Fantasy with a twist

The Moonshine Palace in Aramor was a sight to behold. It lay several miles from the shining city and was surrounded by hundreds of white marble pillars, some of which supported a gleaming white domed roof that reached to the sky. There were windows of the finest crystal set into the dome that held the royal chambers. Almost hidden by the sea of pillars were the other buildings of the palace, the servants quarters, the kitchen, the ball room , all of white marble, apart from one building in the centre of the complex, which was of dark grey granite. The palace dungeon. It was the civil watch's duty to keep guard on the dungeons as the only people incarcerated there were political prisoners, those kept by the queen or an influential noble for crimes such as heresy (well, accused heresy), or treason. Next to the dungeon was the small watch barracks, like all the buildings in the palace , excluding the dungeon, it was of bright white marble.
    Guard Captain Doman got up from his desk for his daily inspection of the prisoners, this would be the first time he had done this as he had only been promoted this morning, when Byron, the former Captain of the Guard had left. As he exited the small barracks into the central complex square for the short walk to the dungeon, he was struck by how white everything was. The inside of the barracks was not white washed like most of the other buildings and so, whenever he left the building on some small errand, the blinding lightness struck him.
    I wonder what its like in the dungeons, he thought, no one is  allowed in, apart from the prisoners and the Queen, and me now. By this time he had reached the entrance to the dungeons. He took the newly wrought iron key from his belt pouch and saluted the door guards before unlocking the heavy wooden door. The first thing that struck him was the drabness of the place, a long dark corridor stretched out in front of him with heavy iron doors set into the walls at intervals of about three spans. He was shocked, he had thought that the reason that no one was allowed in was because the prisoners were living in luxury but this, no.
    Walking to the first door set into the wall he noticed a tarnished silver plaque that had been hastily hammered onto the dark wood, it read. Aurelia .
Swashkilter, date of incarceration, 1276N.E . Aurelia Swashkilter, the queen's sister. She had been imprisoned this year? But hadn't she gone to study with the ladies of Aradicia? He could have sworn that he heard a woman's voice say, "GOOD GOD", but it must just be his imagination, he also thought he could see red light, ha, must be nervous, he thought.  He pushed the door open and walked inside.

    The cold Aradician winds blew from the Armard ocean across the city. The city of Caron Dare, the capital of the Aradician empire, home of the Sun King, eternal ally of Aramoria and the moon queen. Lady Desdan looked out from the green grey balcony of imported stone from Tardesta over the sprawling city. The palace lay near the sea, made of the same imported stone as the temple where she stood. In the other direction, lay the rest of the city, and the Jangere road, the road to Aramoria, the road the second Princess of the Moon should have come down weeks ago.
Lady Desdan had sent four messenger pigeons to the Moon palace now, and had had no reply at all. Sighing she closed her eyes and cast her mind out towards the cities, scrying, the art of detaching mind and body was banned in Aradicia, but this could be an emergency. The last time one of the Princesses had died on the road, there had been war. While her mind was detached from her body, she could not see or hear, but rather sense, in truth, sensing was much better than seeing or hearing, she could sense every crack in the city walls, she could sense every blade of grass in the palace garden, casting out further. She could sense the farms surrounding the city and their crops, or sheep, she could sense bread baking and merchants on the road, but the road was empty of any royal procession. Lady Desdan forced her senses yet further to the border between Aradicia and Aramoria, and still nothing, drawing on yet more of her failing strength, she cast her mind all the way to the moonshine city, to the palace and the royal chambers, she could sense Queen Tairana in the throne room and she could sense other nobles, but not the one she searched for. Her mind floated above the white domed palace and sensed a folding in the planes. below the place. Lady Desdan's mind easily pierced the unprotected floor of the palace complex and searched, along dark corridors lined with heavy wooden doors, foul smelling torches lit the dank dungeons. The folding was close now but a green light suffused the corridor ahead of her, trying to block her progress.

