So.   What was to be my grand return to Kupopolis did not turn out as excellently as I expected.   Contrived in some places, silly in others... nonetheless... I hope that I have at least laid the groundwork for my return, writing for Medina in its new/current magocratic fuedalistic state.

But, I had a great time writing this, forcing my way back into a story, and such.   As I considered participating in Iron Writer, I noted that my own writing skills have become flabby and out of shape.   Plot, character, dialogue, each one is rusty from years of disuse, but I was able to finish, even though it only be a paltry 5,000 words.   I am satisfied.   I hope everyone else had a good a time with this as I did.

Nick
get your write on!

A Woman's Reason

Part I Dawn   Temple of the Prism, Zealingrad

       Medina's northernmost city rested on marshy piece of land, a round interloper that jutted stubbornly into the ocean.   Between its location near the equatorial border of the planet, and the cavernously chill ocean breezes, the climate around Zealingrad had degenerated in the last dozen years into a kind of eternal autumn, casting chill winds around the garishly iridescent buildings and the large pyrimidal structure at the center of the city: the Temple of the Prism.
In a dimly lit room in the Temple of the Prism the water-initiate Maevwyn dreamed a dream of the sea.   This dream did not excite in her the soft wonderment that her dreams of the ocean and cascading waves did in the past; she had oft dreamed of them before.   This dream delved deep, past the stern defenses of her imaginative mind, into the soft, wounded core, rendering acute pain within her for each turn and shudder.
       The waves were high, cresting against the dull gray of an early morning that would see no sun, and each one was capped with the faint frosting of shadow.   The shadows grow as the waves descend, and an audible groan, infused with what can only be term the pain of suffering, escaped her parched lips.
       "Sit up, blessed, and drink."
       Maevwyn felt a small pressure on the bed beside her even as another night-tipped wave came crashing down.   For a moment, she thought she saw a small boat riding the crest of the wave.   Then a splash of lightning lit the sky in her dream, and the boat was gone.   Maevwyn opened her eyes, and for a moment her throat was lumped with a crushing sadness that would have brought tears to her eyes had they not already been parched and dry.
       "Drink this."   A brightly robed arm extended a small steaming cup.   Maevwyn sat up in bed.   The nightgown she wore Ð the gown she had worn for two full days now Ð felt chill around her body.   She drank from the cup.
       Shelom, small and bright-eyed like a bird of morning, sat beside her.   "How are you feeling today, blessed?"
       Wretched, Maevwyn thought instantly.   The swelling in her through was lessening with the exposure to the hot drink, but only slightly.   Shelom inched closer and put a comforting arm around the other woman.   Maewyn's frizzled black hair crept around the corners of her mouth as she lifted the cup for another drink.
       Maevwyn was a mere two days removed from tragedy, and now some cruel fate had ordained that her dreams be relentlessly occupied by the same tempest that had claimed the life of her newly wed husband.   He was absent from her dreams, but the storm was always there.
       Sitting next to the child-like Shelom at the edge of her bed in the Temple, the image of Donariel came unbidden to her mind, causing the lump in her throat to swell anew.   He face had both the leanness of youth blended with the roundness of healthy old age.   He hands were large and worn rough by from sailing, and a patche of brown hair at the back of his was thinning.   In another ten years, he would be almost bald.
       But instead Donariel ended his life with a full head of hair, and from somewhere deep inside Maewyn summoned from her seemlingly endless store more tears.
       "Come now, blessed," Shelom said soothingly, "Come and walk about the grounds a bit.   Share yourself with us, even if it means sharing your grief.   You've been in this room for two whole days."
       Even in her grief-ridden state Maevwyn could see that the room, normally lit with brilliant iridescent colors to inspire healing in recovering patients, had taken on a dull, somber cast, as if her own sorrow had changed it.
       "I cannot bear to leave this room knowing that he is not out there somewhere."
       Shelom stood and gently lifted Maevwyn with her.   "The High Priestess has need of you, blessed."
       Maevwyn refused to move.
       "Come, blessed, let the High Priestess see you for a few moments at least.   Here are some clean robes.   Let me help you change."
       Maevwyn had the sudden urge to scream at the kind-hearted Shelom, to yell at her to leave and leave her to her memories.  
       Donariel.
       The kindest soul she had ever known.   A future promising to be brighter than each day that preceded it.   Every speck of that brightness had been swallowed and smothered by terrible black waves.
       Maewyn dressed slowly and followed Shelom out into the Temple courtyard.   The sky was still a mellow gray, the same color that it had been the morning Donariel had not come back.  
       "It is good to see you out in open air, blessed child," a curt voice called out.
       Maevwyn almost fell over herself trying to get to her knees in the presence of the High Priestess.   She took the Priestesses hand and raised it to her lips, kissing the top of it.
       "A bath will relax you further, Maewvyn," the High Priestess intoned, lifting her hand and bidding the other woman to rise.   Her obstentatiously colored robers Ð blends of azure, gold, lime, purple, and others Ð were in stark contrast to the somber gray of the sky above.   "But first, there are tired souls in need of your skill."
       The lump in Maevwyn's throught seemed to catch.   She swallowed and said, "My skill is poor, High Priestess.   Please send another so that I may not bring my own suffering to intermingle with their own."
       The High Priestess lifted Maevwyn's head with her hands.   "There is no Unity in grief, blessed child.   In healing others you will heal yourself, and bring the union that we seek closer to fruition."
       Maevwyn lowered her eyes.   "Yes, High Priestess."   She turned to leave.
       "Maevwyn."
       She turned.   "High Priestess?"
       "You loss is felt by us all.   We are One as the Elements shall be One, in Unity."
       Maevwyn nodded, feeling the bore of the High Priestess's eyes.   The unrelenting stare stayed on the younger woman for what felt like hours.
       "Beware the shadow, blessed child."
       Maevwyn nodded again, and took a breath as she felt the glare of the High Priestess leave her.   The encounter with the head of her order had rekindled the sense of ceremony in her soul, and the pain of grief assumed the form of a dull ache, hidden, just barely visible, under the skin.
       She turned and left for the infirmary.

