, she knew they were true. She sensed it, just as she recalled every order given her by her mistress. The ultimate authority in her life. Yet, for some odd reason, she couldn’t quite recall who she was promised to at the moment. She only knew she was sworn to another.

Perhaps her mistress would know. She would ask her later, when she had a chance. For the command, as she took it, to tend her own needs had woke a strange hunger in that long neglected sheath that had only known blissful yielding recently, in her mistress’ arms.

She could hardly seek to tend that need without her, though. Not when she was not sure who she was supposed to be sworn to at the moment.

Aside from her mistress.

She would ask.

For the wolven lad was handsome enough in her eyes at that moment. Not as handsome as her mistress’ lover, she now felt. Still, he was handsome. Just being close to him made her belly itch, and her untried passage warm and wet.

If only she were free to indulge her curiosity, and her need.

She would definitely have to ask her mistress. In the meantime, perhaps she could do what her mistress had taught her, and just use her fingers. Not here, of course. Back in their room. Where no one else could see. She still had some modesty. Or at least she thought she did.

Silver nodded as Marion sat cross-legged before him in the great temple where the words of the prophecy were inscribed on the walls around them.

“To master the world, or your power, you must first master yourself,” the tall wolven high priest told her. “To master yourself, you must first know yourself,” he continued.

Marion nodded as she absorbed the words. They were the wisest counsel she had yet received since first learning of what she might be able to do with the power now residing within her. Still, as simplistic as the guidance sounded, she knew it was not. Just as she knew managing that advice was not going to be as simple as it sounded either.

“You are wondering how you might manage this,” Silver stated more than asked as the aromatic incense rose from the fire between them.

“Aye,” she answered all the same.

“You must look within. There are answers you have yet to discover within your own sleeping mind. You must discover them, and the truth of your own soul, before you can continue.

“Look deep. Do not try to decipher what you see. Simply…..embrace, and accept what rises before you. Understanding that it is all a part of what shaped you, and continues to shape you.

“When you can accept what was, you can begin to accept what is, and from there, anticipate the acceptance of what will yet be.”

“But….isn’t the future….?” “Fluid? Changing?

“Aye. In the same way the past changes each time you view it through differing eyes.

“You remember a child’s memory, and understand as a child, and so an event seems….portentous. Then you look back with a young woman’s eyes, and you see what seemed to be a trite, or overblown event that seems of little import.

“And yet when you look back with mature vision, you recognize critical junctures, and monumental decisions that helped shape you, and your world.

“Such is the future. ‘Tis simply that few have the eyes, the will, or understanding to look upon it with wisdom.”

“You are saying….the future is already set,” she asked a bit anxiously.

“The future as we perceive it has yet to be experienced,” Silver told her in the same quite growl of a voice that was beginning to seem hypnotic to her. “Yet, it is also as ordered, and intelligible as the memories of that child we spoke of just now.

“Can you perceive how this would be, Great Mother?” “I….I think so, but….I am not a mother. I’ve never…..”

“When you understand, you will cease to protest what we already know as truth in our minds.

“For the wolven have the gift of insight. We learned even in our mother’s wombs to look upon the whole of experience, and judge not the world, but rather just our place within in as we grow to fill that place already ordained for each of us.

“Your place awaits, Great Mother.

“When you accept that role, you will grasp that you always fit the role, and had right to the appellation whereby we honor you.”

She sighed deeply, her breath pulling in more of the aromatic incense that was filling her lungs, and sending her mind in a dizzying spiral to places it had never before been. Or, at least, that she was aware of it being.

She saw light. Varying degrees of blinding, or dim luminosity that seemed to flash and recede even as she felt the weight upon her that had seemed to be growing of late fall away, and her years with them. She wore a shell of radiant spirit in her mind, and saw only that which a part of her wanted. Great stretches of flowery plains, and crystalline rivers of pure water that flowed endlessly as the scent of honey and blooms of varying colors filled the air now.

She saw the plains stretch to encompass her entire world, with not one blemished acre before her, and not one dirty, garish township, or high wall to mar the pastoral Eden that was set before her. She smiled, and remembered the world as a time of innocence and beauty as perceived by a child’s mind. She visualized herself, and saw a small, awkward toddler who tried to sniff each blooming flower, and splashed in the river that constantly renewed itself before her wondering eyes.

She saw the world as paradise, and nothing disturbed her perspective for years to come.

Years upon years.

Yet behind her, a shadow grew.

Lurking, cold, and soul-numbing in its embrace, she watched the shadow stretch around her, and realized her paradise was dying. She watched the pastoral view become a wasteland. Endless stretches of cold, lifeless sand that would not even support spine-bladders, or thorny brambles. She felt the cold that had her huddling in the darkness, and fearing even the once comforting breezes that cooled her warm, Summer days.

Now that breeze chilled her very bones, and she felt choked by the grief rising in her soul.

She almost cried out at the anguish only dimly recalled until that moment, and she understood belatedly that this, then, was her view of her mother’s death.

The day her mother had ceased to be.

She wept softly, fearfully, as if dreading that whatever took her beloved parent might yet return to find her.

Then the sun abruptly rose once more, dispelling shadow with a living shadow that strangely warmed her, and she looked into darkness that carried a warm heart.

She smiled up into the warmth, and felt the familiar touch of a loving soul.

