Nuptial Yule

We flew west towards the snow-capped mountain range I’d seen and soon enough I could see the ridiculous amount of mana leaving what could only be an isolated valley. I didn’t know the name of the mountains. I couldn’t recall ever seeing a mountain range like this listed on a map of this region.

The mountains were much further away than they at first appeared. The Eastern sky was lightening by the time we were close enough to the mountains to discern the source of the mana. In front of the snow-capped mountains were more mountains. The mountains were grouped together so closely it resembled a forest of mountains, no a labyrinth!

“I know this place! This is the legendary Lúbrabán! The White Labyrinth! I thought it was just a folktale!”

“The Lúbrabán? That’s just a children’s tale. That can’t really be the White Labyrinth, can it? It’s just a bunch of mountains!” Alex said.

“Not it’s real! I can see it! I can see the Labyrinth! I can see our destination. But the path there is hidden in the mists! Oh, this should be interesting! Can we find the way in?”

I flew down towards the hidden valley. It was covered in mists. The dawn hadn’t yet come, so the valley was a dark void in the darkness between the lower mountains near us, and the distant gigantic mountains that rose above the clouds and rose higher still into the cold and thin atmosphere. Their peaks covered in an unending winter of snow and ice.

It was no good, the mana was so dense in the area between the mountains that it was an impenetrable force field. The only way in was through the labyrinth. The tale of the Lúbrabán spoke of the dangers for the careless wanderer. Traps of ingenious design, enchanted paths that drew the unwary into an endless trail that looped on itself, cursed undying monsters waiting to feed on any unfortunate creature that wanders in to its holding cell. What truth there was to that tale, none could say, because there were none left to remember.

Then I saw it. The crest that was on the sceptre of the White Dragon Empress, glowing in a pale light at the foot of a mountain.

“I think I’ve found the entrance. I’m going down, my love,” I said.

I spiraled down between the spires of enclosing mountains. Black teeth reaching up from the ground far below. There was a vicious wind blowing between the mountains, threatening to toss me into the side of a mountain if I strayed only slightly from the available path down. It was a treacherous descent, but time and patience led us safely to the ground. I landed away from the ghostly-glowing crest.

“Stay on my back, husband. I know not what dangers may lurk down here,” I said.

“Ok, my heart,” Alex replied.

The mana was thick here. It was intoxicating. I needed to keep moving. My senses were lit up like the grand finale of a fireworks show. I sensed no danger from the crest, so I approached it cautiously. I examined it. The crest was slightly different from the crest on sceptre.

“Hang on. This crest is slightly off from the crest on the sceptre. I’m going to investigate,” I said.

I pulled out the sceptre, and examined it closely, and then I examined the crest on the ground. The white roses were turned in the wrong direction. On closer inspection, the entire crest was composed of movable tiles.

“I’m going to turn a couple of tiles. Something might happen when I do. So hold on and be ready for anything,” I said.

I turned the first rose and nothing happened. I turned the second through sixth rose and still nothing happened. I turned the seventh rose, and the crest flashed, and began to glow in a more natural pearly white light. Then, a whole lot of nothing.

“Hmm. A flash of light and that’s it? That’s kind of boring. Well let’s see what lies over the threshold,” I said.

I stepped onto the Crest to approach what looked to be the entrance to the labyrinth, or whatever lay beyond the crest. The instant my first foot touched the crest, the crest lit up brightly and a shining white line shot out of the crest, and it branched out like dominoes falling into a pattern. The trunk of a wide tree appeared on the ground. When the tree was fully formed I recognized it as the legendary Ogonju tree revered especially among the elves. The golden tree. Some elves made their homes in these gigantic mana-rich trees. I had never seen one. I had heard many were destroyed in the many wars over the Ages of Eå.

Then as the last of the tree formed its branches touched the walls of the patio before us. Then light climbed up the sides in a vine-like way and a fresco began glowing over the entire wall of the patio. Two simple and elegant columns appeared. Followed by a pair of dragons facing each other. Their palms were raised facing each other. Then a fruit of the Ogonju tree. After that a sketch of a cliff and waterfall. The image of falling water went around the fruit and formed an image of a whirling pool of water.

