A Break From Stress. (Short Stories)

Alcomy of Souls (2 (a dark fantasy)

Muriel materialised into her secret workshop, taking off her cloak and dumping it on one of the work chairs as she walked towards her filled workspace.

Her magic, a dark webbed, oily thread, slid inside her veins as she reached the filled-up workable and picked up the shot bottle of greenish potion before giving it a little shake. It bubbled and popped noisily, but melted back to liquid immediately.

"Still too quickly", Muriel hissed lowly, her magic slithering around her. It sparked out in a small puff of grey smoke which caused Muriel to let out another hiss and release the cloaking damper spell she held her powers with.

Black and oily, her original powers spider-webbed out in a rush, plunging the already dark workshop into utter blackness.

Grim-faced, Muriel looked at her still darker skin. Usually, whenever she releases the damper spell after such a long period of time, the cloaking spell fades off completely and the darker-skinned disguise melts away alongside it, revealing her fair mermaid beauty once again.

And it has been long. Her meeting with Lahaba didn't later take place. The sorcery mistress had been in a hurry and was already walking out her office when Muriel had bumped into her.

Lahaba had just told her to forget about it, and left in a hurry to the darkness knew where.

Muriel hadn't minded, it just meant she could come here sooner and get more time to spend than she would have previously expected.

She pulled back her dark spider webs into herself, gripping the bottle in her hand much harder before dropping it down frustratedly. Muriel looked round the moderate space. Hidden beneath the ten thousand steps of the black towers, Muriel had used this room for years. Absolutely no one came down here. It was first the best place for her to come release her magic when the damper spell began to suffocate her, but gradually, it became her workshop built purely from her curiosity.

Muriel let her magic flare out again. Having taken on Cathara's identity, who had already sworn the blood-binding oat, Muriel was left to keep her powers. But hidden. From everyone, even Shoneah and Lahaba. If the whisper of an unbound sorcerer reaches the guardian's ears, Muriel would immediately be snatched and carried off to the guardian's, and would be punished, then forced to swear the oath in their presence right there.

The grey sparks of Cathara's magic was not up to Muriel's unbound black sorcery. No sorcerer in the tower was. Not even Lahaba, who was considered the mistress and therefore, the most powerful of them all.

She went over to the table of books. The wielders of the darkest magic, they had called sorcerers. The darkness of Elaria's arising. Back turned, Muriel shattered the green potion with a flicker of her power, dissolving it into nothing. But Muriel knew that what the guardians had truly feared was black sorcery. The legendary gift of the black gods, bestowed on whoever was strong enough to wield without destroying one's self. Such as Muriel had.

Not all sorcerers were gods gifted. Or darkness cursed as the people of Elaria put it. But in order to ensure that the darkness never rose through sorcery, the guardians blood-bonded every sorcerer so there was no way any sorcerer gifted by the black gods would be able to rise evil in the land. Because the gift can appear in anyone no matter their kind.

No doubt how the future Queen of the mermaids received it.

But Muriel thought it was unfair for the sorcerers. Just because their kind was the one the black gods chose to be gifting with their black blessings, they all suffered. It wasn't fare that the whole race suffered losing their powers, just because very few were gifted. Muriel didn't plan to start up a rebellion, though. So many had started and fell, and she didn't ever feel like joining that legendary long list of failures.