“It wasn’t principal or fanaticism that brought her to their side,” Aeratas recounted. “It was anger and arrogance. She felt it was the right of her kindred to explore such researches. She was unwilling to sully the name she’d worked so hard to establish, but she bridled against the edict as unfair and irresponsible. Korbal recruited her as Ketelen and she worked for him for a few years, before his capture. She was sentenced to entombment, just as his more devout followers were.”
“I doubt she accepted that gracefully,” Lilastien said, shaking her head.
“She didn’t have much choice,” Aeratas said. “She rebelled. She faced the consequences. Surely you can appreciate that, Elre?”
“None better!” she replied, proudly, to the Alkan lord. “But if Umen has been brought back to existence – and she’s pissed off – we may have more troubles than we anticipated.”
“Who is this Umen person?” Sire Cei asked, frustrated by the discussion.
“She’s . . . she’s me, me from an earlier age,” Lilastien said. “That is, she was a great master at the art of transgenics. Perhaps the greatest master, before she . . . in any case,” she said, collecting her thoughts, “she was brilliant. She could design genomic expressions the way the Tal Alon can whistle.”
“They can whistle?” I asked, surprised. She made a face, as if I was a barbarian.
“If Korbal has her in his service, I shudder to think what kind of host body she might design for him,” she said, shaking her head. “Especially if she’s pissed off. Umen’s spitefulness was legendary.”
“How do you think she’d react to a couple of centuries trapped in a cave?” I asked.
“Without Elre’s graciousness,” Aeratas said, shaking his head. “All of the Nemovorti in Korbal’s court are likely to be as resentful. Many were scholars or mere ideologues, not true renegades. They may well consider their punishment severe, considering their crimes.”
“Well, she’s got a wondrous palette with which to work,” Lilastien conceded. “I’m assuming that the Nemovorti, once they perfected their necromantic transfer, found humanity an ideal testing ground for all of their twisted theories. Using these as models, Umen cannot fail to indulge her whimsy in her art, unrestricted by censure or propriety.”
“Best we slay them before they can be so foully used!” Sire Cei said, drawing his sword.
“Hold on there, Dragonslayer!” Sandoval quickly declared, standing in front of his comatose friend. “Their minds are imprisoned, but they are not yet destroyed. They can be rescued,” he insisted.
“We are not situated as a rescue party,” Lord Aeratas observed.
“Neither are we executioners,” Lilastien agreed. “Besides, there are better candidates for your blade nearby than these unfortunates,” she said, gesturing to the humans.
“Poinolah!” Onranion exclaimed, in his native language. “We’d best not slay them – this Alkan is Rajuath! Songmaster of the Misty clans! I’d stake a hogshead of wine on it!”
“rajah?” Aeratas asked, in disbelief. “Impossible!”
“I know him,” Onranion said, with fondness. “We were to meet at the Aslorath refuge on Lake Timmeron, before the invasion began. What in the realms of light and darkness is he doing, here?”
“Languishing,” suggested Mavone. “Why cannot this be Rajuath?” he asked Lord Aeratas. The high lord straightened his shoulders and peered at the immobilized form.
“Because Rajuath, by all accounts, was at Amergin when the invasion arrived. He was never accounted among the survivors,” he explained, quietly. “It was thought that he perished at the side of the Aronin, as they were great friends. Their houses were closely allied.”
“That is disturbing,” I agreed. I studied the face of the Alkan, and tried to affix it in my memory. Perhaps some time with a Memory Stone might allow me to confirm his identity.
Then I realized how silly that was. He was an Alka Alon chained in this dreadful dungeon. I didn’t really need to see his pedigree to decide to rescue him.
“What about this one?” asked Hance, gesturing gracefully to the other Alkan – a female.
“She, I do not know,” confessed Onranion, as he peered at the diminutive maid. Or crone. I still have a hard time judging such things in the Alka Alon’s original forms.
“Well, let’s wake her up and ask her, shall we?” suggested Lilastien. “Indeed, let us wake them all!”
“Can it be done?” Sire Cei asked, sheathing his sword, finally.
