Cassandra Pendragon
To me, magic mostly felt the same, at least if it was directed at me. I could see different patterns easily enough with my second sight but, with some exception like when Greta had cast her healing spells on me, it was nothing more than a distant pressure, stifled and muted. Not this time.
When I had reached them and joined their already linked minds, I felt the connection Viyara had built with another, distant presence. At first it was fuzzy but with a mental twist Viyara drew us together, her mind acting as a gateway once again for me to reach the others. Erya I recognised immediately and the third had to be Pete. He was a strange fellow, contradictory thoughts came to the surface and vanished again, fear and desperation mixed with defiance and stubbornness, hatred paired with self loathing. The moment he realised he wasn’t alone anymore a flash of hope overshadowed the other emotions and he focused on us intently. I wasn’t sure if he knew I was there as well but his attention rested on Erya and he anxiously inquired:
“Can you do it?”
“Yes, all you need to do is ask. You won’t even have to sweeten the deal with your soul. You assistance in the coming hours will be enough. Just say the words.”
“Then get me the fuck out of here and keep me safe! I’m willingly offering any form of assistance I can provide to see it happen. Just, please!” Erya laughed like a wind chime and magic enveloped me.
At first, there was darkness before two bright lights appeared before me. One was burning like a star, filled with energy, an imposing presence. In my mind’s eye black, red and green made up most of its colour. The other was small and insignificant in comparison but filled with a myriad of different colours, all mixed together to nearly become grey. When I looked closer I could see faint traces of light connecting them, swirling through the void. They multiplied and grew but even as I watched, the first strands started to fall apart again, rushing back to the blinding presence I assumed was Erya. Faster and faster they vanished, unable to balance the two forces that tore them in different directions. The two sides had to equalise, otherwise the spell would fail.
I reached for the waning magic and instead of trying to alter or support it with my own power, I allowed it to take me in completely with a promise: I’ll shield her for as long as she needs me. My core reacted and another band of energy settled in but unlike before it didn’t disappear. It circled through me, time and again, picking up more and more energy until it tore in two and I imagined I could hear the sound of tortured metal before it was ripped apart. One half was pulled back around my core and joined the other promises I had made before but the other slithered through the darkness like a glowing snake of molten silver and snapped into place between the last strands of Erya’s magic.
I felt the void we were in shudder when the string of silvery light was pulled tight but remained in place, anchoring the spell. Most of the force was now channeled through it and finally the links of the spell could form. Within the blink of an eye a bridge of magic connect Erya and Pete, the sole strand of energy I had provided nestled in the centre. A thunderous explosion shook the place we were in and I was thrown backwards, everything around me disintegrating into sparks and multicoloured flames.
With a groan I opened my eyes and brushed away the trickle of blood I felt running from my nose. I was on top of Viyara, the bright glare of magma around us sent daggers of pain through my skull and it took me a moment to get my bearings. Somehow my head had come to rest on Erya’s lap and she was smiling down at me mischievously. Before I could reacted she lowered her face and kissed my forehead gently. I felt her fingers brush against my palm when she placed the focus in my hand and whispered quietly: “thank you. Here, I don’t want my knight to be hurting.”
Warmth flooded through our still intertwined fingers and travelled through the pendant she was pressing into my skin. My headache subsided and strength returned to my limbs in a rush. A little groggy but otherwise restored I whispered: “Please, just don’t make me regret this. And how could you heal me? I thought you promised not to do anything else with it?”
“The demon is in the detail. The connection is still forming, so technically I can do whatever I want to make sure it remains stable. There is quite a lot of freedom in how you can interpret what I said. Don’t scowl, I really don’t want to hurt you. But I think you should know that I could have. I can’t make you trust me but maybe this shows that my intentions aren’t nearly as nefarious as you seem to believe. Now I even have a considerable interest in your well being, so could you just stop questioning everything I do? The next few centuries could become rather tiring otherwise.”
Centuries? Great… the fey apparently had no intention of letting me go any time soon. I should really get off her lap.
