Return and Betrayal

Ceinwyn’s eyes snapped open. A darkened ceiling was the first sight to welcome her. It was dim in Malvern's chamber, and only a horizontal ray of light streaming from the bottom of the doorway provided any illumination.

Her thoughts were so hectic for a moment that she had to stop and just breathe. Did all of that really happen? Why was it so dark in here? Where is everyone? She looked down at her naked form. Someone had draped a woolen blanket over her body while she had been in the Akashic Records and it had rumpled to her lap as she sat up.

Holding the blanket close to her chest, Ceinwyn got up from the cold floor and inspected the room. The ritual circle was still there, but everything else had been cleared away and packed up. Ceinwyn found her clothes neatly folded on the table. As she reached for them and shook them out, a fine cloud of dust blossomed out from the folds. The young woman watched the dust curiously as she slipped into her clothes. How long had she been asleep?

She felt strangely out of place to be wearing clothes again, but ignored the feeling and pushed open the door to the connecting hallway.

It was eerily quiet and as the door's to Malvern's chamber boomed shut behind her, the noise rolling on into empty corridors, it felt like they were waking the dead. Ceinwyn strode past empty rooms and galleries, steadily increasing her pace as her anxiety rose. She was beginning to think that she was the only living person there when she dimly heard a noise. Murmuring. There were people somewhere ahead of her.

Approaching the commotion, the young druid turned the corner to see a group of men and women huddled together near a brazier. They looked like fighters, with their haggard appearance and the short spears by their side. Among the defenders stood Tri'lanna, who looked exhausted but no worse for wear, directing some of them to various posts and stations. The elfmaid must have heard her approach, because she had turned her head in Ceinwyn's direction just as she neared.

"Tri'lanna? What's going on? What's happening?" Ceinwyn quietly called out to her.

“Ceinwyn?!” Tri'lanna shouted out, her eyes widening. "You're alive! Oh Gods!"

To Ceinwyn's surprise, Tri'lanna ran up to her and flung her arms around her neck, almost knocking the girl off her feet. Tri'lanna laughed out loud and squeezed Ceinwyn tightly, as if testing to see if she was real.

“You were asleep for days! At first, I thought that the ritual had just taken you deep into the records, but then as the days passed, you still didn't wake up. I thought maybe you…you…” Her voice trailed off, but then she shook her head and smiled again.

“But you’re alive! Did you make it into the Akashic Records? Do you know of some way to stop the Pretender?"

"Yes." Ceinwyn replied. She was in there for days? That couldn’t be right. She had hardly spoken to Akasha for more than a minute before she was pulled out again. The druid immediately scowled and shook her head. "And no. It was useless."

As she untangled herself from Ceinwyn, Tri'lanna took her by the hand and led her away from the crowd, down another dimly-lit hallway. "Useless? I don't understand. You had all the knowledge of the world at your fingertips and you were there for more than a week."

"I was only there for a few moments, Tri. I don't know how, but time must've passed differently over on that side. I'm sorry. It looks like we'll have to find some other way to defeat Vanarim. What has been happening since I was asleep?"

The pair stopped in front of a large set of double doors, layered in wood and iron. Ceinwyn could faintly hear shouting on the other side. She looked over to her Elven friend and saw her features drop and reveal the fear and despair reflected in the other defenders. The expression was slight and vanished almost immediately, but she could see the tension that was lurking underneath Tri'lanna's face.

"The Pretender's forces tried to **** the college six or seven times over the last days. Twice, they actually got through." She looked out towards one of the boarded-up windows. There was an additional piece hastily hammered in to seal the gaps. "They killed scores of mages and some of them were members of the Circle..."

"Tel'eria? Malvern...?" Ceinwyn asked, finding difficulty vocalizing her fears.

The elfmaid shook her head, casting her silvery hair this way and that. "The two of them are alive. But you might wish that they weren't. Not after the way things turned out."

Ceinwyn was about to ask Tri'lanna what she meant, when the elf pushed open the door and a thundering cloud of noise escaped into the hallway. Ceinwyn cringed as the shouting reached a feverish level and kept close behind her friend as they walked into the messhall, transformed into a temporary command center, with all the chairs and tables pushed to the walls. There must have been at least fifty wizards standing there.

"That last attack had killed off most of the rest of the Circle. Tel'eria and Malvern are the only ones left with any real power." She waved her hand to the crowd standing before them, neatly divided into two halves. The two groups shouted and pointed at each other, yelling obsenities and accusing each other. "Every day their infighting had grown worse, but things are going to boil over, now that you've returned."

At first no one noticed them, but gradually more and more people spotted the willowy elf and the druid. Soon every eye was on the two of them as the commotion died down, and most noticably those of Malvern and Tel'eria. Tri'lanna leaned over and whispered to Ceinwyn, "Be careful."

"The little druidess...lives?" Malvern said breathlessly, "She...she actually did it? The ritual worked?!"

Tel'eria rolled her eyes, "Obviously, you stupid git. She standing right there, isn't she? Now, with the Second Circle, we can fight back! We'll get someone to restart the ritual and then-"

It happened too quickly and without any warning at all. Suddenly, a glowing sphere of fire hurtled across the room and collided into Tel'eria. The fireball flared brightly as it scortched the fabric of her clothes and threw her several feet backwards. There was a sharp gasp as the room suddenly dropped into full silence and everyone turned to Grandmaster Malvern.

His hands wreathed in enchanted flame, Grandmaster Malvern growled out, “To hell with your second circle, Tel’eria! Now that I know the ritual works, I don't need you or any of your other, little wizard friends. The power of the Akashic Records will belong to US!"

Then the room exploded into action as every mage unleashed a torrent of magic at each other. With Ceinwyn and Tri'lanna caught firmly in the middle.