Her glamourcovered her perfect body from the chin down to her ankles with anopen mesh of gold like a fishing net but studded with a multitudeof different sized emeralds. Sliding over and around her body was agolden snake inlaid with emeralds. Nothing was left to theimagination.
She wasfollowed by the ladies who were not searched for weapons or magicitems as it wasn’t necessary, they wore only their glamours and agolden animal mask to the ball. This was where they showed theirpower of imagination as well as everything else. All the Elendariwomen were elegant, graceful and beautiful beyond Newmanimagination. It was the quality, beauty, ingenuity and detail oftheir glamour that made them different. Here vanity in its extremewas a virtue.
The women drewlots to establish the order of entry and given a random golden maskto hide their identity. It was considered best to enter laterrather that earlier as each creation seemed better than the lastand the winner was most often near the end of the parade.
The parade ofdress creations was spectacular. Never in his wildest imaginationcould Aquitain have come up with some of the glamours. They variedfrom pronounced geometric patterns to extravagant animal, flowerand even elemental inspired masterpieces. They flashed, shone andshimmered in a myriad of colours, tones and hues. Some lookedsilky, others metallic, organic, course or fine and diaphanous. Thecomplexity and detail in some of them was awe-inspiring. He wasstaggered at how much effort and time these women must have putinto their creations.
The winner wasa simple but elegant design that looked a little like a bell shapedflower that had been grown over the contours of the woman wearingit, hiding her features but leaving enough to tease the imaginationwith lurid thoughts. The texture was smooth and organic andsparkled with dewdrops. The colour was a fresh white with purpleedgings.
With the dresscompetition over the musicians changed the style of the music to aracier format. One could visualize a pack of howling hunting houndsracing across the dark countryside by the dim light of the distantsun. A lone black flying coarser with cool sweat trickling down itsflanks as the leather clad hunter spurred it on zigzagging closeabove the pack all senses straining for the first glimpse of thefleeing prey.
A spotlight litup the wooden dance floor as if it were a curtain on a stage then adark gap appeared across its centre slowly widening as the twoparts of the floor separated to reveal a stone walled and flooredarena below.
When the woodenfloor had fully disappeared, a glowing Elendari Lord walked out tothe centre of the arena and levitated up to a height just above theseated Lords and their Ladies and announced that the games wouldsoon begin.
He stated thatthe first game was entered both in the entertainment and foodsections of the competition by one of the northern Lords. Heexplained that there was a plague of moth radiants, locally calledmothras, in the west at the moment and every animal around hadtried eating them.
The westernershad sampled some and found them exciting suggesting several waysthey could be eaten. There was however a problem. If roused themothras could fight back so before trying them it was appropriateto examine some of their defence tactics.
A team oftrixies rolled out and stood up a sturdy pole with a circular loopon the top and a heavy base on the bottom in the middle of thegames arena and then dragged in sections of a Fireberry bush intothe area placing it around the pole.
The bush wassomething like a blackberry bush found in Mudrun. It had a jumbleof tough rope-like wandering branches covered with thorns and smalldark leaves. On the ends of new shoots were small red berries thatglowed red in the dark giving it its name. Fireberry bushes grewwildly in the west near the volcanoes. The mothras and the busheshad some sort of symbiotic relationship as they were always foundtogether.
The westernersfound the mothras had a similar sweet fiery taste to the Fireberryleaving a pleasant numbness in the mouth for a while which slowlydissipated giving a mild narcotic disorientation. They were alsoconsiderably less toxic than Fireberries. They cautioned abouteating too many as the disorientation could get quite severe,possibly lasting a day or two.
Llalorax rubbedhis hands together with glee. ‘This should be very interesting’ hesaid to Miranda. ‘Everything in our world must have a naturaldefence or die. Many of the eastern Lords won’t have seen thesesmall purple radiants. Watch and learn.’
‘What’s aradiant?’ asked Miranda.
‘Of course.’replied Llalorax. ‘I’m sorry you are an offworlder. You won’t haveseen them. Radiants are like tiny Mudrun butterflies with roughlyNewman shaped bodies about the size of one of your fingers. Newmanslaves from Mudrun call them fairies but they are consideredinsects here. They breed like blood flies and can be quite anuisance at times. They are favourites of my people, however, theycan be dangerous to capture as you will see.’
Miranda watchedthe Lord seal off the top of the games arena with a wall of force.This was the standard safety precaution. A wall of force wasimpenetrable for several minutes and completely transparent givingboth perfect protection and visibility to guests watching theevents.
First a zapperlizard about as long as an arm was released into the area. Itquickly ran to the pole in the centre of the Fireberry bush andclimbed half way up then camouflaged itself to look like a brokenbranch.
Next a blackfox that was local to the area was released. It had a luminous spotpainted on its back so that its location could be seen. It prowledin circles around the Fireberry bush. Finally, a smallinsectivorous bat that had a glowing pattern on its back wasreleased. It flew around the games area several times then landedon the loop on the top of the pole and hung upside down.
The stage wasset. The audience hushed waiting for the show. A panel in the wallslid open and into the arena flew a group of about twenty mothrasthat immediately scattered in different directions. From theviewpoint in either the dragon eye or through the scrying orb theyappeared as a cloud of small red lights shining brightly.
