Dreamweaver - Chapter 5

Griselda lowered her hands, tremendous satisfaction swelling in her chest. She felt magnificent, righteous — hard not to, when she had executed such poetic justice down upon wrongdoers. A pity that the only persons to witness her display were her fellow witches and a pair of children who were now dead. If more people knew about the malicious might of witches, then they would not only be feared, but they would be respected. And sometimes fear and respect were the only things that could guard something as valuable as the Edon Stones more effectively than an entire village of arcane spell-casters.

"Shall I retrieve the Stones, milady?" Annette asked from where she had watched on the other side of the room. Her face was pinched ever so slightly, only noticeable because of the shadows that inhabited the lines. Griselda vaguely wondered why — was it because she had reveled in the deaths of two children?

Griselda glanced down at the aforementioned children, a prick of guilt pinching into her side. She had been rather vicious...but who was to say that these children, innocent as they seemed, would not cause more trouble for them down the line? The girl's eyes had been large and sincere when she'd spoken, but Griselda knew all too well that sometimes mercy had a price. And, indeed, this price was the well-being of her village. If these two were royalty as the girl had said, then not putting them down could result in armies marching down their village thoroughfare.

But then again, killing them could have the same affect. But with the room soundproofed, the only ones abreast of the situation were the witches themselves, and they would be gone long before dawn. By the time these bodies were discovered, they would be safe back in their Deeprealm, and no one would be the wiser about who had caused these two particular deaths.

"No," Griselda said, stepping towards the two children. "Prepare the Warp spell. I will retrieve the Edon Stones."

A violent flash of red light suddenly blinded Griselda, and before she could even think of defending herself, a blazing wall of heat drove her backwards on her heels. She thumped against the far wall, shock rippling up her back.

What in the Gods' name—

"Milady!" The witches converged on her, helping her up from where she'd slumped down the unforgiving stone of the wall. Her back creaked painfully as she found her feet, making her hiss in pain.

"Are you all right?" Annette asked.

"Fine." Griselda shook them off, clenching her fists as she turned back towards the bed. A corona of watery red light surrounded the furniture piece in a glowing hemisphere, casting shadows across the two bodies slumped on the sheets. Flummoxed by its sudden appearance, the old witch stepped forward, but paused — even from this distance, she could feel the toxicity of the light, feel the dark magic sparking like red snakes across its surface. It seemed to hiss at her, making the hair on the back of her neck rise with the basic, instinctive knowledge that she needed to stay away.

Beware, the magic seemed to say. To come closer means death.

"Milady, what's going on?" another witch asked, her young face twisted in dismay. "What has happened? What is this magic?"

Something within the sphere suddenly caught Griselda's attention: the girl, her face still and serene, was cast into shadow by the glowing of the Edon Stones in her ears; the earrings cast a deadly, otherworldly light within the protective corona.

"Blast." The word was sharper than a sword. "She has invoked the power of the Edon Stones!"

"What!" The witches glanced between each other in dismay. "How, milady?" Annette asked. "She is no witch! How can she have such power?"

"One does not need the Shadowgift to invoke the power of the Edon Stones," Griselda said, throat gritty with irritation. "Only the tiniest spark of magic will do, as it was meant for involuntary protection, something that would automatically defend the mage during combat, preventing him from having to cast his own protective spells."

"Wait," another witch gasped. "If she can activate the Edon Stones..."

Griselda nodded. "Then she is alive. Only the living can use the earrings' power."

"How did she survive your deathstroke?"

"Perhaps it was again thanks to the Stones," Griselda said. "Perhaps she has a high resistance to magic, unlike her friend. Perhaps she casts a protective spell over herself before she goes to sleep. It does not matter. Our main problem, now, is that we cannot retrieve the earrings. That corona is fatal. To go near it would be death."

"And we cannot kill her from afar?" a witch said.

To answer her question, Griselda removed her backup tome, Fire, from her robes. Closing her hand into a claw, she summoned the power of the tome, allowing it to manifest as a sphere of flame above her fingernails, and then thrust it towards the bed. As it struck the corona, the Fire attack burst into a thunderous napalm pool, the flames dropping around the bed in a perfect circle — they leapt six, seven feet into the air, burning like hellfire. The witches shielded themselves as sizzling currents of heat washed over them and watched anxiously, fully expecting for the attack to consume to bed and the children that lay upon it.

