I awoke bound, gagged, blindfolded, and overpowered by the stench of sweaty men breathing nervously in a cramped stagecoach. The wooden wheels rattled and jarred with every bump on the cobblestone roads, which is how I immediately concluded we were still in the city. Ropes bit cruelly into my wrists and ankles, chafing my skin with coarse fibers that rubbed my extremities raw. The touch of silk fabric on my body told me that I was dressed in a nightgown which I had no recollection of donning, which meant I had been abducted ... I could not tell. The hazy fog of a recent rude awakening clouded my memories. What exactly had happened? I shifted uncomfortably on the coach cushions and made incoherent noises through the damp gag wrapped firmly around my mouth.
"Elle est réveillée," one of the men observed quite unnecessarily. I heard a hideously thick Brabantine accent.
"Quiet you."
Lightheaded and disoriented by the abrupt awakening, it took me a moment to realize that I could not use magic either. Flames refused to manifest when I tried to burn the ropes away. My mana felt sluggish and sterile, moreso than usual when pulled awake from a deep slumber. So I had been drugged as well - but when? I could not tell how late it might be, save that the streets seemed silent except for the cantering of the horses and the rattling of the coach wheels on the cobblestones. Yesterday evening I had dined in the palace with father and mother and the rest of the royal court, summoned by the king to discuss the imminent confrontation with the Brabantine armies. After supper I had retired to one of the state ballrooms to play the ivories ... and then what? Who was present? Try as I might, I could not remember when or how I had retired to bed. A gaping pit of emptiness loomed where my memory should have been. And I should have felt panic or confusion at being confined so, trapped with Brabantine abductors who evidently wished me ill. Instead I felt ... oddly tranquil and detached from myself, as though I witnessed from a great distance some other poor princess being kidnapped.
Through the walls of the stagecoach I heard a faint, muffled sentry's challenge. The driver halted and exchanged words with the city guardsman. After a few minutes the driver remounted and the carriage departed from the city unmolested. The roads were still paved outside the city for quite some distance and I felt the coach rattling uncomfortably as I reflected that I would be well away from the city ere father or mother discovered what had happened to me. We passed by the Goddess' Gate, for I felt a dense concentration of magical energy even in my stupefied state. As for what my captors intended ... well, being Brabantine agents, my imagination filled in the speculative gaps easily enough.
Time passed in silence and solitude save for low, furtive whispers in Brabantine. My magical channels gradually cleared themselves, but I thought better of trying to release my bindings; not with at least three other men present who could easily overpower me. Like the maidens in the stories I had been kidnapped and rendered helpless - and worse, by men of political intrigue rather than more romantic abductors! I had nothing to do save to catch conversations and try to decipher what my captors intended with me. Ennui threatened to set in; if abduction can ever be considered tedious, mine by all means was. I might have dozed off half a dozen times, I cannot remember.
Gradually I sensed that dawn had broken when light started to seep through the heavy cloth wrapped around my head. I still could not see anything. In another hour no doubt my absence would be discovered when my maids came to awaken me for the morning toilet, but by now we must be leagues away from Louelle. I observed that the rattling cobblestones had given way to a smoother dirt road. I also tried to decipher which direction we were traveling, but the sun had not risen enough for me to judge where the heat of the rays originated.
I heard a cavalcade of horsemen meet the stagecoach on the road and for a moment my heart leaped. Rescuers! But then my hopes faded when it became evident from the way the men talked that the cavalry had been expected; after a brief pause, the horsemen fell into column on either side of the carriage to escort it. So the Brabantines were not even making a pretense of plausible denial in such a brazen plan as to kidnap a princess from her house? C'est un plan audacieux; voyons si cela fonctionne.
Thirst gnawed at my lips as the trotting of the horses drowned out all noise. As the sun rose, the coach became quite warm, but we could not raise the window covers lest the dust stirred up by the horses blanket us all. Only after my discomfort had become quite plain did my abductors deign to remove my blindfold and my mouth gag, although they kept my hands and feet bound still. Once my eyes adjusted I took stock of my surroundings: an old coach repurposed for this abduction attempt and three sullen Brabantine men sitting inside, all armed with revolvers. A score of horsemen accompanied the carriage at a steady trot, most of them carrying carbines as well. None wore any insignia which might identify them as Brabantine regulars, but their thick accents and unmistakably Brabantine fashions made this a nominal deception at best. My attempts to question my captors met with indifference at first. After some time and gentle persistence their tongues loosened however, and I gathered that I was destined for the Palais de la Montagne Blanche for an involuntary marriage to one of the sons of the king of Brabant. This being accomplished, I should be compelled to write a letter home to father and mother declaring that I was well satisfied and had no desire to return to Theraveria. "After all," one of the men remarked flippantly, "it is well known that a woman's heart is as pliable as a weathervane, and that a young woman in particular is taken with whichever handsome and adventurous fellow who strikes her fancy in that moment." See for yourself, my dear reader, how little this man understood of women!