Suddenly, a jet of water leapt out of the stone floor, and I noticed the patio had a lip around it and the water filled a shallow pool, and then stopped. How peculiar!

“We have a new mystery. Climb down and come look at what has happened.”

Alex slid down and looked at the marvel before us. He was staring at the display before us. He was silent for the longest time. Then he gasped, and said,

“Lúbrabán!”

“Yes, behold the gate of the White Labyrinth. It’s real. Do we dare?” I said.

“I don’t know. The tales tell of a nightmare of a maze. I love a good puzzle, but have no desire to die just yet,” Alex said.

“True. I think the story is just that. In any event why did it do all that, just to fill a small bit of water on the porch?” I said.

I walked forward and looked down at the water,

“Oh Great Goddess in Sky!”

“What? OMG! Is that? Is that what I think it is? Is that real? Or an illusion?”

“The Chalice of Acheron and the Water of Life.”

I reached down into the water and when my arm was submerged past my elbow, I grabbed the chalice and lifted it out of the pool of water that was no deeper than the thickness of my pinkie. The chalice was full, and the scars on my lower arm were gone.

“Quick a potion flask!”

Alexander frantically dug into his bottomless bag and pulled out an empty potion flask, “Here!”

I opened the flask and began to pour the water into the flask, but stopped when Alex interjected, “Aren’t you going to drink it!?”

“What!? Are you insane!? Hell no! I don’t want to be immortal! Do you want to drink it?”

“Me? You’d let me drink it?” Alex asked, and his mind was racing behind his eyes. He thought, and thought, and thought.

“Alex!”

“What? Oh. No, I don’t want to be immortal either. That would be a curse, wouldn’t it? At least that is what the tale tells. If you can believe the story of Nebuzzar the Undying,” Alex said.

“The tale is true. Nebuzzar was my ancestor. I have his memories,” I said.

“What!? But the tales say he was a human!” Alex said.

“An adjustment to protect the Blood Red Dragon Clan. What do you think would happen if people knew the Red Queen is descended from Nebuzzar?” I asked.

“Good point. I won’t say anything,” Alex said.

I finished pouring the water into the flask, capped it and stored it.

“We’ll divide this up later. We should keep this a secret as well,” I said.

“Right, we don’t need that kind of fame. If people knew we had a whole flask of the Water Of Life. I’m having a hard time accepting it myself.”

I held the chalice in my hand, staring at it.

“You’re not thinking of keeping that are you?”

“I am. I shouldn’t but I am. It’s so beautiful. I now understand the struggle of the people in those old tales. I could do a lot of good with this Chalice. Of course, that is always the justification, but it never works out that way, does it?”

“If you believe the legends.”

“I do, actually. In this case.”

I slowly opened my hand and tilted it, and the Chalice fell back into the water. Then the water exploded into a mist.

CRACK!

A crack in the fresco formed, and it became obvious we were staring at the door into the White Labyrinth. When the doors were fully opened, a new glowing white line shot down through the darkness lighting a path into the labyrinth. Then a message in blue-white flames in the air before us said,

Follow the path to Shangrí,

Chosen One

We both read it, and looked at each other.

“Looks like we are being invited in and being shown the way though the Labyrinth? Should we? I sense no deception, or danger,” I said.

“Well, it does look like we are being invited in. But maybe we should take some precautions first?” Alex said.

“Already done. I set a jump anchor as soon as we landed,” I said.

This book's true home is on another platform. Check it out there for the real experience.

“Why not then,” Alex said and we entered the maze. I was expecting the doors to shut once we got far enough away from them, but that didn’t happen. The line led in a twisting, and sometimes backtracking direction. We were walking it seemed for hours. Then suddenly we came upon a ruined section of the maze. Some of the ceiling had collapsed on the path and the light along the floor was gone. It took us a short while to clear the debris.

“Naose!” I cast and the damaged floor repaired itself.

The white line reactivated and lit up down the maze.

“Well, looks like we may have to do some maintenance along the way. I’m still not getting any sense of danger,” I said.

“Feels like we’ve been walking for hours,” Alex said.

