"We have but one more component to prepare, but it will be done within the moment, great Master," one of his master Wizards replied. "It will be ready before we will begin."
"Excellent. Then let us go to the Conjuration Chamber and prepare."
This was a spell they had performed several times before, more than necessary, to be honest. The soul-trap that held Jegojah's spirit was ready, sitting on his desk, and a semi-conscious vessel that would serve as the Doomwalker's undead force was chained to the wall on the far side of the laboratory. Both were retrieved, and the Wizards formed a grim procession as they undertook the mental preparations for casting such a difficult spell. The Marilith tagged along at the end of the procession in curiosity, her sharp features showing her interest at seeing some human-magic.
Within the Conjuration Chamber, all was prepared. Three braziers on iron stands were lit, forming a triangle around the three-fold symbol inlaid into the floor with gold and other precious metals. It was a pentagram within a thaumaturgic triangle within a concentric circle, a triple-layered symbol of great warding power that was needed to summon and control the most powerful of the extra-dimensional entities. Such was necessary when summoning something as powerful as a Doomwalker.
The nine Wizards took their positions around the symbol, and the material components were cast into the symbol as were required. They would be the catalyst for the spell, causing it to activate. After that was done, the spell began. It began slowly, but built into a crescendo of magical power over time, as the nine voices joined into a discordant harmony with such power that it subdued the light of the braziers. They rose to such a pitch that the very air seemed to vibrate from the power of their words, and the wind outside calmed, pulled away, as if nature itself recoiled from the dark evil being done within.
Two guards threw the naked vessel into the symbol as the eight attendants fell silent, and Kravon's voice alone carried on. The voice was perfect, flawless, reciting words of arcane power of such magnitude that they caused the natural order of life to be usurped. He uttered one final word, a word that nearly put out the braziers, and then all was eerily silent.
Then the braziers exploded back to life, exploded into columns of fire, and the spell began. The man within the symbol suddenly screamed, jumping up off the floor like a dying fish, and then he thrashed about for a long moment as his screams echoed through the lit chamber. Then he ceased his thrashing, held immobile for a moment, and his skin began to pale, to gray. The figure stood up calmly as the mortal spirit of the man was cast out, and a dark shadow invaded what remained of the mortal shell. The presence of that dark spirit caused the flesh to putrify, the eyes to melt, the skin and flesh and muscle to wither and tighten around the bones. An arcane suit of armor wavered into being around the dessicated form, and red light erupted from the darkness of the eye sockets.
The form, hunched over, stood up straight and tall, and turned towards Kravon. "Why do ye summon Jegojah again?" it demanded in a rasping voice. "Told ye, Jegojah did, better destroy me ye should, yes."
"You are not here to bargain or threaten, Doomwalker," Kravon said. "Your mission remains before you. You have not completed it."
"Jegojah, he does not carry out the impossible, no. Be your maid, Jegojah would, before taking on the Weavespinner again, yes."
"This time, you don't have to worry about his power," Kravon said smoothly. "He has lost his magical powers for a time, and it is imperative you reach him and destroy him before he regains them."
"More to that one, there is, than magic," Jegojah grated. "A fine warrior, he is, a warrior of honor. Jegojah can fight, but the outcome, it is not certain, no."
"You are a Doomwalker," Kravon said coldly. "No mortal can defeat you."
"The Weavespinner, he is not mortal, no," Jegojah spat back. "The winds of luck favor one such as him, they do, yes."
"True. I will accede that much to you. That is why, this time, you will have help."
"Help?" Jegojah spat, then he cackled in laughter. "What help could ye grant Jegojah?"
Kravon looked to the door. The silent guard there opened it, and two mailed sentries escorted a third form through the door. It was a form in black, burned armor, carrying a large sword in a withered hand. The head of the figure was withered, decayed, with bone and gray flesh showing through the cracked skin, flesh infested with maggots, deteriorated long past the point of being recognizable. The eyes were long gone, replaced by twin points of red light.
It was another Doomwalker.
