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Rain was falling slowly as the night sky faded into daylight. The
previous day had been a trying one for both Czeron and Lya; both had
been installed as the powerful leaders of the Order of the Blood.
Czeron had become the Crimson Master, his power bequeathed to him by the
dying Crimson Mistress, and Lya had become the Illuminated Mistress, her
power given to her by the lich Ceros Draio. Ceros had ordered Lya to
slay the new Crimson Mistress, but Lya could not slay the man she
realized she loved.
Wind blew the rain in gusts, cascading over the whole area of the
Cathedral where they both found their home now. A few birds braved the
rising tempest, carrier pigeons mostly, but also the random whippoorwill
or mesa falcon. The storm was not a tempest, but calm, gentle rain that
did it's best to soak but not saturate.
Lya stared out her window into the dull grey sky. Her mind was racing.
She knew not how to face this day. The first day as Illuminated
Mistress. Her first day of responsibility. Of all the people she knew,
Lya felt that only Czeron would be more confused than she. She closed
her eyes and began to chant, then to hum. She felt the spark of power
well up inside her, a gift of magic that she kept hidden from most
people. Darkness from the swamps, light from the plains. It took a lot
of will not to reveal what she could control. She chanted again,
louder. A small break appeared in the clouds, and orange sunlight
streamed through the breach for a moment, causing the birds to scatter.
She smiled, and her concentration faded. When her eyes opened, the
clouds once again obscured the light.
Lya sat there in silence for a while, pondering what to do. In an hour
or so, she would be expected to address her people, and fully accept the
mantle of responsibility that had been thrust upon her. A girl. A girl
who had lived her whole life in the valley of the Order of the Blood,
who had known nothing else. A girl of intelligence, however, who had
done unspeakable deeds and committed irreparable sins to acquire her
power. Was it just that she be punished by having the responsibility
that she had craved but perhaps now did not want? She had paid the
price with her life, not once, but twice now. Surely that stood for
something.
It was odd. Her whole life, she had craved to have more power, to be
in control, to be the one in charge. Now? All had changed in the blink
of an eye. Love. What a strange concept to her, foreign to her cold
heart. It hadn't been there two days previous. When she had walked
into that room and saw Czeron lying helplessly on the floor, her
sympathies cried out. It was terrible pain to be given, and she knew it
all too well. He was being tested as she had, a test of worthiness as
if there had never been one before. Even she had failed hers, but for
the kind graciousness of Ceros, she would be a cold corpse in a room no
one would ever find. Indeed, she now felt that the decaying lich should
have left her dead, for it was more cruel torment that she lived,
knowing that Czeron was still in such pain.
The dull illumination of the sky brightened, and she knew her time was
running out. Any minute, her life would officially be gone, stripped
away by the tediousness and inanity of being the leader of her Order.
She ranked even above Czeron in this, none could question her judgements
except for her own master, Ceros Draio himself, who had founded the
order in days long past.
Lya was dressed in her official Illuminated Mistress gown, which was
white with red lace. She looked at herself in the mirror, and was
thankful that the odd cap that she wore covered up her now brutally
short hair, hair that had once been long and quite beautiful had been
cut short by Ceros' wrath. She knew better now not to trifle in the
affairs of a planeswalker, especially one who had come back from the
dead to ravage the world yet again, be it under the pretense of
inactivity or not. She had called forth an army, and it was headed
straight forth to the sheltered valley and would be there in a short
time. When she had done this, she had no clue that her position would
be reversed, and she would have to fight the horde she had summoned.
What's worse, she had called forth the worst mercenaries, a pillaging
horde that would not stop at mere destruction.
She had just sunk back into her seat when a rapping came at the door.
She spun quickly, and called for the knocker to come in. The door
opened a crack, and a servant's head peeped in.
"They are waiting for you now, Illuminated Mistress."
For what seemed the millionth time, Czeron could only toss and turn in
his sleep. But this night, at least, he was not plagued by the visions
that haunted him every night. He struggled to stay alive against the
mindrippers and nightstalkers that invaded his dreams now. Demons of
the worst sort threatened his humanity and his sanity. His dreams were
his worst nightmare, a sick perversion of his reality that this time
threatened to take his life from him, instead of simply warning him of
his doom.