    Why was there need for protection against a sister? Tairana knew that there was no point in putting such a small amount of protection to ward off a sister, she knew very well that even is she was the queen of Aramoria, even the weakest sister could break through a shield this pathetic, but then half of the sisters could not scry further than the boundaries of the city, let alone another country. Desdan focused herself, if Tairana was stupid enough to link the shield to itself, then she would make sure that the silly woman did not feet the breaking.

    Desdan visualised a flame in her mind, searingly hot, hot enough to cut through the strongest steel like butter, and projected it into the green shield, it appeared as a glowing yellow orb, about the size of a clenched fist floating slowly towards where the light began, as it got closer and closer to where the light began, it grew larger till it was about the size of a human head. When it touched the light it flowed into it, like liquid fire, the yellow light far outshining the faint green. The liquid fire turned from yellow, to orange, to red and then vanished, the only thing to show it had been there was the scorched doors and torches.

    Darkness surrounded the young girl completely, she could feel cold stone beneath her shift, her shift, she should be in a silk gown, not just a shift.. Wait, where was she, she had just been preparing to go, go where?
    When her older sister had come into her room, to wish her well, she thought then there had been an argument, her sister did not want her to go, go where? There had been a flash of green light and then, nothing. Her eyes were becoming accustomed to the dark now, she could make out a small bed of what she thought might have been straw at one end of the cell, she supposed it must be a cell, even the meanest peasants did not sleep on straw pallets, well, maybe the meanest  peasants but she was noble, better than noble, she was Aurelia Swashkilter, the Queen's sister .

Why was she here? Where  was here? She could make out a faint green light beyond the door, green light, that was strange, what kind of torch gave green light? Aurelia tried to get up but she could not move a muscle, how was she a prisoner, what could stop you moving? She could tense her arm as if to move it, but the air itself might as well have been iron for all she could move. She had learned about this in her lessons when she was younger, the ladies of Aradicia were able to do this to people, bind them in air as if it was rope, call fire and water out of thin air and move the earth under your feet. Aradicia!  That  was where she was going, so she could train with the ladies of Aradicia and do those things, she had the talent, her nurse, Kara, had found out when Aurelia had been seven.
She had a pet cat called Dewli and it had got stuck up one of the apple trees in the palace orchard. Aurelia climbed up to rescue the cat but when she was in the uppermost bows of the tree, the cat jumped and Aurelia reached out to catch it, the branch she was hanging on to snapped and she fell twenty feet to the ground.

    Kara, her nanny looked on in horror but when Aurelia, screaming had nearly hit the ground, a glowing yellow mist grew  around her and she stopped falling just inches short of the ground. When the poor girl looked down at the ground, she fainted and the mist vanished, she fell the last few inches but was totally unharmed.
    As soon as she found out, the Queen, Selena III, called for the resident Lady of Aradicia to come and see to the girl, when she confirmed that the girl did have the gift and was strong in it, Selena agreed that when she was old enough, Aurelia would be sent to study with the Ladies instead of her older sister who had shown no power.
    Elfaria, the Resident lady of Aradicia taught her how to control her powers and suppress them, for they were dangerous without guidance and supervision, until she could study at the temple in another seven years time. Despite Elfaria's dire warning, Aurelia continued to use her powers, but unless she was feeling a particularly strong emotion, in her case, great anger or fear for her life, she could do little more than light a candle or summon a breeze. To use her gift, she had to fall into herself and find her inner power, feel for it but not expect to find at the same time, it was easy now but it took her months before she could hold onto it for little more than a few seconds. She found the part of her power that she had mastered, with Elfaria's help. The tall blonde woman had guided her through the first steps of mastering her raw power. She had shown her what looked like a seething storm above a heaving sea, but the colours were much too vivid, purples in the water and sky while red lightning flashed between the crests of waves and clouds broke like waves on imaginary shores. Elfaria had called it ordered chaos, when she saw the blank look on Aurelia's face, she explained that the raw power tried to be chaotic but because it was Aurelia's, it became the most chaotic things she knew of, a storm on the sea, in the worst way she could imagine, hence the colours, and because she had no control whatsoever, the waves could generate lightning and the clouds could break like waves. Working together, they created a strange bowl, just by imagining  it, Elfaria had called it visualizing. With the bowl, they scooped up some red lightning and some blue cloud and purple water and yellow wind, another thing she didn't understand, she could see  the wind, how could you see  the wind. When the bowl was full of swirling colour Elfaria made a small patch of darkness on the edge of the storm, emptied the bowl into it and closed the gateway.  Aurelia wondered where her power had gone, it felt as though she was in two places at once.