“Sparrow,” she named the darkness, and understood.

The young woman who came to her in her dark, frightened corner of the world had restored love and light to her. Then came the day when the love and light vanished completely. When she watched in terror as the warmth of that dark woman was lost to unfeeling ice, and pride, and she howled her grief all the more as she was at fault for this loss. That her own arrogant self-importance had cost her this light.

The warmth was drained from her once again, and she remembered standing before her father, smothered in the cloak of grief she wrapped around herself for her role in that loss. Yet her father had poor comfort for a grieving child. Instead, she faced rage and condemnation. Instead, she was sent from the home that might have healed her in time, and forced to face the greater bitter winter of an uncaring world that added her to its numbers like so much extra flotsam upon an unfeeling tide.

Her own heart began to wither, and shrivel, strangling her life in duty, and expectations that came from without, rather than within. Little wonder whatever potential she might have housed was choked off as well. She took refuge in cool indifference, and lifeless responsibility became her byword as she survived her existence rather than living it.

That Sparrow did live was hardly of any will of her own. She did not even realize it at the time, and would only learn that bittersweet blessing many years afterward. After a life spent in shadow, and chill, as a servant herself with few expectations. And even fewer desires. For as if punishing herself, she took no delight in life. Not even in the few lovers that would find her. Her body was as much an instrument as duty as her heart, mind, and soul. She allowed others to touch her, not to celebrate anything, but simply as yet another part of her dry, and vain duty to the world around her.

Little wonder Miranda ever heeded her.

That lively, vivacious child had nothing but expectations for her life, while Marion had already choked her life off with the stale repetition of obligation that took the place of her penance as a way of life. In turn, that duty had helped destroy yet one more life, if not others, as she realized how easily she had allowed herself to be duped by the ship’s captain who had never intended to deliver them to Paigantia at all, but rather, to a crueler fate already arranged before they had even left the princess’ homeland.

Did the king yet know of his own loss?

Her mind shifted, and she focused on the lady become Lady.

Her fears over the girl’s fate in her hands still weighed heavily on her mind, and she saw the shadow once more shrouding the woman she was to become. She frowned, focusing on the person she had come to know, and realizing she saw overlapping silhouettes that seemed to have diverging pathways lain out before them.

She saw one figure, crowned, and luxuriously clad, walking into a dark, stygian shadow, and not emerging.

The second walked past that inky cloud, clad in common garb, but continuing on into a gray cloud she intuitively realized was her own fate.

Her frown was not so much that the lady had opposing fates, but that it seemed the lady as a lady had no fate at all save a strangely dark end. It did not help her own sense of guilt that it seemed her intervening in that fate must have surely cost her her that true future. Yet, why was that future obscured? She frowned, and let the images pass as she looked closer into her own memories.

She saw the demons attacking, shrouding by darkness, and her own past haunting her even as she begged…..yes, begged the world for….light.

Darkness.

Light.

The way a child viewed the world.

Alive.

Or dead.

She wondered at that. And her life. At the plains that now stretched out all around the city of Nordstrom. Plains that had been high, virtually impenetrable mountains until she had come.

She found a rush of dichotomous pairs rushing through her mind.

Then she blinked, and was staring through a gray haze at Silver.

“What….was that,” she asked him, realizing all that had come, had come in but an eye blink, overwhelming her mind with its intensity and passion.

“That is not for me to say, Great Mother. The vision is yours. Only you may properly interpret whatever it is that came to you.

“Come again after the hour of the evening meal, and we shall begin anew. Mayhap, you will have by then come to some understanding of your vision, or your self.”

“One can hope,” she sighed as she slowly rose, her joints stiff, and unyielding, as if she had been there for hours, rather than what felt like a few moments.

“A very fine answer, Lady,” the silver wolf rose with a graceful, and far more fluid move as he nodded toward her in what almost could have been a brief bow. “One can, and must always hope.

“Without hope, there is nothing.

“With hope, there is everything.”

She stared at him, wondering if he always spoke so cryptically, and shrugged off her peevish response to his words. “Thank you for your time, Silver.”

“The honor, lady, was mine,” he nodded again, and headed for some room deeper within the temple.

She stood before the inscribed walls a moment longer, the contrasting, even conflicting images still racing through her mind, and finally stepped toward the outer doors where fresh, cooler air rushed past her, and into her lungs, dispelling the lingering heaviness of the incense still hanging in the air.

“Mistress,” Lady bowed low to her as she came up the steps to greet her.

It was them Marion realized the sun was already lowering toward the horizon. “Did you wait for me all this time,” she asked, a little taken back by the contrasting flow of time in mind, and in fact.

“Aye, mistress,” Lady smiled, her expression pure, and guileless.

“I did not require that of you,” she frowned.

“I know, mistress. Only I wished to ask….

“Ah, to request….”

“Lady, what is on your mind,” she asked her, seeing the earnest expression behind her smile now.

“I met a young lad, mistress. I….I thought…..if you did not mind…..I….We might…..”

Marion nodded her understanding. “Do you favor him, Lady,” she asked quietly, “Or did he command something of you?”

“Nay. I mean, he was most respectful. Yet….I had the sense I was promised elsewhere. Because of you, I….I think.

“Am I promised to another, mistress,” she asked.

“Do you wish to be,” she asked.