Part II   Just After Dawn, Aringail Keep, Southern Medina

       "A group of petitioners await your judgement, m'lady."
       Margaruitte ignored Hakkok.   She was outfitted in a dress of fine black cloth adorned with an expensive lace.   She imagined how she must look to her aged Diablo chamberlain, bent over inside a harpischord, all appearances of power swept away by her unusual position.   She reached deeper into the recesses of the instrument and turned a peg.   She a huff she emerged from the harpischord and played the note she had just tuned.  
       It was at least a quarter step sharp.
       "M'lady?" Hakkok fluttered his thin, leathery wings, awaiting a response.
       "Chain them on the roof.   Let each worker see his fate if he dares to complain."
       Hakkok bowed slightly, his wingtips lowering in a minute gesture of respect, and left to carry out her orders.   Margaruitte returned to the harpsichord, but her thoughts were on neither the ungrateful miners at her door or the instrument itself.
       She turned the peg slightly and plucked the string gently until the sound matched.   No, her thoughts were on her daughter.   Callow bitch!
       Margaruitte left the instrument and smoothed her hair and dress.   She was no longer beautiful, and she knew without looking at her reflection that her own beauty had been replaced by a stern visage of what could only be called terribleness.
       On the corner of her sitting table in the cavernous music room was a half folded invitation.   It was an invitation to her daughter's wedding, just arrived.   A wedding that took place three days ago.
       The gesture of acute disrespect was not lost on Margaruitte.   Nor, too, was that fact that her daughter and the fool she had chosen to bond herself to were married by Tarrine, the so-called High Priestess of the Prism.   A greater insult, there could not be.
       Her training allowed her to read her daughter's moods at times.   It was a consequence of spending too much time working with and weilding the shadow magic, and teaching others how to weild that power.  
       The train of thought began made her hair itch.   Margaruitte took a sigh and sat at her harpischord, letter her tin brittle fingers climb up and down the notes for a time until she settled into a gentle melody.   The key was something alien, hardly identifyable as either major or minor, and even the ascedning major scales seemed to carry an undertone of sadness.   The music relaxed her mind.
       "I had so much love for you Margaruitte.   Why did you betray me?"
       The song in the alien key abruptly ceased.   In portal to the music room stood a lean, caped man.   His face was pale, the skin drawn tight over pointed checkbones.   His brown hair was shoulder-length and dyed blue at the temples.
       "You look more like Magus with every day that passes," Margaruitte said, her voice icy.
       "I am the Magus," Janus Cage replied, stepping into the room.
       Margaruitte laughed.   "You're a fool boy with more power than he can handle.   That was why I left."   She had almost said, That was   why I left you, but the final word was stopped in her throat.
       The skin on his face stretched even more, if that was possible.   "I loved you, Margaruitte.   Your betrayal hurt more than anything could."
       The older woman smiled.   "You are a handsome boy, but I have had my share of love.   Besides, your love for me was inseparable from your love of power."
       "That I readily admit.   Was that not enough for you?"
       "Dear boy, I am more than twice your age."
       Janus Cage turned his back to her.   "I had thought that would be sufficient time to acquire some sense of reason."
       "I have no other but a woman's reason."   Margaruitte felt her lips turning into a frown.   "I was not meant for you."
