"You danced well, Nabila. But they did not last as long as others we have seen." The long hands man said.
"No they didn't father but they again served their purpose." Nabila pulled a long white glove from her hand and touched the floor, the blood slowly vanished, leaving just broken bones crushed upon the floor. "With blood we gain life."
The image races out a palace door, Moorish in its architecture, it sweeps up into the sky, three small islands in the middle of an ocean maybe a sea.
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"It is lost Lord Baile." A middle-aged human male was saying.
Baile turned, black hair and dark brown-skinned. He wore no shirt at the moment and it looked like most of the individuals were in warmer climes. He was heavily muscled for a human. "You have lost what exactly?" His voice rumbled.
"Control of the virus. It has mutated beyond our control and its moving more quickly through it mutations. Magic is not stopping it anymore. It will run rampant through the masses, killing everything that is the slightest bit magical. Its death toll will be in the millions before this is over." The human said again.
"The rods?"
"Will not stop it anymore, Lord. It will kill everyone with magic or any race that is magical. No more elves, dwarves, dragons, all of them everywhere. May the gods help us."
"That will not be happening, the new gods will be us and I will not answer your prayers." Baile left the room and turned to guards, monks of Morrigan. "Do your goddesses bidding and destroy this place, burn it to the ground." The two monks moved in. One monk suddenly attacked the other. A short battle ensued. The victor snapped the neck of his brethren.
"Get out all of you. Get out." The monk snatched several vials of liquid, then overturned several tables. He dropped a lit torch on the whole of it and in seconds it was all flame. Smoke poured into a desert sky as the monk set out across it.
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"She is jumping faster than I can keep up with her." A female voice rang out.
"Then follow more quickly." It was another female voice, softer more menacing somehow.
"The more she dreams the easier it will be to follow and if I can catch up to her, she will die in her sleep."
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Arumaga looked up from his papers, glasses perched on the tip of his nose. His eyes were blurry from reading too long. His mind was whirling. Klemper exiled, Shoraz in charge. The red mitheral room destroyed, Hammerhand dead. At least, orb construction was complete and with his death, more artifacts cannot be constructed at least not before we can complete our task. It could have gone worse, I suppose, it should have gone better. Damn Excalibur and its wielder. That thing will forge armies against us, change the course of battles and lots of other nasty things. But other things must take precedence. Three days before these clerics of Epona and her children must be sent off. Three days is far too long. I had best check on them.
Arumaga pushed the glasses off his nose and let them fall to the desk. They landed on the papers he was reading, the date clearly magnified under the lenses. 12/26/1347. He left a study with light streaming in through the windows. Mountains in the background, small mountains, though covered with snow. Pine shelves, dotted the room, he closed a pine door behind him as he left. He gestured with a key toward the lock and an audible click could be heard along with the thrumming of power. The corridor was long and made of granite, laced with strips of pink quartz. He paused a door and gestured with the key again. Inside 15 or more clerics stood against the wall, closer inspection revealed that they were chained there. Two roaring fires in separate fireplaces kept the room at a tolerable temperature for human and even some half elven individuals.
Arumaga touched his forehead it was immediately damp from the heat in here. He looked up and down the walls. Some were older, some much younger ranging from 60 to 6 in age. It was obvious that some of the younger ones had been here for awhile, they didn't cry or even sniffle. Three days, 16 people mostly Epona Clerics, all Epona's children. The Oracle at Delphi said there were more, at least 5 more. Where are they? Who are they?
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A horse birth in progress, not difficult it seems for the mother. The feet emerge and then the head, the whole newborn born in less than 2 minutes.
"Damndest thing I ever saw." An old farmer says standing over the mother horse, a dapple in color. The foal also dapple, stands first shakily and then quickly finds its feet. The accent is a thick Irish brogue.
"That foal is way out of season. I have seen some premature ones born this early but never one that seems normal, being born and with so little effort from the mother." Its an elderly Epona woman, one of yours speaking. Her accent is like yours, Spanish in its flavor.
A shadow flickers at the edge of your vision, "Why are you here, Callas?" It is the voice from before, the one that said you were jumping too quickly, "what does a foal have to do with anything?"
You are awakened by Galvin, gently touching you, "Callas, love. You are dreaming again. My amulet is burning and so are yours. Are you alright?"
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Callas starts out of sleep with a gasp, blinks, comes back to herself, orienting to her surroundings. Her heartbeat calms as she recognizes where she is, and who's with her. "Oh. Ow, you're right." She removes two of the amulets, leaving the third one on as it cools against her skin. Her hands shake, just a little bit.
"I'm fine, I think. I'm getting used to this. At least a little. The dreams were less like nightmares, than...well, actually, they were a lot like nightmares, but less scary because I could see more, if you know what I mean." Galvin nods, and Callas sighs and curls up, resting her head on his chest.
"What did you dream? I think I might have caught a little bit, but not much."
Callas takes a long moment before she replies.
"We have three days to find Epona's children and rescue them before they're taken somewhere. I'm not sure where, but it didn't sound like it would be a pleasant thing at all. There's not just the two that were stolen at the ceremony, there are sixteen, and there are five more--well, four--that are out in the world that nobody knows about."
"You know about one they don't know about?"
"Yes." She sighs, quietly, and shifts a little in his arms. "Me."
"No...you're not? Really?"
"I just found out the other night. It threw me, some. You're the first person I've told, and I'll tell Gavaio tomorrow. But the rest....nobody else needs to know, not yet. It might make no difference, anyway, in the end."
Galvin is quiet for a few moments, then grins in the darkness, and tickles Callas. "I always knew you were divine, love." Callas makes a face at him that he doesn't have to see in order to imagine, and they're both giggling, quietly.
"Oh. The other thing...there's someone out there. Two someones. Both female. One was following me through my dreams. She said something about how I was jumping too quickly for her to catch up, and then something about how when she caught up with me, I would die in my sleep. She did catch up with me, just at the end there. but..i'm still alive, right? you may have woken me just in time. The one who was following me, she spoke to me, at the end, wondering what I was dreaming had to do with anything. I don't know...I can't shake the feeling that the one who was following me wouldn't have meant me harm, if it hadn't been for the other one. The other one wants me dead..." She trails off, lifting her head from Galvin's chest, staring into the darkness.
"What is it, Callas?"
Callas whispers, "I think I know what I was doing there, at the end. Something they overlooked because they don't really know Epona.
"Her children...Galvin, her children aren't all two-legged. Arumaga assumed that we are. But I think he's wrong. Maybe that's why he couldn't find all of us."
"It stands to reason. But what does he want them for?"
"He's delivering them somewhere...no idea where, or to who." Callas pulls the blankets farther up her and Galvin's shoulders. Her voice becomes distant and vague, as she begins to give in to the temptation to go back to sleep. "I wish I knew who the woman following me was, and how she was following me, and if there's anything I can do about it...maybe Arnie will know...they make mistakes too...love...." Her voice drops to a mumble and then quiets, and her breathing becomes deep and regular as she falls asleep.
Galvin kisses the top of her head and closes his own eyes. Time enough to worry on the morrow, time enough to ask the goddess a few pointed questions in his morning prayers. Not that he expects an answer, but sometimes, it's good to just have asked the questions.
But for the moment, he too surrenders to sleep.
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