Reflections

Dawn breaks over the Hidden Wood: the last dawn of this battle, I believe. From the battlements I sing of the cycle of life and death that is the province of the Enchantresses. Beside me the Enchantress Dolphus has summoned in his final hours to aid him sings the counterpoint. Below me, I see Jerrimax has come to lead the final attack in person, accompanied by his coterie of attendant sorcerers and summonings. They laugh and joke in the early morning light, then stop when we begin to sing.

At a signal from Jerrimax, the sorcerers in his troupe all point at me. Death, the final shape, looms near me, but Dolphus interposes the Enchantress between us, who accepts the death meant for me as another turn in the cycle of death and life. Thus I am spared, which as it should be.

I step inside the keep. Dolphus stands nervously within his carefully drawn Circle, running his tokens of summoning nervously through his fingers: the constant drain of his defenses leaves him with little mana left with which to summon or attack, and Jerrimax has successfully broken or blocked many of Dolphus’s ties to the free lands he could draw from. Only the necklace is saving him now, but even it will not last, and then I will be free again.

Which is at it should be.