       Janus Cage turned quickly, the intensity of his eyes startling the other woman.   "No matter.   The helpless slaves you have chained to your roof show that you're still the heartless sorcerer you were while in my employ."  
His eyes roved over her, and Margaruitte felt acutely every second of her age as it was gathered in the wrinkles on her face.
"The Order of the Prism has gathered strength.   They are fools, you and I know, not accepting any creed but only existing as a rejection of ours."
Margaruitte said, "Or do we exist as a mere antithesis of theirs?"
"Semantics," Janus Cage muttered.   "They have discovered some new power.   They will use it to destroy us."
"Fear?   From you, great Magus?" Margaruitte laughed again.   "Take your fears away from this old woman and deal with your problems herself."   Without warning, Margaruitte summoned a black hole and compelled it forward to swallow the younger man.   Where it would transport him, Margaruitte did not know, but she had confidence that wherever it was Janus Cage could deal with it.
With the exit of Janus Cage, Margaruitte felt better than she had in days.   She gathered up her dress and made for the rooftop.   Now she could enjoy the screams of her prisoners.

Part III Early Morning, Temple of the Prism, Zealingrad

       The boy had two broken legs and the gods knew what else was wrong with him.   A short, dirty man that Maevwyn took to be his father had carryed him from wherever they had come from.
       "Aringail Keep," the man answered when Maevwyn asked him where he had come from.   "There are more refugees on the way.   The Mistress has been exceedingly cruel as of late."
       Maevwyn's blood chilled.   Mother!   A terrible woman.
       She turned back to the injured boy, and let the magic build inside her.   The essence of water magic was to heal, but the application of it was difficult.   Without control, every speck of moisture in the surrounding area could begin to respond.   The results of such a lack of control could be disastrous.   Gradually, Maewyn moved the broken bones into place while releasing her power into the limbs.   The boy groaned.
       After she finished with the boy she turned to the others.   She sensed a tumor on a man's lung, pulsating with a vileness she easily recognized Ð the taint of shadow magic.   There truly was no depth of cruetly that her mother would not sink to.
       "It pleases my heart to see you take pain away from others," a voice said behind her, and Maevwyn turned just as the High Preistess laid a hand on her shoulder.
       "Some of these," she said, gesturing to the mixed group of humans, henches, diablos, and nagas, "Will never heal.   The Baroness of Aringail keep has infected them with the shadow."
       An unreadable look passed over the Preistess' face.   "That woman stands opposite of us in every regard.   All the better were she dead."
       Maevwyn had had the same sentiment echoed in her own heart a thousand times, but hearing it from the head of her order was surprising.   The Order of the Prism was expressly dedicated to repelling the shadow and promoting life.
       "Blessed child," the Priestess went on, "Your misfortune has touched us all.   Please, dwell here in the temple with your brothers and sisters for a time.   There is no reason to open new grief into your soul each time you go home."
       Maevwyn, lowered her head, tears of gratitude forming at her eyes.   "Thank you, High Priestess."
       The garishly dressed woman nodded and turned to leave.   "That's odd," she remarked, notcing the Eternal Flame, an iron box that housed a magical fire for warmth in the fall months, had gone out.   "Summon Grenstad to relight it before you leave, blessed."
       Maevwyn bowed.   The room had grown colder, so after she finished with the other refugees Maevwyn went in search of the Diablo with talents in fire.

