The Third Soul Omnibus One

by Jonathan Moeller

  Within the space of five heartbeats, every last ghoul lay heaped upon the black grasses, their demons destroyed. The torrent of astralfire winked out, and Rachaelis blinked the afterimage from her eyes. She had seen the Magisters do some impressive things, but the joined power of fifty Adepts was terrifying.

  Little wonder that the Ring had never fallen in the fifteen hundred years of the Conclave’s history.

  Corthain says to brace yourselves, said Thalia. He says that Maerwulf only sent the ghouls at us as a test, and that we responded with overwhelming force. So he’ll throw everything he has at us now.

  Let him, said Arthain, floating back to the ground, and we shall show him how the Conclave deals with blood sorcerers.

  Corthain shouted another order, and the Swords moved forward with a steady, slow pace. The only sounds were the rattle of armor, the tramp of boots against the earth, and the wind's steady moan. There was no movement from the hills, and for a moment Rachaelis wondered if Maerwulf had somehow fled.

  And then all hell broke loose.

  An enormous sigil of blood-colored flame appeared in the sky, a vastly larger version of the one Rachaelis had seen burning upon Anna Marinius’s cellar floor. A chorus of howls and screams went up from the ring of hills, and Rachaelis saw Urthaags racing towards them, their eyes blazing with hellfire, and Jurgur thralls and warriors, all of them armed.

  Maerwulf had struck back.

  “Bows!” roared Corthain, his voice audible even over the din. “Bows! Shields! To your places, now!”

  A ward! Arthain’s thought crackled with urgency. Ward the surrounding Swords now. If Maerwulf finishes that blood sigil, we are undone. Cast your wards now!

  Rachaelis summoned power and loosed it, creating a dome of flickering silver light around herself and the surrounding Swords. The other Adepts did the same, and soon a shimmering haze of silver light veiled the Swords. Meanwhile the Swords were in motion. Some dropped to one knee, shields raised and ready. Others pulled crossbows from their shoulders and slammed quarrels into the weapons.

  An instant later the sigil in the sky blazed with new fire, and the hellish light that Rachaelis had seen too many times before fell upon them. She expected the agony, and her muscles tensed with anticipation. But this time the fiery light crackled against her wards, and the wards the other Adepts had raised, its power blunted. The air filled with the snarling howl of competing forces, but the silver ward held against the blood sigil.

  Then Magister Arthain, Magister Nazim, Thalia, and a dozen other Adepts lifted their fists, silver astralfire blasting into the sky. The blood sigil shattered in a burst of silver light.

  “Bows!” roared Corthain. “Release!”

  As one, the crossbowmen among the Swords raised their weapons into the air and hit the triggers. Hundreds of quarrels arced into the air and fell among the charging Jurgurs and Urthaags in a steel-tipped rain. Rachaelis saw dozens of Jurgur thralls and warriors fall to the ground, and even a few Urthaags.

  But the survivors kept coming, howling in Jurguri, the Urthaags racing ahead with superhuman speed, some even running along on all fours like wolves.

  “Shield wall!” shouted Corthain.

  The Swords in the front ranks rushed forward, locking their shields together to form a barrier of wood and steel.

  Adepts! Arthain’s voice cracked inside Rachaelis’s skull like a whip. Engage the enemy at will. Let the Swords deal with the Jurgur rabble. Focus upon the Urthaags and the blood shamans. Kill them all!

  Then the howling Jurgur mob crashed into the shield wall like a human tide. Steel rang on steel, or sank into human flesh, blood spilling into the ground. A dozen Swords fell in the first clash, but took thrice as many Jurgurs with them. The Urthaags plunged into the fray, leaping over the shield wall like hunting beasts, ripping and slaying with their bare hands. One landed right in front of Rachaelis, eyes burning, teeth bared in a madman’s snarl. She did not even bother with white astralfire. A burst of azure flame lashed from her hands, blasting the Urthaag’s skull to smoking charcoal.

  Chaos reigned around her, blood and steel and flashing spells. She couldn’t see anything. She had to get a better view.

  She had to find Maerwulf.

  One of the massive obsidian statues caught her eye, and the idea came to her.