“I should very much like to know Tylva,” she admitted with a blush.

“That sounds like a wolven name,” she realized.

“Aye. He is….of that race.

“He is most handsome, though, and gentle, and considerate. I…..I like him,” she blurted out as they walked across the wide courtyard outside the temple proper, heading toward the quarters given them.

Not far behind, her usual honor guard had rejoined her, and were staying close, but discretely silent.

“Lady,” she said, and looked into the hopeful expression as she tried to remember when she might have so anticipated an affair.

She couldn’t.

The only men she had ever known had been those that took from her. That demanded she yield to them simply because of her station, and their power. At least, so it was until K’Viit. Or Jacob, as she still considered him in her secret heart.

Only he, one others dismissed as an animal, had ever treated her like an equal. Only he had treated her as someone to be cherished, and desired.

She paused, staring into Lady’s eyes as she considered her vision, and all that might yet come of it. Still, if she could remake the lady’s fate, she supposed she could also restore her virtue when the time came if required. Wasn’t she supposed to have that much power, and more? Why leave the child before her suffering her own fate when it was far from necessary.

“Lady, I give you freedom to pursue whatever lover you may desire. So long as he is the one you desire.

“Never,” she told her firmly, “Would I expect you to yield simply because of duty, or the lust of another. Let this be your own choice. Your heart’s choice,” she told her kindly.

Impulsively, the young woman-child embraced her in a show of affection she had not known for many years. “You are the most wondrous mistress of all,” Lady exclaimed with sincere warmth. “I am so pleased, and fortunate, that you are my mistress, Lady Marion.”

Marion felt the words like a dagger to her heart.

Yet she could not deny the joy that shone in those wide, blue eyes was something she had lacked for many years. She watched as the young slave scampered away with a lightness to her step she envied, and realized that as Lady, the young girl had few cares in her life save pleasing her mistress.

She had once had the same duties, and yet had never found that same selfless joy in performing what was to her, an unending act of contrition.

“You handled that well, lady,” a soft voice remarked as Marion turned from watching the virtual child skip toward their quarters, and nodded at Agatha.

“I pray I did,” she said grimly. “Too often, I’ve been second-guessing even the littlest decision since the truth of this current affair came to light.”

“If you would allow me to offer some insight,” the lean, black woman asked.

“Always,” Marion smiled, remembering her as Sparrow in that moment, an all too brief source of light and love in her life.

“I think you burden yourself needlessly, lady,” Agatha told her. “Life is not a chore to be done with, and put aside.

“’Tis an experience to be savored, and shared with all along your path you are fortunate enough to encounter.

“As they are fortunate enough, in turn, to encounter you.

“There was a time when such philosophy was the heart of the magic guild. Of late, ’tis become a grim, and dark thing, though, which I admit, seems intent upon sucking the very life from you.

“I think that is not because of the guild, or the magics, but rather those that now lead us.

“All the same, lesson is the same.

“Give yourself the same permission to enjoy life, lady. I sense you’ve lacked it for far too long.”

Marion smiled at her. “You were always so wise,” she murmured.

“Hardly,” Agatha laughed faintly. “My wisdom came at the expense of many good years, and several experiences I would prefer not to dwell on.”

“Yet you yourself were doing what you now chide me for, weren’t you,” she asked. “Or was Jacob mistaken over the reasons you were burying yourself in work at the slave guilder’s offices?”

“Jacob, admittedly, if often mistaken about a great many things,” she laughed sardonically now.

“Heed me,” she held up a hand to still her instinctive protest. “In spite of his kindred, I like him, and to a degree, respect him.

“But Jacob lets K’Viit rule him at times to the point the thinks of naught but his appetites, or his desires. This is the first time I’ve seen him so…..fixated on a single person, or cause.”

“And how is it he was wrong of you,” Marion couldn’t help asking.

“I visited a certain soothsayer some years ago,” she admitted. “You know of Dominic by now, I know, and what he did to me.

“After Duncan, I feared I would ever be a curst to those around me. That I would never find the true love of my heart that would free me of the hateful curse put upon my very desires.”

“I’m sorry. If I could…..”

“I’m not asking for you to try your power on me, Great Mother,” she addressed her with respect, rather than the sardonic wit Duncan insisted upon keeping despite his recent restoration.

“Still, that soothsayer did tell me, and I had almost forgotten, that a beast would lead me to where I might discover the love for myself that I sought. That the answer would come, only if I followed this beast, and allowed myself to trust again.”

“So, you chose to follow Jacob because of that oracle? Not because of the wager?”

“A degree of both,” she chuckled softly. “I had almost forgotten of the former, until Jacob’s wager stirred me, and I looked upon him, and had a premonition.

“I knew…..I know…..that Jacob will never return to Kybera. That he will soon leave Valdor, never to return.

“If I was to follow the beast, whom I interpreted to be K’Viit, then I could not stay behind when he might possibly lead me to my own destiny.”

Marion nodded as they approached their quarters. “Silver told me…..destiny is already written. That we often misinterpret it, and so consider ourselves….

“I don’t know,” she sighed, and shrugged. “I’m still assimilating some of this stuff myself.”

“I know this, lady,” she told her, putting a hand on her shoulder as they paused at the stairs up to their quarters. “The future is not set in stone, but in sand.

“When we allow that sand to harden, our heart hardens with it.