    Elfaria flashed her a grin and said, 'If you're wondering why you feel as if you have been ripped in half, it's because you are trying to be in two places at once, very foolish behaviour if you ask me, which, of course, you were going to." Aurelia gaped, how had the woman known that. "When you wake up," Elfaria said suddenly more serious, "Do not try to use your tamed power, the stuff that was in the bowl, let alone your raw power. If your life is in danger, or the life of someone near to you, then you can try and use your tamed power, it may do more harm than good, but then, there is no point telling you not to use your power for seven years, you will, just heed this, you cannot control raw power without being shielded, it took more than half of my power to shield us both against your raw power and yours is at its lowest point, it will grow fast and continue to grow for years yet, when you get to the temple of Aradicia, the sisters, not Ladies , will tame as much of your power as is safe for you to learn with. what I have tamed will save your life if needs be. When you wake, do not try to find me, I need to recuperate, this has taken too much power". Elfaria floated up and into the strange storm clouds before vanishing in a storm if red lightning.

    Three days later when Aurelia awoke, she was shocked to find out how much time had passed and straight away ran to Elfaria's rooms in the lower royal quarters, the Ladies, no, Sisters were not as respected in Aramoria as they were in some places. When she reached the woman's door, she was shocked to find that she could not place her hand on the handle, the air seemed to thicken the closer she moved her hands to the handle before it grew solid a hairsbreadth away and she could no more have knocked the door down than turned the handle. The strange air that had surrounded the door handle, that must be what was binding her now. She pushed her mind inside herself like she had done so many times and felt for that small place where her tame, controllable power was, she drew out some of the red lightning and formed it into a blood red blade, all she had to do was imagine it hard enough. Even inside her own mind, she could feel it, and she felt it as a growing heat as if she were watching a distant bonfire. The glowing red blade was ready now, and she thrust it out of her mind and made it real. The bonds of air seemed to melt with the presence of the blade and the glow showed her more of her surroundings.
Pushing herself up to her feet she took in the large cell, as she had guessed, at one end there was a bed of straw, and at the other end the cast iron door stood with just a small crack at the bottom. The red blade had started to dissipate into a glowing red mist now, it always did when she wasn't concentrating on it, but it didn't matter, she couldn't use a sword anyway and all she needed was light. The red glow illuminated a large rack on the far wall, it held what looked like long pliers, she knew what pliers were because she had watched the extension being built to the library last year and the carpenters used pliers to close the last links on the chains that held the books to the shelves. The elongated pliers were accompanied by different sized rods and small pitchforks next to a small fireplace. There were also tubs, clearly labelled 'figs' and 'live mice' why would a builder need figs  or live mice, or any mice whatsoever for that matter. Footsteps began to echo outside and she grabbed one of the iron rods and ran to hide behind the door.
    Lady Desdan halted, she could clearly see  an armoured man coming down the stairs in front of her, he stopped and stared, right at her. No, he couldn't even see her, what was so amazing about a corridor. He must be a guard of some sort, he moved to one of the doors hesitantly and began to read the silver plaque. "Aurelia Swashkilter, date of incarceration, 1276N.E ." She could just make out his surface thoughts, strange, he can't be that nervous, he must do this everyday, wait, he had said Aurelia,
    "Good God", she thought, the sound of her thought echoed throughout the corridor, the armoured  man looked up. She wasn't nervous, had he sensed that, was he gifted? Strange. The man  shook his head and strode into the room with the red mist, no, more like a thick fog now, like a mist of blood. She followed the man to the door and stopped dead.
    Aurelia waited until the door was fully open to breath again. An armoured boot stepped into the room, gleaming in the crimson light. The boot was followed by an armoured leg, and then the rest of a heavily built guardsman who was built like an albino gorilla. When she recognised him as Captain Doman, her childhood protector, she gasped and immediately clapped her hand to her mouth, but it was too late, he had heard.
    The big man turned slowly to face her. His broad face took her in, he did not recognise her. A cruel smile split his face.
    "What a pretty poker you have, a pretty poker for a pretty girl, I think we will use that one first."
    Poker, what was a poker?
    "Oh no," she moaned, horrified realisation taking over her face, "Oh God no, you can't do this, please."
    He advanced on her. She lashed out put with the poker and struck him across the side of the face, it didn't even phase him. He took hold of the poker and pulled it from his grasp.
    "Silly girl", he hissed, even more loudly now .
    "Yes, I think that we will definitely use this one first, then the pincers, I like pincers, you won't." He took hold of her arm and pulled her to the wall. He muttered something inaudible and the air around her thickened again and the red light disappeared leaving only a sickly brown green colour like pond slime, but then there was a purple light hovering over his head.
    Aurelia could almost make out the image of a woman's face in the swirling purple mist that was filling the room now. The woman looked serene and angry at the same time and then the face dissolved. The mist began to swirl around Doman and he released her screaming in agony.
    The pond scum glow that surrounded him started to melt away  but the purple mist shot out a tendril and left a white ceramic bowl on the floor. It looked like the bowl that Elfaria had used to collect her power. The mist was floating into the bowl, or being sucked in . When all of the strange mist had been drawn into the white bowl, she looked at Guard Captain Doman, a small halo of white light surrounded him now, it was if he had been cleaned. The purple mist tendrils reached out to her and the air melted again and she could move.

