“Emotions win sometimes.”

- A memory of the Old Ones.

***Carinthia***

***Sely***

Oilell guides us back to the entrance hall where four animals are waiting for us. A black cat, a white raven, a grey snake and a brown bear. Taking the lead, she introduces us. “These are the four guardian spirits of the house of Bathomeus. They are magical constructs and were created to protect the mansion and its high ranking clan-members. Think of them as personal bodyguards.”

I inspect each of them in turn. They look like their normal animal counterparts. Down to the smallest detail. Well, the raven obviously got the colour wrong. So how are they supposed to be bodyguards? The bear at least feels like he could act as a meatshield, but what about the cat and the raven? My eyes wander to the snake.

“Don't look at me like that. I am poisssonousss,” The snake rattles. “I and sssince I am pure magic, I can be as big or as sssmall as I want.”

Okay. Smart, intelligent constructs. “Um... it's nice to meet all of you?”

Annia waves her hand. “Hi.”

The bear grunts and the cat nods. The raven says nothing. I suppose the snake is the only one who likes to talk?

Oilell claps her hands together and turns to address us, “Since you know each other now, I would be happy if you always take one of the guardian spirits with you when you go out. It would be a shame if something happened to you.”

Annia raises her hand. “Ahem, I promised to meet with Angelika today.”

Really? She must have a relationship with her vampire friend if she wants to see the girl every day.

The reactions to Annia's proclamation aren't that enthusiastic. The cat looks to the side, while the bear studies the ground. The raven chooses to groom his feathers. I can't help it. These creatures don't strike me as useful guardians.

After a few moments the snake hisses and slithers towards Annia. “Sssince the others obviousssly don't want to go outssside the reality marble, I'll accompany you.”

My sister doesn't hesitate and bends down to grab the snake. “What should I call you?”

“Choossse a name. It'sss of no concern to me.” The snake slithers around her neck and turns into a blue scarf which matches her jeans and jacket.

I am no less surprised than my sister who squeals in delight. “Wow! Can you turn into anything?”

“Didn't you lisssten? I am magic. I choossse how I look.”

Squinting my eyes at the snake, I insert myself into the discussion. “Then I suppose that you don't need to speak like a snake?”

“That's true, but my accent is a part of how I define myself as an independent entity,” The scarf answers and manages to sound a little miffed.

While Annia discusses possible names with her new scarf, I return my attention to Oilell. “Are there more residents to meet in this place? If not, I would like to explore the reality marble.”

That returns Annia's attention to me. “Yes. Now I remember! There was a beautiful woman tending to the garden. I saw her last evening through the window. Who is she?”

Oilell smiles. “That's Fiacre. She's Master's aunt.”

“I thought everyone except for him is dead?” I chew on my lower lip, surprised by the news. Given the story he told us I don't understand why he left her alive.

Oilell makes a helpless gesture. “What can I say? The same way Master avoids me, he doesn't want to see Fiacre. She has been living in the old servants' quarters ever since the incident. That allows her to avoid Master when he is here. If you remember his story, she was the one who freed him. And when she woke up, everyone except for him was dead. She is giving herself the fault for everything that happened.”

I nod slowly and ask the only question that really matters. “Did she really betray him?”

Oilell sighs and shrugs. “I am afraid that's one question that will never be answered to our satisfaction. That's why Bear was assigned as her permanent watchdog. He only took a short break to meet you two.”

The bear grunts something that sounds like 'Bye!' and marches towards the front door. I follow him, intending to meet Fiacre. In the meanwhile I ask the brownie, “Any other sentient residents?”

She dashes to the door and opens it for us. “Just a rather big pet that belongs to Master. But it never enters the reality marble and protects the bottom of the lake from outside. There will surely be an opportunity to meet it at one point or the other.”

