Knightfall: Book Four of the Nightlord series

by Garon Whited

  I tried to explain to Bob what I was trying to do, but the best I could do was fall back on the idea of homunculi and flesh golems.

  “Look, until I can get those perfected, I don’t want to try making a whole new elf. I think I stand a good chance of getting a copy of you, but combining, mixing and matching traits from you and from another elf, that’s more complicated.”

  “But, Dread Lord,” he said, looking puzzled, “what other traits are there?”

  “You know. It’s like crossing two humans. Height, eye color, hair color, skin color, bone structure, all that stuff.”

  “But we are all alike,” Bob told me. “What good will it do to… mix?… me with another First Elf?”

  “You mean to tell me you’re all the same height, same shape, same everything?”

  “Indeed. Our race was created, all of us at once, as servants to Rendu.”

  My response consisted of one syllable and was completely impossible for a First Elf. Bob couldn’t have understood it, but my tone was sharp and unpleasant and apparently quite frightening.

  “Fine,” I said, massaging my forehead. “And get up. I’m obviously not going to need another of the First Elves, then. I do need a bit of flesh, however, so I can make a homunculus, a golem, a copy of you—hopefully a better copy than the human-elf hybrids.”

  “Then, it will not be me?”

  “No, not you. It will be an independent entity, a copy of your flesh—like another First Elf. Not you, in the sense of another Bob. Just a very young replacement elf.”

  “You comfort me,” Bob admitted. “I harbored a grave concern regarding your earlier implications of this project.”

  “Yeah, we had a bit of a miscommunication, there. Sorry about that. But once I get it perfected, I can start producing infant elves for you to raise and start producing empty adult elves to keep the immortality-seeking magicians happy.”

  “Is that wise, Dread Lord?” Bob asked, rising from his position on the floor like the bloom of some dark flower. “If they seek immortality through the same process as your magician, will they not seek you out?”

  “I hope not. I’m hoping to hand the job over to Beltar, maybe Seldar, possibly even T’yl. Whoever winds up with it can manage it. Then the magicians don’t have an excuse to go hunting after my blood or go hunting after elves.”

  “Interesting,” he agreed. “Will you be able to meet the demand of the magicians who will clamor for their turn?”

  “Time,” I said. “Time is always the issue. Given time, I’m sure I can, but I need that time—without running a kingdom, without being chased by angry magi, without worries about my Tort, without fighting over politics and religion, without—nevermind. Just hold out your arm and I’ll draw a sample with a spell.”

  Bob did as instructed. I used a variation on my flesh-welding spell to take the sample. I folded some skin inward, around a bit of muscle and blood, forming it into a narrow tube and separating it from his body. This became a bit of skin-covered flesh about the size of a fat toothpick. I added a healing spell, localized and directed to encourage his body to regenerate the missing mass.

  “There. That didn’t hurt a bit, did it?”

  “It was less painful than I expected, but not entirely painless.”

  “Oh? Hmm. I thought I did it more skillfully than that. Sorry.”

  “Think nothing of it.”

  I opened my ring gate again and looked through. Sure enough, wherever the other ring gate was, it was definitely placed over the mouth of some sort of container. I fed the narrow tube of elf-flesh through the ring gate, watched it drop to the bottom, and closed the gate.

  Now we’ll see how Diogenes does with a Grow Your Own Elf kit. Well, not now, but soon.

  “Thanks, Bob. I’ll see what sort of results develop.”

  “Of course, Dread Lord,” he relied, bowing smoothly.

  “And please don’t use that mode of address around any of the nobles. Better yet, not in Carrillon.”

  “Of course, Your Majesty.”

  “Thanks. By the way, what do you think of Lissette as a ruling Queen?”

  “I think she has excellent instincts and has developed some skill in her brief tenure as queen to the Demon King.”

  “Do you think she can hack it as Queen without the Demon King to back her up?”

  “No.”

  “No?”

  “No. The nobility fear the Demon King, but they do not fear her. They despise her for being a woman and resent her being placed over them by the Demon King. They would tear her from the throne as they fought over it. Her head would wear the crown only until her head came off her shoulders, and that, too, would be fought over.”

