Somehow, the Universe had managed to surprise me. It had done so in a sneaky and wholly unexpected fashion, doing the one thing I hadn’t thought possible. Nothing happened during the rest of the evening and night.
Adra had continued to talk with the guard, a beastman named Moraak, for a while longer and learned that we were on the very edge of centaur-territory. If we continued further west, we would leave it, a revelation that made me breathe a sigh of relief. Unless they tried to fight us in the boundaries of Olichell, the town we were currently in, it would be relatively difficult for them to get at us. And if they tried to confine us in the town, it might get them into trouble with the Merchant- and Adventurers-Guild, not to speak of the fact that I was reasonably sure I could wipe a small town such as this off the map, if they really forced me. I hadn’t tried to control the large lump of Eternal Ice I had in my magic bag for a while but it was still there and still teeming with power.
When the next morning dawned and I was still resting on Sigmir’s chest without any disturbance during the night, I felt a lot better than the day before. I was still a little apprehensive about the strange feeling I had but I wasn’t expecting some insane wizard to leap out from the next haystack to attack.
It didn’t take us long to get ready and we all went down to eat together. The common-room looked quite different in the light of day, where the night before people had drunk themselves into a stupor, there were now wretched forms, trying to keep their head from exploding. Just from looking at them, I felt vindicated in my choice to pass on the mead, or I might be one of those forms, trying to get my magic to work.
Breakfast was a simple affair and finally, as people were slowly waking up around town, we were heading towards the edge of town, intent on leaving as soon as possible. As we walked, the weird feeling I had was re-asserting itself, the hairs on my neck standing up in warning. I felt as if there was a force pressing down on me, trying to suffocate me, trying to pin me to a board, like a butterfly by a collector.
“What is going on?!” I mentally asked Lenore, feeling my body freeze up, as I tried to shove away whatever it was.
“I don’t know.” was her only response and she sounded as panicked as I felt. “But we need to get away.” she added as I felt the air around me heat up.
Not knowing what to do, I reached out, letting Astral Power flow out of me and into Sigmir’s shadow, focusing the runes for concealment, magic and devouring in my mind, trying to enhance my normal Cloak of Shadows in such a way that it might protect me from the magical assault I was feeling.
I heard Sigmir gasp in surprise and managed to crack open my eyes. What I saw stunned me for a moment, around me, the ground was steaming, the puddles that remained from last night's rain evaporating as strange, fiery glyphs were orbiting around me.
“Love, what is going on?!” she asked, sounding as panicked as I felt. I didn’t have a good answer, so I focused on protecting myself, trying to gather power from the Astral River as I staved off the attack. It was there, on the edge of the River, that I perceived something I had never seen before. To my mind’s eye, it appeared like an enormous fiery snake, twisting embers clad in radiant flames. It was twisted through the Astral River, it’s hot breath pushing out into the world, scorching me. As I tried to grasp what I was seeing, Lenore’s sight joined me as our minds joined together in the Raven’s Shadow and what I saw thanks to her helped me understand what was going on. The fiery snake was composed purely out of Astral Power, held together by maddingly complex symbols and runic formations. It was a magical construct, a carrier for magic, cast from far away. I had no idea where it was coming from but I knew that it would kill me, if I let it.
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“We need to push it back!” Lenore said, her voice strained from taking some of the mental pressure I was under. I hadn’t the capacity to respond but I agreed, if we tried to wrestle with the construct, we would die. No, we needed to cut it from its source, maybe that way I would manage to survive.
Looking down the Astral River, I noticed a small strand of Ice-Astral Power, weak due to the changing season but still carrying power. Gambling on a hunch, I reached for it, trying to reverse the normal process of gathering Astral Power from the Astral River and using that momentary influx of power to change its course, just for a split second. It took me a split-second to realise that it was like Blood Magic, just in reverse. Without letting my mind leave the Astral River, I grasped my Athame, jamming it into my hand to gain access to all the power stored in my body, using the bloody palm to reach into my bag, grabbing the first chunk of Eternal Ice I could.
The torrent of power channelled through me was insane, the pain of using Blood Magic to rip the Astral Power from my very life itself driving me to my knees. But somehow, I managed to weather the storm, the power allowing me to twist the stream of Ice-Astral Power around the snake, the conflux between the Fire it was crafted from and the Ice around it causing a backlash that knocked me clean on my behind. My mind felt raw, as if someone had used sandpaper to strip off a layer from my brain, leaving the nerves singing with pain.
Even Lenore didn’t want to stay in her Hallow, appearing on my shoulder. She looked a little worse for wear but was in better shape to explain what had happened. While she did that, I tried to pull my mind together, not sure if the attack was a one-time deal or if there would be a follow up. At the same time, I took stock and noticed that somehow, I was brimming with Astral Power. Trying to remember my frantic scrabbling, I understood what had happened, the backlash had been an uncontrolled burst of Astral Power, infusing both sides of the connection. But where the magical formation used to attack me was made to precise specifications and had been shattered by the influx of Ice-Type Astral Power, I had been almost completely drained of power, as I had used everything I had to wrestle the stream. Otherwise, I might have suffered even worse.
Raising my still bloody hand, ignoring the noises around me, I started painting runes on my flesh, using my own blood and some Astral Power, trying to create a ward of concealment that would keep me from being attacked in the same manner, if that was possible. I had no idea how to begin such an attack, at least without some sort of link to the person, in my case, some blood would be best. I remembered the Grandmother telling me about such links and the special meaning my hair had, as it was holding some of my Astral Power. But had I ever left behind hair to use?
That was when it hit me, I might have. Back, weeks before, when we had fought the burning bear near Kolyug, it had burned off my hair. I had brushed off the remain of my beautiful, lustrously shining hair, dropping it where I had stood, more concerned with the bear we had fought just before.
A very un-ladylike curse sprung from my lips, causing Lenore on my shoulder and the others around me to fall silent, looking at me questioningly.
“We should go, we are drawing a crowd. Let’s hurry.” I said after taking a look around. There was ice on the ground around me and some of the steam caused by the earlier attack was still lingering. All around us, people were looking at our group in general and me in particular, as if there had been some sort of performance.
“Can you walk?” Sigmir asked, offering me a hand to get up.
“Yes, I can. Let’s move, quickly.” I pushed, not wanting to get stopped in town, knowing that I had made a spectacle of myself and we really didn’t want to draw attention. But there was nothing I could do about that now, what had happened was in the past. Now, we had to move.