Against the terrors of his mind, there was no defense. The dregs of
sorrow were his to bear, as the mindrippers taunted him with his
knowledge of the future and the disruption of his visions. They played
with his fears and joked about his reality. They were an inescapable
plague that he could not crush. He could only take the blows and hope
he would live to see tomorrow.
Night came feverishly to its final end, bringing with it the respite of
day. From horror- filled dreams, Czeron opened his eyes. He lay in bed
staring at the ceiling, unseeing, uncomprehending anything of the world
about him. He cleared his mind and fixed within it one image, the image
of Lya's strange orange eyes. He had been fascinated by them when he
had first seen them, and now they dominated his thoughts, kept him from
giving in to the demons of the night. The eyes were strange, unnatural.
Something about them was not quite right, not quite human, something
perhaps more than human. Great intellect was apparent, but it was
something more.
Full of life, yet devoid of feeling, he recalled. Those had been his
first thoughts. Those eyes had changed in the few days he had known
her, becoming full of feeling, but emptying of life, as if something had
syphoned away her soul. She cared for him, he knew, for she had saved
his life when he was dying. Dying from the knowledge, the power, given
to him by the Crimson Mistress, making him the new Crimson Master. He
still wasn't quite sure if he wasn't still dying, but knew it didn't
matter. Lya cared now what happened to him. But he knew in his heart
that the feeling was quite foreign to her and she was thoroughly
confused.
Czeron's eyes began to focus in on the ceiling, cracked plaster and
swirling, meaningless curlicues. He blinked, clearing the sleep from
his eyes. He tried to sit up, but a hand pushed firmly on his chest and
he sank easily back into the bed.
"Not so fast, Czer. You're still sick. Rest." Saet sat nearby,
minding his own business by reading a book. He had been watching Czeron
most of the night, and when he had begun to stir, made sure that Czeron
didn't try anything rash. "You need to sleep, Lya tells me that you're
probably going through hell right now, but it will pass. She says she
went through the same thing when she became the Illuminated Mistress.
Just sleep some more."
He didn't want to sleep. Last time he had done so, his dreams wanted
to kill him. He knew Saet was right, and he didn't want to move around
much anyway. He could feel that he didn't have the energy for it. He
felt woozy and lightheaded, with a strange numbness inside that just
seemed to tickle the edges of his nerves before fading away and avoiding
detection. He wanted to concentrate on anything, anything at all to stay
awake, but it was quite a chore. His mind wandered back and forth among
much of the knowledge he had acquired, but it was mind- numbing
knowledge, draining his life almost, as his mind began to shut down and
sleep beckoned again. The last things he recalled before falling under
the torrential wave of sleep was Lya's piercing orange eyes.
Ceros sat in his cold throne, pondering to himself what his purpose in
returning to life was. He found it hard to remember. What strange
purpose did he have in returning, what sick need did he require to be
fulfilled? He did not know, it did not matter. He could only sit and
think of the futility of his situation.
He was trapped in a human body. Human! Perish the thought. Human
bodies were so frail, they could not hold him long. Arsea's body had
lasted quite well the first three or four days he had dwelt within,
searching out the lines of power he had hoped would keep him alive just
that much longer. It was a desperate gambit, to be sure. He had
finally latched on to some mana lines. Finding them had not been hard
since the Shard was down, but being able to use them took some finer
skills. Human bodies were not meant to channel the energies of a
planeswalker. He had foolishly allowed his own body to be destroyed by
some upstart apprentice a few thousand years previous.
He had waited quite literally for millennia so that he could find a
body capable of controlling the power he needed. Lya had the spark he
needed, he had felt her even beyond the veil of death. She was
intractable, however. She would not listen to him, she was merely an
initiate, one not given to the well of influence and authority that
would grant her an audience with him. He had other plans, he would not
let her slip past his fingers too easily.
