He againswitched into a trance state and concentrated on the golden bubble.He chanted the First mantra but nothing happened. So he chanted theFifth Mantra which was normally used to unlock other people’smemories and this time it worked, the bubble clarified. He quicklyleft the trance and concentrated on the knowledge. It would havetaken his breath away if he could breathe.
He now had thecomplete knowledge of how to build his own body, but there werecatches. It would take several days, complex rituals and somespecial ingredients and he needed more magic essence than availableat present.
His mind wasinundated with questions. How did this get there? Why was it there?Who put it there? Why didn’t his mother or Granddad tell him aboutthis? Did Granddad do this? Something was strange about him.Worrying. Had his family know about this? Was there some type ofconspiracy of silence amongst them?
Then he had aterrifying thought. Granddad had told him his father said that heknew where a divinity seed was located and the Yith were chasinghis father because of it. His father must have known it was inAquitain all along. Maybe he even put it there for safekeeping.Maybe that is why they had been protecting him all these years.Maybe his job was to deliver it to his father. Maybe opening it hasruined its value. Maybe …’
‘Concentrate. Imust concentrate on the problem at hand.’ he thought. How could hemake bodies? Have I got knowledge to make constructs? He watched asmore opaque bubbles aggregated together. It was like being in alibrary of forbidden knowledge. All neatly tucked away in hismemory but normally unavailable.
He entered thetrance once more chanting the Fifth mantra and watched as thememory of constructs became available. Almost as an afterthought headded the knowledge on how to build a memcrystal. This time when hereviewed the knowledge he understood how he could do it. He wouldform two small bodies from the chaos matter and using his newknowledge about his own body and that of how to build memcrystalsand constructs he would turn the bodies into soul containers thatwould animate when their spirits were housed within.
‘I have it,Yllandril. I know how to do it. We can escape!’
‘It’s not toodangerous is it? You’re not using forbidden knowledge are you?’ shesaid with a worried lilt to her voice.
‘No. It’s plainold knowledge available to magic item artificers which I used to beat one time. I had some very special clay on me before I got put inhere. I can manipulate it with my mind from here I think. I amgoing to build us a small body each and we are going to be thespirits to animate them. We’ll be like miniature stone constructsor child’s dolls. I’ll make yours spider shaped if you like but Iwish to be like a Newman again.’
‘Glammer, Iknow how to make the bodies. Can you let me mindlink so that I cansee through your eyes while I model them.’
‘I’m sorry,Aquitain. You cannot link to my mind. You must model the bodies inyour imagination. That will be sufficient.’ replied Glammer.
‘Mmm.’ thoughtAquitain suspiciously. He had always been taught that if youcouldn’t see a creature’s spirit aura you shouldn’t trust it. WasGlammer the malign creature that put him in the crystal in thefirst place? How could he believe in a creature that he couldn’tsee and that wouldn’t allow him to see its spirit aura. Was thecreature after some of his blocked memory? If so, how did it knowwhat was hidden in his blocked memory?
‘You don’ttrust me.’ said Glammer.
‘How did youknow about my ability to make bodies when it was blocked to me?
‘I am a TruthRadiant. None can hold secrets from me.’
‘Why are youhelping me?’ asked Aquitain.
‘It is my jobto help those in need.’
‘Who sentyou?
‘Moonmist.’
This answerrather surprised Aquitain. What was he dealing with?
‘What do youmean Moonmist? Is it somehow alive?’ he asked hesitantly.
‘Moonmist has acollective mind.’ replied Glammer.
‘So thecollective mind of Moonmist wants you to help me?
‘It is my jobto help those in need.’
‘OK, I’mstarting to get the hint. You’re not going to tell me more than Ineed to know.’
‘One morequestion. What does Moonmist want me to do?’
‘Moonmistexpects everything and nothing. You are an Agent of Chaos. Yourwill is your own.’
At last itbegan to make sense. To be an Agent of Chaos he had to be free. Ifhe was imprisoned then he couldn’t cause chaos. Various partiesmust have somehow found out he was an Agent of Chaos and weretrying to manipulate him. Llanlorian was scared of what he mightdo. She had tried to bind him with a Blood Oath and control himwith Slivver. Now that he had lost his body he was no longer boundto her. Now the Moonmist collective had an interest in him. Whatdid they know about him? What did they think he could do that wasso special?
‘Quickly! Ithink the malevolent spirit will be back soon. You must act now orlose the opportunity.’ said Glammer with a note of panic in hervoice.
Aquitainmentally chanted the mantra of concentration so that he had perfectconcentration and began the work of creating two small bodies froman imaginary ball of mind clay. At first he was almost overcomewith awe at what he planned to do. He was going to create his ownbody. How many people had ever done that! Probably nobody. This wasa first time. But the urgency returned. He was doing it to survive,that was reason enough.
He became themaster magic artificer. He had always been taught to do the bestjob possible. He was absolutely determined to make these bodies hisfinest creations. So he threw all his knowledge, all hisexperience, all his imagination, creativity and skill into thejob.
The first wasthe body of a spider about as big as a Newman hand. He carefullymodelled it as close as he could to the shape of a Llanllean andturned the mind clay to stone, like that of a stone construct.
It should bealmost impervious to magic but also
