‘This has got to be some sort of crazy illusion I’m trappedin.’ he thought then concentrated and sang.
‘Let it rain, let it pour, let the fire be no more.’ and itbegan to rain heavily putting out the flames. The snakebird laughedand yelled
‘Hey bear, what happened to your hair.’ then flew down to themuddy ground and turned into an eel.
‘Eels like mud , eels like water, eels breathe air and eelsbreathe water.’ chuckled Franciscus and suddenly there was no airat all, the whole arena was under water. Aquitain quickly changedhis form into a shark and swam off to take a bite out of the eelbut as he got close to it gave off a discharge of electricity thatshocked and stunned him forcing him to swim awayquickly.
He circledaround Franciscus charging in a couple of times but each time theeel gave out an electrical discharge shocking him.
‘If he can split into two maybe I can.’ thought Aquitain. ‘Buthow do I do it?’
He quicklymentally sorted through all the animals he had changed to and hitupon the slime mould.
’Yes that will do nicely,’ he thought and quickly changed formto a slime mould then split himself down the middle forming two.His mind felt strange and he was confused for a few moments. Hismind felt strange and he was confused. He changed to a shark and hechanged to an eel.
‘Hey you, change to an eel so that we can attack him from bothsides.’ said Aquitain 1.’
‘Who are you talking to?’ said Aquitain 2. ‘Why aren’t you ashark like me.’
‘Listen here.’ said Aquitain 1. ‘You’re only a figment of myimagination, do what I say. Change to an eel and followme.’
‘Who do you think you’re talking to. You’re the figment, notme.’ said Aquitain 2.
‘Ha ha’ said Franciscus, ‘We’ve got two cooks in the kitchen.They’re getting all heated up and can’t decide on the menu. Maybe Ishould cool them down a little.’ and the water froze to solidice.
Franciscusturned to another type of eel and began heating up. Soon he startedslowly gliding forward, his hot glowing body melting the ice aroundhim.
‘I’m a little ice worm hot at the snout, melting all the iceand gliding all about. I’d like a little snack, a choice of sharkor eel. Let’s slide up there and have a tasty meal.’ sangFranciscus.
‘I’m getting a bit tired of this crazy bastard.’ said Aquitain2.
‘I’ll agree with you on that.’ said Aquitain 1.
‘Turn to stone and it won’t be able to bite us.’ said Aquitain2.
‘But then we won’t be able to see what it does next.’ saidAquitain 1.
‘Quite right.’ said Aquitain 2. ‘Okay, whoever it attacksshould turn to stone and the other watch to see what it doesnext.’
‘Good idea.’ said Aquitain 1. ‘Divide and conquer.’
‘That’s what I was thinking.’ said Aquitain 2.
‘Ah, but I said it first.’ said Aquitain 1 therefore you arethe figment.
‘Turn to stone now.’ said Aquitain 2. ‘It’s about to attackyou.’
Aquitain 1became stone just as the ice worm took a bite. Franciscus bit downhard and broke a few teeth.
‘That was a nasty shock, I’d like shark not rock.’ and heslithered over to Aquitain 2 only to get the same treatment as oneturned to stone while the other returned to flesh.
Moments laterthey found themselves sitting on dry Rock again. Aquitain 1,currently an eel, turned into a bear and charged the ice worm,which quickly changed to a sea gull and flew up in the air. Thebear changed to an eagle and chased the sea gull.
‘Quick change form and help me.’
‘No. That’s what he wants us to do. You keep him occupied. Iwant to work out how to break this illusion or whatever it is.’said Aquitain 2 as he changed into a ball of iron which shouldresist almost any attack.
‘Okay.’ said Aquitain 1.
‘Have it your way.’ and he proceeded after theseagull.
Aquitain 2quickly got to work. He thought of all the things that had happenedso far and the continual comments by the crazy mind wizard andquickly concluded that the crazy mind wizard wasn’t crazy afterall. Franciscus was purposely trying to stop him from thinking likehe was now. The rapid shape changes, arena changes and sillycomments were all designed to keep his mind occupied so he couldn’tsee the way to break out of this illusion.
It was likebeing dominated, where the other person had control of your mindand directed you to do things that you didn’t necessarily want todo but Franciscus was giving him freedom to act. Why? Perhaps justfor the fun of it.
Where was thearena located? It had to be in either his mind or Franciscus’smind. He briefly considered the dream world but it didn’t seem thesame as when he was there a couple of nights ago. His mindlink withMiranda and Yllandril was no longer present that was a clue.
In the end, heconcluded that he was in an illusion created by Franciscus in hisown mind. The other mind wizard was controlling the illusionthrough a forced mindlink but didn’t have total control. Franciscuskept on the attack and changing things to reinforce the fact thathe had control whereas Aquitain probably had just as much controlperhaps even more if he were to use it.
He brieflyconsidered trying to take control of the game but this might justplay into the hands of Franciscus who had played this game manytimes before. An alternative was that if it was controlled througha mindlink then he could disrupt it by trying to block or terminatethe mindlink, but where to start? He couldn’t feel themindlink.
Then heremembered that a pure heart was designed to block mind effectingspells of the domination type so if the arena was really in hismind all he had to do was create a pure heart to get rid of it.Immediately Aquitain 2 created a pure heart and sure enough thearena disappeared and his mental awareness returned to the realityand darkness of the sentient book’s lair.
‘I need eyes.’ he thought.
‘I need some eyes.’ he thought.
Aquitain 2looked around and saw Miranda with Yllandril on her shouldertrapped in a sphere of force.
Aquitain 1looked down and saw the book still on the ground.
‘I won!’ he