  I had to admire the way he snapped out the answer. I had no doubt he was largely correct. On the other hand, if he’s that sharp a politician…

  “Any ideas on how to put her firmly on the throne and the crown firmly on her head? And keep both in place?” I asked. Bob started to answer, paused, thought for a moment.

  “At first, I thought not,” he admitted. “But… possibly.”

  “Good. Go talk to her in the morning at her earliest convenience and explain this portion of the conversation to her. Then give her whatever help she’ll accept.”

  “As part and parcel of your instructions regarding my overwatch of your kingdom?”

  “Yes.”

  “As you wish, Your Majesty,” he repeated, bowing again. I had a grey sash show him out.

  My meeting with Bob reminded me, however, of my intention to attempt a scrying on the moon. Since it was rather late for impromptu meetings with most humans, I decided to go ahead and take a shot at the moon. My guards and I found our way up to a courtyard and I fished out a pocket mirror.

  The spell failed, of course. I was still inside the protective spells preventing scrying and similar effects around the palace. Grumpily, I took a walk outside the walls and down the road a bit.

  Carrillon needs better gutters and sidewalks, at minimum. It could really use more extensive underground sewers. If I were staying, I’d see to it. As it was, I ignored these minor inconveniences. I’d have a word with the mountain later about better rules for the sanitation of cities.

  Once outside the area of the protective spells, I looked up at the moon, eyeballing it for distance and any identifying features. I picked out some geometric figures in the lighted area, some lines and angles with a few curves. Not happy with that, I conjured some air-refraction lenses and had them hover above me, forming a basic telescope. With some magnification, I had a much better look at the moon.

  The damn thing was practically covered in designs. I wasn’t sure what they were—labyrinths, streets, or just abstract shapes. Nevertheless, they were everywhere, covering everything I could see.

  As an interesting note, the darkened area of the moon was no clearer to me. While the telescope magnified the image, it operated using light. It didn’t help with my vampire night-vision, just with the illuminated areas.

  Come to that, I didn’t see a source of illumination for the moon, either. Since the sun literally goes out every night, rather than circling under the world, where did the light come from? Was it a light source I couldn’t see? Something directional, like an orbiting spotlight? Or did the moon generate its own light on a regular cycle?

  Strangely, I didn’t mind this evidence of the world being screwy. I guess when you find out the flat world has a light in the sky that actually gets lit every morning and blown out at night, a little thing like a self-illuminating moon doesn’t matter so much.

  Judging the distance by eye, I thought I had a pretty good chance of parking a scrying sensor darn close if not spot-on. I held up my mirror, aimed it at the moon, and watched as the image shimmered and shifted. It was an overhead view of the moon, as though I were at high altitude, looking down at it, and I wasted no time zooming in on it. My viewpoint dived for the surface of the world like a meteor, right up until it hit something. Whatever it was, it did
n’t like scrying sensors; the image flared blue and vanished.

  A firmament, perhaps? The one around the world didn’t zap scrying sensors, just turned them off without fanfare. Rendu’s personal property, on the other hand, might have something a bit more drastic.

  Fair enough. Through the mirror, I had a good look at the moon at a much closer virtual range. I shot for the moon again, aiming even closer. If I could get a scrying sensor inside the barrier of the lunar firmament, I shouldn’t have any trouble.

  Whatever Rendu used on his private world, he meant the world to stay private. I parked my scrying sensor quite close to the moon, I feel certain, but it instantly blazed with a bright blue light, the color in the heart of a glacier, and the spell ended abruptly.

  This was troublesome. I could try to open a gate to the moon the same way I tried to open a scrying window, but it would take a lot more power. It was also subject to much nastier consequences. If I miss the moon, I still have an open gate. In such a case, an open gate into the endless void makes a tempting doorway for the hungrier Things living there.

  I think it more likely, however, the effect of the defensive field around the moon extends to gateways as well as scrying. What would happen if the gate tried to open inside the defense field? Would it merely shine a blue light? Or would an even more unpleasant effect be translated through the gate to chastise the person with the chutzpah to make such an attempt?