At noon it became imperative to rest the horses so the caravan left the road for the shade of several trees. To my great indignation the Brabantines left me bound, at which I voiced my displeasure in no uncertain terms in spite of my parched throat. The soldiers at least possessed the grace to seem ashamed at treating a noble lady thus, for one of my abductors in the stagecoach came and placed a flask of honeyed water to my lips. My initial disorientation and fright by now had given way to high dudgeon at being subject to such mortifying treatment. As the horses rested, watered, and grazed, the men paused to lunch as well and spoke of their next destination: Tannenburg. So they had taken me southeast of Louelle and we would reach the border of Brabant in seven to eight days.
Theraveria has much plain grassland, suitable for the rearing of herds, but it also has gently rolling hills and a few rivers which break the monotony. The Brabantines had posted two men as lookouts on one such low hill near the road which ran back to Louelle. Amidst the lunch repast, suddenly these two men came sprinting down and crying out that pursuers were upon them. At this we all turned our heads backwards and saw plainly that a cloud of dust was rising from the northwest, indicative of fast cavalry on the chase. The Brabantine men hastily abandoned their camp and the stagecoach and seized their horses, throwing me over the saddle of one hearty stallion in spite of my vigorous protests.
A frantic chase now ensued with the Brabantine horses galloping on one hand and the Theraverian cavalry following behind hotly. It seemed interminable and I became sick to the stomach from the ungainly riding that I was subject to, but in reality only half an hour had passed when the Brabantine caravan with its rested horses outran the tired Theraverian cavalry. We slowed to a trot and I finally had a chance to catch my breath; my fine hair had been covered in grimy dust and I retched from the motion, emptying the few remnants of a stomach already vacant. We had left our pursuers behind, but very soon the Brabantines encountered another obstacle: the road ran over a bridge that forded a river and the way had been blockaded by Theraverian infantrymen crouched behind freshly staked barricades. Even I could see that the Brabantine horsemen lacked the numbers and the weapons to force the passage.
There being no help for the matter, the Brabantines fired a volley of balls at the barricade and then veered away south from the road to search for another ford across the river. The sheer drop of some twenty-five to thirty paces from the cliffside to the water below made jumping impractical, nor could the Brabantines see how deeply the water ran. At its narrowest the river still spanned fifty paces from shore to shore. And while the Brabantines searched for a passage offroad, the Theraverian cavalry caught up. I immediately saw Sir Merrimont Lachaveur leading them at the head of the squadron - brave Merry, come to rescue his distressed princess!
The Theraverian dragoons fanned out into a wide semicircle, keeping the Brabantines pinned against a concave bend on the river bank. The man who rode my horse pushed his way to the front now and roughly seized the collar of my lavender shift, pulling me upright on the horse as he held a revolver to menace my temple. On his breath I smelled tobacco and a faint hint of whiskey. He reeked of grime and sweat, having obviously not washed for days. I could not see the other horsemen behind him but I imagined they had their weapons ready and leveled as well. In spite of their bravado, I sensed their fear - the Theraverians outnumbered them at least two to one.
"Robbers, highwaymen, kidnappers. You are trapped with no recourse," Sir Merry shouted grimly. "Lay down your arms and surrender yourselves and you will not be harmed."
"Not a step closer, or we fire upon the hostage," my captor yelled back, pressing his revolver closer to me. I am not ashamed to recount that, frightened as I felt by the idea that my life might end at any moment from an assassin's bullet, I burst into tears and began to sob.
Merrimont signaled for his cavalry to hold. "Brabantines. I offer you a prisoner exchange - I and four of my men shall take her place, and you will be permitted to ride away unmolested." I tried to shake my head at Merry but I felt paralyzed by fear.
