Sciatha drummed her fingers across the knotted, ale-stained surface of the tavern table and tried not to look quite so disgusted with the merchant who sat across from her. He was talking, voice raised slightly to cut through the din of other conversations and the motley group the tavern keeper insisted was a band. The merchant’s self-satisfied tone suggested he enjoyed the sound of his voice, whether haggling over the price of the season’s herring catch or sharing the latest gossip with his friends, though Sciatha was doubtful he had many of the latter. Worse was the way his piggy eyes kept wandering over to her, settling generally around the area of her breasts until he saw her notice and turned his gaze back to her piercing emerald eyes.
Normally, Sciatha quite enjoyed such attentions from men, but generally from Princes or Lords, not jumped up fish mongers. She was quite proud of her looks and her body. To the casual observer, she appeared a tall, striking lass, no more then 18 summers, her long, graceful limbs, fine hourglass figure and perky round breasts all displayed marvelously by the emerald velvet dress she wore. Her bright, copper colored hair was woven into a long braid, curled up and held in place with a gold pin.
Few might have guessed that so fresh and comely a lass was well into her second century walking the mortal planes, but that was one of the advantages of being a sorcereress. Even since she’d reached mastery of the Third Rank, she’d taken advantage of certain spells which had restored her youth and beauty, in truth, not an illusion like the ones on the man seated opposite her.
Sciatha had spotted the vanity illusions as soon as he’d sat down. The one to darken his gray hairs and hide the wrinkles lining his face was done passably well. The ones covering up his expanding middle and double-chin not so well. Every so often, the spells would flicker as he moved and she would briefly see double: the fat, aging merchant and the fit young man he once had been, or wanted to pretend he had once been.
Still, if he had money to pay a second-rate illusionist for vanity, he must have had more money then she’d have credited at first glance, so instead of incinerating him and being on her way, Sciatha did her best to ignore his ogling and listen to him talk. Once he’d exhausted his stick of empty flattery and disingenuous compliments, the merchant finally got to his proposal. Sciatha, who’d been half expecting an invitation to become his mistress, was taken by surprise.
“You want me to hunt down a woman, Ser Odinnal?” She asked.
The merchant, Odinnal, nodded. “She used to work for me, until recently. She stole a small fortune from my offices and made a run for it not two days ago.”
If Ser Odinnal had been as free with his eyes on this other lass, and possibly more, then good for her Sciatha thought, but she kept her expression neutral and asked, “Why hire a Sorceress for this? Surely a bounty hunter would be just as effective and a tenth the fee.”
The man sputtered a bit before hesitantly replying, “She’s a mage too. There’s few bounty hunters in the Trade Cities which would touch a coin of any bounty I put on her.”
“A mage?” Sciatha raised an eyebrow. “What rank?”
“Second.” Odinnal answered. “At least, that was the rate which she charged me.”
“And what did you pay her for?”
Odinnal hemmed and hawed a bit before answering. “Different things…sometimes I had some cargo I didn’t want the customs men taking a close look at, or I needed to know what price another merchant was setting for wool or to make a cargo of fish smell better until the coin had changed hands.”
“Hmm…” Sciatha mused. “If I find her, what should I do with your wayward mage? I assume you’ll want her brought back alive?”
“Of course, by Vennor!” Odinnal exclaimed. “We must find my stolen money! If it’s not with her, she must tell us where she’s hid it!” He paused a second, trying to gauge Sciatha’s expression before reluctantly adding, “A third of any money retrieved will be yours, on top of your normal fee.”
The sorceress thought it over. Tangling with another mage was always tricky, though if this Sorceress was only of the Second Rank Sciatha wasn’t too concerned with her chances. The thought of handing a fellow sorceress over to the likes of this lout pained her, but the money would be worth a tinge of guilt, especially if she could recover his missing gold.
“And you wouldn’t be talking to the likes of him…” She reminded herself, “If you didn’t need the money.” Sciatha sighed. “Very well. I’ll track down this mage for you. But I’ll need a few things: half my fee up front, to recompense time and effort spent. Then, I’ll need this sorceress’ name and something of hers that I can use to track her by: a lock of hair or a drop of her blood would be ideal but some clothing she’s worn or bedding she slept in would do as well.