Working through dreams, he went instead to Anais, his Illuminated
Mistress. She was a sick and twisted sort, hiding it well from all
those who knew her. She flaunted her power by having people call her
less than what she was, for whatever pleasure it seemed to give her.
Probably it was cruel torture on her part, seeing all those who were
supposed to by ancient tenets revere her as a goddess treat her as an
equal. It must have galled them painfully.
His influence found its target easy to control, and to manipulate. It
had been easy to convince Anais that Lya contained more power than she,
and that she should have Lya's body for her own. Lya had her own
slightly twisted schemes too, she wanted to have power and influence in
the order. It was child's play for Anais to secretly take Lya away for
a few nights, and under the pretense of initiation rites, to complete a
transference of minds from Lya's body to Anais' and vice versa.
The process had been relatively complete the night Ceros had returned
from the dead. Lya had acquired most of Anais' ruthless personality,
while the sweet gentleness of Lya manifested itself in Anais. On that
final night, the two had gone away once more, but only Lya returned.
The process never completed itself. Anais forced her mind into Lya's
and conflict ensued. Anais' body was irreparably damaged by the
transference, and in the struggle was ultimately killed. The two minds
merged within Lya, at times Anais was dominant, at others, Lya. On the
return journey, both identities faded away and a newer, better, more
malleable persona took their place.
Such was the fate of Lya and Anais. Two women in the same body,
memories danced of two people, yet could not fully come to a
recognizable conclusion. Ceros smiled at the irony of their situation.
One of evil, the other of good, yet neither could defeat the other, and
they lost sway to a proto-life form. It mattered not to him, the
consequence was the same: a being that now would and had come to him, a
form with the planeswalker spark he so desperately required. The flaw
was that he could not displace the two minds. His body grew rapidly
worse, and he could find no way to end it. His mind shivered in
anticipation. She would return to him, and then she would be his.
Lya walked down the corridors of the Cathedral of Blood. On her two
sides she was flanked by attending initiates who made every effort to
ensure she was comfortable. Her mind was annoyed by this, her comfort
was detracted by the fussy busy-bodies that watched her every step to
ensure that she not come to some misfortune. She was on her way. This
was it. Her life was now no longer hers to control. It was the domain
of responsibility to herself and to her people. There was no turning
back.
Suddenly, she heard running footsteps coming down an adjacent hallway.
She stopped for a moment, catching her watchdog companions off-guard by
her action. Two men in armor of thorns, apparently from the same part
of the order that Saet headed, approached her and then stood down on one
knee each with their heads bowed.
"Mistress, there is a matter of much importance that needs to be
addressed immediately."
One of the initiates stepped forward between the two men and Lya.
"The Illuminated Mistress is on her way to address the issues of duty.
You may take your problem to the main hall and await your turn in the
manner of all who seek to address the Illuminated Mistress. It has been
quite some time since Anais died, and surely the line of visitors is a
long one. The Illuminated Mistress must get to her business
immediately."
"I beg your pardon miss, but the Illuminated Mistress must hear what I
have to say right now. It cannot wait." The soldier was unwavered by
the initiate's necessary formality.
"You will stay your tongue, sir, and use it where it is appropriate,
in the main reception hall."
Lya waved her hand at her initiate. "It's okay, let the man speak."
"Thank you Illuminated Mistress, I'll only take a moment of your time."
What you don't realize, sir, is that you've taken the only moment of
time I had left. she silently whispered in her head. "Very well,
speak quickly, I have a lot of business to attend."
"Very well, Mistress."
"You will address her as Illuminated Mistress or not at all," the other
initiate said.
"Very well, Illuminaed Mistress. We come to bear this message:
The Jade Statue has been taken from among the Ivory Collection."
Lya was perplexed. She had never heard of a Jade Statue, and it
certainly had no reason to be amongst the bits and pieces of the Ivory
Collection in the Ivory Tower.
"What has this to do with me, Soldier? Can't your boys handle the
disappearance?"
"No, Illuminated Mistress. You see it is said that when the Jade
Statue takes it into its head to leave, only one thing is for certain.
War is imminent."
Lya was stunned. As bad as the day had promised to be, it had just
become a whole lot worse.