"Do you take me for a fool, Theraverian?" came the reply. Plainly there would be no hostage exchange. We were at an impasse then with the Brabantines trapped and unable to escape but the Theraverians afraid to fire upon them or approach closer. At that range, there was no guarantee a stray carbine shot might not strike me. As if to emphasize this predicament my abductor pushed the barrel of his revolver under my chin. This tense standoff continued for several minutes as I blinked away my tears and the two parties glared belligerently at each other across the thirty paces that separated us while the Brabantine horsemen warily shuffled away, shadowed closely by the Theraverians. The sun shone warmly from above heating the steel barrel of the revolver, mitigated by the cool winter breeze that fluttered across the plains.
... A warm gun barrel ...
No no, what a senseless idea to entertain, Summerlyn Katalina.
Misgivings notwithstanding, everyone knew this temporary equilibrium would not last indefinitely. Now I put Merphomenee's magic lessons to use in spite of my fear, channeling an imperceptible sliver of magic into the revolver barrel through the surface of my skin. Enough to concentrate the heat on one point and deform the barrel from within. Being unable to see the results of my work, I had to trust in the skills I honed through months of training. I tried to furtively weaken my bindings as well, but ropes were far trickier to work than a continuous piece of metal like a revolver barrel.
Would more Theraverian reinforcements arrive before the Brabantines found a ford across the river? Fortune seemed to frown upon me since the Brabantines encountered a bend of the river where the slope ran down gently and the horses would be wetted only up to their flanks. Merrimont moved half his men to cover the ford but the Brabantines had to be permitted past, if only because he could not risk any harm to me. Ordered to stay on the near side of the river, the Theraverian dragoons watched tensely as the Brabantines slowly crossed the river in pairs. My horseman was the last to plunge into the water. Merphomenee's lessons on swimming like a fish came to mind; water held great power, if I could blend with the current. I fought down the terror that threatened to paralyze me.
When he reached the middle of the cold river, I let the current wash with me and suddenly kicked off his horse, tearing myself loose from his tight grasp with the borrowed strength of the water. I heard shouts of alarm from both banks of the river as I quickly dove as close to the bottom as I dared, the chill waters surrounding me like the icy grip of despair. A musket ball or two splashed into the water after me, but I had already surrendered myself to the current and allowed it to quickly push me downriver away from the horsemen. My lungs burned as I held my breath; I navigated by magic since my hands and feet were still bound in soaked ropes, guiding myself to the bank on the Theraverian side. There I surfaced some two hundred paces from the ford with a pounding heart, sputtering and coughing water out of my throat while the faint popping sound of exchanged gunfire reached my ears. A few moments later I heard shouting above me and the sounds of horses galloping up to the bank. Men clambered down to the river bank and cut away my restraints with a blade; I blinked through a drenched curtain of golden hair as I saw Sir Merrimont help me up to my feet, throwing my wet arm over his shoulders as he gently raised me up and brought me away from the riverbank. I shivered uncontrollably from the cold. Now that it was finally over, the sudden release of stress overwhelmed me and I collapsed onto his chest, weeping with relief as sobs wracked my breast. Some considerate fellow threw a great coat over my wet and torn chemise as I cried unabashedly into Merrimont's embrace.
Merrimont mounted me on his own horse and sent me under escort to the nearest farmstead where I lunched ravenously on hardtack and apple strudel with the awestruck farmer and his family, having not realized how famished my trial had left me. After a brief examination by the squadron medic, I bathed and exchanged my clothes and, quite exhausted, collapsed asleep until after evening. By that time the Theraverian cavalrymen had returned with Merrimont at their head and a few Brabantine prisoners in tow. "I sent my swiftest messenger to the king after Your Serene Highness escaped, and I've sent another just now. We captured five and gunned down most of the remaining miscreants, but a few have escaped," he told me. "Did they injure Your Highness? Were you ... subject to any indignities of the flesh?" he asked delicately.
"I was horribly affrighted, but not harmed," I responded, sitting in a chair in the farmer's living room. I wore a sundress borrowed from his good wife which fitted me poorly. The events of the day repeated themselves endlessly in my mind. "Oh, but Merrimont, how did you know where to find me?!"
