[Terquem]

Chapter 2 part 3

She cast a spell into the air. A being began to appear. A huge animal with dark fur took shape. “Don’t be afraid,” Lisa said as she moved her hands to shape the spell from the memory of the magic she had touched, “it is just an image. It can’t harm you.”

The image came into focus suddenly. It was a short-eared rabbit, thick in the hind quarters, hunched toward its head. In every way it seemed to resemble a regular rabbit, only huge in every proportion.
Cooper and Princess Tewelden were the most curious of them all about the thing.

Cooper stood and came close to the head and holding up his hands he said, “its front teeth are larger than an eshian hand. I remember those teeth. It took Johan by the shoulder in its mouth that day. I heard the bones crush and break. Then it lifted him off the ground and threw him twenty feet across the glade. He struck a tree, and the impact killed him.”

“I didn’t want to believe it was true,” the Princess said as she slid away from the skin on the floor near her. She could not take her eyes away from it. “It’s so large. How could a normal rabbit grow so large, even with powerful magic? The strength needed to power that kind of spell would be unimaginable.”

Lisa touched the rabbit on the foot and the image blinked out and was gone.

“It was not a spell. And as far as I can tell it wasn’t the effect of exposure to the kind of magic in the moor. This is a magical creature. It is born like this to others of its kind already this large. I know of no such animal in all of Ibalnd, Emalia, or The Kingdoms. It must be from another world, but I can’t tell you it came here through a gate. I just don’t know how to feel that kind of magic. It might have been summoned, but the sort of spell that would summon something like this would have ended and the skin would not have been recovered. There is a lot here I don’t understand.”

“At least you were able to tell us something,” Lydia said.

“If I could tell you more, I would,” Lisa said. “You are all going to see the Duchess to tell her this, take the skin to her and ask for protection should there be more. That’s a good idea.”

“There is more,” Fairlyn said. “Just over a month ago three ships, sailing under the flag of the Empire of Beauvingia, made anchor off the east coast of Ibalnd, near a fishing village of gymnagaothians. My sister was visiting there at the time. The Beauvingians came ashore and approached the village in peace, but it was trick. They attacked when the village’s guard was down and took dozen of prisoners. My sister was among those taken. The Beauvingians took them to their ships and tortured them. They were looking for an artifact that predicted the coming of a great evil and they believed the gymnaga-folk had the artifact. My sister was aboard their ship for three days, but when she was brought on the main deck to be questioned on the fourth day, she fought her captors and managed to jump overboard. She was tied to a gymnaga elder and the two of them managed to swim to shore without being retaken. My sister took the elder to the city of Easton, the capital city of the gymnaga people. She sent for me then, I was just a few days from there in a small eshian settlement to the south of the gymnaga territory. I came as soon as I could. The Princess can tell you the rest.”

“Thank you, Fairlyn,” Tewelden said. “My mother summoned me from my home in a village to the north of the capital. I arrived in Easton the same day as Fairlyn. By then, my mother had nursed the elder back to health and learned more about the Beauvingians. It turned out they were not regular citizens of the empire, but renegades, outcasts, followers of Cidri. The artefact they were searching for is some kind of key to working the special magic of Gates. We do not have it. We don’t know what it is exactly. The elder only recalled overhearing the Beavingians mentioning their desire to find a special Gate key.”

The Princess moved around the stools set in a circle around the fire and came close to Lisa and Alan.

“My mother told me a secret of Ibalnd. The existence of five known Gates. She believes the followers of Cidri intend to take control or somehow change the nature of these gates. I must get to the Duchess to warn her. All of this is connected. I’m sure,” the young gymnaga-girl was pleading now. “The attack on the castle that Mister Alan survived, this tower, the strange belief in an end of the world the cultists of Cidri believe in. It is all connected.”

Lisa was confused. “Why would the Tower be involved?”

“There is a Gate in the catacombs below my cellar,” the Tower said. “Nothing has come out of it in many years. Some things have stumbled through it and never returned. It is not protected, but it is difficult to get to.”

“There is a Gate here,” Alan said. “That means there was probably a Gate in the castle I d…”

“Was defending,” Lisa said quickly. “Is there?” She turned to look at Tewelden. “Is there a Gate at this castle the followers attacked?”

“Yes,” the princess replied, “and three others. One is on the southernmost island of Ibalnd. One is hidden in the caves on the western mountains above the Midland Sea, in the ruins of an ancient gymnagaopthian temple that fell to a horrible curse, and the last one is in the forest of Ilopswillow, just to the north of the city of Ilzonze, the city of the Duchess of Ilzonze.”