‘I guess he wastoo busy to stay for tea.’ said Aquitain a little disappointed.
‘Aquitain, Isaw you die yesterday. How are you still alive? How did you andYllandril end up inside the body of constructs. I’ve never heard ofspirits being able to inhabit the body of a construct.’
‘You didn’t seeme die Llalorax. You saw my body possessed by a malicious spiritdie. It seems to be able to possess bodies at will. When I lefthere a few days ago, I ended up in what looked like a crypt. Thespirit saw me and stunned me using a Word of Stunning and then Ithink it tried to push me out of my body. Apparently my spiritwouldn’t let it in, so it sucked me out using a soul crystal.That’s where I met Yllandril.’
‘But soulcrystals only hold one soul. If you put a second in the first islost.’
‘That’s what Ithought too.’ replied Aquitain.
‘However,that’s what happened. Ask your wife.’
‘He’s tellingthe truth, Llalorax. We were both in the crystal together, thenAquitain made the new bodies for us and we escaped.’
Llalorax lookeda little confused.
‘You seem tohave just broken several rules of magic containment yet you seemreal enough. I suspect that Newman, if he was real, managed tocaste an illusion on me. Damn. I didn’t expect this to happen. Howam I going to break it.’
He droppedYllandril onto the floor and wandered off.
‘Aquitain, whatjust happened?’
Aquitainthought for a few moments and replied.
‘I think wejust created a dilemma. You see Llalorax thinks that we’re bothdead and spirits occupying bodies of constructs is presumablyforbidden, as is more than one spirit in a soul crystal andconstructing your own bodies. To guard against deceptions wizardsmust believe the rules of magic are true. We broke the rulestherefore we are not real and he has concluded that he has beentrapped in a deceptive illusion. He will be trying to figure a wayto break the illusion, which may include trying to destroy us.
Just thenLlalorax appeared in the doorway with a staff crackling with magicand blasted them with chain lightning, then fire, cold and acidspray. Both of them absorbed as much power as they could store. Therest just bounced off them.
‘I might haveguessed as much but I had to try.’ he said and raised the staffabove his head to use it as a club.
Aquitainimmediately stepped beside Yllandril and created an invisibleshield of hardened air around them. A strong physical attack couldreally hurt them. Llalorax pounded the shield a few times then gaveup in disgust.
‘I might haveguessed that too. Damn powerful effect whatever it is.’ mutteredLlalorax and wandered off again.
‘I can’tbelieve that you’re such an idiot. Llalorax,’ yelled Yllandril.
‘I’m imprisonedfor ages. I get out and you won’t believe it’s me and all becauseof some stupid rules of magic.’
‘That’s it.I’ve got to make him believe that we haven’t broken any rules ofmagic. Then he might listen.’ said Aquitain and went running offdown the corridor after Llalorax.
He found themage in the hut having a cup of tea.
‘Can’t I have alittle break without you interrupting.’ he said pitifully.
‘The problem isyou think we’re an illusion because we broke the rules of magic.Would you concede that if we didn’t break them then we might bereal.’
‘A logicalconjecture.’ replied Llalorax.
‘Good.’ repliedAquitain.
‘Now do youknow I spent most of my life until recently working as a magic itemmaker. We had several constructs from very large to small in ouremployment. They are expensive to make but once made they can lasthundreds of years unless destroyed of course. I was involved in theconstruction of several others and gained an excellentunderstanding of not only how to make them but how they work.’
‘Did you knowthat we animate them using a small part of the owner’s spirit. NowI will readily admit that I have never heard of anyone using aconstruct as a body but perhaps that’s because we had no spirits ascustomers. All our clients already had bodies. All I did was tomodify the construct to hold all our spirit rather than just afragment.’
By the look onhis face this had obviously got Llalorax thinking.
‘That isplausible but how did you create the bodies so quickly without theappropriate materials and rituals.’
‘Remember mycollar. It was made of a most unusual material that we call mindclay. I have also heard it called chaos matter. Using my mind I canform it into most objects. In this case I split it into two partsand used it to model the bodies.’
Llalorax had toagree that this was also plausible.
‘But you werein a soul crystal. How could you manipulate the material outsidethe crystal?’
‘Well that wasa tricky bit. I mentally told the Truth Radiant how to do it andshe acted as my proxy outside the soul crystal.’
‘Aha … Whileinside the crystal you asked for two miracles and they happened.Now you see why I don’t believe you.’ replied Llalorax.
‘You don’tbelieve in the Truth Radiant do you?’
‘Radiants yes,but Truth Radiants, no! I’ve been around a long time and seen a lotof things in this world but no one has seen a Truth Radiant. It isa myth.’
Aquitainthought about this for a little time then said. ‘I bet I know whyyou people don’t know about her. She’s sneaky. She probably coversher tracks. You’re quite right. You’ve been around for a long timeand your position with the Queen is too important for you not tohave had dealings with her. I think she has blocked your memory ofher.’
‘Can I form amindlink with you and I’ll unblock the memory.’
Glammersuddenly appeared. ‘Don’t. You mustn’t do that. Llalorax’s memoryis restricted. He must only tell you what you need to know.’
Llalorax jumpedup spilling tea all over the table. ‘I know you. You’re the … TruthRadiant. Then what Aquitain has told me is correct. It’s not anillusion and that really is Yllandril.’
He quickly ranoff to the cell block to get his miniature stone constructwife.
Aquitain felt aflash of magic, then another. It was Glammer.
‘Now, nowGlammer. I presume you would like to block my memory of you butunfortunately for you and happily for me