“For a long time, my heart was set so. Do not let that happen to you,” she said, staring at her swollen belly.

“What do you mean?” “I’m saying,” Agatha smiled. “Trust your heart.

“Whatever else may, or may not happen, trust your heart.”

“My heart has been silent for years,” she murmured.

“Has it? Or have your ears been deaf?”

Marion laughed now, shaking her head as she looked at the lean, modestly-clad woman wearing the soft gray mantle of a magic user in the guild.

“I’ve missed you, Sparrow,” she murmured, and impulsively hugged her just as Lady had done earlier.

“And I, you, Mary,” she called her as she had so many years ago. “I’m glad to meet you again, though. And to see what a fine, compassionate lady you’ve become since.”

“Me,” she frowned as she stepped back.

“Lady,” Agatha told her. “Had anyone else been granted the gifts you now possess, I daresay the wolven would be cursing their own prophecies, and the world would be again cursing the progeny of Lord Walker.

“Since you have learned your worth, you have despaired over our state, dissected every decision, and fretted over things even you have yet to even consider are….ordained.”

“I don’t know. When I think of what has become of Lady….”

“You see?

“Mary,” she called her informally again, stopping her midway up the stairs as they had started up them again. “Did you ever consider that by changing the lass as you did, you may have given her a better life than whatever awaited her as a princess of T’Goll?” Marion frowned, thinking of the beautifully clad lady who vanished abruptly into shadows in her vision.

“I….I suppose I may have….wondered….”

“Consider this, then,” Agatha told her as they again started up the steps. “Everything you do, or have done, has ever been for her good. For the good of others around you.

“Even your inadvertent restoration of my misguided, former husband,” she laughed. “You act out of kindness, or concern.

“I think, with your heart, that you act instinctively out of that benevolence even do you not truly yet realize, or appreciate it.”

“Thank you, Agatha, for calming some of my doubts,” she smiled as they reached the main doors that led into the great hall of their quarters. “You’ve given me much to consider.”

“If I can ever do anything, lady,” Agatha told her earnestly, “You have but to ask.”

“Thank you,” she murmured, and this time she embraced Agatha, and clung to her fiercely for a moment before she realized someone was standing behind her.

“Were that not Agatha, whom I know to be a cold, and waspish creature at best, I might just be jealous, lass,” Jacob told her with a dark smirk.

“Oh, go…..scratch your fleas, you misbegotten mongrel,” Agatha snapped, and stormed off down the side corridor without looking back.

“She loves me,” Jacob grinned as he held out his arms in casual expectation.

She stepped into his embrace without hesitating, and smiled as she was held firmly against his hard chest. “She does,” Marion told him. “Just not as you might wish, oh, great, and randy beast.”

“Great, I can accept,” he sputtered, looking down at her.

“Randy, too,” she added, patting her belly. “And don’t deny it.”

He chuckled. “All right, so I get….carried away sometimes.”

“Y’need to be carried away,” Duncan muttered sourly as he walked into the main hall behind them.

“What’s wrong, Sir Duncan,” she asked, instinctively realizing something had soured the man’s happiness that had been virtually contagious of late.

“I sent a message to mother,” he admitted as he stopped, looking down rather than looking toward them. “I thought…..Well, I hoped if she knew what you had done, and how you were trying to master your gift, rather than abuse it, she might prove an ally rather than a adversary.”

“I understand,” Marion told him. “’Twas worth a try.”

“What did the old witch say,” Jacob snorted, his amber eyes flashing coldly as he asked him the curt question.

“She expressed concern that I even trusted her to transform me in any respect, and demanded for the sake of the world, and my own safety, that I should be prepared to turn her over to the guild upon their arrival.”

“Sanctimonious witch,” Jacob growled, his tone indicating how little he liked his sister. “We both know the only reason she is coming is to take possession of Marion’s powers for herself.

“I’m just surprised the rest of the guild hasn’t yet realized how transparent her machinations are of yet.”

“We both know how well mother can deceive those around her when she wishes. They do not call her the white witch because of her characteristic dress.”

“How far away are they,” Jacob asked him as they shared a look of disdain that had Marion alarmed.

“They just left the guild hall at Elvantia, which once housed the last trading post ere you climbed into the mountain passes to reach Nordstrom. Considering the distances now with the mountains leveled, I’d wager they are no more than four days away by horseback.”

“They….can’t magic themselves here, then,” Marion asked anxiously.

“Nay. To transport yourself you need a clear vision of the destination. Since you changed the world, or at least this corner of it, they cannot safely transport without knowing what has changed.

“You don’t hang around the old woman without learning a few things,” Duncan smiled thinly as he met their astounded gazes.

“He’s right,” Marion murmured. “I….I think I can…..almost sense them,” she said, looking off as if seeing into a distance the men could not.

“Easy, lady,” Jacob cautioned her.

“I’m not doing anything. I just…..thought of them, and I felt…..

“Oh, God’s mercy,” she rasped.

“What is it?” “They travel over an underground cavern. When the sun sets, they’ll be in the very heart of a leech colony,” she told Jacob with a horrified expression.

“You are certain,” Duncan asked.

“I am more than certain. They are going to die if they don’t get away from that area now.”

Jacob looked to Duncan.

