‘Damn,’ he thought,‘that little bastard is cunning. I had better be careful.’
The arena was openedagain for the contest and the room lights dimmed. The bodies of thedead Queen Aurora and the slaves had been cleared away. Theatmosphere was electric. The crowd moved and stood in front of thetables and the balcony was crowded.
The room was awashwith lots of bets as to the outcome. This was the bestentertainment at a spring ball for years. No one was interested ineating but there was a strong call for drinks, strong drinks. Thetrixies were just as interested in the outcome of the contest asthe others and soon swarmed out of the kitchens and elsewhere towatch, each with a small mug of strong trixie brew and big hopesfor change.
Yllandril stillwatching from the dragon’s head noticed that in the currentlighting she could now see the faint glows of the spirit auras ofthe members of the crowd and out of curiosity began scannedthem.
Several minutes later,Aquitain faced off with Lord Darkmantle across the arena, eachstanding on a small hastily arranged platform slightly protrudingabove the top lip of the arena with a bright spot light on them. Itlooked quite ridiculous. Aquitain the toy crystal statue standingno taller than Lord Darkmantle’s ankle versus a giant of a mantwenty times his height. But all knew that illusion was a creationof the mind not the body. They knew Darkmantle had a brilliantmind; the unknown question was how proficient was the Warden’smind?
Darkmantle lookedconfident but certainly not over-confidant. Miranda was havingsecond thoughts. What was she thinking? How could she do this toAquitain? He was so small, so insignificant.
Through their mindlinkMiranda said ‘I’m sorry Llalorax. I got carried away.’
‘Rubbish. You’ve beenbrilliant. I couldn’t have done better myself. We’ve bluffed themthis far. Let him do his stuff. Not even the gods know what willhappen here today.’
The contest that wouldchange the future of a nation began. This is what chaos was allabout. Roll the die and watch the result. Llalorax was correct,even The Lady herself watched not knowing the outcome.
Darkmantle began. Athis end of the arena he created the most awesome looking wyvernthat anyone had ever seen. It stood three times as high as a Newmanand had the most frightful expression on its face. To Miranda itwas a nightmare. It was Fen Fang reincarnated.
Aquitain responded byforming a giant brown bear that stood as tall as the wyvern but wasso perfectly real in detail that onlookers could see individualhairs standing out from its body. It also had a body of hardenedair like Terrin’s cobra. Miranda was so excited she couldn’tcontain herself.
‘That’s my Aquitain.Now you’ll see a champion at work.’ she skited to Yllandril andLlalorax through the link.
Bellen shouted
‘It’s K’wala! It’sK’wala! He has returned!’ and all the trixies cheered and everyoneelse applauded. The general consensus was that this was going to bea fine contest.
Aquitain was excitedand thought. ‘What a terrific way to finish the dream, Terrin iscertainly an expert at his art.’
Darkmantle’s wyvernsuddenly breathed out a cone of fire as if it were a dragon,completely surrounding the bear.
Aquitain had greatdifficulty holding the illusion, as the fire was real. The bastard!He’s augmenting the illusion with supplementary magical effects.Well two can play that game!
Immediately he createda fire shield around the hardened air core of his illusion then hadthe bear dancing around pretending it was showering in the flame.This brought great applause from the audience and an annoyed glarefrom Darkmantle.
The audience froze asthe wyvern let out a blood-curdling roar and charged the bear. Thetrixies fled back a few paces and several Lords and Ladies turnedwhite. The bear not to be outdone let out a brutal K’wala GROWLthat froze half the Lords panicked their ladies and heartened thetrixies who cheered and ran back to the edge of the arena to watchthe contest.
The two illusionscrunched together sending shudders like an earth tremor through thefloor as if both had the weight of mighty beasts and began sluggingit out. The contest was so real that some of the lesser Lords andtheir ladies teleported away in fear.
The real fightersstayed and relished the contest. Two mighty beasts equally matched.The imaginations of two mighty foes were belting, bashing, tearingat each other. No one knew the outcome. This was the real thing,brutal and bloodthirsty and satisfying to the primeval instincts ofthe Lords of Moonmist. This is how a Queen should be selected. Theywould respect and pay homage to the winner. The loser would bebanished but not disgraced.
After several minutesit became obvious that the contest had become a stalemate. Neitherillusory beast was able to overcome the other. Both contestantsseemed to be equally capable, each knowing intimately how his beastfought and reacted. Darkmantle’s offense was equally balanced byAquitain’s defence and Aquitain couldn’t seem to overbalance or geta firm grip on his foe.
Suddenly to theamazement of everyone, Queen Aurora flanked by two female guards,appeared at the throne side of the arena, near Llalorax andscreamed, ‘I’ve had enough of this idiocy!’
One of her guardsfired a wand at Miranda who had no time to react and was turned tostone. The other fired a wand at Aquitain. Everyone heard apiercing high sound. Aquitain felt his body begin to vibrate inresonance with the sound.
‘Damn. No time todefend.’ he thought as he instantly created a pure heart and movedhis spirit into it. His body exploded into a hail of crystal shardsthat clattered all over the floor of both the throne room and thearena. The small crystal heart stayed intact and dropped to theplatform on which he was standing. The bear illusion instantlyevaporated. The crowd was stunned, was this all part of theshow?
‘This contest isover.’ stated the Queen and shouted a word of control. Immediatelyeveryone within the building except for Darkmantle froze.
‘Sit down’ commandedthe Queen and everyone except Darkmantle, Llalorax and Yllandrildid.
Yllandril was shocked.It all happened so quickly. Both Aquitain and Miranda dead inseconds, then she heard Aquitain’s voice through the mindlink.
‘I’m still alive. Ineed a diversion to reform my body.’
‘I think I’m stillalive too but I can’t see or move.’ added Miranda.
Llalorax was