    The woman in the mist was back but whole this time, not just a face.
    "So this is where you have been," said the mist . "I am Lady Desdan of the Aradician temple of the power, I have come to see where you were, you should have arrived weeks ago. You smell of bindweed and scourgeflower paste, I fear that you have been drugged my child. Your sister was always reluctant to let you come to us after your mother died at the hands of a rogue channeler and your father lost in the Blizzandred mountains, your sister, she is in her study. You cannot go now unless you face her, otherwise you will always have grudge against her, and grudges are bad for concentration. Go now, the guards will not stop you,  after all, nevertheless, I shall blind them for you"

    Tairana paced her study in a rage, the diamonds in her tiara glistening in the harsh sunlight. Her study was a plain room, a white stone writing desk stood next to the clear window, the outer wall was slightly curved as it formed the inside of the magnificent dome, the last remnants of the ancient temple to the Moon Goddess Selena, who her mother had been named after. A white marble fireplace stood in one of the inner walls that burned with a white flame, the extent of her abilities with the gift.
    When she was four, Elfaria had tamed all of her power without breaking a sweat, just taming one percent of her dratted sister had prostrated the Aradician for days on end. Such a force could not be handed to a foreign power, ally or no. She had had to do something, anything to prevent Aurelia going to the temple in Aradicia. Tairana had been lucky enough to find the extent of her sisters tamed power one day three years ago.

    She had been seventeen years old and Aurelia fourteen, they had been out in the castle grounds when it had struck Tairana that she could test her sisters power. She had learned more than most of the sisters in the temple knew, from the palace library her mother had ordered an extension eight years ago. She pulled the light around her to make it look as though she was fading away and called to her sister for help.

    "Use the power, help me! Blow it away with yellow!"

Having been told what to do, Aurelia had been more than happy to oblige, the girl had held her hands out in front of her and closed her eyes, she seemed surrounded by a yellow light, the light turned into mist and grew in intensity, red lightning flashed between her hands and her hair was all on end. The mist started to swirl. Faster and faster, the wind rising to a howl. A tornado of yellow light flaring with rings of red and flashing with fire and lightning surrounded Aurelia. The tornado grew, enveloping Tairana, the howling wind rose to a crescendo and the misty glamour she had put around herself began to fail, the lightning and fire stripped it as if it were wet paper.

