The Third Soul Omnibus One

by Jonathan Moeller

  “Careful with your balance here,” said Corthain, taking one of the narrow stairs. The steps had been worn down by hundreds of years of pedestrians, and the breeze tugging at his cloak did not help. “A long fall to the docks.”

  “Your head would explode like a ripe melon,” muttered Luthair, one hand against the wall, the other thrown out for balance.

  They stopped at a landing halfway down. An archway in the wall revealed a darkened tunnel leading into the earth. A rusted iron grate covered the tunnel, thick with rust and seagull droppings.

  “Ah,” said Luthair. “It’s been a while since I had to flee for my life through the sewers. Such memories.”

  Rachaelis gave him a curious look.

  “Luthair’s had quite a checkered career,” said Corthain. “When I met him, he made a living by seducing the bored wives of noblemen.”

  Curiosity turned to revulsion.

  Luthair laughed. “Now, now. I always seduced them honestly. And I can’t tell you how many times I had to run out of town with angry horsemen on my heels.”

  Rachaelis lifted an eyebrow. “Without your trousers, I suppose?”

  “Just the once,” said Luthair. “I am, after all, very good at what I do.”

  “How are we going to see in there?” said Rachaelis. “I could summon light…”

  “Not necessary,” said Corthain. “Luthair.”

  Luthair reached into his bag, and produced a pair of small spelllamps mounted on leather bracers. Corthain took one and strapped it to his left arm, while Luthair took the other. Rachaelis watched in surprise.

  “How did you know we’d be going underground?” she said.

  “I didn’t,” said Corthain.

  Luthair winked at her. “I am very good at what I do.”

  Corthain squinted at the lock securing the grate. “It’s rusted in place. I think we’ll need a crowbar…”

  Rachaelis drew herself up and thrust out a palm. Corthain felt the odd tingle he always did when an Adept cast a spell nearby. The grate shuddered in its frame, and the rusted lock split into pieces.

  Now it was Luthair’s turn to look at Rachaelis.

  She grinned at him. “I’m rather good at what I do, as well.”

  Corthain pushed the grate aside. “Let’s go. Keep it quiet, from this point on. Sound carries in these tunnels.”

  He drew his sword in his right hand, raised his left arm and its spelllamp, and started into the tunnel. Luthair drew a dagger and followed suit, and Rachaelis kept lose to Corthain. The walls of the tunnel glistened with moisture and mold, and the stone floor gritted beneath Corthain’s boots. The air stank, though not so badly as the slave markets.

  The tunnel ended in a great vaulted room supported by thick pillars. Rusted weapons lay scattered about the floor, and rats skittered away from the light of the spelllamps.

  “I had no idea this was all here,” whispered Rachaelis. “What was this place?”

  “The cellar of some noble’s fortress, I imagine,” murmured Corthain, watching the darkness. “The nobility of Araspan didn’t always live in towers. The fortress was razed, but the cellars and dungeons remain.” He pointed. “This way.”

  The walk took the better part of an hour. They passed through the ancient vaults, the pillars slick and glistening with dampness and mold, and into long corridors of brick and stone. Rats skittered everywhere, black and damp, shying away from the spelllamps’ glows.

  They crossed ornate galleries of stone, with carved pillars and elaborate bas-reliefs upon the walls, now eroded with the centuries. The scenes were strange and stylized, nothing at all like the art favored by Araspan’s nobility.

  “Who built this?” whispered Rachaelis.

  Corthain shrugged. “No one seems to know. The people who lived on the Isle before the Old Empire came, probably.”

  More than once they passed signs of recent habitation. Nests of rags and filthy blankets lay in corners, no doubt the homes of escaped slaves. In one room a charred spit stood over a fire pit, the blackened bones of dead rats lying nearby.

  “They eat rats?” said Rachaelis.

  Luthair shrugged. “You’d be surprised what looks appetizing when you’re hungry enough.”

  At last they came to Sunken Court.

  The room was huge, at least as large as the basilica where Corthain’s father dispensed his judgments. Thick stone pillars supported an arched ceiling, their sides carved with more of the strange reliefs. A dais against the far wall supported a massive stone throne.

