Krall is my shepherd; I shall not want.
Though a thousand may fall at my side, and ten thousand before me.
Yea, though I voyage through the oceans of death, I will fear no evil: for thou art with me.
Thy waves and thy arms they comfort me.
Surely goodness and mercy shall befall me all the days of my life.
And I will live in your presence forever.
- Andanian Chronicles
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The long solemn procession winded silently through the streets of Calcutta and a sea of flags fluttered weakly at half-mast amidst a cold steady drizzle as the normally colorful city was wreathed in the grey shades of mourning. The prince leading the line of mourners had discarded his favored colors for an ashen suit of roughhewn sackcloth and his unchecked sorrow was plain to all his people. The priests bearing the polished stone casket rang their bells with practiced synchrony as they chanted their prayers to the gods above and the people parted respectfully as they paid their last respects to the witch that had shaken their lands. A veiled sorceress studied Aryan anxiously as she rode slowly behind the weeping heartbroken boy and she sighed softly to herself as she leaned down to meow softly to her mare.
“To tell, or not to tell, that is the question:
Whether ‘tis better for him to suffer,
The boney tuna pokies of misguided sorrow,
Or to fan his hope with a spark of truth,
And by telling him: to doom myself to loneliness?
The horse snorted dismissively as it ignored the whispering kitten and Mirror sighed as she leaned against her steed and closed her eyes in thoughtful contemplation. The pallbearers finally arrived at the large gated cemetery at the city’s outskirts and the weeping prince trailed behind the dampened casket as it was carried to its final resting place.
“Any last words?” Zinnridi’s expression was inscrutable as he rested a hand on Aryan’s shoulder.
The prince wiped at the mix of rain and tears trickling down his face and his hazel eyes were filled with emotion as he turned to face his people. “Princess Laura Alexandra Muriel was a legend. In her brief lifetime, she created a myth of what a single girl could accomplish, a true Andanian who transcended nationality. For Vaishya, she became a symbol of bravery in battle and selflessness in sacrifice. But the girl I knew was also a warm human being, impulsive but shy, delicate and in fear of rejection, yet ever avid for life and ever giving in love. We would all not be standing here today had she not chosen to face our enemies, had she not chosen to say we shall not-no we shall not be moved.” He bowed his head in sorrowful remembrance as the plainly decorated sarcophagus was lowered into the willing embrace of the earth beneath them.
“I love you Laura.” Aryan’s voice cracked with sorrow as the shoveled dirt finally obscured her from the eyes of man. And all that remained of the mighty Andanian witch was a simple marble gravestone.
Here lies Laura of Andania,
Forever loved,
Forever missed,
And dear to our hearts.
The citizens of Vaishya sighed as they witnessed the finale of their short and tragedy filled relationship and they shook their heads as they wandered off one by one till only the grieving prince was left standing alone amidst the drizzle and the fading sunlight. But the forsaken prince wept and wept as he knelt before the grave and his tears of sorrow mingled freely with the rain into the freshly dug dirt. At last, his brothers came for him as twilight graced the skies with a hue of dull grey and they led the grieving boy away to a waiting carriage that departed for the palace.
“Aryan?” Mirror stretched drowsily as she rubbed her eyes and yawned. The horse she had been riding on had meandered off to munch on a patch of grass as she had slept and the kitten shivered as the damp chill of the night crept into her bones. She goaded her mare back towards the witch’s resting place in an attempt to locate the prince but quickly realized that he must have returned to the palace with the others. “Cold, wet, and alone.” The meowing kitten shuddered in the rain as she glanced pityingly at Laura’s grave and it was difficult to tell if she had been referring to herself or to the witch buried beneath her. Mirror flicked the reins of her steed and was just about to ride off when her eyes fell on the inscription on the witch’s tombstone, “That is wrong…” the kitten muttered with a frown as she dismounted and scratched in a single additional letter.
Here lives Laura of Andania,
Forever loved,
Forever missed,
And dear to our hearts.
“There! Fixed it, Aryan will be happy now.” Mirror purred contentedly to herself as she rode back towards the palace to rejoin her prince.
…
In a dimly lit private audience chamber, the Archdiviner of Vaishya bowed low before his Sultan, “Your Magnificence. I feel the dire need to protest your decision again, I fear that it will place our entire nation in extreme jeopardy. Her body must be burnt, then the ashes must be mixed with silver dust and burnt again. Then we must seal the remains in multiple dimeritium urns and cast them separately into the most distant seas!”
Heliocles sighed as he stroked his long white beard, “I know that your loyalty to the nation is unquestioned, but don’t you think that the measures you have suggested are just a tad too extreme? Do not forget that the princess gave her life for our nation and to save my son. And I find your explanations inadequate, how would a single deceased child ever be a threat to Vaishya?”
