They then gotonto the thorny issue of the Yith and Argenta. Darkmantle told themhow he was first approached by Ansidian and later had severalmeetings with Ishteth to discuss the possibility of jointlycapturing Argenta. He didn’t like the fellow much but thepossibility of moving Snowbelle was too good to pass up. Darkmantlehad provided intelligence on the layout and possible defences ofArgenta while Ishteth had provided a plan to divert Snowbelle’sattention for a while.
The first realsurprise for Darkmantle was when Aquitain told of his thoughts thatthe Yith wanted to use the place as a staging area to invade andcapture Mudrun and then possibly Moonmist as well. Darkmantle saidhe had been convinced that they only wanted to use the place as atrading post but Aquitain’s suggestion now made more sense.
The second waswhen Miranda carefully explained who Lash really was. Darkmantlewas totally shocked, embarrassed and apologized profusely toAquitain, who in turn was still feeling guilty about losing hiscousin to Ishteth in the first place, at their skirmish at thetemple on Mudrun.
Gazel listenedquietly taking it all in. This was a real legendary story unfoldingin front of her and she now felt a part of it. She also felt thatit needed to be written down so that it could be shared with thosein the future and decided that she would do it regardless of whatMiranda had said. Both Aquitain and Miranda added comments to allowher to understand some of the people and events.
She began tounderstand the situation more clearly. Miranda was terrified ofbecoming an uncontrollable monster. She was terrified that shemight harm Aquitain and Tigerlilly. So to ensure Tigerlilly andAquitain were looked after Gizel was being trained as herunderstudy. If anything happened to Miranda then she would be ableto step in and be both a mother to Tigerlilly and a lover toAquitain.
How couldMiranda be so unselfish? Gizel wanted Aquitain so much it ached butshe loved Miranda as well in a different way. It was getting veryconfusing. She could feel Miranda’s heartbeat. She couldn’t feelthe Warden’s heart as he didn’t have one while he was in hiscrystal body but she could feel a warmth that was him. He loved herand she would now do anything at all for the Warden’s love.
Darkmantleagreed that capturing Argenta back was a good start to theircampaign, as it would stall the Yith plan and give them credibilitywith other Lords. This would improve the chance of making MirandaQueen and creating an alliance among the Lords to tackle theMentarin problem.
He then droppedhis own bombshell surprise. He knew where Snowbelle was located.She was attending a Choosing, which was normally only held everyfew years, but this one was a special one, owing to the worryinglow fertility rate of nymphs.
Both Mirandaand Aquitain were really thrilled and that thrilled Gizel as well.For the first time in ages, the pieces were all starting to cometogether. Maybe it was possible to win. After a lengthy discussionon tactics it was decided that they would go together to try tomeet with Snowbelle. No one else was prepared to go except Gizel,as they all considered that while it would be interesting, youwould need a death wish to interrupt nymphs at a nymph orgy.
The followingmorning, Miranda as a whirlwind left with Aquitain contained in atwo pace wide faint blue transparent sphere of solid air. This wasbecause he was so small that she was terrified that she wouldaccidentally drop him along the way somewhere. Tigerlilly and Gizelremained with Darkmantle.
They travelledquite a distance to the southeast where there was a roughlycircular high mountain plateau surround by five thin mountain peaksthat looked like fingers. The place was called the Hand of Fate.Traveling on the ground it would have been quite difficult toapproach, as there was only a steep winding path from the plainbelow, which was often covered by landslide debris. Flying wasconsiderably safer even with the fitful breezes and turbulencearound the edges of the plateau.
They were wellpast midday by the time they found the place and Miranda was quitetired by the time she landed on a peak overlooking the plateau.While they were too high up to see any detail, what was obvious wasa large campfire surrounded by a circle of tents smack in themiddle of the plateau. There was certainly no way anyone couldsneak up on the place, as there appeared to be little other thansparse clumps of a fine bladed yellow brown grass which grew almostflat to the ground.
The best theycould do would be a fly over and perhaps land just outside thecircle of tents if they wished to be discreet or simply land by thecampfire if they wished to be more forward. Miranda chose thelatter.
‘Let’s be brazen and fly in as if we own the place. They canonly throw us out.’
Aquitain wasn’tquite so sure. He could think of a lot of things they could do ifannoyed enough and most of them would be to Miranda. Since therewasn’t much of a choice he went with the campfire option but madesure that he was wearing a teleport ring on one arm and his ring ofillusion on the other, which he hoped would get them out of troubleif it came to that.
After they hadrested for a good half an hour, they flew down to and over thecampfire at a height of about a hundred paces then spiralled downtowards the brightly burning fire. They knew they had been spottedwell before they landed, as there were at least thirty femalenymphs and two or three male nymphs watching them as they landed.All had neutral expressions on their faces.
Miranda shiftedto her naked female form and stood waiting for a response. A malenymph walked over to them just as Miranda spotted her mother.Aquitain created a pure heart, which covered him completely.
‘Hello my name is Adonis. To what do we owe this honour? Wedidn’t expect a visit from the beautiful Princess Miranda ofArgenta. He smiled and Miranda was immediately besotted with him.Aquitain could feel the change in her heart beat and her musclesrelax.’
They were inbig trouble. How could this
