Magic poured from her fingertips as she held them out from her sides. It crashed onto her head from high above and splashed and rolled over her shoulders, down her arms to her hands. It drained from her heavy cloak and was whisked away – sluiced into darkness below her boots.

She knew the power would be intense, but she hadn’t expected it to manifest like this. She was electric. She was drowned.

She sputtered and gasped, moving her hands about and causing the Magic to stream and drip in never ending patterns. It glowed a pink-red like the brightest of autumn leaves. It coursed never-ending with a pearly opalescence. She was…

…She was twelve and it was High Season and the Floaterfish were in full spawn. She stood entranced by the giant fish as they bobbed and roiled all across the river, scales glinting red and gold and pink in the bright morning light. The sky was cloudless and blue. Her sun dress flirted with a gentle breeze and the river splashed. The mighty fish glinted and gasped in the water completely filling the river from the far bank right to the water’s edge. The cool mud squished up between her toes.

The fish were so dense in the water she imagined she could step lightly enough she could walk right across their massive backs all the way to the nearest of the bucking skiffs. Brave spearmen stood tall on the flat and unsteady boats. They hauled aboard fish after fish, careful not to touch the water. The creatures didn’t even seem to notice as they were harvested; driven to stupid ecstasy by the riffling magic coursing through the currents. It drew them here year after year.

“Melodie!” The cry of her name startled her out of her daydream. She turned to see Murielle scrambling down the bank from high above. She was backlit by the sun and sky and seemed radiant with excitement. “Melodie!” Murielle shouted again. “They say the Big Boats from… ” Melodie never learned the news of the Big Boats. The bank gave way beneath her sister. Mud slid, rocks and grass rolled and Murielle dropped with barely a ‘plunk’ into the busy magic-riddled water. Melodie screamed…

…Melodie screamed wordlessly, attempting to inch back from the slippery projection of rock she had stepped on to. The Magic pouring down was relentless and heavy and chillingly cold. She could not seem to break free of the deluge. She was losing this fight…

…”She is losing this fight” the doctor murmured to their mother. The woman sat at Murielle’s side, weeping silently. Melodie was fourteen and she also wept. The stone bedroom seemed drab and lifeless. Her once vibrant and beautiful sister had not moved a muscle or twitched an eyelid nor even had she aged since the brave fishermen in their little skiff had plucked her from between the churning Floaterfish. Murielle was static, completely inert and at the same time fading. She was becoming less, day by day.

The doctors could not raise her from this torpor. The Mages could not break through the magical barriers that bound her, and the local Wise Man merely shook his head in dismay. Her sister was trapped, locked into her own mind and she was fading.

Wracked with guilt and grief and helplessness, Melodie had hounded the men. “Why can’t you heal her! Why don’t you know what to do?”

The Wise man had hugged her fiercely for a time and said kindly “it’s the magic that has her. No mortal can resist that power. It is just the way of the world.”

One of the Magi slumped and spoke over her head to the Doctor. “The Magic in the river here is always too diluted. If we could get a pure sample from the source, then maybe…”

The Wise Man shook his head “You know few have ever returned from that fool’s errand, and none in triumph. Most have never returned at all.”

“And even then” interrupted the Doctor, “I don’t know how we could synthesize a…” But Melodie stopped listening. There was something she could do, then. A plan was forming…

…A plan was forming. If Melodie could get out from under this torrent, if only she could get a moment’s respite maybe she could think. But the magic was relentless. It did not stop. It tumbled from on high and piled on her even as it flowed over her. It pulled at her hair and weighted down her cloak’s lining. It stung her eyes and seemed to permeate everything that was her. She moved her foot, tried for a small step and she slipped slightly…

…She slipped slightly, catching herself on a rock by the cliff face. She was Fifteen, she was deep into the mountains, and she was out of time.

Weeks ago she had packed a bag, donned her sturdiest travelling gear and lit out in the middle of the night. High Season had just begun and she was determined to trace the river and find the source of the Magic that was eating away at her sister. With a sample of that Magic surely then the Doctors and Mages could do their work.

So she had hired one of the fishing skiffs to take her as far upriver as they dared go. Then she walked. She had traced tributaries, streams and creeks. She had tracked down remote springs in dense forest and trekked deep into the mountains, only turning back well after High Season had passed and all traces of Magic had washed from the watershed for another season.

She returned home to find her Sister still clinging to life, and her Mother frantic that she had lost another daughter. Melodie didn’t know what else to do. Despair took her…

…Despair took her. Her back bowed. She would soon be driven to her knees by the force of the falling Magic. She was disoriented and nearly blind with only glinting red pinpricks refracting through the deluge. She was bone weary…

…She was bone weary. She was sixteen. Well before the first trickles of magic had found their way to the spawning grounds Melodie had travelled deep into the mountains. She picked up the search where she had been forced to abandon it the year before. Desperation drove her as High Season took hold and the Magic began to pollute the mountain streams.

