Ascent: Day 14

Word Count: 84,006

Summary of Events:

Ilyé and Master Lyarí went to help a schoolteacher whose class had drunk magically-treated water and gone crazy and Ilyé had the teacher become his mate . . . until she conceived a youngling and he killed her in a rage. Master Lyarí was napping, so Ilyé went to help a man whose wife was having difficulty delivering her child. Ilyé then went to the lake and visited with the yellow dragon again and was positively flabbergasted to learn that dragons could live more than the length of an age. Master Lyarí went to visit his mate, and when he came back he was glowing oddly green, but claimed he'd been invisible . . .

Excerpt of the Day:

""I saw you," Ilyé said.

"Impossible!" Master Lyarí snapped. "You're not so much greater than me that you can go seeing magic! Not even the dragons can see magic. They can only see the effects it has — or not see, if that is the effect."

"I saw you, I swear I saw you," Ilyé replied. "You were glowing green, like this."

Ilyé held out his right forearm, which was glowing green as he'd seen. Master Lyarí looked at Ilyé, his brow furrowed.

"Your forearm's gone," Master Lyarí said. "It's invisible, just as I was."

"No, I can see it," Ilyé insisted. "It's glowing green, not like when my father and Nargya would try to be invisible and there would be a glow around their invisible outlines, but it's glowing as if its being shone at by a green light and is made of mist."

Master Lyarí was silent, gazing at where Ilyé could see his glowing right forearm, while Master Lyarí apparently couldn't see anything. Ilyé gazed at the same space, rippling his fingers up and down and watching as muscles lower down in his forearm also rippled, all of it looking rather eerie and unnatural in the green glow.

"It is those deep magic books you are reading," Master Lyarí said. "You have been given some greater power by them.

Ilyé let his arm return back to normal and looked at it.

"You have surpassed me by measures I never would've imagined," Master Lyarí said quietly.

Ilyé silently gazed at Master Lyarí. He still didn't feel greater than Master Lyarí yet; he had a feeling that once he actually achieved the position of Lemyazhmok for himself he would be able to feel such.

"I must read those books," Master Lyarí said. "I've waited too long to read them."

"No," Ilyé said sharply.

Master Lyarí turned and looked at Ilyé with a disturbed expression. "Just because your magical skill is greater than mine does not mean that you are superior over me, I can still read the books of deep magic if I should so desire, and I will not see you stop me,"

"No!" Ilyé snapped.

"I am your master!" Master Lyarí cried. "I will not be defied."

Ilyé saw blue light swirling like a whirlwind around Master Lyarí's hands as he stretched them out, and then raised them and aimed them toward Ilyé. Raising his own hands, Ilyé took the blue light onto his hands and sent it back at Master Lyarí, who startled when he was suddenly engulfed by the light, pulled to the floor, dragged against the wall, and tightly confined.

"No! No!" Master Lyarí cried, desperately trying to undo things to liberate himself.

Ilyé watched his master struggle and cry out, but did nothing to aid. Master Lyarí could remain there for all he cared, and starve himself to death. Ilyé would then get what he wanted more than anything: the title of Lemyazhmok."