  “Sunken Court,” said Corthain. “Luthair. How long until sunset?”

  Luthair grunted. “Three hours, I think.”

  “Good,” said Corthain, sweeping his spelllamp along the walls. Balconies stretched between the pillars, full of shadows and debris-choked corners, providing ample hiding places. “We’ll have time to conceal ourselves.”

  “We’re not going to attack the blood shaman when he arrives?” said Rachaelis.

  “Of course not,” said Corthain. “There are only three of us, and no matter how strong you are in the High Art, I doubt you can take on a few hundred enraged Jurgurs. We’ll simply find out where the shaman plans to hold his next meeting, and we’ll tell my father and Magister Talvin, and let them blast the blood shaman to ashes.”

  “Very crafty,” said Luthair. “I approve.”

  “How splendid,” said Corthain. “Let’s find a suitable hiding place…”

  “It is useless to hide,” spat a rough voice in Jurguri, “when you are already found.”

  Corthain whirled, his sword coming up.

  A Jurgur man stood on the dais. He wore a ragged tunic and nothing else, his thin limbs caked with filth. Ritual scars around his eyes transformed his face into a grotesque mask, and his matted red hair hung past his shoulders. Another scar above his nose made his forehead look as if it sported a third eye.

  Rachaelis stepped to Corthain’s side, flexing her fingers.

  So. Another blood shaman. But just an apprentice.

  “Perhaps you were hiding,” said Corthain in Jurguri, “and it is you who are found.”

  The shaman laughed, his chest shaking. “You are mistaken. You think that you are hunting us. But it is we who are hunting you.”

  “Are you certain?” said Corthain, letting his eyes wander over Sunken Court. He doubted that a blood shaman would confront an enemy alone. No doubt the Court’s many shadows and corners held other Jurgurs, waiting to attack.

  “You walked into an ambush,” said the shaman, grinning. “The slave merchant Harrow belongs to the Master. As soon as you left, he contacted the Master, and the Master sent us to meet you properly, as such an honored guest merits.”

  “How thoughtful,” said Corthain.

  “We know who you are, Corthain Kalarien!” said the blood shaman, pointing a finger. “The Hammer of Dark River, the destroyer of our nation, the butcher of our people. There is much blood upon your hands, and you shall choke on it tonight!”

  “Did you think all your victims would be unable to defend themselves?” said Corthain.

  The blood shaman sneered, and clapped his hands together.

  A dozen Jurgur men emerged from the darkness. Most were thrall caste, their cheeks scarred with inverted triangles, and carried clubs. A few, though, were warrior caste, and bore those massive scythe-bladed swords that they used to such deadly effect.

  This wasn’t good.

  He calculated the odds. He could take four, maybe five of them, and Luthair another three. That left four. Not to mention whatever blood sorcery the shaman might unleash. And he had no idea how Rachaelis would respond. His father could have killed every last one of the Jurgurs without much effort, but Corthain didn’t know how Rachaelis would handle herself in a fight.

  “Get ready to run,” he hissed to the others. “When I give the word.”

  Luthair nodded. Rachaelis did not respond, her eyes fixed on the shaman.

  “You are ours, Corthain Kalarien,” s
aid the blood shaman. “We will take you. We will feed your blood and flesh to our demons. It will take you days to die, and you will scream for mercy. Until we cut your tongue from your mouth and force you to eat it.”

  “Bold words,” said Corthain. “Come within reach of my sword and say that.”

  “Take him!” roared the shaman.

  The Jurgurs swarmed forward, howling battle cries.

  Corthain leapt to meet them.

  Something metallic blurred past his shoulder, and a Jurgur thrall went down with Luthair’s knife in his throat. Then the Jurgurs sprang at Corthain, howling, and all thought vanished, his arms and legs blurring through the Forms of the Sword. The Serpent’s Kiss. A Jurgur stumbled back with a gashed face. The Castle Wall. Clubs rebounded from Corthain’s parries and blocks. Harvesting The Wheat. A Jurgur fell, blood gushing from a torn throat. The Falcon’s Dive flowed into the Leaping Trout and back into the Falling Rain, and three more Jurgur thralls fell dead. And then two of the warrior caste faced Corthain, and steel clanged against the strange metal of his antique sword. Both the warriors were good, and knew how to use their blades, and a third circled to the left, trying to flank Corthain.

