Free Melanthrix the Mage by Robert Reginald

re­alized that something was very wrong here, for he recog­nized none of the faces staring back at him, and the thir­teenth seat of arbitration situate at the head of the table had been occupied by an elderly woman with green-gold eyes peering out from underneath her peasant’s hood.
    â€œWho are you?” he asked, sitting up straight. “What are you do­ing here?”
    â€œYou engaged the covenant, good sir, as the law doth provide in the canons laid down by Muravyóv and Bathyány,” the lady replied, her voice a mere whisper of sound, “and so we have responded, each to our own, emerging from that place where we first found rest, as you yourself may have occasion to judge, o King-To-Be.”
    As he examined more closely the individuals seated around the great slab of polished ochre wood, it suddenly occurred to him that, despite their evident vitality, none of the mages facing him might actually dwell within the Land of Living Men.
    â€œThe just man requires neither judge nor jury to justify his actions,” the prince finally replied. “So, why have you come?”
    â€œWhy?” she said in her soft voice, the merest shadow of an exhalation. “You ask why? The answer to that question would require a dissertation, princeling, a veritable treatise, an entire volume of words and ideas and notions, and still you would not understand.
    â€œThere is no covenant where the law reigns not supreme, over the kings and nobles of the land, over the servants of the state and those whom the state doth serve. We espy a Charybdis lurking within the body politic, a grand discontinuity in the æther which, if left unto its own devices, shall enswallow intact the lands of Nova Europa and all the realms sheltering therein. We feel the crisis come upon us. The men and women and entities inhabiting this vale shall soon be asked and soon be required to voice their ‘yeas’ and ‘nays.’ No one shall be exempt.
    â€œAnd so we return to this place to offer our assis­tance for the struggle soon to come, knowing that the issue will be closely fought, that the stakes of the game inflate with each day and every hour that passes. A mere scatter­ing of men and women stand now before the gate, guarding the exit and entrance into this place. Swing the aperture one way, and the world turns, perhaps just a nudge, to­wards God’s grace; swivel the door elsewise, however, and thou venturest down that broad and easy way into strife, death, and destruction, where the darkness eats away the hearts of the decent folk who form the very center of our existence.”
    â€œBut how can one man alter destiny’s dictatorship?” Arkády asked.
    â€œSuch answers are beyond our ability to provide,” came the reply.
    â€œThen what possible help can you be?” he said. “I didn’t ask for this task, and I surely didn’t request your assistance.”
    â€œOh, but you will! ” the old woman said, flashing a crooked smile. “You will, dear Arkásha...!”

CHAPTER TEN
    â€œWHAT PROOF DO YOU HAVE?”
    â€œ...Arkásha! Arkásha!”
    The prince heard the words as from a great distance, and struggled with some difficulty to bring himself back up to the world.
    â€œArkásha, awake!”
    He found himself looking into the familiar, plump face of a woman in her mid-sixties. Her neatly dressed white hair was partially enshrouded with a black-and-gold striped shawl stitched with a tughra similar to that etched on his ornate buckle of silver. Hanging from a gold chain around her neck was a small globule of smoky green glass, within whose confines one could espy, if one looked very closely, a slow, swirling movement of smoke or perhaps vapor.
    â€œAuntie!” he said with some evident relief. “Why, why I just had the strangest dream.”
    â€œOh really?” she said. “Well, dearie, Homêros says that dreams