Caught in the Gears
Second Day of the Twelfth Month 292 AC
Lanna Lannister, Lady of Castamere and sorceress of the Four Spheres, was ill at ease. She was always ill at ease when she rode through Lannisport these days, and not without reason. To many highborn and low she was not a hero, one who had returned with Valyrian Steel from the Smoking Sea itself, who had brought knowledge of wardings and sorcerous healing back to the western lands, she was 'the witch.' Foul were the names they called her and fouler still the tales they told: that she had ensnared Gerion with her magics and then done the same with Lord Lannister, that she traded in the souls of her students and even that her daughters were no mortal creatures at all but demons given flesh. She had tried to reason and she had tried rage. The Redcloaks had killed more than one septon at her command, and far more at that of the Lord of Casterly Rock, but it mattered little. Fear could dictate men's actions, but not their thoughts...
Spells can, mistress, her familiar spoke in her mind with the strange innocence of its kind. It was not foolish, far from it, but the subtleties of life among men escaped it entirely.
The mage shook her head and kept her eyes on the path. She still remembered loosing Goldenmane, her mare since girlhood to a wide-eyed fanatic who had been willing to sell his life for hers. The man had been so lost to his own delusions that she could not even know if it had been merely some already cracked mind moved by one too many fiery sermons... or if something more sinister had driven him. The leering face of the assassin devil pressed itself into her mind... There were more of them out there, more than spying imps and a handful of reavers that had been butchering smallfolk, but lord Lannister was too content with having 'taught them to fear House Lannister,' fear
him in truth. Even Gerion had not been able to...
Her thought broke off abruptly as she spotted a Redcloack rushing down the path from the Rock and hailing her. "Your presence is expected at the keep, my lady," the man said, respect mixed with fear in his words. "In the lord's solar.... he has guests from foreign parts."
He was one of those who knew... the poor bastard. Lanna herself was not wholly comfortable knowing that her goodbrother had almost been turned into a flesh-puppet by fish things from the depths, with only Gerion's timely intervention keeping him whole and sane. At least that had driven him to have a spell to ward the mind carved into his flesh so that it could not be torn from him as a ring might. This was likely just another group of hedge mages with an inflated notion of their own worth... Lanna reached for the handle of her favorite wand just the same.
OOC: A little bit of the Lannister problems, so that you guys can see it's not all smooth sailing for your enemies.