When Melodie had boarded the skiff this time, Murielle’s skin had been nearly translucent and her motionless body seemed to be folding in on itself. Her sister surely could not hold out any longer. This was Melodie’s final chance to help and she could feel it slipping away from her at every step.

Exhausted, she pulled herself up and over a rock-fall, scrambling and climbing parallel to a small stream that splashed down the mountainside. The murmur of bubbling water filled the air, blown on a fresh breeze. The sun was bright and the air fresh. And there was something else. She was so tired she nearly missed it. The water in the nearest pool seemed to shimmer with a faint light all of its own.

She was on the trail again! Energized, she climbed and hiked and scrambled. She became increasingly excited – the oily pink sheen of magic seemed to thicken in the water. Finally she scrambled over a short slope and stumbled up to a small pool that seemed to be almost pure Magic. A spring fed the pond with a trickle of water from one end, but the shimmer of magic poured by the bucket full from a the mouth of black cave just beyond. She could hear a faint echoing and rushing and roaring.

Melodie stepped up to the cave and then squeezed her narrow shoulders through the opening. It was dim, but the magic flowing past glowed and glimmered and bounced a shimmery light off of the rock walls. She carefully tread from rock to rock and moved deeper into the mountain. The space seemed to gradually open up around her and the roaring grew louder, the cave grew wider, and the air shimmered with light and power.

The cavern had become huge, impossibly tall and wide. It was a pink and red shimmering cathedral. The air thrummed with power. Thundering from the blackness high above was a column of pure tumbling magic. It crashed on to the jutting remains of a long-broken rock arch and fell away into an abyss below. Melodie registered all of this with a glance, but it is not what held her attention. “Oh no…

…Oh No!” She gasped trying to turn, trying to raise her arms, trying to shout a warning, desperately trying to do anything at all as the memories passed through her mind and realization struck. The relentless, pulling, heavy, tearing Magic flowed over her. “Please, no…

…Please no. I’m so close” Melodie stood, frozen.

Standing between her and the cascading Magic falls was a waking nightmare. It was silent and dark, seemingly formed with slashes of pure blackness across the glowing ember air of the cavern. The apparition showed as part woman, part fish. Its upper body clad in bulky fitting steel plate armor detailed with black scales in a rippling pattern. It stood balanced on a curve of muscular fish tail swathed in shimmering mail. It rested its hands on the pommel of a massive shadowy sword that rested point down on the stone. It regarded Melodie with bright red pinprick eyes set beneath hair that seemed to wave in non-existent currents.

Melodie stared at it. It did not move, save the swaying hair and the glittering eyes. She was terrified. “I am not afraid.” She shouted over the din. The black clad creature did not move. “I just want my sister back! I want her to be safe!” Still no reaction.

Emboldened, Melody took one step forward and fished for a small flask under her cloak. “I will just take some of this Magic, then go.”

The red Eyes Flared. The gauntleted hands flexed and the shadowy sword rose and fell. The clang of the sword against stone echoed and rolled throughout the cavern, drowning out even the rushing roaring Magic.

Melodie Froze again and thought desperately. “I can trade, or earn some of the Magic?” Its head tilted just a little, its eyes narrowed. It was listening. “What is it you want?” Her voice wavered.

The shadowy guardian lifted a hand and pointed. It pointed at Melodie.

“I See.” Resignation battled with terror. “And for me, you will release my sister?”

The creature nodded once.

Melodie could not return with an empty flask again. She could not simply give up on her sister. But that would mean… what? It did not matter. She would not turn back now. Her Sister would live. Her mother could stop grieving. “I agree to your terms.”

The eyes glittered bright with greed. The creature half turned and spread an arm wide: Welcome, please proceed.

Melodie stepped past the apparition and right to the edge of the cascading Magic. She looked back at the apparition. It dipped its head slightly and turned a hand, as if to say ‘Just one More Step.’

Melodie took just one more step.

Magic poured from her fingertips as she held them out from her sides. It crashed onto her head from high above and splashed and rolled over her shoulders, down her arms to her hands. It drained from her heavy cloak and was whisked away from her feet – sluiced into darkness below her boots.

She knew the power would be intense, but she hadn’t expected it to manifest like this. She was electric. She was drowned.

She sputtered and gasped, moving her hands about and causing that purest power to spray and drip in never ending patterns. It shimmered and swirled. It glowed a pink-red like the brightest of autumn leaves. It coursed, never-ending.