  I put the mirror away and strolled back into the palace, quite thoughtful.

  How do you get to the moon if you can’t teleport? Because that’s what a gate does, really. It opens a portal between two points, it changes the geometry of spacetime—usually—and allows you to move from one point to another without crossing all the normal intervening space. Teleportation portals. At least, the basic gates do. The more complicated ones go from one universe to another, and while it’s similar in theory, it’s much more complicated in practice.

  But back to my original question. How do you get to the moon without teleporting? Fly? I haven’t done the triangulation on the moon, so I don’t know how far away it is. That might be practical… if you could fly there during the day. Flying there at night is asking for hungry Things to snatch you right off your flying carpet.

  Rockets? Let’s not be silly. Even if I imported an Acme Moon Rocket Kit, getting there and back would be a job for professional astronauts, complete with ground crews, flight crews, radar tracking—the list goes on and on. A moon shot is more than just firing off a rocket and hoping your aim is good.

  Come to that, what are the conditions beyond the firmament? I’ve sort of been there. In a way. First time, I was chucked out of the world by an angry, demon-possessed priest. Not exactly ideal conditions for making detailed observations. What I mostly remember are the teeth.

  More recently, during my escape from Johann and the resulting premature journey through a gate wormhole, I saw a lot of Things as I went swirly-flush down the twisted rabbit hole, but that may not have any bearing on what’s out there. What I saw during the trip could be an inter-universal weirdness, not a local one. The local weirdness is generally hungry and prepared to do something about it.

  I need to go to Zirafel, build a bridge over the Edge of the World, and stick some probes into whatever lies beyond. Then I can start thinking about how to cross the hungry void.

  It’s either that, or find one of the First Dragons Bob mentioned. Maybe I can hitch a ride.

  I think I’ll poke the hungry void. It sounds safer.

  Which only left me with the question of what to do with the rest of the night. I suppose I could have slept, had a nightmare of prophecy, and been confused about what it all meant, but I didn’t feel comfortable sleeping in the former home of the Demon King. Almost everyone still thought of me as the Demon King. It seemed like a bad idea to be unconscious.

  How do dead vampires cope, I wonder? Spending all day comatose seems… I don’t know. Impossible, maybe. It certainly seems to be a recipe for a very brief immortality.

  I could send for someone and do some arguing, intimidating, persuading, and threatening—sort of get a head start on tomorrow. It was in character for the Demon King, yes, to have people dragged from their beds and hauled into his presence, but I’m hoping to have a civilized organizational meeting, not a bunch of surly, tired, grumpy people saying whatever they have to in order to get back to home and bed.

  I could fool around with the hatch to my undermind, but that’s probably a bad idea in general.

  Well, there’s always some enchantment work. I’ve been meaning to assemble a disguise and turn it into an enchantment. Changing my skin from a dark grey to flesh tones is the most obvious one, of course, but it’s easy. The tough disguise spell is the complex and reactive illusion—illusions, really; one for each eye—to give my eyes pupils, irises, sclera, and so forth. Routinely having normal-looking eyes would be a great start.

  I rang for a servant and he fetched me a selection of rings. I took a pair and thanked him. The rings I chose were of the same design, only with different stones. They were both wide bands of gold with three tiny gems evenly spaced, embedded in the outer face of the gold. One had rubies, the other had sapphires. I liked them because each gem could contain a single enchantment function without too much trouble.

  The ruby ring could hold a disguise spell for my face and skin, maybe a cleaning spell in another ruby for my twice-daily hygiene needs, even a mental defense enchantment—my brain-bunker spell, only more permanent.

  The sapphire ring could have a duplicate of my Ring of Obfuscation tucked away in a gemstone, possibly upgraded with a few minor tweaks. As long as I have room, what else should I put in it? A magic jet, sucking in power for rapid recharge in low-magic worlds? Or would that interfere with my own spellcasting? How about a healing spell, charged and ready to go, much like the ring the Demon King had? Or a deflection spell, for pesky projectiles? Or could I duplicate the enchantment on the amulet?