“I can send another message, but….there is not any guarantee they would heed it,” he admitted. “Even if they did….would they have enough time to flee the danger,” he asked her.

“’Tis….uncertain,” she admitted. “The caverns stretch for miles beneath the earth. The exits close to them now are those where the leeches’ numbers are most concentrated.

“Still, that is al I am certain about just now. Things….blur with the distance,” she told them. “And…whatever sense I got when I first sensed them is starting to fade, too.”

“I’ll find Agatha, and send a message,” Duncan said grimly as he turned back toward the door.

“Nay,” Marion said. “Agatha has been teaching me a few things when I’m not with Silver.

“I’ll try sending the message for you.”

“All right,” Duncan nodded. “Just….try to convey the….

“…..Danger,” he sputtered, staring at the empty place where Marion had been.

“Jacob,” he asked as he looked up at the lycanthrope who was holding empty air.

“Don’t look at me,” he exclaimed. “Get Aggie,” he told him. “Fast.”

“I’m getting a very bad feeling,” Tara told the others as they rode across the now seemingly endless plains that stretched out before them.

“I’ve been getting the same feeling,” Tanya agreed as she looked up at the men who led the way, likely thinking they were being protective irrespective of their status in the guild.

“I just can’t place it, and…..it’s growing.”

“Aye,” the white witch agreed. “Whatever it is, ’tis so general, and encompassing, that it cannot be easily pinpointed.” “Aye, that is it. I’ve but a casting aura out, but I cannot decipher what is nagging at my senses. Timium mentioned the same thing.

“Do you think, Lady Evanshire, that it might have something to do with your son’s message he sent ere we departed Elvantia?”

“I doubt it. He was more interested in having us turn back, or so it seemed to me.”

“Lady Tanya,” Douglas called back to her. “I feel something you should be aware of,” he told her.

“I think we’re all sensing it,” she told him haughtily.

“Nay, lady.

“I know of the uneasiness we sense. This is something more. Something……”

“God’s mercy,” Gara exclaimed as their horses abruptly shied, and Douglas was almost thrown off before he brought it back under control.

“Something….is coming,” Tilgar said as he stared at the odd radiance before them, even though the sun was on the western horizon, and starting to sink beneath the new, level skyline.”

Moshim dismounted, stepping forward as the dark-skinned man stared into the heart of the sudden star. He said nothing as he stepped forward, and then stopped even as the brightness began to fade, and a humanoid figure stepped out of the dimming glow.

“The Maker,” the Frank said as the woman in the pale, ivory dress appeared before them.

“It worked,” the blonde woman exclaimed in wonder as she paused, and looked around.

“This saves us a trip,” Douglas smiled, stepping down from his horse as he started to approach her.

“You must all come with me,” Marion told them.

“Are you mad,” Gara said in a snide tone. “Woman, you are hereby…..”

“You’re about to be swarmed by leeches,” she told him. “You’re standing right on top of a vast, underground cavern full of them,” she said, looking toward the setting sun.

“If you do not heed me, you are all going to die here.”

“The ominous feelings,” Timium realized.

“Aye,” Moshim agreed. “Lady Evanshire,” he said, turning to her. “I suggest we heed the Maker in this matter.

“Not even we can hold back an army of leeches.”

“How do we even know she is telling the truth,” Tara asked.

“What purpose do I have in coming here only to lie to you,” Marion asked. “I came for Duncan’s sake, knowing a mere message would neither convince, nor aid you.

“Now, join with me,” she told them as she stretched out her hands. “Or we all die here, and your quest becomes moot.”

“I believe we should trust her,” Moshim said in his same somber manner, and was the first to reach out to take her hand.

“What of the horses,” Douglas asked, looking uncertainly at the blonde woman who hardly looked like the kind of person that held the power of a Maker. If anything, she looked like….a farmsteader’s wife. Even her gown did not hide that aura from his eyes.

“Hold their reins,” Marion told them, and looked around, adding, “Quickly now,” she cautioned. “They are emerging.”

“She’s right,” Tilgar said uneasily. “I smell the reek now.”

Tanya wasted no time in taking Timium’s hand, who had already taken Marion’s right hand. The circle closed even as the falling night went strangely silent, with the men holding the reins to their mounts as Marion closed her eyes, and before the seven guild mages could prepare, they were blinking against the glare of the torches located atop the high walls of Nordstrom.

“We’re at the mystic city,” Tanya gasped, releasing the hands of those she held to stare up at the walls.

“We’re outside the city,” Douglas pointed out. “And….the Maker is gone.”

She looked back to Timium and Moshim, and saw they were standing alone. “Simultaneous teleportation,” she said in genuine awe. “This woman must be the Maker. And she is manifesting far more swiftly than anticipated.”

“All the same, we are here,” Moshim stated needlessly. “Shall we approach the gates?” “Aye,” Gara agreed. “’Tis plain, the woman is being harbored. Let us approach the city elders, and state our case, and remind them….” “I doubt demands are going to get us very far,” Timium spoke up in his reserved fashion he seemed to emulate from Moshim. “As I recall, the last time the guild approached Nordstrom, there was some….unpleasantness that created a schism betwixt the city, and our guild.”

“We know, but the guild still holds some authority over such matters,” Tanya told the young novice. “We are here, and we have our duty. Sir Gara is correct. There is not any reason to delay since the woman so graciously brought us here.”