“I have a premonition your Magnificence, a witch is never to be taken lightly, even in death. Since ancient times, tradition dictates that the bodies of all witches must be sprinkled with silver and reduced to ash. No cursed witch must ever be buried on our nation’s soil or…”
“Enough,” Heliocles ordered, “I refuse to entertain your suggestion. Whatever the other witches were like in the past has nothing to do with the princess. She was an invited guest who gave her life for our nation’s survival, we will not desecrate her body in any such manner. This is an order, do not attempt to remove her body from the grave, she is to remain undisturbed.”
“As you wish your Magnificence, I merely exist to serve your will.” The anxious archdiviner bowed low in reply before departing from the chamber.
…
Lily hummed a cheerful tune as she skipped unopposed through the lengthy hallways of Saadian palace. The people had begun treating her with more respect ever since the day she had saved that idiot Xerxes, although most of them had for very mysterious reasons, fled while screaming in fear when she had emerged from the pit with the emperor in tow. She had even managed to acquire an entire section of the sprawling underground dungeons for her exciting experiments… no magic upgrade lessons. And the surprisingly helpful torturers… no imperial truth-finders had even allowed her to borrow all sorts of fancy surgical instruments for her classes. Best of all, she had finally managed to recruit a very willing cute cuddly volunteer who was equally ecstatic about her research theories… no new laws of magic.
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“Naomi, there you are!” The princess declared excitedly as she flung open the door to the steaming laundry chamber. A hundred pairs of eyes widened as the people stared at the royally dressed girl standing at the entrance and the slaves immediately discarded the soaps and partially cleaned garments in their hands as they prostrated before the noble visitor.
“Honored princess, how may we serve you?” A trembling supervisor knelt fearfully before Lily.
The princess frowned at the man, “Didn’t I already tell everyone that Naomi is to be my personal apprentice? Why is she back in chains?”
“Your Royal Highness, I didn’t get the message!” The man’s eyes widened in horror, “This morning, that slave returned to us and volunteered for duty at the washing chambers, I…”
“Is that so?” Lily leafed absently through her bundle of talismans and retrieved a blood red charm from the stack. She tagged the spell on the petrified supervisor’s forehead and closed her eyes to concentrate, “Hmm… it doesn’t appear as if you are lying outright…” She mused.
The trembling man heaved a loud sigh of relief.
“But… I didn’t like the way your eyes and hands wandered down her body while you are clamping your dirty chains around her. Punishment! You need punishment!” She teased playfully.
The man shrieked with absolute terror as a pool of piss puddled around his quivering legs.
“Oh com’on. I won’t turn you into a toad or cast some other uniquely horrible spell on you like my elder sister!” Lily pouted as she glanced at the portly slaver, “You look like you need some exercise anyway so why don’t you hop over to the river where Krall is and shake his hand, before hoping back to work with the others?” The princess smiled encouragingly, “Krall must be so lonely out there, please remember to sing a song for him while you’re passing by.”
“Help! I don’t wanna die!” The supervisor’s eyes darted around desperately for a means of escape but he quickly realized that the only route to freedom was being blockaded by the princess. “What… what happens if I don’t do as you say?” The man stammered fearfully.
Lily sighed and shook her head disapprovingly, “That might be bad, especially if Krall gets really lonely and decides to visit your home one day. He’s really harmless, but stuff tends to break whenever Krall visits…”
“I’ll hop! I’ll hop! Please have mercy on my family!” The man blanched and immediately began jumping towards the distant goal.
“Problem solved!” Lily brightened as she strode over to Naomi and cuddled her close, “My poor little adorable puppy, were you afraid? I’m here to save you, so you don’t have to worry about anything anymore!” The princess tugged the tongue-tied girl to her feet and marched towards the exit. The chains binding the child to the other slaves clanked loudly and a whole row of other children were dragged up along with her. “More happy volunteers?” Lily drooled as she eyed the bunch of horrified kids with a predatory expression.
“Please have mercy honored princess! I don’t wanna die!” The children wept and trembled as they eyed the iron head crusher in her hand.
“Die?” Lily tilted her head in bafflement as she tapped the metal torture device absently against her thigh, “Who said anything about dying? I’m just going to transform Naomi into my cuddly magic minion, you won’t be allowed to die. How about it? Want to join her?”
“No, please no!” The horrified children fell onto their knees and crawled away from the disappointed princess.