“It does feel longer that it actually is. I think there are several reasons for that, but I sense we’ve been walking for less than two hours. We appear to be walking through the base of a mountain, and going forward and backward and sideways So it will probably take several hours,” I said.

We continued on, and were blocked in several locations that we had to repair. There was even a section where the floor had collapsed, and we used some of the maze material to magikally build a bridge across the gap. Then after what felt like an entire day, we emerged at a field of green springy grass under our feet.

We were stunned at what lay before us. We were in a valley with step mountains all around us. Most went up into the clouds and some had no clouds around them, and we could see they were snow-capped. The Sunstar was well beyond midday. We had been walking perhaps nine hours. We were standing at the base of a very low hill. We walked up the hill and stopped.

“Oh! My! Goddess! Yes! YES! YES!! Hot springs!” I said.

“Oh my Goddess! There must be dozens of them. And over there is that an entire Hot Spring Lake?”

BANG!

I launched at the lake and skimmed over it. I scanned it. I flew up a bit and dove in! I Flew back out, and back in! Out! In!

“Whoo hoo! This is fucking amazing!” I said.

Alex was sitting on the grass where I left him, laughing at my antics. I had taken off so fast, the wind had spun him around like a toy spinning top, and he landed on his butt. Thankfully, the grass was thick and spongy, so he wasn’t injured. I know, that was reckless. I’ll try to be more careful next time. After a few minutes of playing in the lake in full dragon form, I flew back to Alex and transformed to my dragonkin form.

“Come on, let’s try out some of the hot springs!” I said dragging Alex up and towards the closest hot spring.

“You’re naked!”

“Yes, it’s wonderful. You should try it. It’s very liberating,” I said.

“I’m going to get very aroused if you go around like this!” Alex said.

“Good. Get good and horny! That’ll make the sex all the better later. But hot springs and relaxation now. Sex later. I’ve been flying at top speed for hours, and we’ve been walking a maze for even longer. Time to relax and recover so we have plenty of energy for sex later. Now strip already!” I said.

“Bhasto!” Alex’s clothes disappeared, into my storage.

“Aimrid!” I cast, just to prevent accidents.

“Hey!”

I jumped into the hot spring tugging Alex along.

“Ah, Yes, this is so good. A mana replenishing hot spring,” I said.

“Wow, this is really wonderful,” Alex said.

We soaked in the spring for a quite a while. Then we climbed out and laid out in grass under the sunstar. A soft cool breeze constantly flowed along the valley floor. It did wonders to cool us off after a hot soak. We spent time going from spring to spring, and trying to figure out what each one did. After a couple of hours we slid into another one, and I instantly got super aroused.

“Oh Goddess! A fertility spa!”

I jumped out, and Alex was right behind me.

“Aimrid! Aimrid! Aimrid!”

Alex had a very hungry look in his eyes and he jumped me. The spa had enhanced his senses and he made a bulls eye. I involuntarily locked him in.

“Well, I guess it’s that time,” I said.

Alex was like a beast after a stimulant injection. Thankfully, I managed to recast my protection spell in time. The spa had instantly canceled my first spell, and even two spells after didn’t take. This was a very powerful fertility spa. Extremely dangerous. We made love in the grass under the open sky. It was wonderful, even if it was magikally enhanced by the hot spring. Alex passed out after going for over two hours straight. I dragged us both into the healing spa, spa #7. He had totally wrecked the two of us. When he woke up, he was very happy.

“That was fucking amazing!”

“That fucking was indeed amazing. And that pool is off limits! I would be so very pregnant now without my protection spells, and that spa enhanced sex really drained us both,” I said.

“There is something strange about these hot springs,” Alex said.

“Yes, these hot springs are ruins from another age. We should plan on restoring them. There may be the ruins of an Onsen somewhere in the valley. Or some other source of knowledge about this place. However, I think we can confirm this is well and truly the mythical paradise of Shangrí,” I said.

“Shangrí is said to be filled with people, though,” Alex said.

“This was probably a city, or rest area, of the White Dragon Empire. There are too many signs to conclude anything else,” I said.

