by Des Pensable
The room suddenly filled with poisonous gas. Miranda began coughing and spluttering but then said through their mindlink.
‘Don’t worry, druids are immune to most poisons. I think I’ll be okay with this one. How can we get at it before it tries something that will hurt?’
‘This is Astaria; I can teleport anywhere here at will. All I need to know is where to go. I think I can get us to the other side of the room so give me your hand. Bellen is probably over there, so be careful.’
Aquitain solidified his Newman male body grabbed her hand and teleported into the darkness of the other side of the room. Immediately he used the wand to dispel the magical darkness in the room. The dispel not only eliminated the darkness but also the Charm on Bellen and the flight power on the sentient book which thudded onto the ground a couple of paces from them. He froze the air around the book to stop it from moving then a strange thing happened, his mind was drawn into a large circular room about hundred paces across.
His mind solidified into an avatar of his greenish crystal covered monster body from the dream world, standing in the room. Standing opposite him was the avatar of an old Newman wearing a nondescript grey wizard gown with a long grey beard.
‘So we meet mind to mind.’ said the other
‘I am Franciscus, Arch Mind Wizard of Poranto a place you have probably never heard of and for the last forty nine years I have been stuck in that damn book and you are?’
‘I am Aquitain, mind wizard of Panmagica and lately Warden of Moonmist. Where are we?’
‘We are in a mind arena. This is how the big boys and girls determine the outcome of a dispute. It’s usually reserved for arch mind wizards and above but since you’ve managed to get this far I thought you deserved a trial. Besides I’ve been bored out of my mind lately and I need some entertainment.’
‘OK so what do we do now?’ said Aquitain.
‘We fight and whoever gives up first is the loser.’
‘How long will it take?’ said Aquitain. ‘I’ve got a lot more to do.’
‘Well fights have been known to go on for days but since you’re not experienced at this type of fighting, maybe minutes.’ replied Franciscus.
‘So what happens if I win?’ said Aquitain.
‘Ha ha. If you win you can ask me to grant you a wish. If it’s within my power I will grant it.’
‘And if I lose.’ said Aquitain.
‘In that case you take my place in the book and I will eliminate your friends. I’m sure I could make good use of that beautiful female body.’
‘What about Bellen?’ asked Aquitain.
‘Unfortunately, he’s one of your friends so I can’t let him live even though I must admit I did like the little fellow.’ replied Franciscus.
‘Now down to business.’ he bowed to Aquitain and used a power. Aquitain’s head was covered in a metal container and he couldn’t see anything.
‘Ha ha. You look like a bit of a pot head.’ said Franciscus. ‘and my goodness you’re standing in a fire.’
Aquitain felt his feet and legs burning and ran a few steps trying to pull the container off his head but it wouldn’t come off, so he shrunk the size of his head and the container came free.
‘A little head needs a little pot.’ shouted Franciscus and another metal container appeared over his head.
‘Hey pot head you’re in the fire again.’ laughed Franciscus.
This time Aquitain ran and made his head disappear altogether and created his face on his stomach.
‘Oh, a headless hulk with a face in his tummy. How obscene he should wear clothes.’ and suddenly he was covered with green leafy material all over, again blocking his vision.
‘My goodness, are they itchy leaves you’re wearing?’ said Franciscus.
Aquitain realized that the leaves were made of a vine that caused itching and rashes and began to feel extremely itchy all over. Quickly he changed to a snake and slithered out of the itchy vine clothes.
‘A snake, a snake, where’s the snakebird.’ shouted Franciscus as he changed to a snake bird.’
Immediately he charged Aquitain and kicked him in the head with a tough bony foot. Aquitain reeled back stunned by the blow.
‘The snake bird’s foot flies faster than snake can strike.’ said Franciscus as he strutted around then ran in again kicking Aquitain’s snake body viciously, before dancing out of reach.
‘Oh dear, your friends are missing you. I better look after them’ said Franciscus and he split down the middle dividing into two snake birds, one kept stalking him and the other vanished.
‘The snake looks sleepy.’ yelled the snakebird and Aquitain felt drowsy as it darted in again giving him another swift kick.
‘Damn that bird moves fast. Maybe this will work.’ thought Aquitain as he changed to a bear.
‘A big bad bear. My goodness, the seeds are sowing and the grass is growing.’ and grass seeds began raining down from the sky and where they landed vines shot out of the ground tangling Aquitain’s legs.’
‘No the ground is crying and the vines are dying.’ said Aquitain starting at last to catch onto the game and they all started wilting.
‘The situation’s dire and they all catch on fire.’ yelled Franciscus and the whole floor of the arena covered in dry vines began to burn.
‘Fires burning, good for toasting, bird’s flying, bear’s roasting.’ sang Franciscus as he flew into the air and began circling around the arena.
The fire burnt his feet badly and singed his hair smelling awful.
‘This has got to be some sort of crazy illusion I’m trapped in.’ he thought then concentrated and sang.
‘Let it rain, let it pour, let the fire be no more.’ and it began to rain heavily putting out the flames. The snakebird laughed and yelled
‘Hey bear, what happened to your hair.’ then flew down to the muddy ground and turned into an eel.