“And saved our lives,” Moshim stated quietly. “Mayhap we should hear her out. She may not be the threat our forefathers feared when they first set down the statutes for dealing with Lord Walker’s descendants.”

“You yourself upheld our intent when you joined this band,” Tanya told him.

“And so I did,” he agreed, his dark gaze level as he faced her. “Still, she could have left us to die. I believe, Lady Evanshire, that we must proceed with respect, and caution from this point.”

“I concur,” Timium added his voice without hesitation.

“Reluctantly, I must as well,” Tara nodded. “If only to show we are not unjust, or blindly executing anyone we deem a threat to the guild.

“A charge, I believe, that has been leveled at us more than once by certain lands that do not recognize the guild.”

“I cannot agree,” Douglas spoke up. “Lady Evanshire is right in that we must not allow the wolven to dismiss our authority, or start setting precedents that could lead to the weakening, or even the possible destruction of our guild.”

“I agree,” Tilgar spoke up, and Gara nodded.

“Lady Tanya,” Moshim turned to her. “You are our leader. Both of the guild, and of this quest.

“Yours is the final decision.”

“We shall address the city elders.

“With respect,” she added with a faint nod to Moshim.

“However, I must make it plain that they must turn over custody of the Maker to our guild.”

“Might I point out something,” Timium asked deferentially, still unwilling to present too bold a front to the woman.

“What, lad,” Moshim asked when the lady did not reply, but only scowled at him.

“’Tis just….how do we take her at all does she challenge our authority. ‘Tis plain she already has far more power than we could have dreamed, and is controlling it with far more ease than expected of a recent manifestation.”

“Valid points,” Gara remarked. “Still, she must realized there is not any safe harbor for her anywhere in this world.”

Timium frowned, and glanced at Moshim.

Neither said anything. It was plain the older men were not willing to entertain the possibility that the woman would resist an authoritative command from the guild. Still, if she had come to them, saved them, then it stood to reason she already knew why they had come a swell.

Tanya eyed them, then suggested, “Mayhap you should stay with the horses,” she told Timium, “If you do not have a clear picture of your duties here.”

“I understand my duty, Lady,” he addressed her in the same quiet reverence, though with a bite in his tone that surprised her.

It seemed the young man might have some backbone after all, and in her eyes, that was not necessarily good.

She was still thinking it was a shame the Maker had come to them, awed as she was by her easy display of power before them without a hint of effort, or fear. The leeches would have made a good accident to rid her of those she had decided had to go from the start of this trip. Only she had to admit, it would have made her own survival equally suspect had the Maker not come for them.

She knew her duty, though. And she knew her plans were just, as well as fated.

She led the seven to the gates after they tethered their mounts, and headed toward the front of the city gates not far from where they had appeared. She waited until a silver-furred face looked down, and spoke with authority as she stared up at the manbeast.

“I am Lady Tanya Evanshire,” she spoke firmly, using a bit of magic to augment her voice to ensure it carried without shouting in an undignified manner. “I would speak to your city elders concerning the matter of the Maker who has taken refuge in your city.” “The elders will see you in the morn, witch,” the tall, feral creature snarled. “You are safe enough in the shadow of these walls, so I suggest you retire, and await the morn.”

“You cannot mean to….” The wolven vanished, and only the shadows of sentries atop the walls were visible when he did.

“They cannot….”

“Cautiously now, lady,” Moshim calmed her. “Recall, the walls were raised, and enchanted by Lord Walker himself. There is naught we can do to affect them.”

“I know that, Frank,” she grumbled curtly with him. “Very well, ‘twould seem we have little choice but to await their pleasure in the morn.

“However, we must stand firm in our resolve, and our duty. They must be made to see that the Maker must be turned over to us. There is not any other resolution we can allow in this matter.”

Moshim eyed her without speaking. Glancing toward Timium, he shook his head, and followed the others back to the horses. Camp would be cold this night, for there was no wood anywhere in sight for a fire. They were now on the plains, too, which did nothing to slow, or block the winds that blew past them as the night deepened.

“You took a chance, acting as you did, Great Mother,” Silver chided her as she followed him to the temple.

It was the mildest scolding she had received, since she had returned, and Jacob intuited what she had done. He and Agatha had both been both uneasy, and frightened by her actions, and had admonished her as much as they expressed their relief she had returned without incident.

Only Duncan had been silent, murmuring only his soft gratitude for saving his mother, since Lady had appeared as well to express her utter horror she might have been harmed had she not been able to return from the danger she had, to them, blindly injected herself into by her impulsive actions.

She had been more than grateful to take refuge in the meal prepared for them, and then escape to depart with Silver for their evening session, they were all so uneasy about what she had done. Even those half dozen young wolven that had escorted her had silently rebuked her with their sharp gaze that said as much as any words already spoken by her companions.

“All the same, your compassion speaks well of you, Great Mother,” the high priest continued to address her formally.

By now, it was an appellation that was starting to settle on her without causing as much disquiet as it had from the start when she was first called that, to her, awkward title.

“You think so,” she asked as they mounted the steps to the doors of the great temple always kept open to show that anyone was welcome to enter at anytime.

“Aye, Great Mother.

“That you would risk yourself for even your adversaries speaks well of yourself. Such daring also gives me even greater hope for our people, and for all this world,” he continued as they entered the temple proper, and left her escort behind.

