Interlude CDXXVII: Shadows from Fire Spun
Shadows from Fire Spun
Twenty-Eighth Day of the Eighth Month 293 AC
Teana Strycos, unlike many of the mages taken in by the Mysterium, never saw much point in dueling, testing power against power in a campaign of prestige. Her time as an instructor of the Scholarum had only helped make those opinions firmer as she had to break up dozens of so called 'duels' between students more likely to cause harm to each other on accident than on purpose. Yet here she was, walking out onto the sands for the amusement of the masses facing a priestess of the Red God so high in her god's favor that even the King had been wary of her, so knowledgeable in the ways of power that she claimed to be of Assahi, a true shadowbinder as opposed to Teana's own patched and thrice-borrowed lore.
I'm not crazy, I just act like it sometimes, the sorceress told herself, the edge of self-deprecating humor helping to loosen the knot of worry in her stomach at least a little. She had to know for certain before approaching the woman. How skilled are you truly, Melisandre of Asshai? Enough to be worth trying to learn from you, or is your confidence nothing more than a fanatic's blind faith?
"Remember the plan," the Lady of Naath said from her left.
I've remembered far more complicated things, Teana wanted to reply but instead just nodded. That was probably just her way of showing nervousness. Wyla was in this for the cheers, or more specifically she was in it for the fame as a great mage who could protect colonists in the wilds of Sothoryos. All that land she had a right to would not be worth anything without hands to tend it.
"Good day!" Glyra waved cheerfully to the two approaching red priests, interrupting Teana's musings. "Say, is your god really fat?"
"Pardon?" the warrior priest Thoros asked, bewildered.
"I believe she is asking about the two other helpers we could have had in the fight and implying that the Lord of Light is taking their place," Melisandre replied, her expression still serene. "I thank you for your confidence in trusting that R'hllor is with us, little one," she said to the gremlin who looked mildly annoyed but also respectful at having failed to get a rise.
Then the red-haired woman's eyes turned to Sarell, her voice falling to a whisper that would be lost to the crowd above: "How came thee to these shores, Daughter of Darkness, your shackles lost and broken?"
The Erinye did not look surprised, but then even among her own kindred she was not one to show emotion openly. "Win and I will tell you," she replied.
A faint sadness showed in the priestess' eyes: "Do you think so little of your own tale's worth that you would gamble it away? Win or lose I will not compel answers from you, though if you would hear a tale of me in return I offer it freely."
Seeing Sarell shake her head in bewilderment, Teana was suddenly very glad indeed not to be under that searching dark gaze. For one more long moment the six of them stood waiting for the horns.
An instant after the last note had faded Glyra moved, pale wand dancing through the air as the gremlin coaxed out its magic, the same power that had felled so many in the last fight to grace the arena, but the red woman was not moved, the spell funding no purchase before it can even hope to strike her flesh.
A ward against all magic, and not one freely cast but bound to some item of power, that would make things harder, Teana thought as she spun her own spell. As Sarell's arrows begin to fly, she altered her spell and wove within it a means to see the threads of power and to pass between them. A turtle she would make of Melisandre in honor of the King's quirk, yet as she met the red priestess' eyes, unmoved, unmovable, the humor died, the spell went wild, nothing to show for it but a shower of harmless sparks.
Two of the Fury's arrows went wide also, for there was glamoured armor beneath those silken robes, but the third grazed her cheek as it passed. First blood for us at least, Teana thought as Wyla finished her own working, a spell to rend asunder the very fabric of magic and leave their foe as helpless as a warrior without his weapon.
Yet as the final word was spoken the red woman showed her power. The shadows danced madly as though the sun were twisting in the sky, the incantation swallowed as though it had never been. Even in stillness Glyra's shadow oozed from the sands like tar, almost entrapping the gremlin in its grip had she not half-jumped half-floated from its grasp.
Seeing her off balance the warrior priest charged and smote her with all his strength and the power of his god, the light of his blade seeming to briefly dispel the shimmering veil she wore for a cloak.
In the very moment of the blow, the high wailing tongue to Assahai was heard in full in the arena, not a single word but an entire verse, sending a shiver down the spine of every living thing who heard it. Into shadow Melisandre passed, her necklace like a red star shining, even as she uttered another spell, another blessing that would make her even harder to vanquish with any spell or trickery.
Shadow and flame are one to her, and as one she can use them, Teana realized with foreboding though she was yet unharmed.
Glyra moved true and bold even in the dark. She smiled at Thoros, a borrowed spell upon her lips, one he could neither ward away or resist. So Thoros of Myr became a startled fox while arrows sang overhead from Sarell's bow.
One after another passed through the shadowbinder's form doing no more harm than pebbles cast into a pond. Teana tried to break the spell, but her enchantment slipped aside, finding no purchase.
In turn Wyla tried to shore up her own arcane protections but once again the shadows turned, denying her the ward, even as upon the pale's lady's head the shadowbinder uttered a curse of fire, such that it seemed the Red God himself had spoken in its making, so bright and dreadful it was. Yet as soon as the sorceress collapsed to her knees the fire faded, leaving Wyla burned but still breathing.
Seeing her ally's plight Sarell rushed forward to heal her even as Glyra rushed to fight the shadowbinder. As they drew close a burst of incandescent light caught both of them in its radiance, searing eyes and flesh alike. There... then Teana saw her chance. She cast forth an ember, a flame that burned the twisting shadows that the Red Priestess had become.
Glyra's chain bit into her also, Sarell's arrows rained down, and for a moment moment Teana thought that they might triumph regardless... then walls of shadow rose around her, harder than adamantine, darkness stealing her breath. Through the black veil she saw Sarell entrapped with an enchantment and finally even Glyra fall to flame.
Still, as she returned to flesh, there was some satisfaction to be had in seeing that the Red Priestess had paid a tithe of blood to surpass them.
OOC: Now that you have seen her fight I can confirm that Melisandre is indeed a multiclass shadow mage/cleric, and one of that class' features is being able to cast a mystery and a spell with one action as per Twin Spell. She also makes use of divine metamagic of course.
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