But there was plenty on the ground to capture one’s attention, if you knew what to look for. Leaving aside the battles that raged, and looking toward the rest of the island in the gloom seemed counter-intuitive, but then Rondal had been knighted for accurate field observations. It only took a few moments for Rondal to assess the various developments underway around him below to tell him the story of Korbal’s ambitions.
“That’s what I was afraid of,” he sighed, as he surveyed the island’s eastern quarter. “See that large square that they’re clearing? And that deep pit within? The channel being dug will allow it to void to the lake. That’s where I would put an alchemical facility, if I was to build one here.”
“Alchemy?” Atopol asked, skeptically. “I thought these fellows were necromancers?”
“It’s a multi-disciplinary fellowship, from what I understand,” Rondal suggested. “And that installation they’re building over there? That’s going to be a smelter, with a mill attached. Which makes that next bit, there, the site of their smithies . . . and that’s a lot of territory they’ve staked out,” he said, shaking his head in disbelief.
“So . . . they’re planning a robust industrial enterprise?” Atopol asked, his arms folded as he leaned casually against a rickety scaffolding.
“Essentially,” Rondal nodded, as he continued his assessment. It was time to improve his vantage, he realized. He pulled his thaumaturgical baculus out of its hoxter pocket to aid in the effort, and was immediately gratified by the wealth of information it provided.
“Yes, it will be a robust enterprise,” he concluded a moment later. “That has to be an enchantment complex. There’s a convergence of natural arcane force lines there, and someone has begun twisting them into a usable font. I’m guessing the space between the two will be devoted to workshops and such . . . hells, it’s essentially just like the bouleuterion in the Enchanter’s Quarter of Sevendor!”
“Only without all of the touristy taverns and quaint little shops,” Atopol agreed, clearly indulging his friend.
“Don’t worry, they’ll come,” Rondal said, grimly. “All they’d need is a distribution system,” he decided. “Being this remote gives you security and privacy, but how do you . . . oh . . . of course!” he said, as he realized the truth.
“What?” demanded Atopol. “Tea shops? Tell me you don’t foresee tea shops!”
“No,” Rondal said, with a heavy sigh. “Sevendor Castle was raided by the Enshadowed awhile back – that’s where we captured Noutha. While it wasn’t entirely successful, the thieves came away with some minor stones from Master Minalan’s personal collection . . . including the smallest and least powerful of the three Pocket Stones,” he explained.
“So, they can make small things appear and disappear,” shrugged Atopol.
“You should really reconsider additional study in thaumaturgy,” Rondal suggested. “The hoxter pockets don’t just make things ‘appear and disappear’ – they allow access to a temporary ‘bubble’ between the structural spars of reality. Before the stones, a really good mage who knew what he was doing and had access to a lot of power could manage that for the briefest of times.
“But the stones allow us to do that more-or-less permanently, using the power of the ambient Magosphere to sustain the ongoing enchantment. It’s still a push to establish the initial framework, but once it’s done, it won’t degrade for a good long time – practically forever, especially if it’s done in Sevendor.”
“So, you’re upset over the potential coemption, after enjoying such a profitable monopoly?”
“The other great advantage of the Pocket Stones is that you can anchor multiple triggering enchantments to the same inter-dimensional space,” Rondal continued, patiently. “That’s how we fed the prisoners. The wand I carry is anchored to the same hoxter that is also tied to a wand in Timberwatch. One of Pentandra’s staff uses his wand to pop a bunch of biscuits inside, and then I use my wand, hundreds of miles away, to pull them forth here, where they arrive all warm and toasty.”
Atopol was starting to understand Rondal’s concern. “So, with the smallest Pocket Stone, Korbal can still move his war material from Olum Seheri to . . . well, pretty much anywhere . . . without the necessity of roads, wains, ships, or ports. That . . . that, my friend, is a depressing prospect,” Atopol agreed.
“Oh, it’s far worse than that,” Rondal said, putting away his baculus. “See, both sides can use the Ways to move people,” he reminded the thief. “We have an advantage, because of the Waystones. We can move our Waypoints around.”
“Which was lovely, until Korbal found a way to block them,” Atopol reflected.
“It surely was,” Rondal agreed. “The difference is that with the lesser Pocket Stone, Korbal can move his troops around, too. That’s something we cannot do.”
“Because it kills them,” nodded the Cat. “And it kills his . . . oh,” the white-haired youth realized, his lavender eyes sparkling. “The hoxters kill living things. Not previously-living things.”
“Exactly. Korbal has an incredible advantage in that he can move large numbers of his draugen, Nemovorti, and market-variety undead through them. All they need to do is re-energize them, once they arrive, and,” he paused, snapping his fingers and adding a modest exploding cantrip for theatrical effect, “instant army.”
Atopol turned and looked down on the slave pens, which Terleman’s company seemed about to liberate. “So those poor bastards down there are being worked to death . . . and then brought back and worked until they are almost ruined. When they can be tucked into a hoxter with a spear and used as shock troops, at a later date,” Atopol said, grimly. “All warm and toasty.”