“Oh, yes,” Lilastien agreed, removing a few items from the bag she carried over her shoulder. “It’s just a light stasis, not much more than that Blue Magic trickery your folk are so fond of,” she explained as she fiddled with her . . . whatever they were. “True, it’s necromantic in function, but the basic spell architecture is the same. Just significantly increased, a function of the scalability of the songspell.”
“You’re certain?” Sandoval asked, looking at his friend’s stone like face with concern.
“Well, yes,” Lilastien said, reluctantly. “I’ve . . . I’ve used a variation of the songspell, myself.”
There was a moment of expectant silence as we all stared at her. She snorted, defensively. “Don’t look at me that way! Magic is amoral. Spells that can be used to kill can be used to cure. There’s nothing particularly evil about this, it’s just a biological stasis field. It keeps animals quiet when you’re operating on them,” she explained.
That made sense. To me. Lord Aeratas continued to look skeptical. He might not have been the only one.
“Oh, don’t be so judgmental! Do I look like I have an army of undead slaves hiding at the Tower of Refuge? You’ve been there! Don’t you think the place would be a hell of a lot neater? I’m a medic, not a necromancer!”
“You’re a rebel, Elre,” Aeratas pronounced.
“A rebel on parole, in the middle of a vital mission,” I reminded her. “And possibly within moments of being apprehended. Can we conclude this verbal duel some other time?” I proposed.
“I concur with our captain, good Scholars,” Hance said, lightly. “From my experience, I’d say that this door has the best likelihood of leading to the undercaverns. On account of the multitude of stairs going down on the other side.”
“That is where the entrance would be,” conceded Aeratas. “Damn them! They must have built this, this manufactory of abominations over the ruins of the Hall of Memory. That’s as close to blasphemy as my people can manage,” he said, a dire tone in his voice.
“But . . . this door is allayed with a sign,” Onranion pointed out, waving his hand in front of it and singing a few words. A pale blue Alkan glyph appeared.
“What does it say?”
“Our language indicates, with layers of inference and context, a particular meaning,” Onranion lectured. “Our symbols don’t merely ‘say’, they truly inform. But only those who understand those subtle contexts, those who can make the proper inferences of meaning – and all of the possible shades of that meaning.”
“So what subtle concept does this particular glyph indicate?” asked Mavone, studying the squiggly blue line dancing in the air.
“‘To the Dungeon,’” supplied Lilastien, with a snicker.
“And the context?” prompted Hance.
“Uh . . . ‘this way to the dungeon? It’s down these stairs?’” suggested Mavone.
“More or less,” Onranion shrugged.
“Why would they put a dungeon in such close proximity to a . . . oh,” Sire Cei said, mentally answering his own question. “They use their prisoners for hosts for their foul transformations,” he guessed.
“Or worse,” agreed Lilastien, shaking her head, sadly. “Korbal was a great necromancer. But his minions explored all manner of dark and forbidden sorceries, using their twisted ideologies to justify their crimes. I fear that we have yet to see the worst of what the Enshadowed have been working on.”
“Can we please free these people?” Sandoval nearly begged.
“I find it disconcerting to discuss mundane matters in front of them while they suffer!”
“These are no mundane matters,” Lilastien insisted. “Some of the schemes the Enshadowed indulged in were worse than genocidal.”
“How could anything be worse than genocide?” Mavone asked.
“Please!” Sandoval said, impatiently. “The prisoners!”
“Oh, fine, fine,” Lilastien sighed. “Onranion, if you would perform the aliamathna?”
“That old thing? I suppose it would work,” he shrugged. “If you gentlemen will assist with the restraints, I shall wake our sleepers from their troubled slumbers.” He cleared his throat before beginning a short, but elaborate tune; I don’t know if he sang words or was making up nonsense, but I could feel the magic rise as his notes filled the dismal room.
It took a few moments to have an effect, time Mavone, Cei and Sandy used to break the thin steel chains that kept the bodies anchored to the walls of their galleries. One by one, the captives shuddered as life returned to their docile limbs. Their faces slowly contorted into expressions of longing, suffering, or great relief. And one by one they fell to the floor as control over their own bodies came back.