“Thank you. I…..I just couldn’t leave anyone to those….creatures,” she told him with a quiet murmur.

“Well, one of them was the mother of my friend.”

“Yet that friend is yet but a stranger to you.”

“Nay, he….”

“He is a stranger. Someone unknown to you until you came to our land. Until you embarked upon the path that opened your destiny before you.”

“But….all right, granted. Still, she is also Jacob…..that is K’Viit’s sister. And for all his scathing remarks, I know he is fond of her.”

“I know my brother’s dual path through life, Great Mother,” Silver chortled as they crossed the wide floor toward that place where the walls where inscribed with the prophecy that had become the heart of her world of late.

She could say nothing more after that.

“As I said. Your actions speak well for you, Great Mother,” he nodded as they approached the central area where a small fire already burned, and soft cushions were arranged for her comfort on the cold, stone floor.

“Will you be able to reason with them,” she asked as they settled before the fire, and reached for a small pot of the bittersweet incense he used to create the fragrant smoke used in their meditations, and instruction.

“They are not the concern, Great Mother.

“You are.

“This evening, you must look forward, and find your path into the future.”

“Didn’t you say the future was already set,” she frowned as she watched him sprinkle the dust into the low-burning fire that immediately began to send up the cloying smoke that filled her nostrils, and began to send her head into a dizzying rush that made her feel not unlike she was falling into a spiral plunge into an uncharted abyss.

“It is, and it is not.

“Only the uninitiated cannot differentiate betwixt the what is, and what will be, giving the future its mystique.

“You, Great Mother, must walk the narrow path betwixt what could be, and what is, and decide which you will favor.”

She drew a deep breath again, and felt herself suddenly slow, the downward plummet stopping almost abruptly before she was sent flying forward, and the world itself became a gray mist rather than a dark abyss.

She forced herself to gradually slow as Silver had taught her, and looked around to find herself sitting alone on the temple floor, the embers of the fire long since ceased to even smolder. She saw Silver was gone, and the few acolytes, priests, and petitioners no longer around her. She was completely alone.

She looked toward the door, noticing the bright glare of light that entered from the outside. She must have been lost in a vision, and the high priest had left her to explore it at her leisure. Yet she felt an odd chill as she rose to her feet, and started toward the door.

She gasped as she stepped outside, seeing no sign of her usual escort.

Instead, she stared outside at a huge mound of rubble that lay upon a blasted wasteland that stretched out in all directions as far as the eye could see.

“Nay,” she rasped, realizing belatedly that collapsed stone was not all that surrounded her as she walked out into the courtyard that looked as if it had lain in ruin for untold centuries.

All round her, the bones of the dead lay mingled with the rock and marble that had been blasted apart. For she could sense now that Norstrom had been attacked. That some massive force from without had attacked, and utterly destroyed the city, and the land around it.

The bones were of wolven and human both. What drew her gaze, however, was the small pile of bones that lay huddled together near the front gates rather than being scattered as the other bodies had been.

The gates looked as if they had been warped, and punched in by a giant’s fist.

Something told her she knew that small band, and she approached them as that sense of familiarity grew. She felt a growing howl of anguish within her rise as she realized these were her companions. Her small family as she was beginning to think of them. Then she saw what her senses already noted, and felt grief mingle with rage.

For she knew without reason that the larger skeleton was her beloved Jacob, and that the three, tiny bodies he seemed to be sheltering were their own cubs. Their children. Around them, Duncan, Agatha, and Lady were helping him shelter the young, with Silver close by.

And they had died instantly as something came in the gates, and utterly destroyed the great city with monstrous ease.

Her grief and rage mingled as she realized this might yet happen, and the gray mist seemed to swirl and sharpen as her grief, and rage made the images even more real.

She gasped at the changes, and abruptly recalled Silver’s earlier instructions.

She closed her eyes, refusing the hellish vision, and simply looked inward as she forced herself to calm down, and asked a single question.

“How,” she murmured into the ether around her, and in that instant, she understood.

She opened her eyes, and looked at Silver, her features grim, yet composed, and nodded at the high priest. “I know what to do,” she told him quietly.

Silver nodded at her. “Only you can know, Great Mother.”

“Did you….see?”

“I have seen many things in my time, Great Mother.”

She studied his bland gaze, and nodded. “Thank you for everything, Silver.

“I hope I have your support in what I must do now. The others….may not understand.”

“I shall do my best to calm their fears,” he told her.

“Before I leave, there is one thing I must do,” she said, reaching out, and taking his great hands. “Will you trust me in this,” she asked.

“You have ever had my trust, Great Mother,” he nodded.

“Thank you, Silver.

“I want you to close your eyes, and think…..

“Think only of your people. Your children. Your kindred. Think of every wolven, lycanthrope, or young cub anywhere, and everywhere in the world.

“Fill your mind with them,” she murmured as her own eyes closed for a moment, and she felt a surge of power flow through her unlike any she had yet felt.

Feeling a dizzying rush through her every cell, she opened her eyes and looked on Silver once again.

The man that sat before her was tall, and lean, with silver hair, and pure, white robes around his muscular body. His eyes were closed, but she knew when he opened them, they were going to be as yellow as soft, molten gold.

