The Magic Mirror

Slow Death

Naros walked out of a smoke cloud and into Grave's quarters. Graves was rarely a pleasant sight, even to something as undiscerning as a bird, but today he looked particularly foul. His mouth was closed and his face was one emotionally void and dangerous line. It was when Graves was at his least expressive that he was his most dangerous, and there wasn't a bird in this lair that didn't know it. He stood before the door, the door that hid despairing moans and desperate scratching. Now, Naros gathered, would be a bad timeto ask about it.

"...and Haviers?" asked Graves, as if the mutual silence had been a discussion in itself.

"Dead." Naros admitted.

Graves nodded. That was it. No words for the deceased, no acknowledgement of the great service Haviers had provided. Nothing. It made Naros feel sour and decieved. But what could he do? Birds had made the pact. A bird's worth to the sorcerer that bought him was not meant to be his concern.

"What of the stone?"

"I captured the girl... and the knight," Naros replied. "I searched them and I searched their things. There was no stone."

Graves watched with hardened resolve.

"No?" he asked.

"No stone," Naros repeated.

The pause between them was unnerving. Naros would have preferred a sound beating or to have his feathers plucked.

"Well then," Graves growled at last. "Where are they?"

Naros was glad he had asked! Finally some good news to tell the master.

"I had the creeping charlie take them in the night and suspend them in a tree! That girl that only stood and that knight that stabbed poor Haviers- now both of them will meet slow and agonizing deaths!"

"What?" asked Graves.

"They are in the process of being killed." Naros hated to have to explain it again. "Slowly."

Of course this seemed like something a sorcerer that ordered changelings to beatings would enjoy. But Graves did not look pleased.

"You imbecile!" the sorcerer snapped. "You feather brained fool! Simply because they do not have thestone does not mean that they do not know whereit is!"

"They hurt Haviers..." Naros explained, and when Graves still seemed unmoved he repeated, "Haviers was killed-"

"DO I LOOK LIKE I CARE ABOUT HAVIERS?" Graves shouted as he hit the wall beside him. "Go back and capture them properly before they dissolve! And another thing-"

Naros stopped short of clouding away.

"No lackey of mine is going to be seen using slow death! You amatuer! The less complicated you make it the less likely they are to escape- It's so painfully basic it makes me sick to even explain this to you!"

Naros thought this was a little rich coming from the man who offered life to anybody who could jump a lava mote and survive a maze of thornbrush, but he did not say it. Until the spells that bound birds to his service were broken, Graves was the unquestioned leader. So Naros dispersed into the air as a black cloud and did not speak out... but he began to wonder... and a small grain of doubt planted itself in the back of his mind.

Haviers, this life does not suit us. Birds were not meant for cages.

-Back in the Forest of Lore-

"It's no use," Audrin groaned. Hours after waking up in an engorged mass of plant she and Marcos were no closer to freedom.

"Let me try again," Marcos suggested. "There's no need to lose heart, after all- I'm sure the beast is around here somewhere."