“Humph, spoilsports.” Lily pouted as she snapped off Naomi’s chains with her bare hands, “I guess it’s just you and me, loyal apprentice! Unless no actually means yes in Saadian?” She smiled hopefully as she turned back to glance at the shivering children.
Naomi stared at the moody princess with bleak despairing eyes, she had almost begun to hope that Lily would forget about her if she returned inconspicuously to her former position. But the witch must have had senses superior to that of a bloodhound to pursue her all the way into the depths of the slave quarters. “Leave my friends alone!” She mustered every iota of courage she possessed as she straightened up to face the horrifying predator looming over her, “I’ll do it, but only if I’m your only volunteer!”
“I get it!” Lily smiled happily, “You want to monopolize all my experiments to yourself! What are we waiting for? Off to the torture chambers… no underground classrooms, where nobody will be able to hear our screams of joy!” The witch declared with barely suppressed excitement as she tugged the horrified child deep into the bowels of the earth.
“What… did you do to them?” Naomi moaned as cold sweat beaded on her brow. The uninviting stone floor of the dungeon was crusted with brownish stains of dried out blood and decorated with the occasional decaying body part. And a staggering quantity of fear inspiring devices, each designed to induce a unique form of exotic torment, decorated the vast brightly lit chamber they had just entered.
Three most dismal men occupied the otherwise deserted space. The first had what seemed like a talisman wrapped steel rod pierced through his skull, just above his ears. He stood silently in the open space at the room’s center and his eyes bulged with agony, but he was frozen in place despite the lack of any visible restraints. The second moaned hoarsely from within an iron maiden. His blood and excrement was pooled on the floor beneath him and his veins had long since run dry, but he was somehow still alive despite the lethal wounds that had been inflicted on his body. The head of the third opened and closed his mouth repeatedly with soundless screams. The remainder of his carefully dissected figure was spread out over a blood drenched table and each of his organs had been meticulously catalogued by his own hands.
“The most experienced imperial truth-finders in Saadian! A really curious people.” Lily explained with a smile, “The first wanted to know if I had any method of inflicting pain without inducing physical damage, so I lent him my sister’s handy mind bendy talisman. The second wanted to develop a method for increasing the durability his wounded guests, so I helped him out with a personal demonstration. And the third was just so shy… he tried to leave without asking any questions, so I simply reviewed basic human anatomy with him. And they all really enjoy their lessons!” The princess skipped towards the three men, “Just fascinating when you learn the truth, isn’t it?”
“Yes!” First man managed to scream.
“Very enlightening!” The second moaned.
“…” The third head nodded fanatically in silent agreement.
Tears of absolute fright trickled down Naomi’s cheeks as she beheld the miserable state of the empire’s most hardened torturers, “You murdered them all…” she mumbled, “you’re a hideous demoness…”
Lily stared at the sobbing child with a slightly miffed expression, “What do you mean by that? They are all clearly still alive and well. My elder sister is the one that actually kills anyone.”
“I don’t know what forbidden magics you used to bind their souls to the world of the living, but there’s clearly no way that any of them will walk away unscathed after what you did to their bodies!”
“Huh? Wait a minute, do you actually underestimate my fixing up abilities?” Lily pouted as she pried open the iron maiden and tagged the shattered corpse with a dark talisman, “Erm what was I supposed to say again? Ahh… you can have my life, one attosecond.” The charm crackled with a massive surge of power as the wounds on the torturer’s body were sealed one after the other. Then the hysterical man was physically whole and he opened his mouth to scream.
“Arrgh!!! Help, no more! I don’t wanna die!”
Lily winced and her hands bolted up instinctively to shield her sensitive ears, the released iron maiden slammed shut, and the unfortunate victim’s shrieks were silenced into a choked agonized gurgle as a fresh mist of blood and gore sprayed out from the deadly device. “Whew that was loud. See? I was sure that I could fix them all, nobody ever dies!” Lily smiled victoriously.
“A fate infinitely worse than death! What… what… are you?” True untainted horror was etched on Naomi’s features as she stared at the innocently beaming princess.
“Me? I’m Lily, the princess witch of Andania. But don’t you already know that? Did you hurt your head somewhere? We should immediately examine your brains for disease!” Lily tugged the child into her arms and studied her with growing concern.
“Witches are pure evil…” Naomi moaned as her final struggles were snuffed out effortlessly by the princess’ vastly superior strength.
“I get that all the time, isn’t that just amazing? The good little witches in all my story books tend to die in the most unpleasant ways.” Lily cooed contently as she straddled her happy volunteer across the hips and reached out for the closest sharpened hacksaw. And the witch of Andania smiled as her puppy stared at her with wide eager eyes and opened her mouth to scream with ecstasy.