Part IV Afternoon, Aringail Keep, Rooftop

       The screams of an unfortunate hench died away, and there was nothing but the soft sound of autumn winds.   Margaruitte, angered by the sudden termination of her sport, turned to a frail looking naga and summoned a black hole in the Mystic's stomach.   Slowly, but then with increasing speed, the naga's body collapsed into itself in a gross compression of flesh.   The Mystic did not even scream.
       The sport ceased to be fun.   Margaruitte left the remaining one gnasher chained to the rooftop and returned to her sitting room, where the invitation to her daughter's wedding rested.
       With all the furtherances of modern technology, a thing as simple as an invitation could be delivered with greater haste?   But Margaruitte knew that technology had nothing to do with the invitation's late arrival.   Maevwyn did not want her at the wedding.   The fool girl had only enough respect for her mother to let her know that she was getting married.
       Margaruitte sighed.   Her attachment to her daughter was a complicated one.   At times she could feel a small throb of emotion from the north, a feeling not unlike the one that emerged while she was carrying Maevwyn in her womb.  
       Fool girl!
       Margaruitte thought that she was completely disconnected from her daughter, from that girl, no longer a girl, but a woman rapidly approaching middle age.   She fingered the thick paper of the wedding invitation, unable to erase the dull pulse of grief and sadness she felt emanating from the north, where her only child was in the confines of a rainbow prison.   A prison operated by a cruel and unforgiving warden, the High Priestess, Tarrine.
       A woman more cruel and unforgiving than even you?
       Even as Margaruitte thought the words they carried the tone of Janus Cage.   But she knew he could not be in her head.   Such mind tricks were beyond the power of the shadow magiks practiced by every warlord in Medina.
       What better fate could you offer your daughter?
       I could teach her, grant her power, but even as the answer materialized reason squelched it.   Maevwyn had never shared her mother's ambition or desire for power.  
       "That's why comes from not being lowly born," Margaruitte said aloud, startling herself.   She looked hastily around her sitting room, trying to ensure that Hakkok or no one else was nearby.
       The throb of grief from the north Ð now Margaruitte was sure that it was her daughter Ð came again, this time with more fervor.   My daughter needs me, the old woman thought.
       No, I have need of my daughter.   She must heal me, or I will perish.
       It was not a new thought for Margaruitte.   In dealing with shadow magic over long periods of time on Janus Cage seemed to be immune from their ill effects, and Margaruitte suspected that it was for a reason other than he thought he was the reincarnation of the god Magus.
       I have use for her, Margaruitte thought, and the idea tempered her uncertain spirit regarding her daughter into resolve.  
       "Hakkok!" she called, amplifying her voice.   "Ready my escort."