But abruptly, the corona rippled, hungrily engulfing the flames in the pink folds of its own energy. The young spell-castors continued to watch, in awe, as the shield drew every last tongue of flame into itself, folding them into bulging pockets before suppressing the scalding heat with the weight of its essence. Seconds later, the fire was extinguished, with no hint that it had ever been there save for a blackened ring on the floor and residual heat hanging in the air.

"Incredible," a witch gasped.

Griselda flashed her an annoyed look, making her flinch back. "The corona acts as a shield against physical and magical attacks," she said, lips thin. "The earrings were created to negate and sunder any type of magic, coming from any direction. It is a witch's ultimate defense."

That was quite clear to them all now. Normally, a Fire attack from Griselda cooked anything unfortunate enough to be a target medium-rare in the blink of an eye. The witches fell into a frustrated silence, glaring at where Forrest lay sprawled across Siegbert's cooling body.

After staring at her quarry for a moment, Griselda had an idea. "Cast an enchantment upon the room," she ordered, pointing a finger at one of the witches. "Ensure that no one enters."

As the witch turned to do her bidding, Griselda invoked her magic again, pulling the power in flowing waves from the depths of her body, this time using her primary tome, Nosferatu, as a conduit. It manifested as a hazy white glow, like morning fog, on her fingertips, steadily growing blue as it grew more concentrated.

Spinning her fingers, Griselda released her magic into the air, where it hung before her, waiting for her command. She marshaled it together in a compact stream, rolling it into the wiry shape of a cobra. She chanted as her hands moved, her words and movements giving the magic strength, purpose. The witches stood eagerly at her shoulders — it was not often that they were able to see their leader spellcast, and today had thus far been an educating seminar.

One curious witch looked puzzled. "Madam, what is that?" she asked. "I've never heard this particular spell before."

Griselda smiled wryly. "It is a dreamweave," she said. "An ancient magic where one can manipulate the dreams of others. It is a benevolent spell used to calm fevers, ease sicknesses, and bring afflicted coma patients out of their sleep."

"I...I don't understand," the witch said.

"Watch." As Griselda put the finishing touches onto her spell, she said, "Dreamweaves are benign magic, something this selectively permeable corona might let through to the girl."

A witch frowned. "But won't it just absorb and negate the spell, as it did the Fire attack?"

"No, it won't," Annette said with awe. "It negates offensive magic, but this is a healing spell. We're fooling it into thinking we're helping her."

"Precisely," Griselda said. "And here's the beauty of it. Watch." With one hand, Griselda held her blue dreamweave spell at rest, and the other formed a claw. Magic bloomed at her fingertips again, but this time, it was a vile, poisonous black, and crackled like bottled lightning. The old witch thrust the spell into the blue snake, and the blue magic seemed to shudder as it entered. A second later, a black stripe painted down the snake's back.

"I insert a deathstroke spell into the dreamweave," Griselda said. Without another word, she thrust her hands forward, sending the snake slithering towards the Edon Stone corona. The witches watched, tense, as it approached — the blue snake nudged at the hazy shield, and for a second, it couldn't seem to find purchase on its crackling surface.

Then, the shield bowed inward, engulfing the snake. But unlike the Fire attack, it did not fold the spell into a pocket and suppress it. It permitted it fully into the protective corona: it hovered above the girl, seeming to identify her, before shattering in a shower of blue fire. The deathstroke spell inside the snake did not drop, but instead thickened into a black cloud of smoke, spreading until it filled the inside of the corona, completely surrounding the  two young royals.

Griselda smirked, pleased with her work. "Excellent."

"What will happen now?" a witch asked. "We wait for her to wake up?"

"Yes. The dreamweave is a special type of magic, one I can easily manipulate. Normally, the castor would send the patient pleasant dreams, gently tugging them back to consciousness...but in this case, I will send the girl nightmares. The magic has direct control over the function of her body, meaning that if she experiences enough trauma, she will expire from heart failure. If that does not happen, then she will wake up, and the deathstroke spell will immediately strike her down. Either way, she dies, and the corona falls."

"There is no way around it?" the witch asked with glee.

Griselda paused. "Well...yes, there is one way that she can awaken safely," she said. "But even if she knew what it was...she will never attempt it."