‘Eels like mud , eels like water, eels breathe air and eels breathe water.’ chuckled Franciscus and suddenly there was no air at all, the whole arena was under water. Aquitain quickly changed his form into a shark and swam off to take a bite out of the eel but as he got close to it gave off a discharge of electricity that shocked and stunned him forcing him to swim away quickly.
He circled around Franciscus charging in a couple of times but each time the eel gave out an electrical discharge shocking him.
‘If he can split into two maybe I can.’ thought Aquitain. ‘But how do I do it?’
He quickly mentally sorted through all the animals he had changed to and hit upon the slime mould.
’Yes that will do nicely,’ he thought and quickly changed form to a slime mould then split himself down the middle forming two. His mind felt strange and he was confused for a few moments. His mind felt strange and he was confused. He changed to a shark and he changed to an eel.
‘Hey you, change to an eel so that we can attack him from both sides.’ said Aquitain 1.’
‘Who are you talking to?’ said Aquitain 2. ‘Why aren’t you a shark like me.’
‘Listen here.’ said Aquitain 1. ‘You’re only a figment of my imagination, do what I say. Change to an eel and follow me.’
‘Who do you think you’re talking to. You’re the figment, not me.’ 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 I should cool them down a little.’ and the water froze to solid ice.
Franciscus turned to another type of eel and began heating up. Soon he started slowly gliding forward, his hot glowing body melting the ice around him.
‘I’m a little ice worm hot at the snout, melting all the ice and gliding all about. I’d like a little snack, a choice of shark or eel. Let’s slide up there and have a tasty meal.’ sang Franciscus.
‘I’m getting a bit tired of this crazy bastard.’ said Aquitain 2.
‘I’ll agree with you on that.’ said Aquitain 1.
>
‘Turn to stone and it won’t be able to bite us.’ said Aquitain 2.
‘But then we won’t be able to see what it does next.’ said Aquitain 1.
‘Quite right.’ said Aquitain 2. ‘Okay, whoever it attacks should turn to stone and the other watch to see what it does next.’
‘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 are the figment.
‘Turn to stone now.’ said Aquitain 2. ‘It’s about to attack you.’
Aquitain 1 became stone just as the ice worm took a bite. Franciscus bit down hard and broke a few teeth.
‘That was a nasty shock, I’d like shark not rock.’ and he slithered over to Aquitain 2 only to get the same treatment as one turned to stone while the other returned to flesh.
Moments later they 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. The bear 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. I want to work out how to break this illusion or whatever it is.’ said Aquitain 2 as he changed into a ball of iron which should resist almost any attack.
‘Okay.’ said Aquitain 1.
‘Have it your way.’ and he proceeded after the seagull.
Aquitain 2 quickly got to work. He thought of all the things that had happened so far and the continual comments by the crazy mind wizard and quickly concluded that the crazy mind wizard wasn’t crazy after all. Franciscus was purposely trying to stop him from thinking like he was now. The rapid shape changes, arena changes and silly comments were all designed to keep his mind occupied so he couldn’t see the way to break out of this illusion.
It was like being dominated, where the other person had control of your mind and directed you to do things that you didn’t necessarily want to do but Franciscus was giving him freedom to act. Why? Perhaps just for the fun of it.
Where was the arena located? It had to be in either his mind or Franciscus’s mind. He briefly considered the dream world but it didn’t seem the same as when he was there a couple of nights ago. His mindlink with Miranda and Yllandril was no longer present that was a clue.
In the end, he concluded that he was in an illusion created by Franciscus in his own mind. The other mind wizard was controlling the illusion through a forced mindlink but didn’t have total control. Franciscus kept on the attack and changing things to reinforce the fact that he had control whereas Aquitain probably had just as much control perhaps even more if he were to use it.
He briefly considered trying to take control of the game but this might just play into the hands of Franciscus who had played this game many times before. An alternative was that if it was controlled through a mindlink then he could disrupt it by trying to block or terminate the mindlink, but where to start? He couldn’t feel the mindlink.
Then he remembered that a pure heart was designed to block mind effecting spells of the domination type so if the arena was really in his mind 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 the arena disappeared and his mental awareness returned to the reality and darkness of the sentient book’s lair.
‘I need eyes.’ he thought.
‘I need some eyes.’ he thought.
Aquitain 2 looked around and saw Miranda with Yllandril on her shoulder trapped in a sphere of force.
Aquitain 1 looked down and saw the book still on the ground.
‘I won!’ he mindspoke to the book.
‘You mean I won.’ said Aquitain 2.
‘What, are you still here?’ said Aquitain 1.
‘I defeated Franciscus using brute force while you huddled on the ground thinking.’
‘I can’t believe this.’ said Aquitain 2.
‘I worked out it was a dominating illusion and eliminated it using a pure heart.’
‘Really?’ said Aquitain 1 noting that he was inside a pure heart.
‘A dominating illusion, how did you come to that conclusion?’
‘You didn’t win.’ said the book.
‘You didn’t beat me by playing but by destroying the game, so therefore technically you didn’t win.’
‘We did win.’ said both of Aquitain’s minds.
