The Enchantress and the Demon Dragon

Council Decision

"Cathleen! What happened? We lost contact about ten hours ago! We couldn't even come to you physically or by magic."

"I..." She stared at her professor for once from the bottom up. He was a quite old Halfling but the best at healing magic.

"Never mind, dear. You'll explain it to us later." He rolled up his sleeves with the intention of starting to cure her.

The girl ignored him and moved the troll's corpse, took her bag, and spilled the contents on it.

I had all the ingredients. Whispers of amazement filled the room as she watched with satisfaction the dryad that had been giving her a hard time all these years.  It's not that she wasn't good at alchemy... it's that she disliked her for some reason.

"Professor Madoc, please. I can cure myself later. I'm all right. I got them all back. I know I should have used the teleportation only in an emergency. But I swear it was."

Among all those elegantly dressed, clean magicians, she must have looked like s**t. Dirty, full of wounds, she probably smelled, or at least there was the troll’s corpse in front of her, and she was absolutely devastated.

"Miss Cathleen Wynne, why is your hair white? Did you have to use purifying magic?" In the immobility of the circular room Yaztel Hun'lyl got up from his chair and began to turn around the young girl with his hands extended forward to study her with his magic. The Archmage was there, at her trial. Perhaps because contact had been lost?

She was confused by his presence and what he was doing. The rest of the Council whispered by passing the glances from her to the chief of the Academy.

"Yes, I had to, Archmage. A lot of bizarre things happened. Was there supposed to be a demon dragon on Buì Island? And whose black lion is it? It's someone's familiar. I got out alive because I'm a Soillse. Any other wizard wouldn't have made it..."

“Couldn't you, Wynne, come up with something other than a demon dragon? We all faced Buì Island. There was never any sign of demons or lions. Don't make excuses because you didn't pass the test" the dryad interrupted her disdainfully. Cathleen was speechless.

"She's not lying, Alcyna. I'm looking at everything she's done these days. Rothgar told me you are gifted but I didn't think that you could be so talented. Transforming magic from one element to another... Not everyone can do it as easily as you, Miss Wynne. I can see how you could break my record."

"But have I passed the test or not?" After hearing the professor's words, her heart went up my throat with anxiety. And she even smashed the Academy record! She was excited and worried at the same time.

The half Drow and half High Elf stopped examining me impassive and simply asked her, "What do you think?"

She was a little hesitant.

"I think I've retrieved what you asked for. And I used what I knew and what I was allowed to take with me during the trial. Even if it weren’t an emergency, using the teleportation sphere would have been a legitimate option." Everyone was quietly awaiting the verdict. Cathleen could see her war and combat magic professor, Rothgar Ilijch, smiling sly and proud.

"I will investigate why a demon dragon was there. It was probably because of him that we lost contact with the island. You handled it very well from what I saw."

"Yaztel! This girl has broken the rules and wants to make it bigger by inventing dragons and lions! She still can't be called a mage!"

"Alcyna, you're interrupting the Archmage. I doubt this girl can deceive him, even if she is so promising. I don't know what problems you have with her..." the little Halfling who hadn't stopped trying to heal her pupil the whole time stood up for her.

" Damn it, she almost destroyed the whole castle! They sent her here because she can't control her power! She killed people in her village!" Shocked, the Soillse couldn't be silent any longer.

"Professor Alcyna, what you say is true. I killed people when I was five years old because demons attacked my village and killed and abused my aunt's dead body in front of me. It was the first time I ever manifested my powers.  I was overwhelmed with fear and revenge. And my power was too great for a little girl to handle. Now I'm 21. I've been here eight years! And before the academy after the accident I was separated from my family to be with the elves and learn the magic of purification to control myself!" Somehow, she had stood up. The pain was like anesthetized by anger. She stepped forward to the green sorceress.

"And I had just arrived when I released an earthquake here at the Academy. I..."