Part V Late Afternoon, Zealingrad, Medina

       Each home in Zealingrad, and each room of the Temple of the Prism especially, boasted a box of Eternal Flame, a simplistic heating device invented by a youthful Diablo named Grenstad.   The nomen ÔEternal' was misleading however, because the flames indeed had a tendency to go out in a matter of months.   Other than the passage of time, however, no other method of extinguishing the flames was known.  
       That was why, as she left the infirmary in search of Grenstad, Maevwyn felt something that had been alien to her for the past two days: an emotion other than grief.   The grief was still there of course, but it had burrowed deep, and was not as painfully tangible as it had been a two days, or even two hours ago.   Curiousity caused her, for a time, to forget her grief.
       But Grenstad was nowhere to be found.
       Maevwyn searched the keep, the infirmary, the barracks, and even the cellars briefly.   She inquired asked a number of the Fire initiates where the Diablo had gotten off to, but none could provide a suitable answer.
       Finally, for lack of anywhere else to look, Maevwyn checked the Unity Chamber.   The Chamber was a large, diamond-shaped room with a raised platform in the center.   The initiates from all orders occasionally held meetings there, but each initiate knew that, somehow, the Chamber was the key to their battle against the shadow.   It was there, they had been taught, that the other elements of magic might be combined to conquer the shadow.   The details of how this was to be accomplished, however, were not generally known.  
Shelom followed her in, unlocking the doors with the small electronic key she always wore around her neck.
       And they found Grenstad.
       "Call for help!" Maevwyn instructed to Shelom, running to the fallen Diablo's side.   But already she knew that his soul had left him.   His body had been charred to a deep black, as if it had been burning for hours.   There was no sign of char or soot around his body nor, from what Maevwyn could see, underneath it.
       Maevwyn bit back the helpless cry that was rising in her throat, forcing the giref down deep again lest it emerge and ruin her.   Suddenly the High Priestess was there, her eyes clouded, and her voice commanding.
       "His power consumed him," she said, her voice carrying a note of fatal finality.
       "He was never considered among the most powerful of the Fire initiates," Shelom said quietly, her small frame shuddering with fear and uncertainty.
       "Shelom, Maevwyn, please leave a moment.   I must say a prayer for his spirit."  
       As the two women turned away from the burnt corpse, the High Priestess knelt near it, repeating the same thing over and over again like a chant.
       Outside of the chamber, Maevwyn felt the trickle of small tears at the corner of her eyelids.   "I've always felt safe hereÉ"
       Shelom, sensing the volitile state of the other woman's emotions, took her in her arms.
       Maevwyn shuddered in the other woman's embrace.   "I feelÉ I feel something dark approaching."
       "Shelom," the voice of the High Priestess called from inside.   "There is an envoy from Aringail Keep approaching.   You must look to our defenses.   Ready the guard captains."
       Shelom bowed.   "Yes, High Priestess."   She left without a further word.
       "Maevwyn, come in here."
       Maevwyn obeyed.   Her own power seemed to stir, strangely, within her.   I cannot help him, she told herself, he is gone.   My desire to heal, to use my power, must not overcome my reason.
       The High Priestess stood in the exact center of the Unity Chamber.   Grenstad's charred body still lay in the corner where it had been, but now there was the faint outline of a stasis pyramid, glowing orange, around the body.
       "High Priestess?" Maevwyn asked, confused.
       The other woman's eyes were unreadable.   She pointed "Stand off to the a bit and say a prayer for Grenstad's spirit with me."
       Maevwyn obeyed as she had been taught.   Donariel had always been suspicious of the Order's laws and oaths, but his love of her had allowed him to overlook it.   Suddenly the lights in the Unity Chamber went out, and Maevwyn found herself unable to move.
       "I am sorry, blessed, but you are needed here.   Only with you in this chamber can we hope to defeat the shadow."
       She wanted to scream, but her lips would not obey, and as the doors to the chamber opened and closed with the High Priestess's exit, Maevwyn could see from the vertical line of light the shadowy outline a blue stasis pyramind surrounding her.