‘Oh my, you’ve got a problem.’ said the book. ‘You’ve split your mind into two. I thought you must be a bit inexperienced when I saw you do it in the arena. It’s okay for a short period but dangerous if it goes on for too long. You’ll both want to be the boss. You’ll fight and disagree then one of you will become sulky and bitter and in the end you’ll drive each other mad.’
‘Listen here book, that’s for us to worry about. We won, you owe us a wish.’ said Aquitain 1.
‘Mm. Irregular as it is, I suppose you’re right. What do you want?’ said Franciscus.
‘I want you to ...’ said Aquitain 1.
‘Hold on.’ said Aquitain 2 .
’Who said what you want is the same as what I want? Surely we should discuss it first!’
‘What does it matter.’ said Aquitain 1. ‘We’re both the same person.’
‘Well it doesn’t feel like it, because you seem to want to make all the decisions without asking me.’ said Aquitain 2.
‘I’m starting to agree with the book. We’ll have to get back together again otherwise you’re going to drive me mad.’ said Aquitain 1.
‘So now you’re agreeing with the book, instead of me.’ said Aquitain 2.
‘My, my, can’t we agree on who gets the wish?’ chuckled the book.
‘Shut up.’ said both Aquitains.
‘I wish you’d put us back together again.’ said Aquitain 1.
Moments later Aquitain felt a little confused then the situation became clear again. He was stuck here with a dilemma, what should he do about the other mind.
Miranda decided to sit down in the force bubble.
‘What do you think is going on out there.’ said Miranda to Yllandril.
‘I came here expecting a fight but all that’s happened is Aquitain floats around out there as a big cloud of eyes. I wonder what he’s looking for?’
‘I think we’ve got to get back together again.’ said Aquitain but the other mind didn’t answer.
‘What’s up! Aren’t you going to talk to me now.’ he said but received no answer.
‘Well that’s solved the wish problem, what would you like to talk about now?’ said the book.
‘Eh. What are you mean?’ said Aquitain.
‘We haven’t agreed on the wish yet?’
‘Yes you did.’ said the book. ‘I distinctly heard you say I wish you’d put me back together again. So I granted your wish.’
‘What, you can’t do that, it was our, I mean, my wish.’ said Aquitain a bit annoyed.
The force bubble burst and Miranda jumped up, scimitar at the ready.
‘Are we supposed to be fighting or what?’ she shouted.
‘No it’s all over.’ said Aquitain reforming his Newman male body.
‘But, we haven’t done anything.’ said Miranda.
‘Yes we have and so have both of us, I mean, so have I.’ he said.
‘Are you alright?’ said Yllandril. ‘You seem a little confused.’
‘Thanks Yllandril, I was but I think I’m okay now. The book put up a good fight but it was all in a mental arena rather than here.’
Miranda suddenly tensed up, pointing with her scimitar she yelled.
‘Behind you, Aquitain!’
Aquitain quickly turned to see a small person seemingly flowing out of the wall behind him.
‘It’s Okay Miranda, I know this fellow, he’s a friend.’ said Aquitain to allay Miranda’s apprehensions.
‘Asterix,
what are you doing here?’
‘Hello again My Lord, I thought that I’d come and join the party. It seems that you’ve already met my friend Franciscus.’ said Asterix.
‘Your friend! The bastard tried to kill us.’ said Miranda.
‘Ha. ha. If he really tried, you’d be dead.’ said Asterix.
‘He wanted to test the new Lord of Astaria himself. You see we’ve got a problem here in Astaria and I think that we’re going to need quite a bit of help to fix it.’
‘Where are we Asterix, I haven’t been here before.’
Asterix said a few words and the room lit up, the wall of force partitioning the room disappeared, and the two wrestling constructs stopped and returned to their guard positions.
‘Welcome to Astaria’s Control room. I didn’t show you this place before, as it was a secret, kept even from Llanlorian. From here you can mechanically control all the functions of Astaria, including the weather, the lighting, the gateways and you can also watch and hear what is happening almost anywhere within the town, pathways 1, 2 and 3 and a short distance outside their gates.’
‘How can you do that?’ asked Aquitain. ‘There is nothing here.’
Asterix said a word and a large crystal mushroom-shaped control panel about waist high and two paces wide appeared in the centre of the room. On the convex curved topside were dozens of small flat windows each showing a scene within Astaria.
Aquitain and Miranda with Yllandril on her shoulder walked around the crystal looking at various scenes, noting that they could see different views around the village and a lot of people, mainly fighters and a few that looked like wizards.
‘Now you see our problem.’ said Asterix.
‘You can hear a conversation in any place by touching the screen with a finger like this.’
‘Who are they? asked Aquitain.
‘The fighters are mainly mercenaries recruited by the Mentarin. The wizards are all Mentarin.’
‘By the powers, that looks like a significant fighting force. What’s happened? Why are they here?’ asked Aquitain.
‘We don’t know. We were hoping that you might know since you’ve been stirring up such a lot of problems lately.’ replied Asterix.
‘Bellen filled us in on some of your adventures around the palace but we don’t know what else you’ve learnt.’