    Afraid for her life Tairana reached out to Aurelia, to the lines of blinding light that bound her to the vortex of power surrounding her and formed the forbidden Blades of Akasha, blades of pure spirit that could cut her sister's connection with the vortex. It would run out of power and she would be safe, projecting the blades forward, it took all her will to make them sever one by one, her sister's links. But as the links to the vortex became severed, Aurelia began to scream, a terrible scream and the tornado of fire and lightning lost shape and began to shrink.
    Aurelia opened her eyes, her hair still being whipped by the winds that surrounded them both. Still screaming in agony, and something close to fury, Tairana picked out some words, she was not sure how. "An'katha Akasha dellamon tuuam delectat. morir vivendalli". The three remaining links detached themselves from Aurelia, and reached towards Tairana.

    "No, sister, you cannot, please!" she screamed pleading on hands and knees. The blinding light enveloped her and the tornado tore at her sapping her energy, then there was blackness.
    Weeks later when she had awoken and rose to see where she was and how long she had been asleep, she caught sight of herself in the mirror and screamed. All colour had been sapped from her face, her hair, she had had raven locks that fell in curly waves down past her shoulders and deep brown eyes that shone in the light. Now her hair was dead white and her skin too, but her eyes, her eyes like coals stared out at her and she wept for days, refusing food and water before she passed out and was fed in her sleep. It was then that she decided that Aurelia was too dangerous to be sent to Aradicia, almost too dangerous to live.

    There was a knock at the study door, Tairana was just opening her mouth to tell whoever it was to go away when the door, locked and warded or not, burst open and her sister, Aurelia, burst in.

    Tairana's diamond studded tiara glistened in the white flames coming from her marble fireplace. Her sister, looking like a creature born of snow and ice with coals for eyes looked scared, if only for a second. She quickly schooled her expression into haughty arrogance.

    "Little sister, so you came, I wondered whether you would break out of there or not."

    Of course she hadn't, it was small wonder she had woken within two months after being drugged like she had been.

    "Shut up Tairana, you evil manipulative...."

    "Me, evil, I didn't ruin anyone's life with that ridiculous power of yours".

    Aurelia stared at her incredulously, had she gone completely mad?

    "Ridiculous power? I think not, you outdo yourself this time sister, you call ridiculous what you hoped for for years, or are you just jealous because I can do what you cannot.

    Pain erupted on the side of her face and it took her several seconds to realise that she was on the floor. Her sister, her flesh and blood had raised a hand to her!

    "Tairana, how dare you?" She reached inside herself, filled with anger and despair, in Aramoria, lifting a hand against family was a hangable offence, even for royalty. She found her place of power, the spot in her mind where Elfaria had placed a small amount of tamed power all those years ago. Empty? The effort of breaking the air bonds must have been more than she thought but there was not time, Tairana had drawn her belt knife and was drawing closer.

    "Aurelia, dear, dear, sister. If I were you, I would run, but you cannot, the guards would kill you as soon as I. You killed mother, remember? The rogue channeler was you, or at least, it is now, I signed the arrest warrant." Alive or dead."

    She drew still closer lowering the knife to her throat, Tairana cut, slowly, almost lovingly into her sister's neck. Aurelia could see the small gateway to the raw power, her sister was thinking at last, revenge for what you have done,  Aurelia could feel the handle of the silver knife as well as the blade while she had the gateway in sight, she looked closer, the mental sight of it filled her with awe, fire and lightning flashed across a clear blue sky, a calm sea reflecting the lightnings and fire and then the strange magicks were gone. All that remained of the vision was the sky and the calm blue sea which stretched almost as far as the eye could see. Grey mountains lay to the east and a shining city to the west. She could almost feel the pain in her neck like a distant memory as she walked along the bridge to the blinding domed palace, her white blonde hair whipping in the wind.