Jegojah looked closely at this new Doomwalker, looked very closely. The armor was familiar to it, it was a pattern and design it had seen before. There was a rent in the breastplate, running from the shoulder to the waist, crossing the chest and abdomen.
And beneath a wide burgonet helmet, there sprouted stray locks of curly black hair.
"No right!" Jegojah exploded. "No right, ye have, to disturb the rest of the fallen! Return him, ye will, return him to his rest right now!"
"You have no say in this," Kravon said in a dead voice. "Complete your mission, and both of you will be freed to rest for eternity. Refuse to obey me, and you will spend that eternity in the possession of my lovely associate here," he said, motioning towards the six-armed Demon. "I'm sure you know what her kind do with the souls of mortals. Is that fate what you desire?"
If there was anything that the inhuman Wizard could have said to intimidate a Doomwalker, that was it. There were some fates worse than death, worse that utter destruction. "That fate, no, Jegojah does not want it," it said in sudden supplication. "Jegojah will do as ye command. But when this is done, freedom, it will be granted, yes. One way or another."
"Then begone, and carry out your assigned tasks," Kravon said with a dismissive wave of his hand.
"As ye command," Jegojah said sullenly. "Come, companion. A long way, we must go, yes. Let us get this overwith."
With that, both undead forms simply sank into the floor, merging into the stone, and were gone.
The whole thing was pleasing to Kravon. Jegojah should be able to carry it out alone, but with the other Doomwalker to aid it, this time victory was guaranteed.
It was worth the effort to find and retrieve that body. Months of searching paid off. When the Were-cat recognized the identity of the Doomwalker, the shock would be enough to give one of them the chance to finish it off.
You interest me, human, the Marilith, who called herself Shaz'beka, remarked. She did not speak, exclusively using the telepathic gifts common to her kind to communicate. You would give me the soul of the Doomwalker if he fails?
"My dear, consider his soul yours, whether he succeeds or not," Kravon said absently. "Given his failures and poor attitude, I feel your tender ministration is suitable punishment for his disobedient nature."
And the other?
"Also yours, to do with what you will," he said, holding out a new soul-trap, a crystal that glowed with a golden radiance. "But I can't give them to you until their mission is accomplished. I do hope you understand."
You are most generous, human. I find my service here to be less tedious.
"Anything for a fellow follower of the Master, my dear," he said magnaminously.
Indeed.
"We are finished here," Kravon announced. "Let us return to our other duties. Those two will not fail us."
And with that, the braziers were extinguished, and the room was evacuated. The doors were closed, and the room fell into darkness.
Chapter 10
"So. How did it go?"
Tarrin's response to that innocuous question was to smash his fist into the side of a boulder. The manacle on his wrist struck the rock, causing the rather large stone to crack visibly from the impact.
"Well, that's better than I expected," Sarraya chuckled, just before she wisely rose into the air and out of the Were-cat's reach.
The sandstorm that kept them pinned blew itself out by morning, and they had moved on. They had left the area of stony-floo
red barrens, and moved into what could only be called a sandy rock garden. There were some plants in the sandy region, but only where they were sheltered from the wind by larger rocks. But the plants meant they had returned to the living desert, where there were small mice and lizards to subsist off those sparse plants, and a few small predators like snakes that subsisted off the mice and lizards. The place was rather pretty, in a way, but the rocks strewn on the ground slowed him down. Sometimes it was no problem, but sometimes they were so thick he had to travel on top of them, and he couldn't do that at a full run. They had stopped for the evening in a sandy meadow of sorts, surrounded by several boulder-sized stones that formed an irregular circle around the patch of sand. There were some very stunted little shrubs growing on one side of the clearing, and the scents and signs were there that some mice and lizards lived in the rocks surrounding the little clearing.
