A/N: Ahoy there! Chapter Four up and ready to be read! Politics in fanfic form, I've now realized, is just as dull as politics in real life. Remind me not to try to write them again.
Absolutely tragic news, I've heard that the new Golden Compass movie has been de-religionized. The only comfort this provides is that there's no way they can go on to screw up The Subtle Knife, and especially not The Amber Spyglass, if they're not including the Church because then they'd have to completely reinvent the entire plot, not just nearly every single event. Knock on wood. Is it just me or is Hollywood slowly becoming more and more pathetic?
Tap tap tap tap... Rorek's booted toe rose and fell to the rhythm of impatience. He nervously glanced at the gilded clock resting above the stone door frame while fiddling with his dark scarf. He wore a silver-gray tunic and a black bodysuit beneath – hardly formal wear, but he was a mage and not completely bound hand and foot by the centuries of ever increasing customs. Tap tap tap tap...
"Pleeeeeeease?" came a whine from behind Rorek's ear. Startled, the mage gave a slight jump forward before turning to see Artor standing on an ebony table and grinning wide enough to swallow up Malchior's entire castle.
Annoyed, Rorek responded, "For the last time, absolutely not!" Pausing, the mage scowled. "And get your feet off that table – it was a gift from Raguel."
Artor's grin diminished slightly before reemerging as a full blown smirk. "Raggy's rich, he can get you another table!" Slowly at first, but then faster, the boy's feet began to move in the time-honored patterns of a jig on the polished wood.
Horrified, Rorek leaned over and tried to grab the small form of his cousin, but was easily dodged as Artor danced backwards deeper onto the table and farther from Rorek. The mage curled both hands into fists in frustration before slamming them into the very table he sought to protect. "Surge!" A nearly audible crack issued forth as Rorek's eyes momentarily glowed white.
Howling with laughter, Artor was lifted by an invisible hand from the prized surface. "Now will you let me come," he giggled out.
Rorek was not amused, to say the least. "No," he grunted through gritted teeth. "Go to your room." Before he had taken the time to drop Artor back onto the floor, a black aura surrounded Rorek's scarf and yanked it up over his eyes.
"Oh let him come!"
The white haired mage said something that was muffled by the thick cloth. In a quick gesture he raised up his pale hands to grasp the scarf and pull it down. The article of clothing didn't budge.
"Well can he? Oh, I forgot, let me help."
The first thing that Rorek saw was Kyrie's thin face, framed by long black hair. She was sitting on his prized table in a brilliant scarlet dress and leaning down to stare at him. Somewhere in the background, Artor crashed to the thick silvery carpet with a dull thud.
"Fine," Rorek spat, although his word lacked any hint of malice. "He can come... on one condition."
Every occupant of the room listened with baited breath for the master of the house's pronouncement.
"I haven't the time to arrange his formal clothes – the gargoyles will do it," he said.
A stunned silence followed. Then Rorek suddenly grinned. Kyrie laughed. Artor wailed.
"NO! I DIDN'T MEAN IT! PLEASE!" the child screamed.
Still smiling, Rorek offered Kyrie his arm, "This way milady." Using his free hand he snapped his fingers above his head in a carefree manner to summon one of the house's servants. "Petros, please dress Artor and have him come along as soon as he's ready."
"Shoo thin' boss," the gargoyled responded, swooping down on it's granite wings to snatch up the fleeing form of Artor.
At this point Kyrie had fallen into hysterics and even Rorek had broken out of his stuffy facade and begun to laugh as the pair strode past the stone door and out of the house.
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"... for it is not every day, nor every year, nor even every century that we gather together in celebration of the future, the next millennium," the speaker droned on.
For Rorek and Kyrie the evening and much of the night had seemingly vanished into thin air. Ultimately, mages and fabulous balls mixed as well as oil and water. Forever lost in individual worlds, the time had blurred together for each and every one of the numerous guests.
"While I rejoice in standing here before you as the representative of the Mages Guild that has so kindly hosted our gathering, it pains me to say that I am only here because Malchior was unable to arrive," the woman paused to let the muttering die down. Malchior was a well-known name withing certain circles, and this was one of them.
"Look around you, these faces will be your friends, or perhaps your foes in the years to come..." the speaker plowed on to the annual appeal of a cessation of vendettas without explaining why Malchior was absent. However the assemblage of magic-workers paid little attention to the never-ending formality.
"Malchior? Unable to attend the turning of the millennium? Preposterous!"
"What's going on? He's never missed a single appointment in his life..."
Rorek alone remained stoically silent as his peers chattered away. After a time the pointed questions as to Malchior's whereabouts died down and the attendees turned to the more important and pressing matters – resolving old feuds and starting up new ones.
"Only mages..." sighed Rorek. "Please excuse me, Kyrie, I've politics to attend to." The word 'politics' came out with an unrivaled glee that would have made any bystander shudder.
Ignoring his abnormal tendency towards bureaucracy, Kyrie waved her hand in an affirmative motion. "I've a few matters to attend to myself," she declared before floating towards a corner of the hall.