  He felt the sudden tingle of magic. Unseen force seized the Jurgur warriors and sent them sprawling across to floor. Luthair darted in and seized the opportunity to slash a stunned warrior's throat. Corthain saw Rachaelis standing with one arm outstretched, her face hard, her gray eyes blazing.

  She was, indeed, good at what she did.

  “An Adept!” shrieked the blood shaman in sudden alarm. “Kill her! Kill her now!”

  Corthain gripped both hands around his sword's hilt and swung. A Jurgur warrior fell to his knees, blood pumping from his neck. The shaman reached into his tunic, yanked out a vial, spilled the contents into his hand, and started chanting. Dried blood, Corthain realized. From what he understood, fresh blood worked the best with blood sorcery, but dried blood could wreak equally lethal havoc.

  Fiery light blazed around the shaman’s hands, painting his pale skin the color of blood, and he pointed at Rachaelis.

  An instant later a wrist-thick bar of silver flame lanced from Rachaelis’s fist and slammed into the shaman. The fiery light vanished in the silver glow, and the shaman rocked back on his heels with a scream of pain. The surviving Jurgur thralls and warriors backed away in sudden alarm, eyes wide.

  “Enough!” said Rachaelis, her voice cracking like a whip. “Lay down your weapons and your lives shall be spared. Raise a blade against us, or cast another blood spell, and you will regret it.”

  “Our nation shall never surrender!” screamed the shaman, yanking a dagger from his tunic. He raked it across his palm in one smooth motion, red blood welling up against the skin. At once hellish light, brighter than before, began to burn across his fingers. “Die, damn you, die, die, die…”

  Rachaelis struck again. Silver flame strained against blood-colored fire, the competing powers snarling and crackling. Corthain took advantage of the distraction to finish off the last Jurgur warrior, and the surviving thralls threw down their clubs and fled in all directions. Rachaelis’s lips peeled back from her teeth in a snarl, her face ghostly in the silver glow from her fire.

  She proved the stronger. The blood fire around the shaman’s hands crackled and slammed backwards, enveloping him, and his scream drowned out the roar of the fire. For a moment he danced, covered in crimson flames, and then collapsed to the floor in a heap. The silver fire vanished, and Rachaelis shuddered, breathing hard.

  For a moment silence reigned over Sunken Court.

  “Damn it,” muttered Rachaelis, “damn it, damn it, damn it.”

  “What?” said Corthain.

  “I wanted to take him alive,” said Rachaelis, stopping before the dais. The dead shaman was white as a sheet. The blood fire hadn’t burned him, Corthain realized. It had merely boiled away every drop of his blood. “That Master he was talking about was probably the chief blood shaman.”

  “That was my thought as well,” said Corthain.

  “I could have dug the truth out of his mind,” said Rachaelis, “and we would have had all of our answers. Instead his own spell slew him, the idiot.” She pounded a fist against her leg. “Damn it!”

  Corthain shook his head. “I am glad you acted when you did. We might all be dead, otherwise.”

  “Indeed, my lady,” said Luthair. He was busy looting the corpses of the dead Jurgurs. “I would kiss your hand, if I hadn’t just seen you conjure flame from your fingertips.” He grunted in disgust and straightened up. “Not a single copper between them.”

  Rachaelis shook her head. “A dead end.”

  “Not entirely,” said Corthain, looking at Luthair. “Harrow.”

  “Harrow,” repeated Luthair with a smile.

  “He…set us up, didn’t he?” said Rachaelis, frowning. “He sent us here, and told the Jurgurs we were coming.”

  “Undoubtedly,” said Corthain. “The odds are good that this ‘Master’ never holds meetings in Sunken Court. Harrow sent us here and told the Jurgurs.”

  “Then he double-crossed us,” said Rachaelis. “Why are the two of you smiling?”

