She thoughtabout Prendergrass’s comment that it erupted at the same time eachfourth day. That was unusual; nature never seemed to be thatregular. There must be some mighty, natural mechanism at work andshe pondered for a few minutes how it might work.
She was broughtout of her reveries by an immense flash of light that lit up thesky from horizon to horizon. A few seconds later she felt the shockwave through the ground then heard the blast through the air. Hugespurts of molten rock sprayed into the air and she felt a blast ofraw magic on her face so intense that she thought that he must havebeen hit by a magic power. She spun around to see if anyone wasattacking but there were no more surges of magic.
‘By the Powers, what was that?’ she thought
She looked backat the volcano and saw a tinge of magic purple around the moltenmagma and was puzzled. Did that blast come from the volcano? If sothe amount of magic released must have been massive. She had neverheard of such a thing. There was one way to find out. She activatedher aura sight so that she could see deep into the magic spectrum.The vision confronting her was awe-inspiring. The whole volcanoglowed shades of magic purple.
There must havebeen a massive magic node inside the volcano. He saw a huge vortexof magic energy streaming above the volcano reaching at least aleague into the bright magenta sky. Then she saw a sight thatnearly took her breath away. Hundreds of thousands of smallcoloured lights rose into the sky as a giant cloud towards thevortex where they were caught up into it and swirled around forminga spectacular multi-coloured cone above the volcano. There werealso hundreds of larger auras dotted around the sky.
‘Glammer come here.’ she said and the truth radiant appearedbeside her.
‘Are they what I think they are?’ she asked.
‘Yes Aquitain, they are moth Radiants. There are probably amillion of them. They fly here each eruption day and feed on themagic given off by the volcano. The others are air elementals ofvarious types. They are also thriving on the free magic essencehere.’
‘But how can the volcano release so much magic. I’ve neverseen or heard of anything that could put out that much magic everyfew days day. It must work like some type of fountain. Perhapsthere’s some giant magic sink on the other side of the world whenit goes into the ground. Now that would be a sight to see aswell.’
‘I’m not aware of it being recycled.’ repliedGlammer.
‘Are you saying that it just keeps coming out like that allthe time? No wonder this world has so much magic in it. It seemsalmost unnatural. All our magic theory states that magic in everyworld slowly runs out in time and they become magic depleted notenhanced.’
‘Maybe it is unnatural.’ said Glammer. ‘We have togo.’
‘Wait! What about Miranda?’ she asked.
‘She’s alive but unless you move quickly we won’t be.’ saidGlammer.
Instantlyalarmed he looked around and saw no threat then a bolt of blacklighting hit nearby.
‘She looked up and saw to her horror a huge swirling vortex ofblackness a few hundred paces above her.
‘Black lightning.’ she thought quickly what could itbe?
‘By the Powers, it’s an anti-magic storm. Instant oblivion ifI’m hit.’ and she sprinted off down the trail as fast as she couldgo as more black lightning bolts arced down from the purple sky.She looked upwards; the black vortex had nearly reached themountaintop. Increasing numbers of black lightning bolts beganshowering the mountain side all around her.
She tried toactivate a teleport ring. It failed. She tried another it failedtoo. My teleport rings have failed she yelled.
‘We’ll have to fly.’ shouted Glammer urgently. ‘The antimagicshouldn’t affect your ability to shape change.
‘I don’t have any flying shapes.’ Aquitain replied.
Glammer touchedher shoulder and she changed shape to a mothra; a very large mothraby normal mothra standards.
‘Now flap your wings, fly and follow me’ sheyelled.
Aquitainflapped her wings and launched herself off the side of the mountainjust as a huge barrage of lightning bolts crashed where she wasstanding. Glammer flew a few paces in front of her. Aquitainfollowed as best she could. She was terrified. Glammer shouted forher to mind link. Aquitain formed a link.
She dreadedflying in the dark. She was traveling so fast on the air currentsthat one small mistake and she would collide head on into one ofthe shear walls of rock that would suddenly appear out of thedark.
‘That storm was aimed at you. Whoever, you’ve upset, knowsyou’re here. It’s lucky you called me.’ said Glammer.
After a coupleof minutes Aquitain began to calm down a bit and realized thatflying as a mothra was quite good fun. She began to enjoy herselftempting fate as she shouted into the wind.
‘You’ll have to try harder than that. Catch me if you can!’and swooped off into the darkness following the cleanest wind thatswirled her off around the mountains away from the volcano into thedistance. Finally she flew into clear air off the edge of themountain range, circled and got a glimpse of the volcano. She hadflown several leagues away from the mountain stronghold and nighthad come. It was absolute darkness everywhere and the purple glowof the sky had faded.
‘By the Powers!, that was close.’ said Slivver suddenly. ‘Youhave a charmed life.’
Aquitain lookedaround and noticed Glammer was not nearby. She called out but gotno answer. The mind link was broken. They must have been blownapart.
‘We’re not out of this yet. I’ve never been a large mothra andI don’t know how long this transformation will last. We mightsuddenly fall out of the sky in the dark. I don’t think I can landsafely in this darkness as the wind is too strong and I have noidea where we are. ’
Aquitainchanted the mantra of calming and then started