Part VI Dusk, Walls of Zealingrad

       The escort of Lady Magaruitte, dread lady of Aringail Keep, could only be described, and only be interpreted, as militaristic.   All of the war machines that followed her transport Ð a scattering of Jetbikes and Hover Tanks Ð were ages old, dating back to around the time of Skull's first Prime Ministership.  
       Regardless of their age, each war machine seemed to be operable, and, more importantly, each one was there, gathered just outside the pyramidal gates of Zealingrad.   Her hodgepodge force of henches, imps, diablos, nagas, and gnashers were more than willing to use their weapons, though each one was devoid of any magical talent.   Teaching others to weild the power of the shadow was Janus Cage's fatal mistake, and Magaruitte vowed that it would not be hers.
Through her chamberlain Hakkok, Magaruitte articulated that she simply wanted to see her daughter and offer her congratulations on her recent marriage.
       While she waited for a response, Magaruitte battled within herself.   I am not doing Janus Cage's bidding, she thought, I am just seeing how credible he is, and to what purpose he wishes to use me.   I will not be his pawn again!
       The reply she received, in the form of an armored guard captain, was less than cordial.
       "Your daughter has no wish to see you."
       "Good sir," Magaruitte said, emerging from her transport amplifying her voice to reach the walls above, "Allow a mother to offer her daughter the best wishes for her future."
       "It would be easily done," a different voice answered, "If that mother did not approach my gates with an army in tow."
       "Tarrine," Magaruitte murmured.   "How good of you to condescend to speak with me!   These are dangerous times, and a lady must have some protection from the birgands and bandits that roam the countryside."
       The High Priestess, in a new flowery dress of orange, yellow, and red, appeared at the height of the wall.   Armed guards flanked both sides of her.
       "I care for my people, Magaruitte, and I will not see them harmed."   There was a long pause.   "But I am not subhuman.   If you will come alone, you may see your daughter for a time."
       "I graciously accept," Magaruittesaid, adding under her breath, "Bitch."
       The gates opened, and the older woman stepped down from her transport.   Tarrine, the High Priestess met her there.
       "You've come a long way since you were my pupil, Tarrine."
       The other woman shifted uncomfortably.   "I was never your student.   I was ill equiped to wield the power of evil."
       Magaruitte laughed.   "Is that what you call it here?   I'd figure with all your talk of balance not resist the shadow will all your hearts and minds."
       "We serve Spekkio here, not Magus.   His ways are the ways of the wicked.   And it is our reason, not our hearts and minds, that we are guided by."
       "My woman's reason tells me that you are playing a game larger than you can handle Tarrine.   At the very least, you have played these people false."
       Now it was the High Priestess' turn to laugh.   "I am equipped with more than woman's reason, but you have seen the truth of it.   I have indeed manipulated these people, but only for the purpose that we all so desperately want to achieve.   The shadow must be excised from Medina!   We will never have peace under its spell."
       Magaruitte followed Tarrine into the Keep of the Temple, a large iridescent pyramid with a trinagular front portal.   "Fool woman.   The fabric of Medina has been woven of shadow.   The Mystics are the creatures of it.   It is we humans, you and I, that are the interlopers here."
       "Our disagreement, I think, runs deeper than this, Magaruitte.   I mean to rebuild the glory of Zeal."
       "Your folly will see the end of you."
       Tarrine smiled, but her eyes remained clouded.   "Perhaps.   But, in either case, beyond this door lies your daughter.   Be mindful, her grief is great.   She lost her newly wed husband a matter of days ago."
       "What?   Her hus-"   The door to the Unity Chamber opened and Magaruitte saw her daughter encased in a blue stasis pyramid at one corner.   The other corners boasted an orange pyramid and yellow one.   Magaruitte strode to the middle of the chamber.   "What is the meaning of this?   Release my daughter."
       Maevwyn, bound in her blue prison, could not even bat an eye in recognition of her mother.   At some point during her sojurn in the darkness, a figure had materialized in the shadows and had desposited something into the newly erected yellow prison at the north end of the room.
       At the same instant that Margaruitte spoke, a pyramid of darkness formed around her in the center of room.   The High Priestess said, "You have let yourself be decieved, Margaruitte.   This chamber was built in order to subjugate the shadow to the other elements."  
       "Tarrine, you fool woman, you're not reasoning clearly.   Give this up."
The High Priestess laughed, a spark of something terrible in her eye.   "Still do you not see?   Deep below here, we excavated pieces from the long destroyed Mammon machine that were imbued with the elements of fire, water, and lightning.   We were unable to control these artifacts on our own, but once implanted in the bodies of living beings, they became docile."
"Release me immediately!"
"I cannot do that, for to release you would mean releasing each corner of the elements, and I fear Maevwyn would be quite put out with me for my deception.   The lightning artifact was implanted in her future husband, and a single day after their marriage it manifested itself in the most interesting of ways.   It summoned a thunderstorm that took his life."   Tarrine sighed.   "I wish I had time to further study the artifacts."
Margaruitte turned her eyes to the yellow pyramind.   There was indeed the limp corpse of a man there.   The orange stasis trap held what looked to be a charred corpse of something.   "What happened to this one?"
"The artifact got the best of him, I suppose.   I did not have time to administer the experiment the way I wanted to."
"You always were hasty."
Tarrine smiled.   "I have hated you for a long time, Margaruitte.   The triump of the Prism is at hand."