So it's an 'it'? My attention wavers when I leave the mansion and get to see the interior of the reality marble as a whole. 'Alice in Wonderland' is a weak expression for what I am facing. The sky is coloured in a slight tinge of red. Then I realize how big the area really is. Somehow the Bathomeus must have shifted the entire bottom of the lake into the reality marble. The huge main mansion is standing on a hill, overlooking an elongated, oval area.

A river splits a little forest in two, just to splash via a waterfall into a series of small ponds. Each of the ponds is as clear and blue as a summer sky. There is a huge field and a garden area at the foot of the hill where someone is cultivating edible plants. A normally sized house is attached to the cultivated area.

In the far distance I can barely spot the remnants of a second mansion. It looks like it was partly consumed by a fire and a large section is caved in. I can recognize the remnants of a battle, and this looks like someone went crazy over there. “I guess that was the branch family's mansion?”

“Correct.” Oilell guides the way down a narrow, paved path. Halfway down the hill, we pass a series of neat graves, starting with two large ones for the Bathomeus clan-head and his wife. The path winds itself further down the hill until we arrive at a small grove of dead trees. The scene I can glimpse through the dead branchwood is enough to raise the hairs on my neck.

Someone grew a throne of thorns in the middle of the grove. On the throne is a dried up husk, not more than a mummy. A forked spear, shining in a green light, nails the corpse to his throne. The mummy's empty eye-sockets shine with a similar green light, watching the scene in front of the throne. Kneeling, sitting or lying, there are dozens of skeletons displayed in front of the pinned up king. All of them look like they are somehow worshipping the figure on the throne.

When I step closer to see better, the branchwood moves on its own to block the way to the shrine.

“I admit that Master went a little overboard with his punishment. He wanted to give Kelvyn the opportunity to reflect on his actions.” Oilell strolls onward.

I almost choke and point a trembling finger at the scene. “He is still alive! He turned him into a lich!”

The brownie turns around and regards the scene with a tilted head. “Not exactly. That artefact is the lance of Longinus. The true lance which killed Jesus of Jerusalem, an Old One who tried to take over the world by enslaving the humans with religion. It keeps Kelvyn alive as long as it remains stabbed into his chest. He is effectively dead, but can't take his last breath unless someone pulls out the lance.”

I've heard the story, but I thought the lance was lost.

Annia shudders. “It's almost like a work of art.”

“Master called it a work of pain and misery.” Oilell walks further along the path and I hurry to leave the gruesome scene behind me. How much hatred must someone feel to defile his enemy's corpse like that? I try to see it from Magnus's point of view, but find myself unable to imagine the bond he must have had with his family.

What would it be like not only to have Annia, but a whole clan of people you love? I always stood on my own until I took Annia under my wing. In a sense I took the role of a mother. Our real mother never bothered to be one, so I tried to give Annia what I never had. And when the clan-head tried to trade her away like he tried with me, I flipped. I took Annia and ran. What would have happened if I had stood and fought?

My thoughts are interrupted when the path ends in a small enclosed garden with a lot of flowers. A woman is standing at big bush of roses, watering them with a can. Upon noticing us, she turns around and smiles. “You must be Sely and Annia. I've heard a lot about you two.”

I narrow my eyes, not liking the fact that she seems to know us so well. “And you are Fiacre?”

“Indeed. Forgive my intrusiveness, but Oilell visited me yesterday evening and all she did was talk about you two. In addition, the net is full of news about your disappearance inside the Bathomeus territory.” Fiacre gestures with her hand and summons a table and four chairs from the earth. “Please take a seat.”

I carefully step closer and marvel at her skill. The furniture is perfectly smooth stone. To do something like that with such ease... she is either very talented or very old. If she is close to her brother's age, then by guessing from Magnus's story she is over two thousand years old. “You seem to be doing well. Just living here and tending to the gardens?”

Oilell takes a seat at the table. “Master told them what happened to the clan.”

