‘I had a good chance to think about Moonmist problems beforethe ball and in particular where you fit in. I came to theconclusion that you are a part of the problem. You have beenstealing secrets from people’s minds and blocking off memories thatyou think they should forget. You may think that you are helpingthem but you leave them incapable of making changes to helpthemselves and others.’
‘Mudrun made me its Warden because it feared what washappening but could do little to stop it. Before you said you weresent by the Collective to help me but now when things are criticalyou are now instructed not to help me. I don’t believe that. Youare supposed to be neutral yet by stopping the Elendari fromhelping themselves you are not acting neutral but preventingchange. Change is necessary for people to adapt to changes in theworld they live in. I think that you have upset the balance and areworried that I may be able to restore it.’
‘No we are not the problem.’ said Glammer.
‘Quiet! say nothing.’
‘No! we have kept quiet too long.’
‘She is right we are the problem.’
‘Stop it you will destroy us all.’
‘No! we must tell her.’
Glammer beganwrithing as if struggling internally with some great problem. Shethen began violently flashing a multitude of colours and her bodyshape melted into an amorphous mass then suddenly exploded in arainbow of colour.
The Rat Catcherran for cover and Aquitain dived for the floor as a reflexexpecting a huge release of energy but there was none. As he stoodup again he noticed a huge cloud of moth radiants in the roomfluttering around all arguing with each other using mindspeak.
‘What just happened?’ he asked but they were all too busyarguing to answer him.
He stepped backa few paces to get a better view. The cloud of mothra was made upof an equal number of four types each with a different colouredbody and each glowing with a related colour. There were browns,blues, reds and greens. The brown one glowed yellow and the othersthe colour of their body, red for red and so on. On closerexamination they all seemed to be arguing with each other in tinysqueaky voices.
‘Stop arguing!’ he shouted. ‘Separate now or I will be temptedto punish you.’
They allstopped arguing, looked at Aquitain and separated into four cloudsbased upon their body colour and began blinking in the same waythat Aquitain had observed during the ball.
‘Oh damn.’ thought Aquitain. ‘I’ve done it now, the littlebeggars want to fight me.’
Moments laterbeams of heat, cold, acid and electric energy shot out of thegroups at Aquitain’s chest. His heart almost stopped as he mentallyreadied to block the pain but none came. It would be difficult todetermine who was the more surprised Aquitain or the mothra.Aquitain looked down, it was the armour. He was still wearingMiranda’s brilliant armour. It was absorbing the different types ofenergy attack.
‘Are you finished? Now that you all know that you cannot harmme I wish to talk to you.’
They ignoredhim and all began pulsing in synchrony and the air began crackingwith energy.
‘This doesn’t look good.’ thought Aquitain, ‘They’re going todo something much more powerful.’
Quickly he senta mental blast in the direction of two of the groups andimmediately most of the members of the two groups went rigid andfell to the floor. Normally Aquitain didn’t use mental blasts asthey required considerable magic essence but with his larger sourceit was now a useful weapon for incapacitating people withoutharming them.
He then pointedat the remainder and said
‘Stop that pulsing immediately. I am the Warden of Mudrun. Youwill obey me and answer my questions.’
They stoppedpulsing.
‘You are our Warden! Oh what were we thinking? Please Lady hadwe known we would not have harmed you. It’s just we are confused.Our knowledge and memories are scattered between all of us. Unlesswe are together we can tell you nothing and since you have killedhalf of us all our knowledge is lost.’
‘I have not killed anyone.’ replied Aquitain. ‘I was forced tostun some of you to stop you all from harming yourselves. They willrecover in a minute or two. Now tell me can you reform back to thesingle one called Glammer?’
‘It has only ever been done once. We were formed into Glammerby the elemental dragon Granite hundreds of years ago,’ said thecollective mind of the blues.
‘Do you know how he did it?’ he asked hopefully.
‘He chose twenty five of each of the colours to represent eachof the elements. We then danced the Dance of the Elements and wewere joined.’
‘What normally happens during the Dance of the Elements?’ saidAquitain.
‘We do not know.’ replied the collective. ‘We are entranced bythe music.’
‘How do you start the dance?’
‘Someone must first play the music then we dance.’
‘Did they do the Dance of the Elements when I was chosen to beWarden of Moonmist?’
‘Yes. Yes. That was the Dance of the Elements.’ replied thecollective.’
Aquitain closedhis eyes and tried to visualize the amazing sight that had occurredwhen he had been made Warden only a few days ago. There had beenhundreds of mothra present then. The power generated had beenimmense and the display awe inspiring. Would it be possible torepeat such a dance? It had to be. Glammer held many secrets and toget her back she must be remade.
Slowly theeffect of the mind blast on the stunned mothra wore off and theyfluttered up forming a cloud muttering amongst themselves.
Aquitain stoodpondering on how Granite might have formed Glammer. He knew how tomake a new body for himself using the first divinity seed. He nowknew how to tie a spirit to a body using the second divinity seedbut the knowledge of how to make a hundred little bodies merge andform into one larger body he was unsure about. He needed time tothink about it.
After severalminutes of thought he decided that there must be both a body aswell as energy transformation occurring during the Dance of
