A Priestess of Sila

gryphon
Universe Factory
Published in
11 min readDec 1, 2017

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This is one of a set of stories exploring the fictional world of Quenaunor. The previous story is here, the next story is here, and the first story is here.

Shalis, a ta‘salafislis’dor¹, a priestess of Sila, and a full mage, wearing the three shining orbs around her neck, sat in the center of the small, bare hut. It was bare of ornament, save for the chair she sat in, and the table in front of her. Both were made of rough-hewn wood, and in the center of the table sat a shining sphere of mythril. She had forged the mythril into a rough sphere herself, and polished it until it shone like an evening star. She had made it from the evil devices she had collected from the wreck of a dwarvish battle machine. She thought back to the day she had first seen the mythril she was looking at now. As she’d looked into the belly of the iron monster she’d destroyed by pounding it with countless fireballs, she’d been entranced by the beauty of the shining metal, far purer than the best elven forges could make it, even in the imprisoned, coiled shape it had been in then. Bringing herself back to reality, she shook herself, shocked at the way she’d let her attention wander. She was behaving like a student. She refocused her attention on the orb, feeling the power flowing into it. It was a personal project of hers, not commissioned by a buyer, and she hoped it would become a masterpiece of amuletry. Shalis came here whenever she needed a distraction from her work. It was tiresome, constantly making the tiniest variations to formbeasts, knowing that most of them would die, and most of the survivors would be rejected. Even though her work at the domes was some of the most important in the entire kingdom, she sometimes felt that almost all of what she did was pointless, given the sheer number of failures she and the other powerful mages at the dome created.

1: Ta’salafislis’dor is the title of a high-ranking mage in the priesthood of Sila. It is reserved for those who are powerful mages and have also risen high in Sila’s service, and as such, it is a great honor.

A mythril orb

She once again wrestled her thoughts back to the flow of magic into the orb. She shook her head slightly, disgusted at her inattention. She concentrated, forcing the magical power into the orb. It already contained a vast amount of power, and forcing more magic in felt like she was trying to compress it, something that she didn’t feel when making simpler, less powerful amulets. It made the work difficult, a challenge that a mage of her power rarely felt. She gritted her teeth, beginning to tie off the flow of energy. She knew the stories of mages who had not used enough precision in keeping the energy inside an amulet at bay. It was much more difficult than simply tying up the amulet permanently, as the knot had to be constructed so that it could be unraveled later when she wanted to continue enchanting the amulet. If the knot was tied too loosely, the amulet could easily explode in a devastating display of magical energy that, for an amulet this powerful, could easily level acres of forest. Needless to say, she would not survive such an event. If it was tied too tightly, she might set off a similar explosion while untying it later. She finished tying off the amulet with an ease that came with decades of practice, and a flourish of her hands that, while completely unnecessary, had become a habit. Rising to her feet with a weary sigh, she walked out of the hut, waving her hand as she exited. The door closed softly, tiny root-like structures emerging from the frame to wrap around its edges, locking it more effectively than any complex dwarven monstrosity. She wondered how anyone could live without formbeasts, only using cold, lifeless mythril tools for everything. Of course, the dwarves were hunchbacked, perpetually bowed over due to the large portions of many of their lives they spent underground, where they seldom saw the sun, so their survival without formbeasts and amulets was not much of a mystery compared to their other oddities.

She whistled loudly, a short tune that could be heard from elven scouts from Shanor all the way up to Silslae, and everywhere along the border between them. Her Siflor, a beast similar in appearance to a squirrel, but orders of magnitude larger, dropped from the tree it had been perched in. Siflor could climb while alone, although some of the slimmer branches often cracked under their weight, but could not take to the trees with even the slimmest rider. Still, they were far faster than horses at traveling along the forest floor, strewn with undergrowth that most creatures would have had to pick their way through carefully, but which the Siflor could bound through with ease. Of course, the underbrush did not slow down dwarven battle machines, but those were loud, shiny and conspicuous, useless for scouts. For those, dwarves were forced to go on foot, where they were far inferior to the elven Siflor riders. She mounted swiftly, removed a small pouch from the Siflor’s saddlebags, and removed a small squirrel.

“Begin message,” she said.