His uniform had not been washed and still retained the dust of the road, evidence that he had been active all day. "I was told that many of the ministers at court had fallen asleep in the guest rooms of the palace. This in itself was not so unusual, but then I found the servants carrying Your Highness from the purple music room to your bed as well, fast asleep in your garments of state." I blushed at this revelation. "This being most unlike Your Serene Highness, I went to question the kitchen staff as to whether something had spoiled in the food. Your Highness must have been abducted some time during the night, for an alarm was raised when a sentry was found unconscious at his post. Their Majesties and the ministers were accounted for, but your maids found you missing from your bedroom, so I promptly summoned the nearest horsemen and set out to question anyone in the city for suspicious activity. We would have lost your trail then, but by good fortune Lady Sundalicia had been overseeing the final stages of construction of the Goddess' Gate and came posthaste to tell us that she had sensed your aetherial trail being conveyed out of the city when your convoy passed by the well. I immediately set out on the chase and we caught up to your abductors at noon. The rest you know. When you were swept away by the river we feared all was lost."
Merphomenee. Not only her lessons in magic but also her alertness had saved me. I confessed to Merrimont then that I had been secretly learning magic from Renia; he seemed surprised but said no word in reproach. The nighttime being too late and cold to travel, Merrimont informed me that he had sent for a carriage to convey me back to the capital tomorrow. His men pitched camp outside the farmstead and posted night sentries. The farmer wanted me to have the best bed in the house, for which I felt profoundly grateful, but I could not sleep until after midnight as my mind incessantly relived the terror of my kidnapping. I felt shaken and disconcerted by the ease with which I had been abducted.
When I awoke midmorning I found that the carriage had arrived during the night with a messenger bearing news from the king. For meritorious service, Sir Merrimont was hereby promoted to Lieutenant-Colonel, an immense honor for one so young in age, his previous arrest for dueling dismissed and stricken from the official record, and the squadron of dragoons who accompanied him on his mission were now separated from the 18th battalion into the new Princess' Own Guard Knights. Each man had earned the Gold Cross of the Order of the Falcon with every wounded man entitled to wear laurel leaves on his cross, to be presented by M. the Minister of the Army in a formal ceremony. Father bid me return as soon as practical for he said that mother was beside herself with grief.
Merphomenee also arrived riding with the carriage and bringing a trunk of spare clothes for me. I thanked her graciously for her consideration and for her lessons, admitting that she had saved my life. I changed into her dress which fit me best and pulled on a winter coat to ward myself against the chill. When I stepped outside, I found Merrimont upbraiding two abashed guardsmen - it transpired that they had been set to watch the prisoners, but that all of the Brabantine captives had vanished some time in the morning and no sign of them could be found. I asked him to show clemency for my sake.
We departed the farm at noon, expecting to arrive at Louelle past nightfall. Merphomenee and I occupied the carriage with the new Princess' Own Guard Knights formed up as my escort. We left the window shades up to keep out the dust and the chill. The goddess wanted to hear about my escapade, so I narrated my story to her as well as I remembered. When I finished, I asked her, "Do you think Theraveria will declare war on Brabant?"
"Heavens knows a sufficient casus belli exists," Merphomenee sighed, "wasteful as wars are. I would be most astonished if the people and the king's ministers did not clamor for war over this incident." She paused, lost in thought for a moment, then asked, "Your Highness, do you think Theraveria should fight?"
"No." My answer was flat but certain. "Our nation has suffered no harm except an affront to the national dignity which will recover soon enough. If war breaks out, thousands will die to the benefit of no one. It hardly seems worthwhile to the country to declare war over one princess when weighed in such scales."
"... You would be a wise sovereign," Merphomenee smiled. "Now that the gate is finished, I look forward to meeting you in my own person." She took out a hairbrush from her purse and seated herself next to me as the coach rode along, pulled by trotting horses. I leaned and allowed her to brush my hair as she loved to do, feeling her skillful fingers unraveling all the knots. While I had bathed thoroughly, I had not had a chance to brush my own hair yet. She asked me if she could keep a lock of my hair for herself and I assented readily, so she clipped off a tress of hair and skillfully braided it intertwined with one of her own strands on the left side of her face - gold woven with sable. Under her touch my hair gleamed again and we chattered of many matters: magic and intellectual interests, to be sure, but also of fashion and men and friendship. I asked her about the gate and she explained that she had satisfied herself in person that all had been built according to her plans, describing the intricacies of the summoning spell to me. Merphomenee artfully wove some of my braids into a floral motif and gave me her handheld glass so that I could admire her handiwork.
Evening had fallen and we were within sight of the city when she suddenly straightened as if shocked, so abruptly that she nearly knocked over the candles embedded on the windowsills. "Lady Renia?" I cried in surprise.
