The Conquest of Mytheyr

Morgan expected that there wouldn’t be a dream. She was always stronger after she sang with the magic. So perhaps her mind, even sleeping, would be able to oust Semele. She was wrong.

“I heard you singing. It was… quite beautiful. I see why your song is so loved. But… what were you singing about?” Semele whispered, appearing behind her, right next to her ear. They seemed to be in a sitting room, with rough stone walls and a single blue daybed. There were no windows, and no obvious light source, but it seemed to be well lit. “This land will become mine… Morgan. Its petty magic will be destroyed, replaced by my own.”

“Why?” Morgan asked. “Why would you do that? To silence its voices… to destroy the magic is to destroy the land itself.”

“I’ve forgotten, someone else once tried to do the same to your land. Ah, but it’s not the same. Whilst Markus-” Morgan flinched at the mention of her former friend’s name, “-wanted destruction, my goal is rebirth. A new land… in my own image. A suitable kingdom for a destined king.”

“An unnatural land,” Morgan hissed, “of black magic. Twisted, rotten, toxic. That is the kind of land you want?”

“Not at all.” Semele said, leaning slightly closer, his lips almost touching Morgan’s ear, “I want a land like yours. A kingdom that has become piece of my soul. And… every king needs a queen… Morgan.”

Morgan forcibly pulled herself out of the dream, reaching desperately toward the surface of waking. She could feel the strands of magic holding the dream together strain. She reached into the woven threads and ripped them apart, waking up with a gasp.

Morgan curled up, resting her head on her knees. It was twilight, the yellow sun not yet showing itself. The sky was clear, and had turned a strange shade of purple.

“But I started from scratch.” Morgan whispered to herself. “If he does kill Mytheyr’s magic, he’ll kill everyone. Every son of a mother that ever felt a kinship with this land will be…” Morgan remembered something. The first time she had been face-to-face with Semele, and looked into his eyes. That pale, blank, shallow stare. “Nothing… there was nothing. Whatever he has done, he has destroyed himself doing it.”

But could she really call him evil? She knew, better than anyone, the dark path that led to this. But the difference between him and her, the difference between wrong and right, was that she did not steal someone else’s home. She made her own.

Morgan stood up, resolve hardening her heart.

“Semele will not destroy this land, not while I still breathe.” She said determinedly. She wandered through the camp, the sound of her footsteps no louder then the breeze, until she found Caspian. When she did find him, she began to unravel the strings of magic across his shoulders. Caspian whinnied in excitement, spreading his coppery wings and breaking the last bits of the glamour that hid them.

“Change of plans,” Morgan said, swinging up onto the pegasus, “We start searching now.” Caspian reared ecstatically, getting a galloping start before launching himself into the sky.

Morgan had forgotten how much she detested the desert. Her face and arms were completely sunburned, and she was uncomfortably hot, with sweat running down her back and collecting in the band of her slip. It was going to stink later. Hell, she stunk now. And it didn’t help that she was riding a pegasus bareback. On a galloping horse, bareback wasn’t so bad, but on a pegasus you had to constantly keep your balance or else slide off. And of course, there was the overpowering smell of hot horse.

It wasn’t as bad as it could be, though. Mytheyr’s desert was a high-altitude desert, teeming with plants and animal life, which was indefinitely better then the endless dunes of a sand sea. Still, Morgan was sore, bad tempered and altogether unpleasant by the time they finally saw someone below them.

The figure was faint and fuzzy, but Morgan could tell he was mounted on horseback. And there was another, almost painfully obvious thing Morgan could tell.

“So that’s why it’s you.” Morgan murmured to her self, “Fuck, you’re stronger then the Prince of Zore, aren’t you?”