The squirrel opened its eyes, and replied, saying: “Destination?” in a high, squeaky voice that never failed to irritate Shalis.

She looked upward in exasperation, detesting whoever had designed the voices of these messengers, and told it “Commander Linaes, at the Danis Dome”.

“Acknowledged” replied the squirrel, prompting another expression of annoyance from Shalis.

“Message from Shalis,” she began, “I’m coming back in. Authorization Code Two Two Six Eleven Four Seven. See you in two hundredths². Message complete.”

2: Elves measure time solely in days and fractions/multiples of days. A hundredth is a little less than 15 minutes, and a thousandth is a bit less than a minute and a half.

She released the squirrel, which scampered off through the trees. It would return to the dome much more quickly than her Siflor, encumbered with her weight as it was. As she rode, bouncing in the saddle as her Sithlor bounded through the forest, her hands went to the three amulets embedded in the collar she, as a full mage, wore constantly. She carefully untied the knot on the center orb, and she began pushing magic into it. Because of its size, it was significantly less powerful than the amulet she had left at the hut, although she had worked on it far more. All mages were trained to enchant their collar amulets whenever they had free time, including while riding or traveling. Shalis had spent hundreds of days enchanting the three amulets, one of fire, one of wind, and one of water, that were every mage’s last resort. The three orbs, though small, had each grown powerful enough to destroy a small dwarven tank. Together, along with the other amulets she routinely carried, they made her a terrifying enemy to face on any battlefield. She, on her Siflor, if in the right terrain, was probably a match for a light dwarven tank brigade. And yet, she had been assigned here, far from the front. She knew that the creation of new formbeasts was critical to the war, but that did not stop her from wishing she could be in action, where she could fight her enemy face-to-face, instead of here, where strategy left no room for glory, and where the war was like a complex game played by commanders so far removed from the actual battlefield they had probably never seen a common soldier.

She had seen soldiers, and been one too, shared their cookfires and fought beside them. She was becoming tired of this game of war, where commanders matched move with countermove as if the war that had lasted a hundred years could be won as easily as one of the games the commanders trained with. They did not see what they were sending soldiers to do. When she returned to the dome, she would send a letter to ask for a reposting to the front, but she expected to be refused again. Her power was too valuable here, making the formbeasts closer to what was needed, ensuring that less of them died, making the process more efficient and faster. She would never be allowed back to the front. They would send a nice letter back, just as they had the last time she asked, and the time before. It would explain how invaluable her service was to the war, and how much more effective she was here, how she was saving hundreds of elven lives by giving them more effective formbeasts, and how her power could not be risked. She knew all the things they would say, carefully thought-out sentences to ensure that everything was perfectly polite, and at the end, a perfectly polite request to stop asking about being sent back to the front. She hated politeness. There was not politeness on the battlefield. You had companions who cursed you if you did something wrong, and enemies who probably cursed you when you did something right. It was simple, no-nonsense, no tip-toeing around feelings or being careful to avoid giving offense. The high lords and their ladies and the generals were like parrots: bright, colorful, and talkative, but unwilling to dirty their feathers on an actual battlefield.

As the high walls of sprawling fortress surrounding the dome came into view, Shalis gently nudged her Siflor with her foot. It swerved, heading toward the massive tunnel that was the only entry point for the fortress. The tunnel entrance rose high above her head, but its massive doors stood open. No one feared a large-scale attack this far from the front. She paused just inside the tunnel and blinked, waiting for her eyes to adjust to the darkness inside. When her catlike eyes could see almost as well here as outside, Shalis continued to move forward. As she moved, the tunnel began to narrow and the roof began to slope down. When she reached the first gateway the tunnel was only wide enough for two, and low enough that she could touch the ceiling easily.

One of the guards at the gate called out: “What’s your entry code?”

Shalis replied “Two Two Six Eleven Four Seven. I ride through here often enough that you shouldn’t have to look in that book.”

