The Royal Dragoneers by M. R. Mathias

Author:M. R. Mathias
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi

Part III

High Magic

Chapter Twenty

Though she could have passed for a maiden of twelve and was as smart as an old crone, Zahrellion was only nineteen years old. She had lived at the Druidom since birth. One of her direct ancestors had helped found the Order of Dou, which was the little-used official name of the sect. He had been instrumental in getting King Ferdok to grant them amnesty from the kingdom and its laws, so that they could research the powers of the arcane. Ideally, the sect wouldn’t have had to build their temple up in the lower peaks, but the good folk of the kingdom would have been appalled at some of the things they had been attempting with their unique forms of High Magic, so it was for the better all the way around.

Zahrellion’s ancestor, one Grock Visium, had been a powerful practitioner of all things arcane. His specialty was item enchantment. He had spent the waking hours of his life studying, practicing, and creating ways to instill ordinary objects with power and purpose. One of the items he had created was known as the dampening hood. It was a velvety, drawstring bag, made to put over the heads of the rogue Outland pirates that were the terror of the seas back in the earlier days of the settling. Those bold and brazen outlaws, and a few of their women, often knew enough sea sorcery to cause trouble even after they were captured. The material that Grock Visium’s dampening hood was made of had been enchanted so that it interfered with the brain activity and the voice of the person put under it. Without the ability to speak the proper words or think clearly, there could be no spell casting or walking the ethereal. It was a very effective way to transport a prisoner with the ability to muster the power of the arcane. It was a bitter irony when Zahrellion found herself staring at the inside of her great grandfather's device. Comparatively gentle hands led her down a long wooden dock to board a sea ship as if she were some old pirate’s filthy ship witch.

The smell of brine was in the air, but it had a hard time reaching her nose. The gulls were calling out crazily around her and her escorts. Underneath the frantic, cawing tirade was the slow, but steady, repeating whoosh of the ocean’s waves rolling past the wooden support columns, and the clomping of their boots on the plank-wood pier. Under the steamy hood, Zah was going mad with worry, and she was more than a little bit angry. After several days in the dungeons, she still hadn’t been given an opportunity to bathe herself properly1. Inside the hood, her breath was so vile that it was suffocating her. Frunien, the druid who had come for her, and the four Dourga attendants he had brought along to help escort her away from King’s Island were all deaf to her pleadings. Frunien actually

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