Nightchild

In a chair near the bed slumped Aviana, her face white in the gloom and drooping to her chest. Her arms were gripping the sides of the chair and her legs were tucked hard under it. She was shivering, her eyes restless as they searched the mana spectrum.

Immediately, Cleress and Ephemere attuned their eyes to the spectrum, revealing the full enormity of what they had sensed on walking in.

Rippling and shimmering, unstable but holding, Aviana's mind-mana shield played like a hood around Lya

desperate fight to accept and control the mana flow coursing through her head, drawn there by what she represented as if it was alive.

And what the Dordovans had done was there for them all to see. Dominating the gentle brown that gave them cause for hope, indicating as it did her Drechar capabilities, was the poisonous orange of the Dordovan College. Here was where the fight would take place.

Looking deeper, Cleress could see striations of deep green, pale yellow and dark, dark blue assimilated in the streams. Much of it appeared calm but at the centre of the helical structure was the pulsing orange that signified Dordovan Awakening.

Like a lunging animal, no, a snake preparing to strike, the rogue Dordovan mana bunched and coiled before expanding explosively, ripping die gently modulating brown as it did so; and punching outwards as flares or, intriguingly and worryingly, part-constructs.

Aviana, with minute adjustments to her shield, accommodated her instant decisions, letting the flares and stronger constructs escape or, if she could, containing them, allowing them to disperse harmlessly away from Lya

Cleress' pulse quickened. It was an onslaught, unintentional and quite without malice, but one under which Aviana, even Aviana, was begi

'Cleress, apply yourself to the shield,' said Ephemere. T need to calm the i

'Be careful,' urged Cleress, already plucking at Aviana's mana strands to knit together the shield and provide a fresh and safer outlet for the flare. 'She's attempting to cast.'

'She's trying to contact Erie

Through the jolt she felt and the concentration she partitioned to

help Ana, Cleress had enough about her to be irritated she hadn't spotted it straight away.

'Of course,' she muttered. Though Lya

It was lucky she had no hope of success. The base power of her casting occasionally reached dangerous peaks which would have slammed into Erie

'Aviana, let go if you need to,' said Cleress. Despite her tiredness, she felt able to sustain the shield while Ephemere cut off the source of the flares.

'I'm all right. I'll just pull back a little,' she said. 'Ephy, you'll have to talk her down quickly. The Gods only know what this is doing outside.'

'No, I'm not going to talk. I've got a better idea. I'm going to mana meld with her.'

'Risky,' said Cleress. The mass of trapped mana in Lya

'She needs to understand how to bind the Dordovan magic into the One at source. She may be able to stand the reaction in her mind of not doing so but I don't think we or Balaia can.'

'Then do it, Ephy, if you believe you can,' said Aviana. 'Just hurry.'

Cleress watched closely as the smooth brown sphere that represented the calm of Ephemere's mind began to reach out, all the while never letting her concentration slip on the shield.

Strands of mana waved out from the sphere. Tiny filaments like hairs on an otherwise bald skull, probing so gently into the multicoloured confusion that was Lya

unaware her mana coil was being touched and Ephemere was able to spread the gossamer tendrils wider, linking and diffusing areas of deep Dordovan orange, melding their flow with hers, removing its aggression.

But though Lya

'Now it starts,' whispered Ephemere. 'Be ready. Accept the pain.'

Cleress frowned but in the next heartbeat understood only too well. The coiling core of Lya

Ephemere gasped, her probing tendrils whipping away from their tenuous hold. Immediately, she constructed a convex surface and suspended it, base down, above the fist which punched outwards with blurring energy,

'Dear Gods,' whispered Cleress as the mana energy deluged Ephemere's deflector, disintegrating against the unyielding surface held by a mind of huge experience. Mana strands flashed away, tearing into the shield held by Aviana and Cleress, the two Al-Drechar modulating desperately to absorb the impact or let it pass through on its way to play havoc with Balaia.

Absorption was a hammer, pounding on her exposed brain. Lya

And that could not be allowed to happen. So the Al-Drechar's old but strong minds had to take the force of it, letting go only that which would have compromised their concentration and hence the shield, so risking catastrophic flaring into the mana trails that covered Balaia. It was an acceptable state, but only for now.

Lya

'Join me,' said Ephy. 'She is spent.'

'We should keep the shield,' said Aviana immediately.

'It's done its work,' replied Ephy. 'Trust me.'

Together, the three Al-Drechar forged a lattice of tendrils that stroked the angry, tired coil of Lya

'We should wake Myra,' said Ephemere. 'She can take the rest of the night.'

'No,' said Aviana firmly. 'I can do it. Just pray she keeps quiet through the day too.'