Suddenly, Rorek rushed up in front of her from among the sea of swirling colors that appeared only at conventions involving mage-kind.
"I intended to pick a fight, but wasn't expecting you to play the victim," the sorceress stated with a bemused expression.
Rorek shook his head, "I saw who you were going after. Leave Azar and hers alone for the time being – no matter what the slight was!" he muttered, leaning down slightly to bring his mouth close to her ear.
Kyrie however didn't take his advice well. Shoving him aside easily, she challenged, "I am not a coward, nor would I have anyone think as much of me."
Despite his help being thrown back into his face, Rorek persisted, grabbing her wrist. "It's not cowardice, it's common sense. Your lovely face has no place as a bloody pool on the cobblestones of some well-lit alley," he reached up and ran his free hand along the side of her face. "Azar is gathering her kin to her, for what purpose no one yet understands. At least wait till she slips in her power."
"And if I cautioned you to raise no hand against Malchior, would you?" Kyrie's comment shocked Rorek into releasing her wrist.
"Rorek of Nole?" a brightly colored man reached over to lay a hand on Rorek's silvery shoulder. "I'm Garth of Atlantis, we've been meaning to contact you..."
Kyrie glowered as Rorek's attention instantly shifted to the aqua-tinted dignitary; he seemingly forgot all about his dire warnings to her. Brushing off the cautionary words as quickly as he'd brushed off the necessity to convey them, Kyrie continued unimpeded to her original destination.
Azar was a, to say the least, well groomed and prim and proper mage born into an empire of magic and power – and it showed. Kyrie was by no means the first to be on the receiving end of one of Azar's idle taunts involving parentage and social status, but the fiery sorceress intended to be the last.
It was a common enough sight at the annual gathering for magical sparks to fly between mages, so Kyrie's path through the crowds went unnoticed. It wasn't until her spell-amplified voice rang out over the constant hum of conversation that the masses fell quiet and moved to form a large, loose circle.
"I, Kyrie of the Black Flame, challenge you, Azar of Azarath!"
Slightly taken aback, Azar's face formed a predatory grin. "I'd be less concerned with dirtying the lives of your betters, orphaned street trash, than with what your lover is up to. You and your kind have no place among us; no matter how long and hard you try, the sewer slime will never come off. It's hard to comprehend exactly how they managed to teach such manners as announcing a challenge!"
Azar's words were greeted with a rumble of anger. Even though the most power lay with the mage families who spent more time investing in pedigrees than the real world, the majority of the mid-powered magic-folk had come from the very background Azar and the lineages slighted on a routine basis.
"I, Xavier of the Red, join Kyrie's challenge!" a skinny but muscular man with a long scar across his right eye shoved his way to the front of the crowd. "Some of us street trashes are sick and tired of your conceited little world."
"Awww, Kyrie's man so pathetic she needs more just to defend herself?" Azar jeered, ignoring Xavier and the rapidly growing number of seconds.
Rorek, still standing next to Garth, glared at Azar. "I, Rorek of House Nole," he laid a special emphasis on the 'house', as if to declare that he was not one of the 'street trashes' that were moving to stand by Kyrie. "Join Kyrie of the Black Flame in her challenge against Azar of Azarath!"
Azar simply smirked and whispered in a devious tone to Kyrie alone, "I wasn't really talking about him, but I suppose when arrogance is the defining trait, they're both so similar..."
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Malchior ran.
Branches whipped at his face and thorns caught and tore his once splendid clothes. The forest was dark, and the purple mage occasionally ran his shoulder into unseen trees. Sometimes he tripped and fell, but some force drove him on. The numerous cuts that laced his hands had been bandaged in white linen, which had snagged in the vegetation and eventually been cast off.
The cuts bled.
By no means a silent runner, the crash of his passing echoed throughout the empty valley. The din was accompanied by Malchior's labored breathing, coming increasingly in short gasps. Even if there were any animals that hadn't fled by now, the sounds of nature would have been drowned out by the sounds of a single panicked mage. But the animals had fled as soon as the smell of overpowering fear reached them, long minutes before Malchior had.
At last the mage reached a clearing. He stumbled on soft feet that had been ripped to bloody ribbons several miles behind him. A quiet thud emanated as Malchior's skinned knees fell to the soft green grass below. His trembling body shook as coughs racked his frame. Bloodied hands reached up out of habit to cover his mouth, but they were suddenly jerked away.
More blood.
The thickened clumps of red slid down his shaking hand and silently fell down to the earth.
Soon tears joined the unfettered bout of coughing in seemingly tearing the mage apart.
"No... no... wasn't... not... like this..." the words were mere whispers between his violent hacking.
Instead of tumbling down to join his lifeblood and lungs on the ground, Malchior raised his face.
A full moon smiled down, casting a warm light – the only light - over the forest that penetrated his safe haven.
"No..." he gave one last cry, and then the moon went out.
A review would be nice, although the readers (all four of them) don't seem to be the reviewing types.