“Andra!” Sandy called, as he helped his naked friend slowly to her knees. He quickly covered her with his mantle, which her fingers blindly clutched around her. “Andra! It’s Sandoval! Andra! Can you understand me?”
Onranion was taking a more Alkan approach with his comrade, scooping up his small body and cradling it like a babe while he sang what I guessed was a restorative songspell to him.
“S-sandy?” Andra asked, first. She blinked her eyes, as if she were just regaining the use of them – and the ability to recognized and connect with what she was seeing. “Are you another dream?”
“Unfortunately, I am corporate and real, else I’d be far handsomer and better dressed,” the sandy-haired mage grinned. “Can I get you something? Water?”
She considered a moment, her head shaking. She took a deep breath and shuddered, exercising great will to establish control. Her voice cracked as she spoke, and her long, thin fingers grasped his leather vambrace. Her eyes opened wide, and with a terrified insistence her gaze bore into his, like an animal’s.
“Get . . . me . . . the hells out of here!” she pleaded, with such visceral need that it tore at my sympathies. What horrors she must have witnessed, what hellish torture she must have endured, I could only imagine. I have a very good imagination. I shuddered, myself, and the Magolith throbbed in response.
“Bide!” Mavone insisted, holding up a gloved hand. “My lady, I wish to rescue you nearly as much as you wish to be rescued, but we have an urgent matter at hand: we wish to know if you have intelligence on our enemy, Korbal the Necromancer, and his lackeys. It is our aim to challenge his plans, and any word you could lend to that effort would be graciously appreciated.”
Mavone always knows what to say. Damned Gilmorans.
“They . . . dear gods, they were going to replace me! Burn out my soul, and stuff one of their folk inside my body! I saw them do it to the others, dozens of others, Sandy. It was horrible. They scream in agony, for hours and hours, before they take. I had to watch it, I couldn’t look away, I couldn’t leave, I couldn’t move! It’s agony, it’s the cruelest torture, to be stripped of your very identity, your soul, and feel it replaced with another. Pain, unimaginable pain. And then . . . the things they put in their bodies, Sandy, the horrible, nasty things . . .”
“They are the necromantic remnants of a group of Alka Alon known as the Enshadowed,” I explained. “When they . . . arise in such bodies, they are called the Nemovorti. They seek immortality, and power over the realms of Alkans and man, alike.”
“I know the Nemovorti,” Andra gasped, shaking her head. “The filthy walking corpses took me – me! Right from my shop! The Nemovorti are vile,” she agreed, “but they are not so fearsome. Mere Alkan souls. What they put in their Alkan hosts, save a few they reserve for some other purpose, is . . . they are not Alka Alon!” she said. “They are some awful creature who . . . or the ones that . . . dear gods,” she said, with a shudder that shook her entire body. “Get me away from this place!”
“I can speak to more,” one of the bearded men said in a shaky voice. “I am Jareff of Rowe. A hedgemage,” he added, without fear of scorn. “When I could, I listened, just to keep from going mad. The bastards are . . . they’re building an army!”
“They have armies,” Hance pointed out, helping the man over to the table in the center of the room. “They have great whopping armies. Goblins, hobgoblins, draugen—”
“Nay,” he insisted. “They raise armies of the ancient dead. Dredged from some hellish grotto in the depths of this horrid place.”
“Well, that doesn’t sound good,” Hance pointed out.
Onranion’s low humming began to awaken the little Alkan friend, while Lilastien tended to the female. The rest of the prisoners struggled awake on their own, calming and comforting each other, assuring themselves that they were being rescued, finally.
“It’s not,” agreed Jareff, a grim expression on his fuzzy face. “We were to be used to make more of those yellow-eyed freaks,” he said, angrily. “We were to be . . . pretty, compared to those horrors. Then we would be sent to villages and towns to prepare them for . . . for their advance,” he said, swallowing.