  “Because Harrow expects us to be dead,” said Corthain. “He never would have told such a blatant lie if he expected us to live out the day. But he knows far more than he let on…and we’re still alive.”

  He saw Rachaelis get it.

  “Oh,” she said. “Guess it’s good that you let me come along after all, aye?”

  “Certainly the best decision I’ve made today,” said Corthain. “And if you have no objections to using your powers again…you may have the chance to shut down Harrow’s operation sooner than you had hoped.”

  Rachaelis blinked. A slow smile spread over her face, and the same hard intensity returned to her gray eyes. “Yes. I would be willing. More than willing.”

  “Good,” said Corthain, looking around, “but first, we’ll need to dispose of the bodies. I won’t leave a dozen ghouls to run amok through the ruins.”

  “How will you dispose of them?” said Rachaelis. “We can’t drag them all up to the crematorium, and…oh.”

  Corthain nodded. Burning was the safest way to keep a corpse from rising as a demon-infested ghoul. Barring that, cutting off the head and removing the heart usually worked just as well. “Luthair?”

  Luthair sighed. “I thought following a domn would lead me to wealth and glory. Instead, here I am, getting ready to mutilate corpses.” He drew a heavy serrated dagger from his belt. “Again.”

  They got to work.

  Chapter 4 - Blood Spell

  They emerged from the tunnel and onto the narrow stone stairs.

  Rachaelis took two steps forward, doubled over, and threw up. She felt Corthain’s hand on her shoulder, hard and steadying, and appreciated it. That would be a bitter irony; to survive an Urthaag and blood sorcery only to fall a hundred feet face-first into a puddle of her own vomit.

  “Sorry,” muttered Rachaelis, when she had finished. “Sorry. It’s just…I’ve never…”

  “Never seen the inside of a man’s chest before?” said Luthair. Drying blood spotted his leather armor. Cutting out a man's heart made quite a mess.

  Rachaelis winced. “Exactly.”

  “It had to be done,” said Corthain. “We could not leave those dead men to rise again as ghouls. It was unpleasant, but necessary.”

  For a moment he sounded so much like Magister Arthain, and Thalia, that Rachaelis blinked.

  Luthair snorted. “If you didn’t want to do the cleanup, maybe you shouldn’t have killed so many of them.”

  “The way you fought,” said Rachaelis. “I’d never seen anyone fight like that before…”

  It wasn’t that he’d been so fast, or so strong. He had made it look so very easy. He had simply waded into the Jurgurs, striking left and right, always managing to avoid their blows by the barest margin, always standing at the right place and striking the right time. It
was almost as if he had been dancing instead of fighting.

  “You can’t have seen that many fights,” said Corthain.

  “No,” said Rachaelis. “But I’ve seen the Swords drill in the Ring. They…don’t fight the way you do, not by a long shot.”

  “I’ve had more practice,” said Corthain.

  Luthair laughed. “My lord domn is too modest. What you just saw, my lady Adept, are the Forms of the Blade, the formal school of fighting taught by Orlanish swordmasters. And my lord domn is one of the best.”

  “Hardly,” said Corthain. “There are swordmasters in the Orlanish court who could have killed all those Jurgurs without breaking a sweat. I am not one of them. And Luthair was right. It is good you were with us. You handled yourself well.”

  His approval pleased her. Rachaelis was surprised by how much it pleased her. “I still wish I had taken that apprentice shaman alive.”

  “We might not have gotten him,” said Corthain, turning towards the stairs, “but Harrow is still alive. Shall we pay him a visit?”

  “Yes,” said Rachaelis. She felt a different sort of eagerness at that thought, and flexed her fingers. “Let’s.”

  ###

  A short time later they returned to Harrow’s warehouse.

  “Good day,” said Corthain, hand on his sword hilt. “We’ll want to see the fat bastard. Now.”

  The guards reached for their swords. “He is not to be disturbed.”

  Corthain glanced at Rachaelis.

  She stepped forward, lifted her hands, and summoned the power. Blue astralfire crackled above her palms, and the guards flinched in alarm.

  “The lady is an Adept of the Conclave,” said Corthain, “and Harrow has severely offended her. I suggest you vacate the premises at once.”