  Rachaelis astraljumped and reappeared atop the hideous obsidian statue, a good thirty feet above the melee.

  She had a clear view of the battle. She saw an apprentice blood shaman standing behind the Jurgur mob, bloody fire flickering around her hands, and Rachaelis struck. Blue astralfire burned across the space, drilled through the woman’s chest, and sent her sprawling to the ground. An Urthaag killed a Sword with a single punch, fist crumpling the heavy breastplate like paper, and the man toppled to the ground. Rachaelis loosed a blast of white astralfire that engulfed the Urthaag. The Urthaag collapsed, writhing and foaming at the mouth. Silver flashes dotted the battlefield as the Adepts astraljumped here and there. She saw Thalia kill a pair of Jurgur slaves with a burst of astralfire, saw Corthain take the head from an Urthaag with a vicious two-handed slash.

  Red light lit up the sky, and she saw Maerwulf.

  He stood atop one of the stony hills, his scarred and tattooed chest ablaze with sigils. Five apprentice blood shamans stood around him, all working spells of their own. They were feeding Maerwulf their power, she saw, joining together to work a single massive blood spell upon the Swords and the Adepts.

  Maerwulf! Rachaelis shouted into the thoughtmeld. He’s there, on the hills!

  She flung a blast of azure astralfire at the hilltop, killing two of the apprentice shamans, but Maerwulf’s protective sigils blazed brighter, blunting the force of Rachaelis’s attack. Maerwulf turned with a snarl, hands hooked into claws, and Rachaelis astraljumped.

  The spell deposited her on the hilltop a few paces from Maerwulf and the surviving apprentices.

  Maerwulf’s dark eyes widened.

  “Looking for me?” said Rachaelis.

  Maerwulf roared something in Jurguri and pointed. The surviving apprentices began chanting, vials of dried blood in their hands. Maerwulf made a fist, his hand glistening with fresh blood, and started an incantation of his own. Rachaelis couldn’t stop all of them at once, and she doubted that she had enough raw power to punch through Maerwulf’s defenses.

  So she didn’t even try.

  She cast a spell, focusing her will into a single massive hammer of thought. And then she loosed that hammer, not at the apprentices, or at Maerwulf, but at the hilltop itself. Stone shattered and dirt flew as the ground exploded beneath the force of her will. The apprentices went flying, and Maerwulf tumbled backwards, rolling down the stony hill.

  Rachaelis hit him with a burst of silver astralfire. His wards turned it aside, but the burning sigils dimmed, and a few of them vanished. Maerwulf scrambled back to his feet, crushed a vial of blood in his hand, and thrust out his palm. Blood fire burned around his fingers, and hammered into Rachaelis. She staggered back, her ward collapsing under the pressure.

  Maerwulf began another spell, and Rachaelis didn’t have time to raise a ward. So she caught some of the shattered stones in her will and flung them at Maerwulf. He dodged the first one, but the second smashed into his knee, and the third scraped across his jaw. Maerwulf stumbled, panting in pain.

  Which made him an excellent target for the boulder Rachaelis ripped from the earth and flung with her will. Maerwulf tried to throw himself out of the way, but the edge of the hurtling stone clipped him, sent him spinning down the hillside to slump against his bloodstained altar. His left leg jutted out a grotesque angle.

  Rachaelis felt a surge of exultation. She had him.

  Then Maerwulf raked his fingers through the dried blood caking the altar, and crimson flames erupted from his hands. He screamed in agony, but his broken leg straightened itself, and the cuts and bruises from his tumble down the hill vanished. And in one smooth motion he wheeled to face Rachaeli
s, blood fire crackling around his hand.

  Rachaelis got another ward up just in time. A sigil appeared in the air before Maerwulf, burning like an inferno, and her ward shuddered and crackled before winking out beneath the strain. Even as she reeled, Maerwulf began another spell, and Rachaelis threw out another ward.

  Blood, she realized. She had to separate Maerwulf from his supplies of liquid and dried blood. No matter how old he was, no matter how potent his spells, without a supply of blood he was powerless.

  Her ward collapsed beneath Maerwulf’s blood rune, and he began another one.

  Rachaelis decided it was time to change tactics.

