Chapter Twenty-Two: The Comatose Setting
“My, we must be in danger if Karen is cutting her hair. She is more well known that I, yet she is taking precautions,” Patti reflected, as Shamal and she walked the corridor the remaining twenty feet toward their chambers.
“What about me! Am I just a figure in the shadow of my wife and friend?” Shamal asked, with mock indignation.
“Oh, Shamal, stop it! You’re making me blush! Really! You know I meant us; you and I as a whole. Now, let us check on Master Jehan, and see if you little disposition has quieted,” the Queen said gaily, as she lead her husband through the door. Patti gave a barely perceptible gasp, and stepped back, getting ready to speak a spell perhaps. But before she was able to even get past her first shock, a voice uttered some of the most feared words by magicians of the light and dark side both:
“Peren, dabelli, shinka, peren, dabelli, shinka.”
“Oh dear Gods in the Heavens above, my magic is gone!” Patti called out; Shamal stepped behind the door, and ran to the corridor where the viewscreens were located, an hour’s run across the ship. Hoping, praying, with all his heart, he tried to porrebri. If you have read those amazing Harry Potter books, it is very similar to apparating. If you haven’t, it just means that you take your body and soul and materialize in another place than where it was.
“Oh, thank goodness!” Shamal cried, as he shimmered from the corridor and materialized in the room with the viewscreens. “I dub this room, The Safedock!” He exclaimed, as he found his feet on the floor again. Uttering a small prayer, he turned on the viewscreen. The ship shook violently. “Empress Karen of Froniganne of Imperial Ruok of Planet Nadidian of System Diez!” The viewscreen flickered green, and then the same sullen faced man that had answered last time appeared. The man, Lowaun, recognized the King of Solastra at once, and pressed the button that summoned the Empress. Karen arrived within seconds. Once glance at Shamal’s horror stricken face, she knew something was wrong.
“Shamal?” the girl inquired, looking past him, searching for Patti. “Where . . .?” Karen started.
“Seakings are here. They’ve attacked. I can’t porrebri that far, I’m not experienced in it enough to go more than one thousand feet. Please, take me from here, Karen!” Shamal whispered, looking over his shoulder every half minute.
“But Patti? Where is she?” Karen was insistent.
“They confiscated her magic, using -“
“Shamal! They didn’t! Not the Revervian Switch Spell!” There was disbelief in the Empress’ voice. Karen waved her hand, and Shamal shimmered and disintegrated. This was much different from porrebri, not a nice, warm bath feeling at all, but a cold, hypothermia sensation. Instead of a short, two second travel, this one started and lasted, ten seconds, twenty seconds, thirty seconds, thirty five seconds. Then he was there, shivering and shaking. Several lasses approached him, with Cossava, blankets, and chocolate.
I left the viewscreen on,” Shamal said. Karen smiled, and then replied, with a sort of new firmness in her voice:
“Yes, I know, I want to be able to porrebri my soldiers and myself properly.”
“You aren’t going back there? To do what?” Shamal asked, incredulous.
“To fight for you, and me, and everyone in our country,” as Karen uttered these words, the room filled with men and women, and many more streamed out in the halls and rooms. “Please, everyone, leave the room.”
Shamal protested, but the lasses touched their stunners, and he remembered with an uneasy feeling about the comatose setting, third from the top.