  Interesting dilemma. Given that you can have a magic ring, what magic ring do you want? Within limits, of course. I don’t have a genie to bind into a ring so it can grant wishes, nor do I know how to make a ring to bring the wearer “good luck.” I’ve eaten enough magicians to know these things can definitely be done, but I have only a vague idea how to do it.

  On the other hand, “good luck” can be defined in many ways. Clouding an enemy’s perceptions so he makes a mistake would be lucky for me. Knowing someone is an enemy would be nice, too. Of course, I can look at someone’s soul at night and see what they’re feeling when they speak to me. It’s usually a fairly simple matter to detect hostility.

  Could I do something similar with a spell, and during the day? Rather than probing someone’s living essence, could I set up a spell-based receiver to detect any hostile intentions? If someone is thinking of stabbing me in the back—literally or figuratively—they’re radiating the equivalent of telepathic waves. If I can isolate those and set up a detection matrix, I could have a ring of hostile intent detection. Handy if an assassin is about to poke me in the heart, but also useful when a smiling baron is assuring me of his support. This could be worthwhile… eventually.

  If I had a week to research it properly, I’d be on it like melted cheese on a burger. As it is, the spells I do know are going to take time to enchant. I should get those done so they’re operating and useful before I start fooling with more research.

  Let’s see how far I get before someone interrupts me. Or dawn, whichever comes first.

  Friday, March 12th

  Not as far as I’d like.

  I did try building a jet spell to draw in power for a ring. Having a magical power intake attached to your hands, constantly disrupting the normal flow of magic around them, is a Very Bad Thing for your spellcasting. This might be acceptable as a rapid-charging method for someone who isn’t a wizard. It can’t interfere with your spellcasting if you don’t do any. Putting a magic jet intake on a ring is similar to wearing s
piked gauntlets while using a potter’s wheel. The cookie jar you’re shooting for is going to wind up as an ugly ashtray. It doesn’t interfere with the verbal spellcasting, but chanting is usually a support function in spell construction, not the primary method!

  At least the enchantment in the metal of the rings went well. It’s a repair spell to keep the ring from suffering too much wear and tear. Once I had it working, I started on a mental defense enchantment and realized I had a problem. I do a lot of things in a psychic mode. I talk to Firebrand, I sometimes have dreams, and even some of my spells involve direct mental activity. Blocking it completely would be troublesome.

  Worse, it would be useless against the things I was really concerned about. I wrap tendrils through someone and they immediately have a direct link straight through to me. While it’s true they’re generally busy being sucked into the afterlife, there are obviously exceptions. I don’t want to grab something with a tendril and find someone is using it as a highway into my head.

  This will require more thought on my part. In the meantime, I’ll muddle through with the collection of mental defense spells I call my brain-bunker. As spells, they’re tied into my thoughts, sort of, and can be controlled almost instinctively—kind of like your eyelids. A bright light hits your eyes, the eyelids snap shut. Dust and wind? Ditto. You can override them to squint, if you need to, but they act automatically if you don’t do anything to countermand them.

  Enchanting my mental defense spells into an object is slightly different. They don’t respond as readily to mental controls because they’re based inside an object rather than linked to the thought processes they defend. It’s tricky, this psychic stuff. The enchantment also won’t respond well to my psychic tendrils—a serious drawback. Figuring out a way to let me work through my own enchanted shields will be a major project. Until then, I’ll have to stick to spells.

  At least I got the simple things done. My Ring of Hygiene and Variable Skin Tone was a going concern before I was through. As I worked on the skin-changing illusion, I realized the complexity of the eyeball illusion was going to make it unreasonably difficult to fit it in the same gem as the skin changer. I put the eyeballs on hold and sidetracked a bit, adding my spells for dialing down my sensory sensitivity. With it, I might be able to actually enjoy food on a regular basis instead of just shoveling it down as fuel. I might also manage to cope with loud, flashy environments—I remember wandering into a rave and wanting to kill everything in the room just to make it quiet. Now I have a ring to handle all of those minor problems. I’ll need to put my eyeball illusion in something else.