Fiacre raises an eyebrow. “He did? How unexpected.” Noticing my curious gaze, Fiacre gestures for Annia and me to sit down. After we've done so, she continues. “Unlike Magnus I've seen a lot of bad things in my time.” She pauses. “Of course, he's also had opportunity to collect his share of bad experiences. But by the time of our clan's demise he was still young and inexperienced in the ways of the world. A baby, facing a cruel world, believing that the tale always has a happy ending.”

She sighs. “Well, it didn't. And I had more than sixty years to cope with the events of that day. I've thought a lot about what I could have done different, instead of allowing myself to be manipulated and used by Kelvyn.”

After pursing her lips, she continues. “I fell in love with a man who couldn't tolerate that he wasn't the head of the clan. He devised a plan to take the position away from my brother and I went along with it, not willing to see the true extent of how far Kelvyn intended to go. By the time I woke up, I had already lost half my family. And when I tried to save at least one of them, I lost the other half too.”

“The simple fact is that I was so blindly in love with Kelvyn that I didn't want to see the full extent of his machinations until he had killed my brother. Then he locked me away after realizing that I am not the key he wanted. Looking back, I've to admit that I would repeat all the idiotic steps which led to the revolt. There was no doubt in my mind until it was too late.”

I interrupt her. “But Magnus is still trying to deal with his anger.”

She shakes her head. “Magnus isn't dealing with the events. I don't know if it's because of the loss or the torture, but he is firmly suppressing everything that's related to that day. The fact that he told you his story makes me happy. It may be a sign that he is starting to heal.”

An unladylike grunt escapes me before I can stop myself.

Fiacre interprets it in her own way and makes an all encompassing gesture. “This is my atonement, in a way. Tending to the reality marble and giving Magnus the time to get his act together. That's my way of apologizing for my failures. One could say that it was my decisions and my ignorance which wiped out the clan.”

Annia leans back. “That's a harsh way to punish yourself.”

Fiacre's reply is a simple, earnest smile.

“Gods! I am such a bad host! Here you are sitting in your winter clothes when it is in the middle of summer!” That's when Oilell jumps up, dashes away, and returns to us, once more displaying her inhuman speed. I try to explain that there is no problem since both of us sisters know environmental magic. My attempt falls short when Oilell raises a skimpy skirt with a blouse for Annia and a white, tight, silken one piece dress with extremely high incisions on the sides to reveal some leg. In fact they are too high, going all the way up to the waist!

I briefly imagine showing off my figure in that thing, which would undoubtedly result in revealing my panties too. Do I even have a bra that can hide my nipples with such a thin fabric? “No. Not in a hundred years. Do you intend to dress me up like some pornstar and have me do a lapdance to provoke Magnus?”

Fiacre grins, inspecting my body. “I suppose you wouldn't need the lapdance to have him devour you whole.”

I clench my teeth, the thought causes a strange, fluffy feeling in my belly. I can't deny the physical attraction to him. Oh, how I hate that my body is betraying me like that. Just because he gave me one orgasm. Okay, maybe seven, but that’s it. I am still not sure if it would be a good idea to give in to such desires. It would be like falling for your rapist. Despite everything I've learned today, we still barely know each other.

But maybe it's a good way to tease him out of his shell in order to learn his true intentions. He always closes up when he starts smoking. Hmmm.

***Carinthia***

***Magnus***

What's wrong with me? I turn around and head back the way I came. Yesterday and this morning I acted like someone with a split personality. My rational mind tells me to take their stuff and throw them out. Let the Hammons have them. Maybe they would even ignore me. There is a small chance that I might get out of this without a blood feud. Maybe the seven I killed weren't that important to the Hammon family.

Yeah, like they wouldn't send their most trusted to retrieve the sisters with the artefacts. Maybe they weren't their best, but they surely had rank.