Erya of the Silent Glade
Looking down on Cassandra’s beautiful face, my healing magic still connecting us, I nearly blushed, which would have been the first time in a couple of centuries. I wasn’t smitten but I was fascinated, maybe even infatuated. When we had first met I had thought she was nothing but a pansy, sent by the new lady of the hoard to entice me into whatever she wanted from me. I had quickly realised how wrong I had been. She had been honest and respectful and had stated clearly what they wanted me to do. Even when I had become quite bitchy and demanding, asking for things I already knew she hadn’t been willing to part with she had played along. That my magic couldn’t get a hold on her had just been a minor surprise compared to how she had behaved. She had even tried to console me when I had pretended to be hurt by her rejection. She had reminded me so much of how I had been before Shafeer had forced me into the damned ruby that I had nearly handed back the acorn, nearly but not quite.
From this point on the whole sex thing had turned into a game, more of a mask I used to hide how I really felt. Of course I’d love to spend a night with her, fey are carnal creatures by nature and we take pleasure wherever we can find it, especially after being starved for years, but I’d never get in the way of true love and it had been painfully obvious that she hadn’t just said it to get me to back off. Someone out there was really lucky and I was curious to meet whoever had managed to charm Cassandra so completely.
And then she had allowed me to work my magic on her and had promised to protect me for as long as I’d need it. A promise much more thorough than I had expected, made by someone who was much more than I had thought. The moment she had joined Pete and me I had realised just how wrong I had been in thinking she had been controlled by a dragon. In the realm between, where my magic worked, she had been shining brighter than a star, making me feel tiny in comparison. I had seen her wings, spanning through the void behind her, trailing off into infinity and for the first time in my life I had truly felt humbled. Even when Shafeer had battered me into the ground and forced me to do his bidding I had always thought that, given the chance, I’d have been able to prevent something like that from happening again. Not with her.
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If she had set her mind to it I wouldn’t have had a prayer, of that I had been convinced the moment I saw a strand of her energy effortlessly bind me to a mere human. I had never before felt so powerless, her magic was ancient and had smelled of the very fabric of creation. I couldn’t even call it magic, there was no trace of mana, life force or soul energy, it was something different, something I had only heard of before in long forgotten legends told by the oldest and maddest fey I had ever met. If I wasn’t mistaken and the eccentric ghost that had appeared from a silver coin and had started spreading secrets like they had been grain, had made me that much more certain, she was a true immortal, unbound and free of life’s shackles.
And here I was, cradling her head, clueless on what I should do. After what seemed like aeons of slavery, pure chance had set me free and had dropped a creature of legends into my lap. I’d be an idiot to let go. I wanted to make up for the time I had lost, stuck as a glorified engine for someone else’s magic and staying with her appeared to me like the best way for some excitement in the foreseeable future. Better yet, she would even make sure that I’d get out of whatever mess I was going to get myself into. For the first time in I didn’t know how long I was looking forward to what was to come. I just had to convince her that I wasn’t going to sell her out, an understandable concern, given how I had acted. But first I had a job to do or my plans might get cut short, permanently.
I brushed her silky, raven black hair behind her ear which made her narrow her bright silvery eyes at me. I winked and gently pushed her away, my fingers trailing along her arm. When the last sparks of my healing spell had vanished I let her and the focus go with a bright smile and said:
“Now then, I think I have some spying to do and you might better put on that cloak Barzuk brought you. I really appreciate the view, but otherwise I might find myself wholly incapable of concentrating. Your bust might not be the largest but it sure as hell is one of the prettiest I’ve seen.” Her blush was delightful and only intensified when Barzuk’s throaty and Viyara’s mental laugh reached us. The dragoness was much more pleasant than I had expected and given what Mephisto had said I’d be around her for quite some time. Admittedly her golden scales made me anxious, they were so similar to her father’s but she had already proven that she was made of different stuff. I couldn’t say if we were going to be friends but I surprisingly didn’t loath her. If we hadn’t had history, I would even have liked her, but we’d have to see how it’d go.
I used a part of my life force to change my appearances and grew butterfly like wings from my back. With a rustling like silk sliding over silk I took to the air and descended on top of my ruby. I didn’t need physical contact but it’d make things easier. I wouldn’t be able to cast anything but my own magic through Pete but I could use the energy the gem provided. And who knew, maybe I’d need it and it’d be much easier to feel the flow of power within if I was touching the thing.
