Thomas Reid - The Gossamer Plain

"They are inside," the cambion answered. "It is a magical shelter. Like a room at an inn," he added, before figuring that Kurkle had very little idea what an inn might be.

"No, I will stay here," Kurkle said at last. "I am safe here. I will guard your door for you while you rest."

"That won't be necessary," Vhok replied. "The doorway will vanish from your sight once I enter and close it. But it will reappear again, when we have rested and refreshed ourselves. We will meet you here then. Yes?"

Kurkle looked doubtful, but he nodded. Before Vhok could enter the sanctuary of his magical mansion, the canomorph had changed into his hound form and was loping away, vanishing in the thick, blinding smoke.

Vhok smiled and passed through the shimmering doorway. Behind him, the portal winked from sight.

Tauran's face was stoic as he led the half-fiend into the private courtyard of her quarters. He strolled toward the portico where the pearlescent archway waited to transport the two of them to the Grand Hall of Temperance. The alu followed him willingly. She remained as he had found her when he returned to her chambers, in the form of a beautiful human woman, though she added a simple dress to her guise. He noted that she had patterned the outfit after the garb common to the Court, white and flowing, with a gold belt and accents on the hem.

She's been paying attention, the astral deva noted. He wasn't sure how that made him feel.

The others had cautioned him to be wary when bringing her to the House. She took the devious cruelty of her succubus mother and the relentless perseverance of her human father and mixed them together to become even more enterprising than either of them. And she was beautiful. Her trickery had no effect on the angel, but he still found her delightful to look at.

Tauran wondered how much she knew of celestial beings. Does she comprehend our love of life, of all things both spiritual and physical that enhance the joys of existence? Can she possibly know how keenly appealing she is for her human foibles even as she seems so treacherous? If I could teach her to harness that craftiness, to find better ways of employing it, let her see the consequences of her actions, what a delightful creature she could be!

But she was a half-fiend, dangerous in every way. And they had warned him to be careful.

No one within the Court had questioned his decision to select her. No creature serving Tyr or any of the other revered deities of the House of the Triad would hesitate to seek a way to save the spirit of the unborn being growing inside Aliisza. The tricky part was separating the mother from the child, to break the bonds of corruption that would otherwise influence the scion, even before it left the womb.

The hard part is done, Tauran thought, as the two of them stepped through the magical barrier. Beside him, Aliisza gasped softly when she discovered that they did not appear where they had before, upon the balcony with its guards. The angel had shifted the magic to take the two of them directly to the Great Hall.

They stood upon a pedestal, one of the floating islands of earth and stone that drifted throughout the plane. Directly before them, covering almost the entire surface of the pedestal like a gargantuan soap bubble, was a great orb. The mammoth sphere's surface gleamed in iridescence in the light of the sun, a magical barrier identical to the pearlescent portal through which the two of them had just stepped.

The angel crossed the distance to the orb's surface and gestured for Aliisza to pass through it. She did not come immediately. Instead, she stood rooted to her spot upon an outcropping of rock near the edge of the pedestal, staring at everything around her in impressed awe. The celestial could see wariness in her visage, too.

Far below them, the gleaming white of the Court shone brightly. The pedestal drifted above it, separate from much of the rest of the palace. Other celestial beings drifted all around, some coming near and passing through the orb to tend to their own business within the hall. Few of them gave Aliisza a second look in her new form. The beautiful human guise the alu had adapted blended in far better than her native winged shape. Tauran suspected that she had chosen to remain in that appearance for that very reason.

He waited while she moved slowly to stand next to him, turning her head back and forth, gathering the images. It was not uncommon for a first-time visitor to the Court to appear overwhelmed by the beauty and grace of the place. Even a fiend would be hard pressed to deny feeling at least somewhat influenced by the glory of it.

"Aliisza," Tauran said. The alu turned to look at him and hesitated. Instantly, the angel could feel the tug of his magical binding. She was thinking of escape, or causing harm to someone, or another possibility that went against the terms she had agreed upon. The divine power he had employed on her would never have worked had she not willingly accepted the terms, had she not freely given herself to be bound by them. But that single act of concurrence had made the magic possible and unbreakable. She was bound to follow through with the rules as surely as if she had been wrapped in adamantine chains and dragged to her final destination.

The astral deva felt her tug against the magic, felt her try to resist it. She would not sense it that way, of course. To the alu, she simply couldn't muster the will to make one damning move. She could think on such acts easily enough, but her willpower to follow through had been locked away within the bonds. The harder she fought against it, the harder she tried to force her body to act as she wished, the more pressure Tauran felt on the divine bond.

At last, he felt her struggle wane, and the alu reached out to the strange glowing surface of the orb. As her hand touched it she vanished, whisked beyond it to the inside. Tauran followed.

Aliisza made a slight strangled sound as she took in the Great Hall for the first time. The pair stood in a colonnaded walkway that circled the orb's interior. Beyond the walkway, tier upon tier of benches descended into the lower half of the hemisphere like a grand theater surrounding a central stage. The stage itself was the focal point of the Court. It hovered in the air above the seats, crafted of smooth white stone. Upon it, the tribunal sat in attendance, hearing all petitions brought before it.

Overhead, the top half of the soaring white dome rested upon massive marble columns veined in gold and silver. The underside of the dome bore a complex pattern of gold foil surrounding a fresco of Tyr's benevolent face watching from above. The entirety of the dome glowed with indirect light, filling the place with a happy radiance. Tapestries of vibrant colors all throughout the cavernous chamber depicted the glories of the members of the Triad and their devoted servants. Other astral devas and their charges came and went almost constantly from various points around the periphery of the orb.

Tauran led Aliisza down an aisle toward the stage. The carpeted steps were long and shallow, so it took them two steps across for every step down to make their way to the bottom. Once there, Tauran sat, then motioned for his ward to join him. The alu nodded and sat on the edge of the bench. She craned her neck back, peering up at the floating stage high overhead. Tauran gave her a reassuring smile as they waited to be recognized.

After a few moments, Tauran heard a small voice in his head, indicating that the tribunal was ready to receive them. Before he could warn Aliisza of what was about to happen, magic coursed through them both, and they found themselves seated upon another bench, on the floating stage, directly before the tribunal.

Aliisza gasped at the sudden change in her surroundings and nearly lost her balance. As she recovered, she hissed in vexation and eyed the whole setting warily.