"Oh my ..." Merphomenee breathed. When she glanced up, her dark eyes looked distant. "Summerlyn, my dear ... I am being summoned!"
"Summoned? You mean, by the gate?" I cried.
"Yes, my dear little princess." She smiled wanly, but clearly her attention had been beckoned elsewhere. "I ... had not considered ... the king might act so soon, without me to guide his conjurers ... I must go, to open the way from the other side ... Summerlyn, perhaps I shall be present to greet you in person when you arrive in Louelle ... au revoir, princess. Je vous verrai momentanément." Her presence departed intangibly from the vessel she inhabited. No outward change occurred, but in some inexplicable way I knew unmistakably that Merphomenee's spirit had vacated Renia Sundalicia.
Renia's eyes glazed for a moment before she started and slowly lifted a hand up to her face, staring at her fingers. "Am I ... myself again?" she asked slowly, wondrously. How uncanny for this woman to have the same face and voice I long associated with Merphomenee. Tears started to well up in her eyes. "At last ... at last ..."
"... Mademoiselle?" I asked, shocked by what I beheld. I immediately saw that she possessed a body language quite distinct from Merphomenee's - the way she tilted her head, the way her eyes moved and her lips quivered.
She looked up at me through tearstained lashes. "I am finally free of her ... of that horrid goddess, Merphomenee! Oh, how terrible it was to be confined in myself with no way to act!" Then she began to speak to me in low, urgent tones. "Listen to me, Princess Summerlyn: Merphomenee is no friend of your kingdom. Even now she plans to destroy Louelle for her own amusement. We must flee away from this place ere she finds us! Summerlyn, you must believe me! I have watched helpless, a prisoner in my own flesh, for months as she groomed you and studied your city!"
"Whence comes this?" I asked, quite frightened by her intensity and bewildered by the words coming out of her mouth. Merphomenee ... had lied to me?
"I know everything she is doing! She destroyed my city too - reduced to rubble and ashes under her feet!" Renia flung the curtains open and called for Merrimont. "Captain, the goddess is being summoned! We must stop this process at once before all is laid to ruin!"
Merrimont immediately halted the train and dismounted to speak with us. "Lady Sundalicia, what do you mean?"
"There's no time!" Renia cried in frustration. "The goddess is a deceiver! Once she arrives your city will be laid waste! There is no power that will avail you against her! We must return to the city posthaste and put an end to the summoning at once, if we even can! Look at me, sir. The Renia Sundalicia you knew was merely a shell of a woman possessed by Merphomenee herself, whispering honeyed promises into your ears. I am the true Renia and I would have you avoid the doom that laid my own kingdom low."
"Your Highness?" Merrimont asked me, clearly mystified.
"Perhaps we had best see for ourselves at the city," I suggested, unsure of what else to say. I felt shaken by the abruptness of the change that swept over Renia and a gnawing doubt had planted itself in my heart. Could it be true? Were we summoning a wicked goddess into our midst, one who had beguiled us with tempting inducements? The memory of Merphomenee's kindness warred with Renia's palpable sense of urgency. If I am to be honest in this account, reader of mine, I confess that I distrusted Renia.
An idea must have occurred to her when I mentioned seeing for myself. Hurriedly she pulled both of her dainty slippers off her feet; I recognized them as expensive commissions from M. Mouton, one of the leading shoemakers for women's fashion in Louelle. Renia thrust one at me and one at Merrimont. "Look underneath at the soles," she insisted. I did so, and I screamed in shock at the bloody smears of pulped flesh and tiny crushed bones splattered beneath the platforms. The broken silhouette of a minuscule man lay spread-eagled on the sole where he had obviously been trod upon and slowly pressed to death, his corpse still spattered on the shoe. I stared wildly at Renia in shock. "Merphomenee did this!" she insisted stridently. "Captain Merrimont, the prisoners who went missing from your watch - she shrank them to the size of mice and stepped on two of them! The others - here!" She pried open her purse and reached inside, pulling out three terrified Brabantine men in her hand.
They had all been reduced to the stature of mice as Renia claimed; Merrimont and I stared together in shock and morbid fascination as these miniaturized human bodies squirmed in Renia's hand and flailed uselessly in her grasp. "Saints preserve us!" Merrimont breathed. I had never seen his face so pale before.
"Do you believe me now?!" Renia cried.