I closed my eyes and started to block out everything else. The roar of splashing magma, the conversation of my companions that had started up as soon as I had settled down, the faint stream of magic the still active scrying spell was pulling from me and the flickering of a myriad of auras generated by powerful artefacts all around. After a moment even my racing thoughts calmed and I could truly feel myself and the faint connections that linked me to others. Once upon a time there had been many, servants, acquaintances, peers, each one of them represented by a glimmering bridge of light I had been able to cross with a wish. But they were gone now, withered and destroyed, raptured when Shafeer had forced me into servitude. Only three remained, Cassandra, Viyara and Pete and of those only the connection with Pete was strong enough to use for more than a few simple tricks. For a second I wondered if I could use the link to Cassandra to spell her even without the focus but I wasn’t going to try, for now.
My consciousness raced along the bridge of energy and I smoothly took control over Pete’s body, shoving him aside like the ant he was. I could still access his memories to make sure I wouldn’t be noticed the moment I took over but his will couldn’t control his body anymore, he was a passenger, along for the ride and judging from his complaints and curses he wasn’t enjoying it one bit. Tough luck. I was going to take him back with me so there really wasn’t much to lament about. It wasn’t like I was enjoying being stuck in a human meat suit.
Hidden behind a stack of crates I took a moment to orientate myself and get the hang of how to make his muscular legs move without falling over every two steps. I also played around with his expressions, making sure I could smile and frown quite naturally. His mannerism would take me too long to copy so I simply skimmed through his speech patterns and hoped the pirates I’d be about to talk to weren’t the brightest. Considering they were pirates in the first place I was pretty confident they wouldn’t be too fast on the uptake.
I squared my shoulders, rubbed my eyes too remove any remaining tears and adopted a bandy legged gait just to hunker back down again. What was I thinking? The Black wanted five of the pirates, presumably as sacrifices and I was about to walk into plain sight. Stupid idea. Instead I pressed myself even deeper into the shadows and activated my magic. Some of the energy was lost on the way but most of it reached me through the connection I had formed. I could easily scry through the whole ship but the tricky part would be not to alarm the ancient dragon on board. At least he wasn’t on deck anymore from what I could here. I spent the next minutes constructing spell forms that would block everything but the most potent scrying magic and even bolstered them with a tiny bit of soul energy and a huge amount of mana I drew from the ruby. When I felt sufficiently protected I turned Pete’s body invisible and allowed my senses to roam through the ship.
Most of the pirates were in varying degrees of shock and despair, Galathon’s aura that felt more like a heavy pressure to me rendered them nearly insensible. The tougher ones were keeping their heads low, following orders, staying out of sight and as far away from the captain’s cabin as possible. That gave me enough of a hint to focus on said cabin and the wards that surrounded it along with the strangled cries and the smell of blood that drifted past the door convinced me that I had found the right place. Unfortunately I wouldn’t be able to break the wards without being detected so I’d be reduced to listening at the door if I wanted to know more. Grudgingly I got up and trotted towards the door that led below deck, keeping my invisibility active.
I quickly arrived in front of the captain’s cabin, the smell of blood and strangled cries now physically reached my senses. I didn’t mind but it emphasised that I didn’t want to be caught and used as another battery for whatever the dragon was doing. Quietly I crept closer and placed an ear against the seasoned wood. Pete’s hearing wasn’t the best but it’d do for now, especially with a little spell I used to enhance his senses. What I heard made my heart speed up.
“You expect me to just sit here and wait?! Like a damned warden?” That was Galathon, his anger easily drowning out the agonised gurgles of a dying pirate. The voice that replied was surprisingly smooth and I’d even call it warm except for the hint of madness that shimmered through now and then.
“That’s exactly what I expect, lizard and unless you do as your told I’ll cut gloves from your wings as soon as I arrive personally. It won’t be too long now. My slaves will find the other ships and if I’m not completely mistaken they’ll open the doors willingly once we acquire our bargaining chips and cut one or two open before their eyes. Your job is to make sure they can’t leave and prevent my people from capturing the kitsune and dwarfs. Fail me in this and you’ll wish you had died by Cassandra’s hands.”