Odinnal clapped his pudgy hands in delight. “Splendid! And such you shall have!” He trailed off as he began digging into the pouch at his belt, beginning with a sizable stack of gold coins. As he counted them out, Sciatha crooked a finger, as subtly as she could, casting a quick spell she’d learned long ago to check the coins were on the level: no wizard’s gold, debased coinage or ones with clipped edges. To her delight, and a little surprise, all seemed as pristine as when they’d left the High King’s mint.
“Now, I haven’t got any of the things you said…” Odinnal continued when the full count of coins were safely stowed away in Sciatha’s money pouch. “But I do have this…” From the same pouch, he took out a folded sheet of dark brown paper which seemed to have been torn from a larger sheet. As he set it out on the table, Sciatha saw some scraps of writing in a small, neat hand cut off by the torn edge, done by a clerk no doubt, and below a wax seal and a few scribbles in other hands.
“This is from the contract she signed, when we made our initial agreement.” He told her. “Her name...at least the name she gave me, was Tuatha.”
Sciatha took the paper and looked it over. The name was probably false. Sorcerers were usually careful with whom they shared their real names, but if she’d gone by this one: Tuatha, for any length of time and she hadn’t had a chance to reintroduce herself under a new name, there would still be a tenuous magical link, especially with a paper she’d signed in her own hand. Not a strong link perhaps, not enough to lay an enchantment or a hex, but it would suffice for a simple tracking spell if Sciatha moved quickly.
“I will let you know when I have her.” She told Odinnal, taking the signed scrap of paper. “It shouldn’t take long, depending on how far she’s run.” Ignoring his thanks and wishes of good luck, Sciatha made her way through the tavern’s crowded main hall and to the doors.
Outside. The mid-afternoon air thrummed with a busy energy. The tavern faced one of the city’s main market squares. The tramp of feet, creaking of wagon wheels on paving stone, the squawking, clucking and lowing of livestock mingled with the excited chatter of commerce in a confusing clamor.
Seeking a quieter place to cast her spell, Sciatha walked briskly up the main road a dozen yards or so, weaving her way between the tide of people coming and going to market. Eventually, she found a gap between two shops, a narrow alleyway which took her off the main thoroughfare. On the other side, among the empty back lots, the sounds of the street she’d just left were somewhat muffled by the bulk of the shops and houses. The sorceress got to work. Holding the signed parchment in one hand, Sciatha traced a few arcane figures in the air with two extended fingers of her other, softly chanting the words of the tracking spell.
Sciatha closed her eyes, still chanting. The muffled noise of the market grew quieter still as she extended her senses outwards, towards the location of the person who had signed this paper under the name Tuatha. To Sciatha’s surprise, she did not have to extend far. The other sorceress was still here, right in this city and only a few streets away. For a second, she wondered if Odinnal had been fooled, or if the sorceress had gotten a stand-in to sign for her, but no, through her mystical senses, Sciatha could tell, this other woman bore the unmistakable aura of a sorceress.
“She’s either very foolhardy...or quite clever.” Sciatha said to herself. It was certainly an unexpected move. Odinnal doubtless, would never realize his missing mage and stolen treasures were right under his nose. Had he hired ordinary bounty hunters, instead of another sorceress, they’d have gone haring off in all directions and never found a trace of her.
“Either way, it makes things more convenient for me.” Sciatha added, keeping the spell going in the back of her mind as she set off once more, following the spell, back out onto the busy street. She’d expected a few days or weeks of rough travel over countryside or by sea, depending on which way her quarry had gone, but with luck, she’d have this sordid affair wrapped up before evening bell without ever having to leave the comforts of the city.
Sciatha’s path wound its way through the city. Periodically, she had to pause, refocus on the guiding tug of the tracking spell. The other sorceress was on the move, and quite briskly, though Sciatha couldn’t tell whether her target had realized she was being followed. Tuatha’s direction headed almost perpendicular to Sciatha’s. But as she adjusted to try and head off the other sorceress’ destination, Sciatha knew it wouldn’t be long before they met up.