"Okay, that's enough. You don't have to clarify yourself, Miss Wynne. She passed the test and smashed the Academy record. Professor Alcyna's just worried that another person will steal her place as Archmage after me. You have to feel honoured because it means she is afraid of you."

The woman's mask of arrogance collapsed and paled in silence. The girl tried to stop herself from laughing.

Then the rumours she had heard were true: the headmistress was supposed to be Alcyna, but the previous holder had designated Yaztel to the detriment of protests about his Drow origin. Usually those like him were discriminated because half of them were of obscure origin, but as a Soillse herself, she had never felt any evil around the Archmage. And for many, this was the ultimate test to end all protests. Moreover, he was undoubtedly one of the most skilled magicians in existence.

The Council broke up and Cathleen came out victorious. She was immediately taken by force by Professor Madoc to the infirmary where he treated her relentlessly, scolding her all the time for having taken so many risks.

She no longer felt pain, but she let him do it, so happy to have concluded this part of her life's journey. From after the celebration that would take place the day after, she would have officially been a mage.

She had multiple plans. Exploring all the islands of Gaia was one of the biggest. Without forgetting the main mission of each Soillse, the ancient nomadic human people of Bàn Island of which she was a part, dedicated to protecting Gaia from the dark creatures of Doilér Island. And of course, she would finally return home. It was the ultimate proof of her success. She had shown that she could control her powers and would no longer frighten anyone in the village. She'd been carrying that accident inside her for almost the whole life. When her master was satisfied, he finally allowed her to wash herself.

Soaking in the large cave underneath the Academy, the sorceress enjoyed the warmth of the thermal water that bathed her tired limbs still dreaming about what she would do in the future. She swam a little in the puddle to her favourite spot and left herself to the senses. She extended the consciousness to the whole room and relaxed; the sound of the water coming down from the wall of the rock and breaking to join the great mass, her breath, her heart beating...

Peace.

She floated inert, as dead, feeling the magic of the island that regenerated hers sinuously. Her muscles were hard and stiff from the effort of the previous days and the fatigue came out all of a sudden.  She also had to eat.

She should have come back. She came out of the water covering herself with a towel and headed for her new room. Now that her rank had risen, she had one for herself that would be her forever even after she left. It meant that she could come back whenever she wanted and would always be welcome.

All mage had one. At first she didn't think it was possible because she was told that they were all in the same tower that didn't even look too tall when viewed from the outside, but as she studied, she realized that the same procedure had been used for dimensional bags.

She walked quietly through the empty corridors, covered only by the semi-wet cloth, her wavy hair now wet and dripping dark brown again.

She was not afraid that anyone would see her: at the Academy decency did not exist; there were frequent orgies at the end of tests and the philosophy of nature, of the senses, was in force. It was not like in her lands where the vision of nudity was reserved for the loved one. But even in this case it was not a matter of honour as in other human or elfic cultures, but of a bond between two people.

She couldn't find anyone in her way luckily because she wanted to enjoy her loneliness. She opened the slightly heavy wooden door and found herself in a circular room with niches surrounded by pointed arches that seemed to want to glorify and protect the statues that were there, each one on its own richly decorated pedestal; each of them represented various magical and symbolic animals: a phoenix, a chimera, a hippogriff, a basilisk, a centaur, a unicorn, a dragon... there were still some, but the enchantress lingered on the last.

The one on the Buì Island had nothing to do with the miniature: it was black, menacing, without horns and with fewer spikes, smoother and more sinuous and certainly not as fragile as the purple crystal statuette, a material so dear to the Purple Island or Corcra, in ancient language, since it was found everywhere and were catalysts of magic energy.

Not wanting to stand any longer, she went to the centre of the room touching the purple sphere suspended in the air. It became black as if a bottle of ink had been thrown into a basin of clear water. Something similar happened to her eyesight and she arrived in my private room.

Marvellous!

She threw the drape on the floor being naked, excited to explore the new space, but she felt an immediate uneasiness.

"Demon".