Merrimont looked at me. "Your Highness, we must convey you to safety at once -"
"Nonsense, sir!" I snapped, gaining control of my senses. "Take me to Louelle immediately so that I might tell my father to halt the summoning!"
He looked as if he wanted to argue for a moment, but then Merrimont changed his mind and motioned to his men. "Bring a spare horse for Her Highness! We ride for the Goddess' Gate men, and not a moment to waste! I know the princess can handle a mount well; what of you, Mademoiselle Sundalicia? You said you did not ride -"
"Merphomenee said that, not I!" Renia replied quickly.
"Two horses!" Merrimont shouted. With no time to change, Renia and I simply tore off the long skirts on our dresses and mounted with the cavalrymen. Then we galloped off towards Louelle with torches in hand for light, leaving behind the carriage as the sun sank under the lip of the earth. The cold wind blew through my dress and my hair and caused me to shiver, but anticipation made me forget the chill as Renia, Merrimont, and I rode at the head of two score dragoons towards the Goddess' Gate. The stars glittered indifferently above us as we covered the remaining distance as quickly as we dared, a mere Anglican league away from the gate now. In spite of the urgency my heart pounded in excitement - finally I rode towards adventure, at the head of my own chosen guard! How different from the circumstances in which I had departed Louelle two nights ago!
Our small cavalcade must have made quite a sight riding up from the road to the Goddess' Gate with our horses all lathered and a dozen torches between us. As I drew closer, Merrimont shouted, "Do you feel that?" and we answered affirmatively. The concentration of magic gathered in the purified water of the well felt immense and chaotic, the aetherial waves roiling in turmoil and forming oppressive pressure that beat continually against our extraphysical senses. There were torches and lanterns lit to illuminate the work being carried on at the gate as well. As our band rode close with our horses spent, two cavalrymen challenged us with torches held aloft and a dozen mounted hussars at their backs. "Halt. Identify yourselves, in the name of the king!"
I spurred my horse to the front with a practiced squeeze of my knees. "I am Summerlyn Katalina!" I shouted back. "Make way for the princess and her retinue!"
"The princess! Make way for Her Serene Highness!"
"Where is my father?" I cried.
"On the dais, observing, mademoiselle," one of the hussars told me. He pointed to a well-lit platform where the king watched half a hundred of the conjurers from the School of Thaumaturgy struggle to contain and direct the chaotic flow of aether. Within the pool itself, the waters roiled from the intensity of the magical energy being focused therein. Eschewing a backward glance, I immediately raced for the king and dismounted.
"Summerlyn!" King Marchand cried, standing up to embrace me.
"Papa, there is no time to waste!" I called above the clamor. "We must halt this ritual at once!"
"Daughter?" he asked, as puzzled as Merrimont and I had been earlier. "Whatever do you mean? You've just returned -"
"She speaks true, Your Majesty," Renia added, running up behind me with Merrimont. The storm threatened to whisk away her words and she had to scream to be heard. "Merphomenee's arrival will be a catastrophe unlike any other in the history of Theraveria!"
The king's brow furrowed in confusion. "Ambassador Sundalicia -"
"No. Not ambassador, no more. Halt this at once if you wish to prevent a tragedy!"
"There's no time to explain, papa. Just do it!" I pleaded. "If we stop and are wrong now, we can always ask forgiveness and resume later! But if we do not -" King Marchand stared uncomprehending at myself and Merrimont and Renia. Perhaps he wondered if we had all succumbed to madness. Seeing him paralyzed by the surprise, I instead turned and ran to the Minister of Conjury. "Monsieur -" I began, only to be abruptly cut off.
The turbulent swell of magic that permeated the air, so powerful that it required half a hundred conjurers to suppress, suddenly solidified into a spiralling mass of aether which set itself inside the bowl of the gate. The churning water immediately swirled into a fast-moving whirlpool from which staggering power emanated. Several of the conjurers stumbled from surprise, as did I. We all sensed the source immediately: an immense being reaching up, up, up from the depths of the well, brimming with a presence that completely dwarfed us all. She had seized the magic from the other end of the gate and now it slowly yawned open with ponderous inertia, an enormous passage for an impossibly massive individual to ascend. There could be no mistake as to the identity of that presence, one we had all felt wearing Renia's face for months past.
Merphomenee had arrived.