Her path led her into one of the poorer quarters of the city. As the cobblestone streets gave way to dirt, or more often mud, tracks, Sciatha was forced to lift her skirts to save the expensive velvet. On either side of the road, large, crumbling houses jammed closely together, their extended upper stories almost touching, leaving the street and narrow alleyways between them shrouded in shadows. Many of them were boarded up, abandoned since the fever had swept through the city slums a few years back. Here and there, empty lots and piles of rubble marked where individual houses had burnt or collapsed and had not yet been rebuilt.
It was all fine by Sciatha. The fewer people around when she confronted Tuatha the better, as far as she was concerned. The other sorceress was likely to put up a fight rather then surrender quietly and disputes between mages often became...messy. Less chance of random bystanders getting caught up in things the better. Sciatha had a good reputation in the city and wanted to keep it that way.
The two sorceress’ were now very close. Sciatha’s turn to head off Tuatha had brought them nearly onto the same path, separated by a single row of houses perhaps. Sciatha’s tracking spell told her the other woman had sped up. Doubtless she’d detected the other sorceress, but she wasn’t fleeing. And yet, she wasn’t heading directly for Sciatha, but a point just off from where Sciatha was heading. A safe house, or perhaps a chosen battleground, someplace carefully prepared for such an encounter. Sciatha picked up the pace, until she was close to sprinting. If such was the case, her best course was to cut the other mage off, to deny her the home field advantage.
She succeeded, but barely. A hundred yards ahead was an open lot, the pile of broken timbers and masonry that marked the former site of a large tenement picked clean of useful materials for other construction and now left to what weeds and scrubs could push up through the rubble. As good a place for a mage’s duel as any in this cramped quarter and an equally good one to lay some magical surprises to give an edge in one. And there, coming out of a narrow alley, with Sciatha between her and the lot, was the other mage.
At first glance, she looked much like Sciatha: a tall, slender lass perhaps a year or so younger then the redheaded sorceress. Tuatha’s own hair was raven black, tied up in braids pinned behind her head to bare a narrow, though not angular face with pale skin, an aquiline nose and a pair of dark eyes. And like Sciatha, such youthful looked merely belied the years of experience and practice of arcane arts.
Tuatha was dressed simply with a dark green woolen cloak, thrown back to show a loose white shirt, belted at the waist with men’s dark pants tucked into leather riding boots. With the cloak pulled close and the hood down, it would make an excellent disguise against anyone but another mage. But seeing as her opponent today was one, she’d abandoned concealment to free her movement and peripheral vision in the bout.
The two women strode towards each other, both taking a measured, even pace. Silently, Sciatha went through the usual mantras and spells, preparing for the imminent magical clash. She had little doubt Tuatha was doing the same thing as the distance between them shrank.
They stopped, just close enough to speak without needing to raise their voices. Sciatha opened the preliminaries with a nod of the head, careful not to take her eyes off the other woman. “You are the mage sometimes known as Tuatha.” It was a statement, not a question and one Tuatha didn’t bother to refute. “Will you come with me?” This was phrased as a question, but Sciatha already knew the answer. Tuatha’s only response was a measured shake of the head.
For two or three heartbeats, both stood stock still. Then, they each made their opening move. Sciatha was a hair faster, snapping out the words of a spell and thrusting her right hand forward, palm turned upwards. The unpaved dirt road beneath Tuatha began to ripple and move as the spell took hold. Five tendrils of flowing dirt shot upwards and, as Sciatha closed her hand suddenly, struck at the woman standing in their center.
But Tuatha had anticipated such an attempt at a quick capture and got her spell off a second after Sciatha. Thrusting both hands outward, she sent a sphere of energy radiating out from here. Where it met the dirt arms there was a thunderclap and they crumbled back to inert earth once more. Meanwhile, Tuatha brought her hands forward, pointing both palms at Sciatha and redirected the energy straight toward the other sorceress.
Hurriedly, Sciatha crossed her arms in front of her and raised a magical barrier. The two translucent forces met with a flash and another thunderclap. Despite seeing the attack coming, Sciatha found herself pushed back a step or two by the strength of the magical attack rebounding off her defenses.