True to his word, he had left Sarraya around sunset and found himself a quiet place to sit and try to regain his power. And it was a disaster. He couldn't concentrate for very long, because every time he did feel himself beginning to come into a meditative state, the eyeless face would assert itself in his mind and disrupt his concentration. He had been afraid of it when it first began to haunt him, but now it was more of an irritation than anything else. It still incited guilt and remorse in him, but now it was keeping him from finding his center again, and that was life-threatening. Without his Sorcery to protect himself from some of the desert's most formidable dangers, he was vulnerable. And he knew it. That knowledge only made his irritation worse, and it was frustrating to have his attempts to calm down and concentrate destroyed by nothing more than a shadow of a dream, something with no substance, something he should not fear in any way. After all, it was simply a face, and nothing more. It could do nothing to him, and yet he still feared it. And that made him even angrier. His pride was injured by that, the Were-cat pride that told him that the strong should not fear the weak.
The outer distractions were one thing, but the single-most overwhelming source of aggravation for him was the Weave itself. It was right there. He could sense it. He could feel it. He could even see it. But no matter what he did, no matter how hard he tried, he couldn't find it. It was like fog, or smoke, looking solid from a distance but nothing more than ethereal vapors once it was within reach. The power melted away from him time after time, leaving him grasping nothing but empty air. It reminded him of his initial training, when he struggled under Dolanna's watchful eye to touch the Weave consciously. Before, the thing that had done it for him was to open his eyes, to satisfy his Were need to sense what he was trying to contact. But this time, he could sense it all. In much more detail and clarity than ever before. Yet despite knowing exactly where it was and where to reach, it simply wasn't there.
It was almost as if the Weave didn't want him to touch it.
It was so infuriating! He could see it! He knew where it was, he knew how it felt. But he couldn't come into contact with it! It was almost like he was a ghost, incapable of interacting with the Weave in the same plane. But he knew it was possible, he knew he could do it! The Sha'Kar woman could do it, why couldn't he? It made no sense!
"You knew this was going to happen, Tarrin," Sarraya said from a safe distance. "It's time to calm down and have dinner. You can work yourself into a frenzy tomorrow."
He glared at her.
"Don't give me that look, young man. I'll spank you."
"Shut up," he snapped. Then he dropped himself to the sand. Hard. Almost without thinking about it, he reached within, making contact with the All, and Conjured forth a large honeymelon. He used a single claw to cut the thick outer skin, then split it into two halves. He breathed in and out deeply while he was doing it, a stress-relieving exercise that Allia had taught him at the same time she taught him the trick to ignoring chronic pain. It helped considerably, allowing him to get over his pique, allowed him to bury the frustration and aggravation for a while. He'd stew over it again later, but that was because he needed to do it. He had to analyze his failures so he didn't make the same mistakes, to help him succeed. That was what his mother had taught him, and despite the many changes in his life, the simple lessons given to him by his mother still had more merit than almost anything else he'd learned. He scooped the seeds and core of the melon out with two fingers and claws, casting them to the ground near the rocks. It was bait for later.
"Calm now?" Sarraya asked.
"I'm not throwing this at you, am I?" he retorted.
Sarraya giggled. "No, as a matter of fact, you're not," she agreed, flitting down and landing on the sand before the melon. "Is this mine?"
"If you don't want to conjure your own," he shrugged. "After I eat this, I'm going to see how many mice I can catch."
"Eww," Sarraya said with a shudder. "Don't talk about things like that while I'm eating."
"Don't turn your nose up to it until you try it," he said, taking a bite out of the melon. "Odds are they won't be that tasty, though. They'll probably be as tough and stringy as a ten year old rooster."
"I said not while I'm eating!" Sarraya protested.
He glanced at her, and was about to say something, but another voice suddenly arose from between them. "Tarrin?" Allia's voice called. "Tarrin, are you there?"
Without hesitating, his heart soaring a bit from hearing that voice, Tarrin put a sticky paw on his amulet immediately and willed that she would hear him. "I'm here, Allia," he replied. "What's the matter?"
"Nothing is wrong, but Dolanna wanted me to contact you to make sure you were alright. There have been some...unusual fluctuations in the Weave." Allia had to struggle for words because such a concept was a hard one to phrase in Selani. "She wanted to know if you were feeling the same things."
