Disclaimer: All characters and events in my stories are purely fictional and all characters are of legal age of consent. Any resemblance to real persons or events is entirely coincidental.
Author's Note: This story is set in the medieval fantasy world of Arnoth, where magical and anthropomorphic creatures are rare but not unheard of.
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~~ Opening the Gate ~~
The sun rose up early this morning, spreading its golden glow through the kingdom and flooding the Earth with its warm light from valley to mountain. Thick beams shone through the open window in the small house that Anna was staying in and lit up her room, causing her to stir a little as her body reacted to the arrival of morning.
It was still strange for Anna to sleep well, even after having time to adjust to her new life. She had barely been able to sleep for months after the village she had lived in had been taken by orcs and she had been forced to flee. People said it was obvious that the Bonethrashers would come, that it served the people right for living so close to the plains, but Anna didn't really understand. She hadn't chosen to live there, she had just ended up there. Her parents had been killed when she was a child, and it had been the first place she had found food. From then to when the orcs came, it had been her home.
But now she had finally found a new home.
As she fled the small town, she had spent week after week on the road searching for somewhere to sleep and eat that wouldn't send her away. She had scrounged for what she had lived off for her whole life, but most towns further into the kingdom weren't friendly to her kind. As soon as they saw the characteristic brown ears atop her head, people acted afraid or even angry at her. Most people had never seen a Canid before, never met one, never had a bad experience with one, but that didn't matter. People were afraid of what they didn't know and understand, and she represented both of those things.
Anna felt that it was some divine blessing that she had happened across the Lady Mari not two weeks ago, a member of the order of magic and someone who didn't fear the unknown. She thought perhaps it was because of their similarities that the Lady had invited her to come stay with her and train as a disciple. After all, magic users were just as strange and unknown to most common people as other species were.
When she had asked Mari why she'd helped, she gave a few different answers. They were probably all true to different degrees, though none of them the whole truth. She'd lately been saying that it was because she had sensed Anna's natural talent for the craft, but both of them knew that it was more a joke than anything. Not only was Mari the wrong kind of mage to summon visions of the future, but Anna had actually been a rather slow study. Still, she did her best to help around the house and did all the exercises that her master provided.
Probably a better reason, the reason Mari had mentioned earlier on in a moment of brutal honesty, was that she was afraid for Anna. Being a beautiful young woman, canid or not, could lead her to end up being used by men by her choice or otherwise. Honestly, she wouldn't have been wrong. Anna had thought about the possibility in her darker moments, and most men who'd given her a look had considered it as well. She was a tall and rather thin girl, with medium-sized breasts and a generously plump ass, just like men tended to like. Her face, if you could get past the dog-like ears nearby, was quite beautiful as well. She had soft dark features, from her brown eyes to chestnut brown hair. Sometimes she wondered if her mother had been pretty like she was.
Mari and Anna had spent many hours talking about their lives before they had come together, mostly trying to focus on the positive. Of course, there were inevitably some moments where darker topics couldn't be avoided, like when they each shared the stories of how they had lost their parents. In some ways, Anna felt as if Mari was becoming an older sister to her. She taught the younger girl, introduced her to new experiences, and showed her how grand a life was possible for someone like them who had started off in such a bad place.
That was probably what Anna was most thankful for. Hope. It was a powerful feeling, knowing that there was someone who believed in you and thought you could accomplish great things.
And that hope was what brought them to Anna's first conjuration.
Mari had informed her rather early on that canid mages were well known to have excelled in the more esoteric forms of magic rather than the more common ones. Most people know about the elementalists who controlled raw elements, the seers who saw through time, the alchemists who created powerful potions, and so on. Few people knew about the mages who could touch the fabric of the planes, shifting them or even pulling them together. With practice, Mari assured her that Anna could create bridges between points in space.
Even though Anna was far from naive, she had believed her instructor even before she'd demonstrated the magic. Mari only dabbling in the conjuring arts, she was only able to summon a tiny alien plant, but the effect on her student was immense. Seeing something happen was entirely different from being told, especially with something so unimaginably outside of the sorts of things that happened in everyday life.
Mari watched and double-checked the work Anna was doing as her disciple carefully drew runes on the ground, making a pattern that would focus her magic and keep the portal in a stable place in this world. According to some of the stories Mari had told her, there were canid mages alive today who could draw two foci like this one on two walls separated by any distance, and actually bridge the two into a path that you could just walk through as quickly and easily as if walking through a doorway.
When Anna was done, she looked over her symbols. They all looked right, just like the ones from the book she'd been studying from.
"Excellent" Mari said, nodding at Anna with a smile.
The two needed to be absolutely certain that everything was right, for a few different reasons. The first was that if things were quite wrong, Anna would exhaust herself without being able to open a portal or summon anything through it. The second possibility, which was actually quite worse and could happen if the error was something more minor, was that she would succeed but that the circle would fail in its complete purpose.
Anna had learned that there were several types of foci for portals, and had learned first and foremost the binding circle. It pulled through something from the other plane, but also contained the being within the circle's outermost ring. Depending on what came through, keeping it in place until Anna had time to release the spell and let it be pulled back where it came from was probably the only safe option.
"Are you ready?" Mari asked.
Anna didn't know. How could she be? Mari had told her that mages often summoned inert objects or plants their first few attempts, but being a canid, her teacher had warned her that anything could appear.
"Whenever you're ready" her master provided.
Anna raised her hands, focusing like she'd been taught, using the same energy she'd learned to pull from her body in order to move light objects and bring forth little orbs of light. Her hands glowed dull red, and so too did the circle, from the outer edge inward until its entire area was covered with the soft glow.
"Stay focused" she heard from beside her. "Concentrate."
With a sudden flash, the glowing was gone. Instead, in the center of the circle stood a large dog. Wait, it wasn't a dog.
Anna blinked, looking at it. She had thought it was just a dog at first glance, but there seemed to be little wisps of flame flowing up from its whole body, its eyes intensely looking around the room as it sniffed its surroundings.
Following its lead, Anna sniffed at the air, taking in its scent. It smelled like a dog, but with a faint hint of ash and fire. Her powerful sense of smell was a bit overwhelmed by how powerful its musk was.
"By the gods" Mari said in disbelief. "You did it."
Anna glanced over and smiled, then focused back on the strange creature.
"What is-" she tried to ask, but her master had predicted the question.
"It's a hellhound" she explained. "Very few mages can summon or control them."
Anna felt her heart speeding up.