“If she’s a mage of the second rank, she’s due for a promotion.” Sciatha thought. From what she’d seen of the other woman so far, they were very nearly even in terms of skill and power. Any chance of snaring the other sorceress with a quick spell and ending the fight early were gone. This would be a long, drawn out fight, until one or the other ran out of power or made a mistake. And Sciatha was no longer quite so confident that it would be her to outlast the other woman.
As she was having these thoughts, Tuatha seized the opportunity to initiate their next bout. A stream of sibilant words flowed from her mouth as she gestured about the ground around her. A dozen small portals appeared at her feet and from out of them climbed a dozen short, blue skinned humanoids, each about two feet high. They turned their large, hairless heads toward Sciatha, opening wide mouths filled with sharp, needle teeth. At a barked command from the sorceress who had summoned them, the imps charged forward.
Sciatha’s immediate instinct was to conjure up fire and scorch the imps to ash, but she hesitated, recalling her earlier thought of the nature of this contest. Summoning a dozen imps at once was a serious drain on power, but summoning an illusion of those imps was only a fraction of the cost of forming physical bodies from pure Aether. And if provoked, Sciatha into wasting more of her own reserves with useless fire spells…
“Unless one or two of them are real, just to trip me up.” She thought with a nasty suspicion. By now, the scampering creatures had closed most of the distance between her and them. To play for time, Sciatha snapped off a quick spell, raising a barrier of earth about waist high between her and the imps. They impacted and rebounded off, but were back on their feet in an instant, tearing at the magical construct with their claws, rending the thin layer of dirt seperating them and Sciatha.
Had she wanted, she could have reinforced the barrier or exploded it into razor shards, rending the imp’s physical forms, but Sciatha didn’t bother. She’d gotten what she’d needed from the simple spell: a few seconds of time to think and plan...and knowledge of which imps were real and which were mere illusions. Tuatha had reacted quickly enough, Sciatha had to give her that much, but not quick enough to keep her from noticing only three of the imps had bounced off the earthen barrier immediately. The rest had kept going, the illusion unaffected by a mere physical barrier, and only recoiled when Tuatha had seen what was happening and changed her illusion in reaction.
As Sciatha’s wall came apart in a cloud of dust and the imps surged through once more, the Sorceress raised a hand, pointer finger extended and sent three carefully calculated darts of fire into the imps’ distended heads. The stricken imps disintegrated immediately, unable to sustain physical form any longer. The rest, meanwhile, swarmed around Sciatha, biting and clawing at her, but as she’d expected, their fangs and teeth passed through her quite harmlessly. After a few seconds of this harmless mauling, Tuatha let the illusory imps fade away.
By that point, Sciatha was already beginning her next attack. Fire crackled at her fingertips as she raised both hands and let loose a score of fiery darts. While a few shot straight at the other mage, others swarmed to the left or the right or arced straight up to rain down on the other sorceress. Individually, the tiny flickers of flame were not much, unlikely to do more then give Tuatha a painful burn or smolder her cloak, but that might be enough of a distraction for Sciatha to finish the fight. And in return for a relatively modest expenditure of power, she forced her opponent to raise a shield all the way around her, putting a much greater strain on her own reserves.
Sure enough, the first of the darts impacted a sphere of invisible force, exploding in showers of sparks which skittered across the surface of the sphere. But even as Sciatha sent a second and a third volley, Tuatha shifted, moving to the nearby wall of a house. Sciatha’s first thought was that the move was defensive. Putting her back to a sturdy brick wall, Tuatha no longer needed to worry about covering her rear and indeed she shifted the shape of her shield from a difficult and taxing sphere to the comparatively easier flat, round shield, moving it around to block the incoming darts, but behind the shower of sparks and smoke, Sciatha didn’t see the other woman’s free hand go to the wall, tracing a few mystic sigils across the rough , dirty masonry.
As Sciatha’s third volley of darts flared against the shield and died in flashes of sparks, the brick wall rippled and buckled. Tuatha had just stepped back, out of the way, when a section of the wall detached itself. As it fell, the mass of bricks twisted and molded itself, taking on a shape that was vaguely simian, with a hunched body, two long, thick arms and two smaller legs at the back. Like a gorilla made of bricks, it stepped forward, walking on the knuckles of its masonry hands. Each movement carried a long, heavy scraping sound, like stones dragging against each other. Then, without warning, it launched itself forward at Sciatha in a bounding leap which carried itself over half the distance.