Still, he was no longer the feral manbeast much of the world reviled. He was human. Only his coloring now unique to mark him as the race created by Lord Walker to guide the world, and aid them as they progressed.

“I charge you now, high priest,” she murmured as his eyes opened, and for only a brief moment, showed surprise at his astonishing transformation.

“Keep watch over your people, and remember the charge first given your people by Lord Walker, knowing that now, more than ever, you are as much a part of this world, and our people, as any other man born upon this world.”

“Great Mother,” the high priest nodded solemnly. “Rest assured, I shall keep your words as close to my heart as I have the prophecy of your coming.

“For surely, now more than ever, you are mother to our race, and mother to a land you did not birth.”

“We shall see, Silver,” she murmured as she rose, ignoring the stiffness in her limbs as she did.

She sensed she could have simply dispelled the discomfort, but refused to use her growing power for such a trivial thing. She walked outside with Silver at her side, and stared out at the mystic city now filled with human occupants, though most of them did still have silver hair, and amber eyes.

The people, her escort included, cheered her as she stepped outside, and she blushed furiously as she realized they all knew her to be the agent of their change, and supported her instinctive whim without any hint of regret, or disdain.

“Thank you, Great Mother,” one of the six young men who comprised her escort bowed low to her, uncommonly handsome in his white uniform as he stood before her. “You honor us with your favor.”

She smiled uneasily as she nodded her acknowledgement, and glanced over at Silver. “Escort me to the gates, please, Silver.

“And….try to assure my friends I know what I am doing, and will return as soon as possible.”

“I will explain as best I can, Great Mother,” the high priest said as he walked beside her across the crowded courtyard. “I must request you keep your escort with you, though.

“For your own safety, and for our peace of mind.”

“I will yield to your wisdom, Silver,” she nodded, and saw the pleased smile on the faces of her escort.

They walked to the gates that opened at their approach even as seven riders appeared before them. Without a word, Marion walked forward with her escort close behind. The seven guild mages all looked rather surprised to see her as she stopped just a few feet from Tanya Evanshire’s horse.

“Lady Tanya,” she nodded to her.

“I take it you have seen the wisdom in surrendering to the guild,” the white-haired witch asked with a snide tone.

“Not at all,” she told her. “You are to escort me to H’r’lyn at once,” she told her. “Your companions must seek out the kings of the nine great lands in the meantime, and bring them here for a meeting before these very walls.”

“And, why, woman,” a sandy-haired man asked with obvious disdain in his eyes. “Would we even listen to a single word you say?” “For two reasons, Sir Saunders,” she addressed him by name.

“Oh,” the man blustered, showing his surprise at being addressed byname, but trying hard not to show it all the same.

“Aye. First, because if you do not heed me, then this world, all we know, will soon come to an end.

“And I do not mean Valdor itself,” she added as the seven showed their astonishment at her foresight. “I mean every land, and every life on this world will cease to be.”

“And the second reason, mistress,” a grim Frank with a thin, dark beard sprinkled with white asked her.

“The second reason, Master Moshim,” she addressed him by his guild ranking as she turned to face him. “Is because if you try anything else, I can, and will send you anywhere I wish.

“Even into oblivion.”

“She bluffs,” Tara hissed. “She cannot have learned such control in so short a time.”

“Such is possible,” she agreed. “Mayhap I am but bluffing.

“Ask High Priest Silver of Nordstrom what he thinks,” she instructed them as she turned to nod to the tall, regal man with silver hair.

“What mischief is this,” Gara sputtered. “Everyone knows that the high priest of the mystic city is…..”

“Was.”

Tanya’s eyes flared as she looked into the open gates, and realization dawned upon her.

“She’s transformed the wolven. She has made them…..men,” she spoke as she looked around, and up, seeing even the guards atop the wall were now wearing human visages.

The seven again looked down at her.

“We shall heed you, mistress,” Moshim nodded. “You should realize, though, that there are those that will likely disbelieve our words…..”

“Ere you reach the kings you seek out, word shall have reached them of the Maker of Nordstrom, and of the mountains made into plains to give all men access to the mystic city. Journey by whatever means you wish, but bring those kings here ere I return.”

“And when will that be,” Tanya asked her with a cool disdain. “For you’ve yet to inform me why it is we go to my own stronghold.” “You shall know when I know.

“As to my return,” she said as she stepped forward, and mounted a saddled horse that seemed to appear out of the very air beside her. “I shall return when I return.”

Behind her, the six young guardsmen mounted their own horses without commenting, or showing any surprise they had just appeared beside them. They rode directly behind their charge as she rode past Tanya, and left her to follow, or not.

Tanya frowned, but reined her mare around, casting a glance to her companions. “For now, we must follow this woman’s wishes. I shall stay in touch, however, and be ready to come do I summon you,” she told them, even though this fit into her plans perfectly.

Very soon, she would have the Maker in her grasp, and she was more than certain she could easily manage a half dozen former manbeasts when she was ready to make her move. Soon, she smiled to herself as she turned to ride after the suddenly quite confident woman, she would have that power. She could see no other outcome.

Even as she sent her mount trotting after the Maker, a common wench from the look of her, those who still looked after them saw the eight riders simply vanished not ten yards from the city. Silver stepped back, and the gates closed on the six remaining guild mages.

TO BE CONTINUED……….

End of Part 3 [1 2 3]