  Another symbol blazed into existence on Maerwulf’s palm, and instead of casting a ward, Rachaelis astraljumped. The nightmare world of the sanctum vanished in silver light, and Rachaelis reappeared behind Maerwulf. He blinked in surprise and spun around.

  Just in time to catch the blast of silver astralfire in the face. More of the sigils burning on his chest winked out, and Rachaelis lashed out with her will, ripped at the earth beneath his feet. Maerwulf staggered, kept his balance, struck back with a spell of his own. Rachaelis got her ward up just as the hellish light fell over her, and her power strained against Maerwulf’s. He was strong, hideously strong, and he struck at her again and again. Rachaelis gritted her teeth, sweat pouring down her face. His wards had been badly weakened. If she hit him hard enough, she might blast through his sigils. But she could not spare a single scrap of attention from his assaults…

  A beam of silver flame flashed over her shoulder and cut across Maerwulf’s chest. His sigils vanished like candle flames beneath a downpour. Rachaelis saw Magister Arthain standing atop one of the stony hills, face stern and terrible, and Maerwulf turned to meet the new threat.

  Rachaelis hit him with a blast of azure astralfire.

  Maerwulf twisted aside at the last second, but the burst still clipped his left side, and he shrieked in agony as the tattooed flesh blackened and charred. Magister Arthain gestured, and Maerwulf floated into the air, caught in the iron grip of the old man’s will.

  “Surrender, blood shaman!” roared Arthain. “Call off your forces. It’s over.”

  Maerwulf wrenched the dagger from his sash. He ripped it across his burned arm, blood rising to cover the red burns. He rubbed his fingers through the blood and threw out his hand with a scream.

  Red light exploded in all directions. It burst through Rachaelis’s wards and sent her tumbling to the ground, and she felt Magister Arthain’s agony flood through the thoughtmeld. Arthain lost his grip on Maerwulf, and the blood shaman stumbled back the ground.

  He whirled and made a raking motion. The air near the altar shimmered, and a rip of ruby-colored light appeared, flickering and snarling.

  A rift, similar to the one he had opened outside the Red Water Inn.

  He was going to escape.

  “No!” snarled Rachaelis, clawing her way to her feet.

  Stop him! Arthain’s voice thundered through the thoughtmeld. Stop him before he gets away! All of you, stop him!

  Maerwulf vanished through the gateway.

  Rachaelis sprinted after him and flung herself into the rift.

  Disorientation wrenched at her, and the sanctum dissolved in bloody light.

  Chapter 6 - The Urmaaghsk

  Rachaelis found herself on a rocky beach. The surf crashed against the shore, and the moonlight painted the water with rippling silver light. In the distance she saw the lights of the Ring perched upon its ledge, and the larger mass of Araspan spread out below.

  Magister Arthain, said Rachaelis, I’m five, six miles south of the city.

  No answer. The rift must have disrupted her connection to the thoughtmeld.

  Maerwulf stood a few yards away, smearing blood over his burns and muttering a spell. Crimson light washed over him, and he shuddered in agony, but the burns shrank with every pulse of the light.

  His eyes widened when he saw Rachaelis, and he lifted his hand to cast a spell.

  But Magister Arthain had destroyed his warding sigils.

  Rachaelis’s will seized him and slammed him against a boulder with bone-shattering force. Maerwulf howled, clawing at his sash for a vial of fresh blood. Rachaelis made a hooking motion, and her will ripped his sash away and sent it spinning to the ocean. Maerwulf reached for the blood dripping from his gashed left forearm.

  Rachaelis’s blast of astralfire turned his left hand and forearm into charred bone.

  Maerwulf wailed and topped to the rocky ground, and Rachaelis stalked to stand over him. Gone was the proud shaman, the terrifying blood sorcerer, the charismatic leader who inspired fanaticism in his followers, the man with the blood of thousands on his hands.

  She saw only a frightened old man, cringing in the face of death.

  Maerwulf had cheated death for centuries, but it had caught up to him at last.

  “No, no, wait, don’t,” he said in Callian, good hand raised to ward off a blow. “I…I can make you immortal, I can show you how to remain young and beautiful forever. I know more about blood sorcery than any other living mortal. I can teach it all to you. I can make you more powerful than any Adept.”