Before it could leap again, Sciatha sent a much larger gout of flames at the brick golem, followed immediately by a second, even more intense, but even as she did, she cursed herself for her impulsiveness. Unlike the imps, conjured from smoke and aether, the brick golem required much greater power to create and control, especially in the ad hoc, hurried method Tuatha had managed while at the same time blocking Sciatha’s attack, but the advantage its physical form gave it was a far greater sturdiness and resistance to flames. Sciatha would need to physically tear the bricks apart from each other, one by one, in order to end the golem’s attack.
Of course, that would all depend on her not being smashed by the golem herself. As the brick ape, its front scorched black by the flames, leapt again, Sciatha was forced to conjure a gust of wind, carrying her up in a leap twenty feet away as its heavy brick hands slammed into the ground. It wrenched them back up, mud flying in all directions, and charged again.
But Sciatha had had time to formulate a plan. Once it got close, Sciatha let loose another gout of flame, washing over the front of the golem. At the last moment, another gust of wind hurled her away, to the right this time as the ape swatted in the air where it, and Tuatha had expected her to dodge once more. As it slowly turned in place to line up another charge, Sciatha sent more flames, engulfing it. She panted heavily, sweat soaking her gown as the exertions of these spells took their toll. For seemingly nothing: though the ape glowed red hot from the flames, it kept coming, slower this time, ready to follow whichever direction Sciatha turned to flee next.
But she wouldn’t have to. Tracing another arcane sigil in the air, Sciatha raised a palm and from it sent a torrent of water, icy cold. The stream struck the ape dead in the chest and there was a tremendous hiss as cold water met the super heated brick of the golem. A cloud of steam erupted, filling the alleyway. Sciatha’s arms trembled from the strain of conjuring so much water on top of all the other casting she’d done, but she didn’t dare stop. If her gambit had failed, she was doomed.
But it had. The golem took a shaky step forward, coming through the steam and water. As it got close, Sciatha could see a thick web of cracks all across its form, from the shock as the super-heated brick had been suddenly cooled. As it took another slow step, its left arm snapped in the middle. The golem struggled to stay upright, but more of its form was crumbling and breaking off. To be sure of it, Sciatha summoned up a bit more power and sent a blast of force straight into the golem. It toppled, shattering into hundreds of fragments of brick.
As the steam slowly faded, Sciatha stood still, panting for breath, waiting for Tuatha’s next attack. Drained as she was, Sciatha very much doubted she could manage even a basic shield or counterspell, if the other sorceress had any power left to her, that just might be the end for Sciatha.
But no attack came. The steam cleared away, showing the other woman hunched over, one hand on the nearby, half-demolished wall for support, breathing hard as well. To judge from things, the strain of maintaining that hasty, improvised golem spell had taken more out of her then destroying it had cost Sciatha.
“Or she’s trying to get me to lower my guard.” She reminded herself. Still, for the moment, the battle was at stalemate.
It was Tuatha that broke it first. Once she’d had a second to catch her breath, if not regain her power, the young woman suddenly took off running. For a second, Sciatha thought the other sorceress was running at her, but she realized Tuatha’s course would take her past Sciatha and further down the road, straight to…
“The empty lot!” Sciatha realized. The place Tuatha had been heading to before in order to confront Sciatha on favorable ground. In their drained state, whatever spells Tuatha had prepared there would give her the decisive advantage. “Can’t let that happen.” Sciatha muttered, lurching forward, fighting her exhaustion as she moved to intercept the other woman.
She almost didn’t make it, having taken a second too long to realize what Tuatha intended, but fortunately for Sciatha the water she had conjured to crack the brick golem had, by now, soaked into the unpaved road, turning it into a quagmire of mud and muck. Tuatha’s foot skidded as it unexpectedly sunk into the mud and her frantic attempts to keep her balance completely killed her forward momentum.