The guard finished checking her response in the book and began to wheel open the portcullis, which slid upward smoothly. She rode through the next two gates in the same way, always being asked for her code, even though she rode through twice a week. The domes could not be replaced, and as a result, were guarded with a level of redundancy and security far higher than the royal palace or the treasury. This fortress was one of the most secure places ever built. It contained more than a thousand guards, each hand-picked from the ranks of the elven military for their fighting abilities, loyalty, and attention to detail. Nothing larger than a fly could enter the fortress unnoticed. She exited the tunnel on foot, leading her Siflor, as the tunnel had become too small to ride through just before the third gate. She handed the reins to the groom that had walked over, and walked toward the dome. Her shift began in only a few thousandths, and she should have been there a hundredth ago. As she walked into the gigantic building that surrounded the dome, her robes fluttering behind her, she prayed for a moment, as she, and most of the other dome mages, did every time they entered here.

“Tor’sila’fin tor’vilat la nativ’fin sord’lamaesor ta’va’lamor vorfinal sae’laevis’shor danee’sa’talos’fae. Sa’falis’vie sa’torshee la nativ’vie ta’deetor’na vasee’ta’sila’nee tor’vordatee.”³

3: This prayer is a traditional one that elven mages typically pray before using magic. It roughly translates to: “Sila, mother of magic, allow me to help the elven people with your gift. Falis, mother of the earth, enforce your decree to Sila.”

Just as Shalis finished her prayer, the bell signifying the change of the dome shift began. She walked quickly, but respectfully, around the dome, passing Limor, elf who occupied the same position on the shift before her as she did now. She quickly climbed the steps to her pedestal, the same height as the top of the dome, and reached it just behind Maelor, the ancient elf who stood directly to her right. She bent down and placed her hands flat on the pedestal, reaching through it with filaments of magic. As they reached the dome, a smile broke out across her face as she felt the magic already swirling inside. She joined it, diving into the mounting pool of energy, feeling the other’s filaments of magic. All magic was theoretically identical, but she was sure she could feel which tendrils of power belonged to who. Sameel, their universally acknowledged, but unofficial leader, reached out his tendrils of power, gathering the others’ wayward tangles and streamlining them. Shalis focused her power, concentrating on what was inside the dome below. A massive Ta’dorga’dor, a beast derived from one of the rare elephants of the far south, greeted her thoughts. Sameel had, of course, received the instructions on what they were to do to the Ta’dorga’dor, and communicated them to the others easily, with nudges and twitches of power that had developed into something that was almost language, a language that only the twelve of them knew. It was simple, small tweaking of the beast, just strengthening muscles and tendons, adding skin to compensate for the added bulk underneath, and adding some additional arteries and veins to compensate for increased blood use. Of course, even such simple work still had a high chance of failure. It was so easy to make a mistake, and there were so many opportunities to make one. It was Maelor who made the fatal mistake this time. The tendon he was working on started to grow too large, and, to compensate, he began to reroute a few arteries around the area. Suddenly, one of the arteries strayed too far, and, before Maelor could stop it, burst through the skin of the animal, broke, and began spraying blood. Shalis, along with the others, quickly withdrew her magic as the massive beast roared in pain. The elves below, who brought the beasts into and out of the dome, quickly put it out of its misery, dragged it out of the chamber, and brought in a Shee’dantee’la, a small formbeast that exploded when thrown, spraying meltwater, the water that made people and steel melt like ice on a hot summer day, in all directions. They were to generate some bone structures to direct the spray in one direction only. The military needed this, and thus, they tried four times before finally getting it correct. Shee’dantee’la were all female, and reproduced without the need for males, so it was only necessary to make one, a great relief for the caretakers below, who were certainly becoming tired of having to negotiate carefully around the puddles of meltwater that the dying Shee’dantee’la made. The meltwater didn’t damage the dome, of course. Nothing yet discovered could damage the dome. It appeared to be made of mythril, but even mythril could be damaged, bent or melted. The dome could withstand it all without so much as a scratch.

When their shift was finished, Shalis and the others who she worked with were exhausted. They had killed twelve beasts, and created only two successful formbeasts, the Shee’dantee’la, and a female Sa’fator’lis, whose spikes they had lengthened. Shalis felt sick, as she often did after working. She suspected it was from feeling the deaths, understanding what was happening to the beast’s body as it thrashed and died. However, as she entered her bedroom, she knew she had helped the soldiers fighting on the front, even if only by a tiny fraction, and that thought helped her to sleep more easily.

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gryphon
Universe Factory

Hello! I enjoy working on a number of worlds I’ve come up with, and hope to share some of them with you here.