On the other hand, Sely takes just one look at me and my eyes stay stuck to those luscious lips, her soft ass, and those impossible, bouncy jigglemadingdongs! Now I am even thinking nonsense! The ancestors are my witnesses, I tried to scare her off. I even thought that she would be too disgusted to stay close to me once she found out more about my life. And I still brought her to my home. I also allowed her into the mansion, and to top it all off, I told her that story.

It was supposed to be one night on the couch and instead I allowed her so deep into my life that I can hardly throw her out now. Oilell would be a pain in the ass.

And why am I even kidding myself? She is a hundred and eighty-something and I am a hundred and fifty-four. She is older than me. Not that twenty or thirty years difference will count for much in a few more decades. Is she even interested me? And what happened to my determination to make her mine?

I should just push her down and spear her like the bitch she was at the chapel. My instincts worked perfectly fine back then. There was no problem in humping each other's brain out. So why do I get all defensive and awkward when I am close to her?

Changing the direction once more, I head for another round around the mansion. I've been doing this since this morning. Just walking, walking and then some more walking to clear my head.

It didn't work.

Fumbling around inside my pocket, I pull out my cigarettes and take one between my lips. Then I snap my fingers in an attempt to cast a small spark. I just want to light the cigarette and not torch the garden. Concentrating on my fingers, I don't pay attention as I turn around the corner.

And bump directly into Sely. The package with the cigarettes escapes my grasp and the contents disperse on the ground. A growl escapes me. It isn't so much directed at Sely and more at the fact that I once again lost a package of weed on the ground. Something that seems to become a trend around her.

To my astonishment she growls right back at me, her eyes flashing red. She plugs the cigarette from between my lips and throws it to the ground, stepping on it. “That stuff dims the mind. You might not be permanently affected like the humans, but you may not perform correctly when it's needed.”

“What do you think you are doing, woman!? That stuff is the only thing that keeps me from going on a rampage!” My eyes are stuck to her clothes. That tight dress! At least she is wearing trousers, but I can see her underwear through the dress! Every bump and curve of her body. I realize that I am ogling her, but I simply do not care.

“I would rather think that the weed keeps you from being you. Seen enough? It's not like you haven't already seen them,” she barks.

I smile. “Actually I only remember the grand view of your behind. Can I see more?”

“I am here to discuss important things regarding the Hammons. If you want a chance at negotiating with them, then some insider knowledge would surely help a lot.” She shifts, trying obstruct my view, revealing other parts of her anatomy. Ah, what the heck! Sometimes a man simply has to try and grovel to get the price.

“Hmmmm.”

“Switch off your cerebellum and pay attention to me!”

Oh, I am paying attention. A lot of attention to what's interesting right now. “Can I invite you out?” I catch her hand in mine. “I promise not to smoke. Think of it as an apology for those dreams.” Then I pull her towards the entrance hall. If we want to eat in a good restaurant, then we have to go outside.

“One moment! What's going on? Just because I am in your territory doesn't mean that I am here for your convenience.” She digs in her heels, but I pull her forward, causing her shoes to slide over the smooth ground.

Since I am heavier, I've the advantage in this game. I am tired of fighting with myself. “I've totally lost it! You are inside my head and I can't get you out, despite my best efforts. I've decided to make a serious move on you. You are a single woman in my territory, so it's fair game to date you. And when the Hammons try to take you back I'll torch their holdings.”

“I am still legally married! And you know what I did to the last guy who tried to rape me!” She shrieks.

That pinches my heart a little, but her so called husband never tied the bond. In fact he ran away when she made him unable to perform. “It's a little worrisome, but nothing that can't be solved with a few well placed straps of leather!”

“Leather!?”

“I've also some good chains if it makes you feel safer. And regarding that so-called husband... consider yourself a widow when he shows up.” We reach the entrance hall and she almost stumbles over the stairs, but I know better than to let go.

Then her mind catches up. “Chains!? One moment. Are you talking about me being chained, or you being chained?”

I try to think of a list of good restaurants, so don't exactly pay attention to my answer. “Whatever works to gain your cooperation in my bed.”