‘Mandy, please trustme, I have already told you that a mind wizard fights with his mindnot his body. Erastius is a mind wizard. He will fight us withdeception, fear and illusion. He knows we want to stop him. Youshould know that the Taskmasters use commands, charm and dominationevery day in the Crin colony. The biggest blow to any dominator isto be dominated themselves. Xentos was scared witless. Erastiusknows we couldn’t fight the Chaos Lord, so he implanted thesuggestion in Xentos’s mind that the Chaos Lord helped him todominate Xentos, who has conveniently passed it on to us.’
‘For the Chaos Lord tohelp Erastius, the mask would have to be a portal between thespirit world and our world. I know how the mask was made. It is nota portal, therefore the part about help from the Chaos Lord isuntrue. Even if it was a portal, the Chaos Lord could not comethrough because only deities can travel between the spirit worldand here. Erastius is scared of us, but is trying to deceive usinto believing that we can’t beat him.’
‘But what about at theshrine when Jacintra possessed your body? She must have found a wayto get here then,’ said Miranda.
‘No, that is notnecessarily true. I have thought about that. There were dozens oflittle people spirits, including that spirit of the shaman and adruid in the shrine, who all wanted to pass on. A spirit possessedme, but it never said who it was. It was left up to us to decide,and we believed that it was Jacintra, the Chaos Lord and actedaccordingly. A cunning and powerful shaman may have been able topossess me when I wasn’t expecting it; and remember that the spiritleft me and followed the others through the urn, which was a oneway portal.’
‘What about when youturned into the Chaos Cat at the Crin city? You scared the Queenout of her wits,’ she asked.
‘I have wondered aboutthat myself. I think that the spirit who possessed me back in theCat shrine implanted some sort of suggestion in my mind, whichtriggers under some situations. I can block it easily enough,’ hereplied.
‘I ... I suppose youmight be right. This is a horrible way to fight. How are wesupposed to know what is real and what is not? I don’t like thesemind games Aquitain.’
‘Mandy, this is exactlywhy I am here. I have trained all my life to fight this type offight. Featherdown has a wonderful tapestry in his entertainingroom showing a huge battle, but readily admits that it was won notby force but by deception. Let’s not let Erastius win before thefight starts; let’s let him deceive himself.’
‘You continue to amazeme Tain!’ she said with admiration. ‘I don’t know how you can stayso calm and think so deeply about these things.’
‘And you continue toamaze me,’ he murmured. ‘I can’t work out why those eyes of yoursare so beautiful!’
‘All right, that’senough flattery. You can’t even see my eyes. Let’s go and get themask,’ she said with a chuckle. She no longer had any fear ordoubts. They could and would win.
Chapter 33 The MindBattle
‘Spirit Lord, there arenearly a dozen Jeti outside the entrance to our mine. The chiefdoes not wish to harm them. What shall we do?’ asked Rori overtheir mindlink.
‘Do they look like theywill attack you?’ asked Aquitain as Goth carried him towards themine.
‘It’s hard to say,Spirit Lord. They look scared and angry, yet they are notattacking.’
‘Move back from them,form a defensive circle and sing a shield wall. I will be thereshortly,’ Aquitain replied.
He told Miranda andZephira that the cats were there and that one of them wouldprobably be the mask.
‘Erastius is very sureof himself. He wants to capture me and display me to the Jetipeople. They will then tell all the other tribes what happened, andpeople will be too scared to challenge him. Who knows what he willdo then? But we’re going to make sure that it doesn’t happen.’
Miranda had greatconfidence in Aquitain, but Zephira stepped in front of them.
‘Cousin, it’s my turnnow. You and Miranda have hogged all the fun. You’re depleted andcan’t fight a magic battle. Granddad spent thousands of gold on mytraining and I came here to defend you, and I’ve done nothingexcept enjoy the holiday. The least you can do is give me a bit ofexercise. This is what I think we should do,’ and she outlined herplan.
Previously, Mirandamight have been jealous of any suggestion from Zephira; but sincethey had now come to an understanding over Aquitain and were morelike sisters, Miranda welcomed Zephira’s suggestion and pressedAquitain to agree. He reluctantly consented and nodded approval. Hecould see that his cousin was really busting to show her stuff,perhaps more to prove herself to Miranda than to him.
They heard the singingwell before they reached the back of the little people’s circulardefensive formation. Aquitain was curious about their wall, andexamined it using his detect magic power. He also went over andfelt it; he had never seen anything like this before. It was asolid barrier, yet seemed formed out of the air itself. He woulddefinitely have to find out more about how they did this, since hecould manipulate air himself and might be able to duplicate theeffect. He listened to the words of the song and memorized them.Later he would analyse the meanings, but not now.
The fifty little peoplealmost completely blocked the entrance to a narrow gully, perhapstwenty paces wide and lit by torch and moonlight. On the edge ofthe torchlight zone perhaps fifteen paces from the little people,prowled a dozen black cats, nervous and fearful, but held in checkby one of them who was the mask. Erastius wasn’t worried; he couldorder the cats to attack and teleport away if he wished, but hewanted to catch Aquitain; so he allowed the bear, Goth, and Mirandato move to the front of the little people’s line to face him.
‘So you didn’t