“Oh, yeah, that does make a lot of sense.”

“I’d like to restore these springs a little while we are here. I hope we can bring others here and perhaps make this a resort for tourists, and our own people of course,” I said.

“We’ll have to do something about the entrance. A nine-hour walk is probably too much to expect from tourists,” Alex said and broke out laughing.

“Would make a good training exercise,” I said and started laughing also.

The sunstar went out of view of the deep valley in the mid-afternoon. The mana continued to glow for several hours after. When sunstarset came the mountain peaks and clouds turned the whole sky red, gold, and purple. It was an amazing view. Then night came like a hammer. To our surprise the grass glowed in the dark in a warm dark ice-blue color. It reminded me of dark blue topaz chrystals. It was a strange and romantic illumination, but at least we had light. It was a long time before we settled down and finally got some sleep.

We woke in the late morning, having slept through the sunrise. We spent the morning exploring and looking for the natural plant and wildlife. We wisely put on adventuring gear. Being naked was fun, but, this was still a mostly unexplored area.

There were many cultivars of ancient fruits and vegetables. Whatever order of growth there had once been was long erased, without a trace. There were abundant fish in the three fresh water streams. There were birds of many kinds, and some had once been domesticated birds. There were several mountain beasts both prey and predator. There was probably not enough here to sustain much of a population. If this were made a destination, some food would have to be brought in, in order to prevent the collapse of the existing flora and fauna.

With that accomplished we restored about a dozen of the hot springs. We created a few rustic signs for the springs and what we knew or suspected the spring provided. From some ruins, and some rubble from the maze, we created a small cabin. We left the floor as the natural grass. Two weeks passed that way, and we knew we needed to head back soon. We hadn’t been found.

We were laying naked together in the grass inside our cabin waiting for the sunrise, when a banging on the door jarred us. Then we heard,

“Open up! We know you’re in there, Niece and Nephew!” Setanna’s voice boomed.

I instinctively jumped up, and reacted to the command and flung the door open. Standing there in total shock were Setanna, Matilde, Kanae, Kiera, Aoi, Fergus, Rhóxsané, Ophelia, and Gentaro?

“You’re naked!” Gentaro absently said.

“Kiru!” I cast, and a dress covered me. Alexander was struggling through his pile to throw on some clothes.

“You led us on a merry chase, Runaway Empress. Very ingenious hiding under a mana storm. What the Abyss is this place?” Setanna asked.

“Welcome to Shangrí, Onsen of the Ancient White Dragon Empire. Be very wary of the fertility hot spring.”

Rhóxsané and Matilde approached and scanned me.

“Not pregnant,” they said together.

“Barely,” I said.

“Reckless child,” Matilde said.

Kanae walked up to me. She pointed her finger at me, and said, “You! Are! Grounded! My Runaway Empress. And you! You! Prince Lover Boy, are in so much trouble!”

Then Kanae turned around and tried to stomp out, and stopped and pounded her foot on the springy grass and huffed. Actually huffed, and stormed out.

Rhóxsané, Matilde, and Setanna turned around to avoid cracking up. Ophelia was in a fit to be tied.

I turned to her and bowed, “I’m very sorry Queen Ophelia. I got a bit overwhelmed with all the wedding preparations, and well, not having anytime to recover from the wars, and everything else, it all just kind of got to be too much. Well, I know none of that is a fitting excuse for my inexcusable behavior. I promise, I will make proper amends. I am you humble servant,” I said.

Ophelia stood there stone-faced for almost a minute. Gentaro was still standing very stiffly and very red-faced, and staring at me. His hands together in front of him. Unsuccessfully hiding his rigid erection. Suddenly, Ophelia, burst out laughing.

“Oh, how the facade of the mighty White Dragon Empress has fallen. As flawed as my own young and impetuous daughter. Oh, yes, little miss Empress you will make proper amends. So this is really, Shangrí? Legend says it was a human development,” Ophelia said.

“Did you all come through the tunnel under the mountain?” I asked.

“Yes, it was a very long walk,” Matilde said.

“You should all know, that you came through Lúbrabán. It is open in a direct path, only because I opened it. Don’t try it if the path isn’t lit.”