“But the real monsters, those they had below,” he said, nodding toward the door to the stairs. “That’s where the worst ones were. They were making . . . special bodies. For special parasites. They’ve got a whole crew of them, downstairs. Each one worth an army, to hear them tell it. Once we – our replacements, if you take my meaning – once we were in place and had prepared the way, then they would summon those beasts to slay.”
Onranion began speaking softly to his friend, who obliged with a reply in the creakiest voice I’ve ever heard come out of an Alkan, little or big. It sounded like the cheapest tin bell ever made.
But whatever he said got the songmaster’s attention. He looked up, startled.
“Min, they’ve . . . there’s a problem,” he began. “My friend here, he’s telling me . . . well, he says that Korbal is using the Alkan prisoners he has as hosts!”
“We’ve established that,” Mavone agreed.
“Not for the Enshadowed!” he insisted. “They’re using the Alkans for hosts for some of the ancients from the Ghost Rock. The ancestors of the Vundel!”
“This, too, is well-established,” Mavone nodded.
“Not for fighting,” Onranion tried to explain. “They are using them as sacrifices. The Alka Alon system can accommodate far greater enneagramatic capacity than a mere human,” he said, without trying to be insulting. “They cannot bear the imprint from the ancient enneagrams long, before their bodies start to decay, but long enough to be taken to the sacrificial stone.”
“But why use them? Wouldn’t a regular Alkan do?” Mavone asked. I thought it was a little insensitive, but then Mavone could manage that with more grace than most.
Onranion relayed the question to his friend, whose color seemed to be returning. The little fellow thought for a moment, before answering back. It was a long answer.
“Because the necromantic energy resulting from sacrificing such monstrosities feeds both the power and the structure of the Umbric field far more than mere Alka Alon,” he explained. “Orders of magnitude more.”
“That would explain its recent increase,” nodded Sandoval, as he rubbed Andra’s shoulders.
“They needn’t use monsters for such purpose,” Lord Aeratas said, speaking for the first time. “There are many fantastic creatures from Callidore’s remote past, stored within the Ghost Rock. Many are peaceful. And brilliantly complex.”
“The victims don’t live very long, I’m afraid,” agreed Onranion, after further discussion. “More like livestock, than prisoners, I suppose.”
“Oh, the monsters are quite real,” Lilastien said, as she broke her c
onversation with the younger female. “This is Drathalia, a maid responsible for alonut trees. Despite her lowly position, she has a keen mind and paid careful attention to the songs of lore.
“She tells me that there are horrific bodies down those stairs, and the souls of the ancient damned to fill them. But they are not designed to fight humani. Nay, not even your gods. Or even Alka Alon.
“They’re meant to slay the Vundel,” she said, with desperate sadness.
While Lilastien’s baleful words hung in the air and shivered our souls, Pentandra chose to contact me, mind-to-mind.
Min! Good news! she announced.
I could use some, right now.
Princess Rardine and six other prisoners have safely arrived! His Grace and Sir Gydion and two knights also came through!
Yeah, that’s great news, I agreed. We’ve made our way to the entrance of the undercaverns. Can you be ready to receive more prisoners?
More prisoners?
Korbal apparently keeps several collections. We found sixteen humans and a couple of Alka Alon down here, and Sandy wants us to get them out.
I’ll have the staff prepare a welcome, she promised. Any problems?
One cantankerous Nemovort and a squadron of draugen. Apart from that it’s been quiet. How fares the battle elsewhere?
Well, she said, after a pause. It’s evolving more quickly than I anticipated, though. Azar’s group has been highly successful in setting the western end of the island on fire, she reported. The Tera Alon brigade has broken through the southern defenses, and the Kasari are spreading out to make mischief. Dara and the Sky Riders are raining down magical death and destruction from above. Terleman wants to lead a squadron in support of Tyndal and Rondal, and the other Estasi Knights.
What? Why didn’t they escape with the Duke and the Princess?
They went back. Atopol and Tyndal were engaged, and Rondal and Noutha went back to assist. They want to destroy as much of the Tower of Despair as they can. And Tyndal thinks he’s discovered something.
Tyndal always thinks he’s discovered something! I fumed.
Necromancer: Book Ten Of The Spellmonger Series Page 47