  Astralfire crackled around Rachaelis’s fingertips. “Blood sorcery doesn’t seem to have served you very well.”

  “Join with my master,” said Maerwulf. “Let mighty Azaramath enter you. You can have power beyond anything the world has ever seen, you’ll…”

  “Stop talking,” said Rachaelis.

  Maerwulf flinched and fell silent.

  “I don’t want your damned blood sorcery, and I want nothing to do with your damned high demon,” said Rachaelis. “You’re going to answer a question for me, or I’m going to kill you right now. What did your high demon do to my father?”

  Maerwulf blinked. “Your…your father? I don’t understand. What…”

  “Your high demon,” said Rachaelis. “It was the same one that had possessed Magister Paulus, correct?”

  Maerwulf hesitated, then nodded.

  “The Adepts killed him,” said Rachaelis. “My father was part of the battle. Afterwards they found him in the rubble with no heartbeat and no breath. Yet his body remained warm, and did not decay, and no demons came to inhabit him. The Adepts think something ripped his soul from his body. What happened to him?”

  “I…I don’t…”

  “Answer the question,” said Rachaelis. lifting her hand.

  “I don’t know!” shrieked Maerwulf. “At least…I don’t know why Azaramath did that to your father. But…I think I know what it did to him.”

  “What?” said Rachaelis. “What did it do to him?”

  “Your Adepts were correct,” said Maerwulf. “Azaramath did indeed rip the soul from your father’s body. As to why the body has not decayed…death is the final separation of the soul from flesh, when the soul departs the mortal world to whatever lies beyond. So…your father’s soul must yet remain in the mortal world.”

  “How?” said Rachaelis. “How is that even possible?”

  A flicker of the old arrogance came over Maerwulf’s face. “Foolish child. More things are possible through the powers of demons than you can possibly know. Most likely your father’s soul is bound to an object of some kind. A reliquary, perhaps, or a gemstone of some sort. That is most likely.”

  “Why?” said Rachaelis. “Why would your high demon do that?”

  “I know not,” said Maerwulf. “We are as cattle to the high demons, and their thoughts are far beyond our little thoughts. Your father was an Adept? A powerful one, I assume?”

  “Yes,” said Rachaelis.

  “Then most likely great Azaramath is…storing his soul for some purpose,” said Maerwulf. “The soul of a powerful Adept can be used to work mighty magic.”

  “Then why hasn’t your high demon done that magic already?” demanded Rachaelis.

  “I know not!” repeated Maerwulf. “Perhaps the time is not yet right. Or perhaps Azaramath need
s some…other condition to come to pass.”

  Rachaelis frowned. Her father had lain insensate for twelve years. Unless Maerwulf was lying, that meant the high demon had concealed Aramane Morulan’s soul in some sort of object for that entire time.

  Which meant that the high demon had somehow been active in Araspan, even after Paulus’s death.

  It was an unpleasant thought.

  “If I could find the object holding my father’s soul,” said Rachaelis, “could he be restored?”

  A gleam came into Maerwulf’s eyes. “Yes. Of course. His…ah, sanity might not be what it once was, but his soul could be returned to his flesh. I could help you. I could show you how to restore it to his body.”

  Rachaelis stared at him for a moment.

  “Could you,” she said at last, “show me how to find it?”

  Maerwulf shook his head. “There is no way. It could be concealed anywhere.”

  “Then,” said Rachaelis, “I have no further need of you.”

  Terror flooded into Maerwulf’s face. In the last few weeks, Rachaelis had killed in battle, but she had never killed anyone in cold blood before. But killing Maerwulf…killing Maerwulf would not trouble her in the slightest. If even half of Corthain’s stories were true, Maerwulf had the blood of uncounted thousands on his hands. And she had seen his ghouls, his Urthaags, his apprentice blood shamans, all the horrors he had conjured with his blood sorcery.

  He was too dangerous to leave alive.

  Maerwulf tried to scramble backwards, and Rachaelis gathered her power for killing spell.

  The silver flash of an astraljump spell illuminated the night.