"What is she saying?" Sarraya asked. Tarrin quickly repeated Allia's words, and Sarraya chuckled. "No wonder. I'm surprised they felt it all the way over there."
"I know what was causing it, sister," Tarrin said. "It's not something I want to say like this. Dolanna warned us that there may be unfriendly ears eavesdropping." He glanced at Sarraya. "Just tell Dolanna that it's nothing to worry about. It shouldn't happen again."
"I'll tell her. How are you, brother? I have worried for you."
"I'm alright, sister," he replied sincerely. "Alot has happened to me, but I'm still here, and I'm still on the move. I miss you."
"It's not right that I'm not there to guide you throught he desert," she said in a surly tone. "I worry about you, because all you have is that flighty Faerie." Allia had to use the Sulasian word for Faerie because no such word existed in Selani.
"What did she say about me?" Sarraya demanded.
"You don't want to know," he told her dismissively. "Where are you, Allia?"
"Right now, we're only a couple of days from Suld," she replied. "We are all well. Most of us are getting very unsettled from being on the ship for so long, but it'll be over soon." There was a pause. "Dolanna is here. She wanted to know if you've been teaching Sarraya the special tongue we use when speaking privately."
Careful, careful Allia. She didn't even want to use the word Sha'Kar, even while speaking Selani through the amulet. It made him wonder why she was speaking Selani. Probably because someone else may be able to hear her on the ship, someone that wasn't a close friend.
"Actually, I haven't," he said, a bit sheepishly. "So much has happened here, sister, that was the last thing I would have thought to do."
"Dolanna says that it is no excuse. Sarraya needs to learn. You have to teach her."
"Alright," he sighed.
"She said my name. What did she say?" Sarraya demanded. "You're getting on my nerves, Tarrin!"
"I'll tell you in a minute!" he snapped at her. "Now shut up and let me talk!" He turned his attention to the amulet again. "Is everyone else alright? Is Dar alright?"
"Dar? I haven't seen much of him. He's gotten a bit introverted since you left, probably because he doesn't really feel comfortable aroun
d us without you here. But he is alright, I can tell you that."
"Allia, he's your friend! You shouldn't allow him to feel that way."
"I know, but I haven't been one much for conversation lately either, my brother. Having you parted from me has caused me more pain that I was prepared to endure. I wish for nothing now but to have you and Kerri with me again. I want my family back."
"Allia, you have no idea how much I want that too," he said emphatically. "We should cut this short, sister. I want you to do something for me."
"What?"
"When you get to Suld, be very careful," he told her. "I mean more careful than even Camara Tal intends to be. And you have to keep an eye on Dar. Keep him safe, sister. He's going to need someone like you to protect him."
"Why do you say that?"
"It's just a feeling, but it's a very strong one," he answered. "I've come to trust those feelings here lately. So far, they haven't led me wrong."
"Sometimes the heart knows what the mind is not ready to accept," she said sagely. "If the feeling is that strong, then I will honor its intent. I'll keep a special eye on Dar for you, brother. He will find no harm while I watch over him."
"Good. That makes me feel much better. I haven't felt much from Jula lately. Is she still with Triana?"
"I don't trust her, Tarrin," she said heatedly. "Better that we get rid of her, one way or another. But she's still here, still being taught by your bond-mother."
"Good. I was starting to wonder. She hasn't had any spats of anger or humiliation for a few days now. That's unusual."
"She's been behaving. Triana has had no reason to punish her."
Tarrin chuckled a bit. "I guess that explains it. Any word from Kerri?"
"She contacts me every couple of days. Right now, she's working to change around her government so they'll run smoothly while she's gone. She's gotten the cooperation of the nobles." Allia laughed brightly. "She said that they all about went up in flames when they found out that she intends to put a Vendari subject-king on her throne to run Wikuna while she's away. I think a few of them had ideas to try to rebel or take over the kingdom while Kerri was gone."
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