‘I don’t have afriend called Glammer.’
‘What! She saidthat she was your friend.’
‘Who did?’asked Llalorax.
‘There was alittle Newman-like female creature that said her name was Glammerand she was a Truth Radiant. She helped me escape.’
‘You must behallucinating. Did you eat anything? Many of our plants havesubstances in them that can cause all sorts of hallucinationsespecially to Mudrun people. Truth Radiants don’t exist they’remythical creatures.’
‘I ate somerats.’
‘That probablyexplains it.’ replied Llalorax
‘The rats wereprobably fed some grain which was still in their stomachs. You atethe grain when you ate the rats.’
Aquitain wasshocked. Maybe he was hallucinating. Was this whole adventure justhis imagination? Was he really here?
‘Excuse me, Ineed to think about what is happening.’ he said as he rose and setoff outside the building rather confused.
‘Take yourtime.’ replied Llalorax. ‘I don’t think either of us will beleaving for some time.’
‘I don’t thinkshe was an hallucination.’ said Slivver.
‘Then theremust be a logical explanation.’ he replied using mindspeak.
Aquitain leftthe building and walked to the glassy wall. He poked down betweenthe wall and the dirt butted up to it. It sure looked real enough.He walked fully around the circumference of the bottle looking forsomething wrong but found nothing so went to check the cells.
He decided towalk around the outside first. He got close to the stonewall thatformed the back of the cellblock and used his detect magic power.He remembered once that his grandfather had brought him a smallpiece of dead magic rock to examine. When he had looked at it usinga detect magic power it had looked black like charcoal. However,the cellblock wall didn’t look like charcoal at all, it just lookedlike ordinary stone.
He went to thecellblock door, opened it and standing outside looked at the wallswithin. They didn’t look black either but the whole inside glowedwith illusion and other magic. Now, the puzzle started to makesense. He stepped inside the cellblock and his ability to see magicdisappeared, he changed to his spider shape and he could feel thedead magic. He stepped outside again and although he was in hisspider form his detect magic power reappeared.
To prove thepoint he removed one of the powerstones embedded in his collar andthrew it onto the floor inside the cellblock. It still glowed withthe same magic that it did outside. When he went in to collect it,it looked inactive like an ordinary stone. So that was thesecret.
The cellblockhad illusion magic to make the area look like a dead magic area andstrong compulsion magic to make the prisoners believe that theywere in a dead magic area. Strong enough even to force his mind toshape change his body. No magic user would ever waste his magic bytrying to use a power in a dead magic area.
‘Slivver I needyour help. We need to create our own reality.’ And he explainedwhat he wanted Slivver to do.
He left thecell block, changed to his gnome form, gathered all his will powerand walked into the cell block forcing his body to remain in itsgnome form.
The pressure ofthe compulsion on his mind was immense. He stood there, one stepinside the cellblock locked in a mighty mental battle. Thecompulsion was shouting in his mind to conform to its reality. Thisis a dead magic area. You can’t keep your gnome form. He feltfreezing cold pain all over. He blocked the pain as best he couldand countered with.
‘I know whichreality is true and I will not yield.’
Sliver joinedin repeating over and over again.
‘It is nottrue. It is an illusion. We will not yield!’
He chanted themantra of auto-hypnotism and while concentrating on their voices heslipped into a trance like state, he imagined himself standingnaked in a freezing cold blizzard. The cold was intense. His bodywas frozen, numb and aching. The wind whispered for him to give inand accept the new reality.
He concentratedon Sliver chanting.
‘It is nottrue. It is an illusion. We will not yield!’
He stubbornlyrefused the siren song of the magic and created a cylinder ofhardened air around his body to shield it then sent a stream ofmental energy to warm his imaginary body.
As his bodywarmed the pain lessened and he concentrated on the blizzard. Heimagined the sun came out and the blizzard began to falter as thearea warmed and slowly it dropped to a gentle breeze, where couldhear voices repeating over and over again.
‘It is nottrue. It is an illusion. We will not yield!’ and the magical effectbroke.
‘Bravo’ said avoice behind him.
He turnedaround and saw Llalorax standing outside the door.
‘I would nothave believed that anyone could break through that compulsion. Youare indeed resourceful and much more powerful than you appear. Ifit were not for the fact that my sister had sent you, I would haveto eliminate you as a potential threat to the Queen.’
‘You will nodoubt be smart enough to find the way out but be warned. I don’tknow where this prison bottle is currently located and should youescape you might well find yourself in real danger. Now I thinkthat I’ll go and have another cup of tea,’ and he left.
‘I am lost forwords.’ said Slivver. ‘You are a born escape artist.’
‘Don’t get tooexcited. We’re not out yet and judging by Llalorax’s comment theremay be a second line of containment outside the bottle.’
Aquitainimmediately guessed where the exit would be. He walked down thecorridor and noticed the sticky web that he had produced earlierstill stuck to the floor. He knelt down and carefully examined apart of the web where Glammer had got stuck. Sure enough there weretiny scales like those of a butterfly from her wings still clingingto the web.
She was real,not an hallucination. Who was she? Where was she? She had alwayshidden herself from the guard’s view during his escape. Was shereally Llalorax in disguise? Was it someone else? This whole damnadventure was confusing and chaotic. Then again he was now supposedto be a true Agent of Chaos.
He continueddown the corridor to Llalorax’s cell and sure enough under the matthere was a teleport circle inscribed on the floor. As he steppedonto the teleport circle he thought briefly about Llalorax’swarning then smiled to himself and thought
‘We can’t causemuch more chaos