“The White Labyrinth?” Gentaro said and swooned, but caught himself.

“Are you certain of that?” Setanna asked.

“Positive,” I said.

“Well, you, daughter have a wedding to get to, and there is still much to do!” Matilde said.

“Yes, my Queen,” I said.

“Mother. You will call me mother.”

“Yes, Mother,” I said.

“Is she always this cooperative?” Rhóxsané asked.

“Only when she is being justly scolded,” Matilde said.

“I see. I will not forget to scold her when she earns it,” Rhóxsané said.

“Nor I,” Ophelia said.

“She does it quite frequently, so keep your eyes open,” Matilde said.

“Mother!” I said.

“Hush!”

I pulled out several flying carriages, and we loaded up, and flew through the tunnels in five hours, instead of the nine walking. I stopped the front carriage, when we were all out of the maze.

“You might all want to watch this. Fergus, my love, will you help me close the doors?”

“Yes, my grounded, naughty, and so deep in trouble wife,” Fergus said. Kiera giggled.

“Walk beside me and do what I do,” I said.

We walked up to the porch, and stood before the open doors. I put my arm out palm facing out. Fergus did the same. I turned and faced Fergus, and he faced me. The doors swung close, and sealed with a clang.

CLANG!

Then everyone saw the fresco, and in unison said,

“Lúbrabán!”

The image of the doors to the White Labyrinth were known throughout all of Eå. It appeared in numerous children’s tales, and in the scholarly Mythology of Eå academy textbook.

“I’m sorry for running away,” I said, and took his hand, and we walked back to the carriages. When we stepped past the crest, the fresco disappeared and the crest dimmed. The crest had reset itself to the mixed up state before the arrival of Setanna and company. It was now five days until Yule. When we got back, I got scolded by everyone, and every day by my children. They were all very upset with me. I had a lot to do to make up for this one. Those five days went fast.

Then came the dawn of Yule and my wedding day. We were to be wed at half before the eleventh hour. My dress was some new kind of torture device. The corset from my last wedding was absolutely comfortable compared to this one. It was designed with some diabolical magik spell that forced extra flesh from my midsection up in to the bottom of the bra section. This added two cup sizes to my bra section to compensate. My waist now three sizes smaller. I looked like a walking damn hourglass. I made a vow to hunt down this diabolical designer and get my revenge. I could barely even breath. My breasts were in screaming pain from all the compression. Nothing good was going to come from this. Finally, they finished this torture session and the wedding began.

Ophelia and the entire male ambassadorial party was present. Maleficia had sent an ambassadorial party of seven also, as did Gwánwyn in Crispenwell. The princes and sons of dukes of Rhóxsané’s ambassador team were present, and of course the all male Terranon staff were present. Even Hrematia was present. Happily the nations within the Empire weren’t gunning to give me husbands and the two far northern realms mostly kept to themselves. Still all of my potential new husbands were here for the show. Yay. Oh, Goddess, we have to produce a child today, or it will damage the kingdom. That’ll give me nine months to wean my children.

The church sent the High Priestess. She had visited Kanae and examined her. She was shocked to find out that not only did Kanae have the lost Spirit affinity, it was fully awakened. She examined the Gáe Bulga and was convinced it was the real thing. We told her we didn’t want her to announce Kanae was the new Heroine. She was certainly acting as if she fully accepted Kanae as the Heroine. The fact we had been a part of suppressing the Butcher Cardinal made her more friendly to us. She apparently had problems with him also.

The wedding began on time, and it all went smoothly, and the Reception party began. We had a really large crowd. We had a training arena like the Academy, but it was dragon sized. So we had modified the arena to provide more seating and dining. Aoi had done an amazing job, so all diners would have a nice view of the bedding ceremony. I would make sure we used it for hers, when the time came for her to have another husband. Then at once Matilde rose and announced,

“Now comes the time for the Bedding of Empress Deirdre and Prince Alexander, Consort of the Empress! Let us pour the Nectar of Life for the happy couple!”

“Drink deep from the Nectar of Life and be Fruitful!” The crowd yelled.