‘Your Highness, let mecongratulate you on such a perfectly wonderful scheme you hadeveryone thinking you were dead.’
The Queen swung aroundfacing Llalorax with a wand pointed squarely at his chest and withher back to the shattered parts of Aquitain.
‘So you have alsoworked out how to resist. Very smart! I have suspected for sometime but you have concealed it well.’
Yllandril lookedclosely at the spirit aura of the Queen and noticed something oddabout it immediately. It wasn’t the spirit aura of Queen Aurora;she knew the Queen’s spirit aura well as she had been the RoyalHealer for years. It also appeared to have a second spirit auraassociated with it.
‘Aquitain’, she saidthrough the mindlink, ‘It’s not the real Queen, it’s a double andit’s possessed by a spirit like the one you destroyed.’
‘Stay calm, don’t doanything yet. I want them to hear more.’ replied Llalorax throughthe link.
‘They are mindless.’said Yllandril. ‘They have been mass hypnotized. Even your petRoyal Guard has been rendered useless.’
‘Well done, YourMajesty. You have outsmarted me.’ stated Darkmantle.
‘Did I manage to killthe real Queen or her double.’
‘Ha Darkmantle. Likethe rest of your pathetic people, you never knew that your Queendied years ago. Not even her royal brat knew.
‘I must admit you havegiven us much amusement in your primitive efforts in trying todetect us. We know you have been harbouring malice about us foryears. We could have simply brainwashed you like all the others butthen it would have been no fun. I must give you credit for thebrilliant scheme resulting in the death of the other Queen’sdouble. Of course you realize that you only killed one of your ownpeople. My colleague immediately left the corpse and possessedsomeone else.’
‘Aquitain we’re introuble, there’s at least three of them.’ said Yllandril.
‘It’s Okay Yllandril.Be calm. I need a distraction. I’m still in little pieces.’ hereplied.
‘I hope you arelistening in little stone spider. We know about you too. You can’thide from us. We will find you.’ said the Queen.
‘Find her!’ and fourLords, a Lady and a trixie stood up and began searching forYllandril.
‘Correction.’ repliedYllandril through the mindlink. ‘There are nine of them.’
‘You must be pleasedwith yourself manipulating Darkmantle for all these years.’ saidLlalorax.
‘Coming from anotherworld and having to live in this dark place must be boring.’
‘Ha you are theidiots. We were here well before you. It is our world not yours.You are the new ones. You are just puppets to us. An experiment tohelp us adjust the world to our liking.’ replied the Queen.
A very real lookingillusion of a woman suddenly appeared on the seat of dragon throne.It was the Elendari form of Yllandril which would be readilyrecognized by many of the onlookers as she had treated most them asa healer.
‘I have an objection.’shouted the illusion. ‘I don’t like my world or my people beingcontrolled by a bunch of mindless ghosts.’
‘Ah. Yllandril thespider I presume. So you are within my trap.’ said the Queen. ‘Findher!’.
‘No need, I am here ontop of the dragon’s head.’ said Yllandril and all eyes turned toher.
She then sent a quickmental message to Aquitain to quickly do whatever he was planningand an amazing sight occurred behind the Queen. All the crystalshards of the Warden of Moonmist rose off the floor and flewtogether forming a swirling bobbing and spinning mass that slowlyrearranged forming the shape of the little green crystal man.
Several powers wereaimed at Yllandril but she just stood there soaking up magic.
‘I’m immune to yourmagic, you fake bitch Queen. I’ll bet that you are some type ofeunuch ghost that craves feeling in the body of a real womanbecause otherwise you’d feel nothing; you’d be numb as a construct,useless, hollow and cold.’
‘Ha. Thanks forrevealing yourself. You are the last of the unaccounted. You maytry to taunt me. It will be to no avail. Whatever your plans theyare useless. You see we are the Mentarin. Our intellect is farabove that of you pitiful creatures. You have no hope. I have beentoiling for several years to make this particular ball a memorablemeeting but I’m afraid I had little to work with.’
‘I was hoping that youwould provide something of a miserable challenge to make it allworthwhile. Listen carefully.’ She shouted a single power word andLlalorax, Darkmantle and Yllandril froze.
‘You see how easy itis.’ I say a word and you are all powerless, frozen anddefenceless.
Aquitain lookedtowards the ceiling. There were at least three globes of scryingwatching on. Now I understand the curse he thought. If I stay inthe pure heart then all these watchers will forget. I will not becredited with doing anything and that is the blessing.
‘I’m not powerless,frozen or defenceless and I think that you talk too much.’ he saidto the Queen using mindspeak.
The Queen spun aroundand fixed him with a malevolent gaze
‘I destroyed you. Whyare you still here?’
‘Obviously not! Youmay control all born on this world with implanted words of controlbut I wasn’t born here. You can’t control me. That is why you haveall been afraid of me. I am immune to your influence.’
‘You are a Mentarinand claim some sort of mental dominance over these people. I amAquitain! I am the new Warden of Moonmist and I am here to destroyyou. It is you that should quake with fear. He raised his littlegreen arms and said
‘Awaken and beholdyour enemy!’ and all the spirits of the hypnotized crowd awoke andfloated above their bodies.
‘These Mentarinspirits would steal your world and enslave you. What do you say tothem?’
The spirits of all thehundreds of Elendari, Trixies and Llanlleans in the hall looked atthe nine spirit possessed people and shouted in unison.
‘We will destroythem!’
Aquitain then gave aKwala growl that would scare the dead.
The Queen panicked andscreamed to her followers to flee and the nine Mentarin allteleported in fear.
‘How’s that for myfirst attempt at a mass illusion Terrin. Now how do I wake them allup?’
Terrin laughed andreplied
‘Well done Aquitain.That was masterful mind magic! Wait! There’s something wrong onAstaria. I must go and the dragon throne turned into a real stonedragon and teleported away.’
Aquitain was amazed.‘Wow! Terrin must really have some power now to do that !’ hethought then walked over to
