Sword & Sorcer Part Five

"Damn it!"Sarah Ap Nud screamed as the metal bowl hit the wall. "She should not have been able to do that."

The door opened and a new apprentice entered. "Mistress," she asked, "are you harmed?" The apprentice spotted the bowl. "Oh, let me get that..."

"Leave it," Sarah snapped. The apprentice jerked back. :What were you doing outside my door?"

"Nothing Mis-Mistress," the apprentice, hardly more than a child, stammered. "I was passing by when I heard you shout..."

"Passing by," Sarah asked, her voice barely more than a whisper. "To where?"

"Mistress Triboda," the apprentice answered with a subdued voice and a bowed head. "I have a session with her."

Sarah winced taking care not to let it show. Mistress Triboda was the Temple's Disciplinarian and she well remembered her own sessions with the tall stern faced woman.

"You had a session with Mistress Triboda," Sarah almost purred at the Apprentice, who was now growing visibally frightened. "And instead you chose to enter my chambers."

"Yes, but you..."

"Ask Mistress Triboda to lay on a couple extra stripes to remind you that your nose should be kept firmly in something that is clearly your business and not mine."

"But..."

"Why are you still here?"

The Apprentice fled.

Sarah Ap Nud sighed and grabbed a small whisk broom and pan before stalking towards the mess. Such petty revenge bullying a first year apprentice. But it would have to do until Sarah had her sister snivelling at her feet.

Sarah knelt down and glared at the knotted string. It had taken her hours to knot Delrayna's name into the black cord. It should have been easy to burn, thus destroying her sister's name. But it didn't burn. It didn't even scorch, she noted, as she swept it up into the pan, along with the sand and ashes.
Delrayna must have surrounded herself with an Aura of Protection. Something she should not have been able to so.

Sarah dropped the debris into the waste bin. She turned her mind to the problem of how to remove the aura. She didn't know, but soon she would go to the hall of memories. Surely someone there would be able to tell her.

If the Aura of Protection could be removed from the last great Pharoah of Egypt then surely it could be removed from a slave like her sister.