"Close the gate! Close it!" I screamed. The court conjurers hesitated for a moment, but only a moment - and then Renia and Merrimont joined their power to mine and mine to the assembled summoners. In spite of the exceedingly complex magical diagrams drawn to channel the energy, my mind perceived the elegant simplicity of Merphomenee's underlying design at once: a monumental concentration of power to drive open a passage between two separate locations and connect them together. As one we all pushed in an attempt to disrupt the power and stop the vicious whirlpool at our feet from coalescing further. For a moment the pillar of energy seemed to waver and flicker -
- and then Merphomenee's presence seized it and held it steady. The goddess' strength immediately overwhelmed all of us, knocking me down to my feet. How could mere ants fight against a goddess? The king and the Minister of Conjury were both shouting now, struggling to be heard above the howling torrent. Unable to discern their words, I concentrated again and this time we worked on pure instinct, trying to find any way to disrupt the ritual. But how could we, weak and helpless as we were before her unfathomable might?
Her hand reached up through the swirling waters and broke free of the surface. In the wild torchlight of the winter night it glittered pale as alabaster, shimmering as magic-laced water cascaded off her divine skin, each finger topped with a perfectly manicured nail. Graceful and feminine and slender each one might be, still they gouged cracks in the marble lip of the well as each immense digit the size of a horse clung to the bowl of the gate. An unfortunate conjurer was flung off his feet in front of me and I found myself staring at a fingernail larger than my face. Merphomenee's other hand appeared through the passageway a moment later on the opposite surface of the gate. The cracks spider-webbed and widened as she began to pull her prodigious mass through the magical door.
"We are lost!" Renia cried despairingly.
The power of the goddess had stabilized the gate from our side now and we could not hope to dislodge her. One by one our combined concentration broke under the unbearable strain of trying to resist her might, our magically joined power slowly attritioned away. I saw the shadow of a leviathan stir deep in the bottom of the well as her head appeared, ready to rise triumphant over us. Like me, she intended to emerge from the waters onto land.
If I had blended with a river current once, why could I not do it again?
Merrimont and Renia and the conjurers staggered as I willingly immersed myself into Merphomenee's torrential strength, the psychic backlash immediately sweeping away anyone who did not brace against it. The goddess recognized my presence in that maelstrom of primeval rage, for she surrounded me quickly and sheltered me - a calm eye in the center of the hurricane. Here I felt her familiar essence, every bit as warm and welcoming as it had been when she dwelled in Renia Sundalicia. I was a fragile moth fluttering in her great hand as she protected me from the aetherial storm that raged and threatened to consume all of us. For a moment my resolve hesitated as I remembered her kindness towards me. For a moment.
I leaped into the pool.
Merrimont shouted in alarm behind me as my suicidal jump at once swept me away from him into the whirlpool. I struggled to keep my mouth above the water, gasping for breath as my hair whipped around my head in wild wet strands. Merphomenee's protective cocoon of power around me reacted explosively as it too submerged in the churning gate. In that instant her own titanic strength turned against itself, the resultant feedback paralyzing the summoning spell which kept the passage open to her world. The gate yawned tantalizingly wide as sheer momentum kept it open; the whirling waters stopped spinning and its delicate structure collapsed into a thousand chaotic eddies of maddened turbulence. Her wards around me disintegrated and I screamed in agony as the terrible burning aether of the storm tore through my flesh.
Merphomenee receded deeper into the water, deeper into the depths of the magical cauldron, away from Theraveria and back to her own world as the immense spell began to implode around her. First one leviathan hand and then the other were torn free of the gate's frame. Caught in the midst of the burning waters, I desperately reached out to try and find any kind of purchase in spite of the horrible pain wracking my body. Merrimont knelt at the edge, heedless of the danger to himself, and extended the sheath of his sword to me. A hand of the goddess slipped beneath the waves across from him, unable to hold on with her own power acting against her; vaguely I sensed Renia and the conjurers attempting to rally and stabilize the magical gate lest it explode and obliterate everything in the vicinity. "Princess!" Merrimont shouted, his face white and his teeth clenched. I lunged towards him, my body aflame.
I nearly touched him.
Merphomenee touched me.
Her prodigious hand wrapped around my slender body like a hawk grasping a fish, enclosing me in her immense fingers and dragging me helplessly beneath the waves. I had no chance at all against her colossal strength. My last sight of the surface world was of Merrimont's pale face and horrified countenance receding away at great velocity as the burning waters of the Goddess' Gate submerged my body, carrying me thither from the home I loved in Merphomenee's steadfast grip.
J'appartenais à la déesse maintenant.