Sciatha charged in, focused entirely on stopping Tuatha from making it to the open lot. Slipping and sliding in the muck, there wasn’t much chance of pulling off anything sophisticated anyway. She collided headlong with Tuatha. Both women went down in the mud.
There began an unseemly exchange of akward punches, shoves and tugs as they both tried to rise, while keeping the other from doing the same, both getting progressively more soaked in the mud as it went on. The sorceress’ arcane duel had descended into two women grappling and wrestling in the mud. Neither had a chance of getting off a spell in the welter. Sciatha’s dress hindered her somewhat, but fortunately, Tuatha’s cloak had gotten wrapped around her arms, countering the advantage of her otherwise more practical clothes. Things might have gone on, to whatever outcome, had both women not become aware of a slow, half-mocking clapping coming from further up the street.
Struggling to her feet, Sciatha turned towards the sound of the clapping. To her surprise, striding up the street towards them was Odinnal, a leering smirk stretched across his pudgy face as he regarded the two mud-spattered women. “Well, I must say this has turned out better then I expected…” He came to a halt, a dozen paces away. “By myself, I would never have been able to defeat a sorceress of the fifth rank, but now the two of you have been kind enough wear each other out…” He chuckled. “I’ll have not one, but two…” Then to Sciatha’s surprise, he raised a hand and sent out a spell.
Straining up the last dregs of her power, Sciatha called out a hurried counterspell to disrupt Odinnal’s. It might not have worked, but Oddinal’s spell was, compared to her own casting, quite sloppy and poorly formed. Still, it was a close thing. A few feet in front of the women, the spell broke up and dissipated.
It was only a short respite. Odinnal’s smirk of bemusement hadn’t changed. Casually the merchant, or rather sorcerer, sent out a second spell. This one was just as crude as the one before. From his form, Sciatha guessed he couldn’t have been higher then the third rank, and that only barely, but he was right, Sciatha might have been more skilled and experienced, but she was all but spent while he had full reserves of power. She might not have blocked his second attack, except for Tuatha joining in, using what was left of her own power to help disrupt Odinnal’s spell.
Still this contest could only have one outcome. Even as the lasts wisps of the second spell were fading away, his third was already heading towards them. This was stopped scant feet from the women, the fourth mere inches. Then, as he casually drew up power for his next attack, Sciatha tried, desperately, to summon her own but she had finally run out. Tuatha managed a weak defense, but Odinnal’s spell smashed through it with contemptuous ease and enveloped the two of them.
In an instant, Sciatha was frozen in place, as a faintly pulsing glow of magic surrounded her body from head to toe. She strained with all her might, but the sorcerer’s power held her fixed in place. From the startled grunt beside her, Sciatha guessed the same was true of her fellow sorceress.
Odinnal raised his hand, crooking his fingers. The next instant, Sciatha was lifted up off the ground. The same magic that held her fixed now applied pressure, forcing her to spread her arms and legs, like some ghastly living marionette, moving to the sorcerer’s magical strings. In a few moments, the two women hung spread-eagled a foot or two off the ground.
Odinnal came forward, carefully picking his way around the mud and over to the two helpless captive. Another twitch of his finger brought Tuatha gently gliding down in front of him. Reaching up with his other hand, Odinnal began picking items from the frozen, straining woman: the clasp of her cloak, a pair of earrings, the belt from around her waist. These were deposited in a small pouch at Odinnal’s side, which didn’t seem to noticeably fill as the items were added to it.
“Finally we meet, Lady Tuatha.” Odinnal said, as he worked. “Prince Dwin’ned will be quite pleased to have his personal sorceress returned. And his pleasure will make me a very wealthy man.” The muffle whimper of fright that escaped Tuatha’s firmly shut lips suggested she was rather less pleased at the prospect of being reunited with her former patron.
Odinnal’s right hand twitched again, sending Tuatha floating back to her original position. Now it was Sciatha’s turn to descend downwards, coming to a rest hanging, heels in inch or two off the ground, in front of the sorcerer. Again, he reached forward, his hand going inerrantly to the various enchanted items she had on her: the brooch at her neck, a bracelet from her left wrist, two of the rings from his fingers. Her copper locks spilled down across her shoulders as the pin holding them up was slipped out and deposited with the rest in Odinnal’s bag.