Part VII Night, Unity Chamber

       "Enough of this!" Margaruitte said, bringing the full force of her power to bear on her own stasis trap.   To Tarrine's dismay, it crumbled easily.   One by one, Margaruitte dispatched each other the other stasis pyramids.  
       Tarrine let out a gasp.
       "The essence of stasis pyramids is rooted in the shadow.   You must have known that."   Margaruitte's eyes narrowed.   "You don't serve the Prism.   Run home to your master and tell him that he has failed.   His ruse, as well as his rule, is doomed to eternal failure."
       Tarrine grimaced, her robes falling limply to her sides.   "IÉ"   She turned and left, and it was with great regret that Margaruitte let her go.   The woman Tarrine dserved to die, but letting her live would serve a greater purpose.   Sighing, the older woman approached her daughter, who was standing over the form of her dead husband.
       "Heal me, child, I'm dying from the inside."
       Maevwyn looked at her blankly.  
       "The shadow has begun to eat away my body, and I have need of your power.   Show your gratitude!"
       Maevwyn closed her eyes and opened them again slowly.   "I cannot heal you of the evil you have taken into your soul."
       Margaruitte scowled.   "You are a fool child, ungrateful as could be.   Even now you cannot separate the truth from the tripe you have been fed here."   She looked down at the sodden corpse of her daughter's husband.   "They have even corrupted your woman's reason."   The old woman turned and pressed a button on the bracelet at her wrist.
       "Yes, m'lady?" Hakkok's hollow voice sounded from her wrist.
       "Attack the city.   Capture those who try to flee.   My mines won't work themselves."
       "It shall be done."
       Margaruitte turned to her daughter, and searched for the right words.   She knew the grief of losing a man, and wanted to console, but nothing came to her.   In the wake of her tremendous powers, Margaruitte felt the crushing blow of her own weakness in that moment.   Without a further word, Margaruitte left the Unity Chamber and her daughter.
       Outside, the sounds of battle, screams and the roar of war machines, could be heard with distinct clarity.

Epilogue Early Morning, Grand Palace, Medina City

       The dawn was breaking, the first wisps of sunlight rising over the battlements of the Grand Palace and arching into Janus Cage's throne room.   Cage never slept, and during times when he was not attending to any particular business, he conducted the general business of his running his territory in his throne room.  
       Except this morning, there was an interruption.   A woman, ragged and on the verge of tears in a torn orange and yellow gown, had prostrated herself at the base of Cage's throne.
       "Do not tell me that your efforts have failed, Tarrine.   I cannot abide to hear of more failure."
       The woman, openly sobbing now, fell before his feet.   "The woman Margaruitte destroyed the city -- her power was too great.   I could not contain her!"
       Janus Cage sighed.   So much effort, so much time and planning had been foiled by Margaruitte.   There was little he could do now, save confront the woman directly, but even that he did not relish.   He still loved her, in a wayÉ
       In a different light, perhaps the siutation had been fouled by Tarrine's incompetence.   He had even been forced to, at the final moment, use his own powers to recover the body of the dead lightning-artifact and return it to the Unity Chamber.
       He stopped.   The Unity Chamber was a serious problem.   He had constructed it himself from the knowledge he had gained of ancient Zeal while under the tutelage of the great god Magus.   It's purpose was to subjugate the other elements to the shadow, but it could, in more capable hands, be used for opposite ends.  
       "It must be destroyed," Janus Cage said aloud.
       Tarrine was still sobbing, her face visibly marred by her ineptitude.   "M'lord?"
       Janus Cage stood, sweeping his cape behind him.   "Go and clean yourself up.   We have work to do."

       In the aftermath of the battle of Zealingrad, the initiates of the Prism and the general populace felt as if awaking from a dream.   The influence of the High Priestess, complete and dominating, had corrupted their reason and faculties of mind.
       As was natural, the Mystics of Zealingrad, which was now under the control of Margaruitte, were inclined to worship the one who had saved them from domination.   They took to the streets on the dawn of a new day with wonderment in their hearts and gratitude on their lips.
                "Is she as wise and just as she is beautiful?"
                "What a savior this Margaruitte is!"