‘No!’ she screamed.‘No. You can’t. I swore an oath to the Lady that I would never dothat. You’ll die.’
She opened her eyes andfound Aquitain kneeling over her.
‘Are you all rightMiranda? You must have had a bad dream.’
‘What are you doing tomy mind, wizard? I won’t play your mind games.’
‘I did nothing Miranda.I swear I did nothing.’
She sat up with herlegs against her chest and held them tightly with her arms, andthought about what she had dreamt. What did it that mean?
‘I’m sorry once more,wizard. I had a bad dream. Get some sleep if you wish. I will stayawake until dawn.’
Chapter 15 Hunting
Just before dawnMiranda arose, and together with Aquitain went down to the otherend of the basement area, climbed up the stairs and with somedifficulty opened the hatch to the world above. There was a glow onthe horizon and the ground was damp with heavy dew. They waited afew minutes until the light had improved, found a grassy positionoverlooking the sea and settled down into positions ofmeditation.
Aquitain satcross-legged with his arms resting gently across his legs, palmsfacing upwards. Miranda kneeled down and sat back on her legs,holding the palms of her hands together, fingers pointed upwards.As the sun slowly crept above the horizon and its rays hit her inthe face, Miranda began chanting a prayer to the Lady of the Junglein a language unknown to him or his translator crystal.
He looked at her face.There were tears streaming down it but he wasn’t sure whether theywere tears of joy or sadness. He knew she was gravely upset abouther nightmare, but decided not to press her about it. If it wasimportant enough she would tell him. At least that’s what he hoped.He concentrated on his own meditation. It was through meditationthat he could refresh his source, which was continually beingdangerously depleted owing to the fact he was spending so much timeshape shifted to his newman form.
After three quarters ofan hour Miranda stood up mentally refreshed but still feeling a bitphysically weak from the loss of blood. Aquitain came out of histrance and stood beside her, looking at the view. It wasmagnificent. Who said Logicons didn’t have emotions? If they couldappreciate a view like this then they must have emotions of sorts.Then again, maybe it was his newman spirit that appreciated theview; after all Logicon vision wasn’t all that good.
‘Can you remove thistether please? The Lady has blessed me with fresh prayers and Ihave one that will heal my back,’ Miranda said.
Aquitain stood besideand slightly behind her to take a look at her back. ‘All right I’llremove the seal I have in place, but it may hurt a little.’ Heclosed his eyes and imagined the chaos matter reforming as a ballin his hand.
The material ran out ofher wounds like water. The slashes opened up and blood begantrickling out again. Miranda gasped in pain, but then chanted ahealing prayer and her hand glowed with white light as she pressedit against her back. Aquitain saw the bleeding stop, the edges ofthe wound pull together and join, and the wound seal up, leavingpink lines across her honey brown back.
‘Good, that feels good.I would like to fly around and scout the area. I suggest you sortout your stores and we’ll meet and discuss what I find in a coupleof hours. Don’t go wandering around. That cat may still be around,and you’d make a nice meal.’
She shape changed intoher eagle form and flew off into the breeze, and Aquitain watchedas she soared up into the cerulean sky. There were no clouds insight and he could already feel the heat beginning to build. Helooked around. The ruins weren’t much to see, just heaps ofovergrown rubble, but with plenty of hiding places for predators.He decided that he might do as she suggested and start rearranginghis temporary new home, so he returned to the basement, closing butnot locking the hatch behind him, and created light on himself toilluminate the area.
The floor plan of thebasement was very simple. The hatch opened onto rock stairs thatpassed down to a rough-hewn stone room about five paces square. Offthe far side of the room was a corridor, and on either side of itwere four small rooms about two by three paces wide, that lookedlike they could have been cells for prisoners. The other end of thecorridor entered into the living room. The floor and stairs in thehatch room were damp and covered with a black fungus that also grewon the walls. Water had seeped through the hatchway from time totime, keeping the area moist.
The cells on one sideof the corridor were empty and had dry but dirty floors. He notedthat the floors were slightly tilted and there was a primitivedrainage system that removed any moisture. The cells on the otherside were interesting. They were of imported dark brown rock,different from the rest of the rock in the place. He moved wellback and used his power to detect magic, and the rocks took on anominous dead black colour, the colour of dead magic rock. Any magicused in the close vicinity of the rock would normally fail, themagic being drawn into the rock. This type of cell was used toimprison magic users. It stopped them using their magic toescape.
In one of the cellsstood two empty wooden buckets. Alongside them were some sealedbarrels and boxes with words describing their contents written onthe outside in chalk. The two larger barrels contained smokedsalted fish and meat, while a smaller one contained red wine andanother, lantern oil. The boxes were filled with assorted biscuitsand that was it. Obviously Featherdown was used to living on a veryconservative diet. He couldn’t see either himself or Mirandasurviving on that stuff. His Logicon body wanted meat, so it lookedlike they would have to hunt for their food.
The living room waslarge, but the air was cool and smelled of mildew. The floor wasdusty but not damp. The walls were hewn from solid rock, with thefinish much smoother than