“As for you, Lady Sciatha…” He said, as he plundered her. “I don’t know what I’ll do with you, just yet. I’m sure in your years of traveling, you must have made a few enemies willing to pay for you...though on the other hand, I may just decide to keep you for myself. At least for a time. I have my own score to settle!”
Detecting the grunt of confusion this aroused from his captive, Odinnal grinned. As the last of her enchanted jewelry was stored away, his raised his free hand and snapped his fingers. At this, the illusions on him vanished: the three vanity illusions she’d detected earlier...and the much more powerful and subtle one underneath them she hadn’t even suspected. In seconds, the fat, old merchant was gone, replaced by a short, thin young man in a dark maroon tunic and hose. His thin, pinched face was made even more so by the short, pointed beard her wore. Above, his dark black hair was oiled and combed back.
For a second, Sciatha almost didn’t recognize him. It was been over a century ago and on the other side of the continent, back when she’d been just a fresh-faced apprentice, looking to catch the eye, and tutelage, of a powerful archmage. To get that coveted spot, she’d dueled and defeated another apprentice…
“Rrr-ahh-tth?” Sciatha grunted through clenched teeth.
Arimath grinned. “So you do remember me? I’m flattered, considering things you said to me that day!” He laughed, sending the trapped sorceress floating back up to her previous position. “Oh, don’t misunderstand me, it was a fair victory back then, and I’m not one to carry a grudge…well, not much of one at least, but when I realized you were the only other mage who could match my target, I must admit I was quite pleased at this chance to even the score. Besides…” He looked up at the two. “How could I say no to such a lovely figure?”
At this, he raised his other hand again and quickly spoke the words of another spell. An instant later, both of the women’s clothing came apart in shreds. As the tattered pieces fluttered down from their suddenly naked bodies, Sciatha and Tuatha could only squirm in the magical force holding them rigid, faces flushing red at the shame of being bared in front of their captor.
He wasn’t finished yet though. At another word, the scraps of clothing gathered beneath the women’s hovering feet. The cloth further came apart, unraveling themselves back into threads. Meanwhile, the hand controlling the helpless women shifted again. Sciatha and Tuatha grunted sharply as their positions changed. Their legs were closed together, a slight relief for the naked sorceresses, but any modesty gained thusly was offset as their arms were pulled back behind their backs, which arched their shoulders back uncomfortably, and which had the embarrassing side effect of thrusting their bare breasts out all the more prominently.
The cloth threads had, meanwhile, woven themselves into a number of short cords. These flew back up and began to lash the women’s arms and legs together tightly. Sciatha felt the magical force prise her jaws apart, just as a thicker cord rose up in front of her face. It knotted itself in the middle a couple times then flew forward, jamming the large knot between her teeth. The free ends of the gag wrapped around to the back of her head and tied themselves together securely. More cords flew up and began binding her hands and feet. Before another minute had passed, both of the sorceresses had been converted into tightly trussed up bundles.
That accomplished, Arimath relaxed the telekinetic hold on his two captives. The pressure holding Sciatha was relaxed and she began to struggle against her bonds in earnest as she was lowered to the ground. Tuatha sank down beside her, putting up an equally fierce struggle. It did them little good. Bound as they were, they remained just as helpless as before.
Meanwhile, their captor had busied himself with a quick summoning spell, conjuring half a dozen small creatures, each two or three feet high. They were not so well crafted as Tuatha’s imps had been, having squat, fat bodies of some indistinct black ooze with short, stubby arms and legs. At the top, a slightly separated bulge suggested a head of some sort, with a bulbous protrusion for a nose below to indentations where eyes would be.
Despite this, the blob-men proved more then adequate, splitting up into pairs. Two of the pairs lifted the struggling women between them while the third went and fetched a pair of large wicker baskets, perfectly sized to fit the women inside. Just before the lid was closed on the basket, Sciatha heard him say: “Come! The ship will be leaving shortly.” Then everything went dark as the basket was closed up. It shifted, throwing the helpless captive around as the homunculi hefted the baskets up and began to carry them, and the tightly bound and gagged women inside, away...