‘You three moveapart.’ He commanded in Draconic but there was no response theyeither didn’t understand what he had said or were under the controlof the wizard. Suddenly the expected mental attack came as anattempted domination.
Aquitain fendedit off expertly.
‘Is that thebest you have?’ he taunted and two of the three elementals chargedtowards him.
He blasted themwith a mind blast stunning them and they froze rigid like largeicicles. Unfortunately, the wizard covered by the illusion eitherresisted or blocked the attack and decided to use more force. Therewas an instant zap in the water and Aquitain was hit smack in thechest by a lightning bolt and he was stunned to unconsciousness.Several elementals went after the source of the lightning bolt asit rapidly tried to retreat towards the wall.
His eyes turnedblack then golden as he searched for the spirit aura of the enemywizard. He spotted it, teleported behind him, grappled him andslashed his throat with the black arcane blade that appeared oncommand in his hand. The wizard was dead in seconds. He teleportedout of the cave with wizard’s body lay it on the beach then laydown near it.
Sometime laterhe awoke lying in his little person form on the beach with half adozen water elementals nearby. He had a splitting headache, a verysore chest and began coughing up water. He changed shape to hisLogicon form, pooled the water into a spherical shape and expelledit then changed back to his little person form. He used his healingability on his chest and tried to dampen the headache while lookingaround. Several paces away from him was the body of a herder. Hemoved to it to examine it more closely.
‘Ah. You areawake Lord. We were concerned when you were struck by the lightningbut you are obviously tougher than you look. You made short work ofit after discovering it. It is most disturbing. It is a herder. Nota local but from some other part of the world. We have never hadproblems with them before. Why do you think a herder from afarwould be trying to cause division amongst us?’
Aquitain wasmystified.
‘Plogash thelightning must have affected my memory a little. What exactly did Ido after I was hit?’ he asked.
‘Why Lord youwere magnificent! You spotted the herder, appeared behind it, cutits throat then vanished appearing on the beach here with it, allin a matter of several seconds.’
Aquitainexamined the herder closely. It wore no clothes but had a braceletmade of five pieces of pearl shell linked together with gold wire.He removed the bracelet to examine it more closely. Each of fourpieces of the pearl shell were etched with a symbol of one of theelements. The fifth piece was etched with a symbol he had neverseen before. Its throat was cut but on close examination itappeared to have been cut by an arcane blade that sealed the edgesof the wound when it cut.
‘Plogash, itwas me you saw do this. Not someone else?’
‘Yes Lord. Youhad the light on your body. We could not mistake it.’
‘That’s verystrange.’ he thought as he checked his teleport rings but foundnone of them had been used and he knew he couldn’t conjure anarcane blade. He concluded that someone must have come to hisrescue and manipulated the situation to make it appear that he didit.
‘I’m not surePlogash why a herder was involved in your problem but I will try tofind out. What surprises me he was using magic more like I do. Theother little people usually sing their magic. Perhaps herders aredifferent. I guess it would be hard to sing underwater.’
‘I suggest thatyou wait a few days to see if the magic returns to its normaltaste. If it doesn’t send me a message and I will come andinvestigate further.
‘Thank youLord! You will be in our prayers to the Lady.’
Aquitain ratherhoped that the magic would change back to its normal taste. He wasa little worried about what had happened. What if the herder wastrying to determine why the magic tasted different? It would havebeen just as suspicious of him as he had been of it. He might beresponsible for causing the death of an innocent herder andpotentially causing trouble between herders and water elementals.However, if it had been there to help them it probably would haveannounced its intentions.
He said hisgoodbyes and took his leave by activating a teleport ring andreappeared outside Featherdown’s tower.
He fell to hisknees and coughed up some more sea water and rubbed his still sorechest and ribs.
‘Damn, that wasa close call! I have to be more careful. I might have died there.’he thought.
Then anotherworrying thought surfaced in his mind. He was in the form of agnome when he was hit by the lightning but was in the form of alittle person when he awoke. He had heard that shape shiftersgenerally changed back to their most stable form after death. Didhe die and then somehow came back to life again? Did some unseenguardian intervene and if so who?
He coughed afew more times holding his chest as it hurt more when he coughedbefore finally getting the strength to stand.
Featherdown’sdoor opened and the High Wizard came out and saw a soaking wetpurple little person still trying to get his breath.
‘By the Powers,what have you done this time?’
Aquitainstaggered over to Featherdown. ‘I checked out … one of … thestrange happenings. I was underwater and hit in the chest by alightning bolt. I nearly died.’
Featherdownpicked up Aquitain and carried him to the entertaining area andcarefully sat him on a leather lounge. He disappeared and returnedcarrying a potion bottle.
‘Here drinkthis.’ he said and Aquitain scoffed it down and felt muchbetter.
‘If you have towork underwater at least change to an underwater form!’ saidFeatherdown.
‘I did but Icouldn’t see it. I changed to my gnome form and saw it but it shotthe bolt at me.’
‘What was it?’asked Featherdown becoming interested.
‘It was aherder. A creature like a little person with gills but lives in thesea.’
‘Hmm, curious Ihaven’t come across any of them and it used a lightning boltunderwater. That’s unusual. It takes special skills and a lotpractice to do that. I would
