Mage Wars Fan Fiction
"Tales of a Mad Mage"
By: themadone
Part 8: Delirious
Nespa looked almost reverent as she stepped up to the large shrouded table and lifted her hands ceremoniously over an ominous shape hidden by the canvas.
“Step forward Blue Magus and prepare yourself.”
Higgson could sense a new tenseness in the room as the raw Mana was manipulated. He stepped closer for a better look at the witch’s work, but remained well behind the Blue Mage for safety. Luckily, as far as the spell-casters were concerned, he might as well be just a wall decoration now.
The former Paladin looked at the mage’s face, and the look there was again one he would never forget. It reminded him nothing more than of a wolf-pup about to get fed his first real taste of a fresh kill.
“Mistress? You have a petitioner my Queen. Will you speak?”
After only a moment’s wait, movement from under the canvas shroud made Higgson realize that there was a humanoid shape hidden underneath it. He wondered who this person was… but stopped himself as the smell of decay intensified suddenly.
Foul Necromancy! His Paladin training immediately came to the fore and he backed up and grasped his sword hilt tightly, yet again wondering why he was following this old fool of a mage.
“Draw that sword without cause Sir Higgson and I promise you a death you would never believe possible.” The witch had not moved and still held her hands over the slowly moving shroud. Yet the threat she presented seemed more than casual.
A hiss emanated from the shroud’s head, little muffled by the canvas. Its voice seemed a combination of several different ones, both male and female, but after a few seconds seemed to settle into a husky female voice. Embarrassingly, Higgson found himself slightly aroused as the voice spoke fully.
“Nesssspa‘Rill? Sssweet-one… You called?”
Higgson goggled suddenly at whom he realized was talking through the dead body under the shroud. It must be what the figure was: a corpse. He had heard the stories of the Bog Queen's power, but to actually witness it… To be able to speak through any corpse within her reach! Morweena's power was difficult to contemplate by a sane mind and made his fascination of her voice all the more terrifying.
“Yes mistress. I have a petitioner with me who begs an audience.”
A pregnant pause stilled the omnipresent smoke in the room. Higgson felt as if a butterfly or moth flittered over his head and swatted at it, but caught nothing.
“Have Sir Vadicc the Blue… sssstep forward.”
The elderly mage stroked his flowing beard as he half-stepped forward and kneeled.
“Your Majesty. N’Wuaa-thot breen. Nome na‘taa? Voltorisma! Strucontor! Begpexy streen na’taa: Vrag.”
The stream of words from Vadicc was gibberish to Higgson, but the witch’s reactions to them were obvious. Surprise and contemplation both warred on her features.
“You sssspeek eloquently Vadicc, and do me honor when you hold no allegiance. With the same respect therefore I will do the same and be honest with you in return. Yes, the Mage-Rod of Voltorisssma can be re-made. You ssshould not do ssso. It will be the end of things.”
The Bog Queen’s reply was fully understandable, but the stench under the tarp grew proportionally as she continued and made listening more difficult. Higgson started breathing through just his mouth, but it only helped a little.
Vaddic’s respectful tone vanished, “You think I’m incapable? Too old?” He stood slowly and leaned heavily on his staff, as if his knees pained him through the process. His shoulders shook, whether in rage or pain he could not tell.
The ancient voice quavered, as it laughed gently. “Too old? No Vadicc the Vain. Too powerful! You have no true need of it. Powerful isss the Rod… yesss, power itssself… but the cossst...”
“I will pay it! Breesh! North’da Voltorisma!”
Another pregnant pause silenced the room. Higgson was almost to the point of losing his stomach, and the only thing holding him back was the thought of Nespa burning him to a cinder for messing up her floor.
“Conta’raa! Obssseelie, moon-florydi gaan. Ontra voy qua’to…”
This continued for a few minutes. Vadicc stood still and listened carefully, only shaking his head slowly in assent and grunting every once in a while in the affirmative. A slow trickle of black-looking viscous fluid was flowing from under the canvas tarp onto the floor now too. It steadily built up a huge pool under the dark-wood table. The stench of the gore ripened fully with its appearance.
Higgson couldn’t hold back any longer and rushed to the exit and flung his vomit over the side of the hut’s meager stick railing. He even managed not to vomit on the Familiar or the Minotaur bodyguard below. The undead snail was not so lucky.
Pale and barely conscious after vomiting for several minutes, he thought he saw a delicate hand in the smoke billowing from the cabin reach out and stroke his tired face. A gentle and very familiar voice calmed him in his mind, “Be at peace my love. That was not for you to hear…”
Suddenly the gentle caress altered and gripped his chin. The smoke hand felt hard as bone. A pale skull of smoke appeared and spoke again into his head with the voice of the Bog Queen herself, “You will have to kill him. Unless he gives up this insanity of the Voltorisma you cannot leave his side. Prevent the chaos! Close that door for good!”
The skull writhed in the smoke silently and moved to his face as if for a lover’s kiss… and then Higgson saw only dreams and nightmares.
