Author's Note: This is a sequel to my erotic magic/fantasy story "She Tastes Like Springwater" but can be read by itself.
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The citadel of Endymion held many wonders, as befitting the keep of a famous magician, enough to excite for several lifetimes. The old sage explored the stacks of his own personal library, and absently reached out to trace his fingertips over the spines of several leather-bound texts.
As a young man, Endymion was a prodigy in Evocation, the flashy and destructive form of magic, with emphasis on manipulating energy in order to produce elemental effects. He offered his services as a one-man artillery force, blasting rival armies with searing fireballs and crackling arcs of lightning. Still, life as a nomadic mercenary helped him refine his skills and learn by experience where theory and practice truly diverged.
Oh, it was grand. For a while. He became famous, his favor courted by royalty, his coffers overflowing with coin. In turn, other militaries began employing their own battlemages. A sort of arms race ensued wherein Court Mages were no longer expected to be advisers, physicians, astrologers or alchemists. Instead, they would be duelists, as it had become a fad for war campaigns to be decided not by steel but by spell. In this brave new world, Endymion could no longer enjoy the fruits of his labor for fear of assassination. Tyrants who could not procure Endymion's service would attempt to lay siege to his citadel in retaliation, requiring the employ of a standing army known as the Sentinels of Endymion. As the wizard aged, he found himself surrounded by fewer and fewer friends, and soon enough even his peers and rivals began to dwindle.
And so the great man stood on the day of his official retirement; alone and surrounded by useless wealth that he never got the chance to enjoy. He had no wife, no children, and a legacy of death and violence.
Perhaps all of this was why he doted on Silent. A surrogate daughter for an unlikely father. He cherished her so. She was skilled and intelligent, beautiful, but rendered mute by a wound to her throat. In fact, it was because of her inability to speak that he was searching through these musty shelves of ancient tomes and grimoires.
The young girl's inability to speak did not stop her from expressing herself. She carried around a small personal chalkboard to communicate simple things, and she often wrote lengthy letters with Endymion to discuss matters of importance. However, while the pen was mightier than the sword, it still had its limitations. Endymion knew that Silent could exceed those limitations with the proper tools, and he had finally uncovered those tools on the second shelf, six rows in.
Ehrik Hardeen, Jillette the Godless, and Sarantakos. Each of the three wizards had lived and died decades apart, but their combined body of work was considered required reading in the subtle school of Illusion magic. If Silent applied herself and mastered the discipline, then she would be able to befuddle minds and make the impossible seem real. The basic, apprentice level spells would be sufficient for purpose that Endymion had in mind. Since the discipline centered around altering perception of the world around the target, Silent would be able to conjure images and even sounds in order to communicate with the people around her.
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That afternoon, Silent and Endymion sat together in the dining hall. The busty young girl was hiding the scars on her neck with a sky blue bandana that was normally found tied up in her long dark blonde hair.
Silent's silver-framed glasses had slipped down her nose while her jade-colored eyes quizzically examined the first few pages of Jillette's treatise on the Fata Morgana. She was a fast reader and could absorb information like a sponge. When she understood that this lesson plan was designed to ease the burden of her disability, she looked up at Endymion with tears in her eyes. She gently hugged Endymion, and her shoulders shook with a voiceless sob.