“Korbal is using the slave trade in Enultramar to supply both his labor and his recruitment. His insurgency in Caramas and their attempts to infiltrated both the Brotherhood, which is facilitating the trade, and the rebel council, which is providing cover for it, support his supply conduit,” concluded Rondal, grimly.
“And one that is completely independent of the gurvani,” Atopol reminded him.
“I think that was the Enshadowed’s plan, all along,” reasoned Rondal, as he looked down from the spire of the Tower of Despair. “Use the gurvani’s argument with the Wilderlords over their sacred cave as a lever to invade the Wilderlands in force . . . after assisting the scrug shamans with constructing Sheruel.”
“That’s the part I don’t understand,” Atopol said, shaking his snowy head. “If they needed to conquer the Wilderlands, they didn’t exactly need such a . . . well, complicated figure to rally them around. Did they?”
“Where I grew up, the Goblin Wars were long ago and pretty conclusive. The scrugs were peaceful Mountain Folk. Some even traded with them – they met at what were called the Twilight Markets, and sometimes you could get really good deals with them.”
“They weren’t upset about the Goblin Wars?”
“Are you upset about Alshar losing Gilmora to Castal?” Rondal countered.
“That happened in my grandsire’s time,” shrugged Atopol.
“Exactly. The scrugs might have held a grudge, but they certainly didn’t act on it. But then I don’t think they raised a great army from the few tribes near Boval Vale.”
“My point is, why create a complicated monstrosity like Sheruel?” Atopol asked. “Would not a charismatic gurvan warrior-shaman, or something like that, be far easier to rally the troops?”
“Well, I suppose they did need him to activate the molopor in Boval,” Rondal pointed out. “And he’s responsible for the Umbra. And they couldn’t have frozen the Poros all the way up to here without massive amounts of continuous arcane power.”
“I suppose that would also be useful for animating a might army of undead, recently released from a hoxter pocket,” Atopol concluded.
“Among other unpleasant things,” Rondal nodded, feeling a little nauseated. “But you’re right: why use a brain-damaged gurvan head? Why not an Alkan? Why use a head at all, if y
ou have the ability to create irionite?”
“Well, from what I understand, you enchanters use artificial enneagrams to control your enchantments,” Atopol suggested. “I’m assuming that’s a time-consuming, laborious process. And that a freshly-harvested brainpan with at least reasonable amounts of intelligence – not to mention a certain fanatical bent, in his former life – might make an adequate substitute.”
“It would be a kind of functional paraclete,” admitted Rondal, trying to understand the thaumaturgy behind such a construct. “It would, indeed, be very difficult to construct an enneagram complex enough, autonomous enough, to do the job if you built it from scratch. Even if you used templates, it would be a chore. They just aren’t complex enough to use for more than simple tasks.
“But using the fresh brain of a complex creature would be adequate – or at least provide a semblance of autonomy. It just substitutes the neural architecture of the decapitated head for an intact enneagram . . . kind of a grisly way around the problem,” he conceded. “But it does solve some of the limitations of using a paraclete. I don’t know,” he sighed. “We just don’t have enough intelligence on them, yet. Just a basketful of intriguing questions.”
“Well, now I’m intrigued, and cats love baskets,” Atopol said, taking a glance around. “While the view is lovely, and the company enchanting, and the conversation about speculative thaumaturgy and necromancy is, truly, fascinating, I can’t help but feel we have more pressing matters to attend to. Still, a welcomed respite to this expedition’s concerns,” he said with a slight bow.
“So, did you come up with any insights how we can escape our situation?” Rondal asked, hopefully.
“Not unless you can enchant wings on us all,” sighed Atopol. “I can’t,” he added. “In fact, the greatest insight I’ve come to on our excursion is that, as the foremost thief in Alshar, I really cannot abide the idea that Korbal has a jewel he covets.”
Rondal halted his progress down the ladder. “You want to steal the Pocket Stone from Korbal?”
“It’s a bit of a challenge,” Atopol said, after a moment’s consideration, “but then it seems a rare prize, too. Not to mention bragging rights as the greatest thief of my house. Of all time,” he added, smugly.
Rondal rolled his eyes. “I’m so glad you are willing to put your obsessive paternal issues in service of the greater good,” he snorted.
“As you are staking your marital future on the outcome of this expedition, I feel it is the least I can do to make a contribution,” Atopol agreed.
“Thankfully, Duke Anguin is no closer to reigning in Falas than you are to lifting the Pocket Stone from Korbal’s nightstand,” Rondal chuckled, as they descended into the first of the fully-enclosed sections of the spire . . . some fifteen floors above the street.
“Never underestimate the Cats of Enultramar,” his friend said, in a dramatic tone. “We’ve yet to find a challenge we cannot best.”
Chapter Thirty-Five
Fallen Rider
Tyndal
The draugen that faced them was a spindly creature. Whomever owned the body before the new owner took residence had been long-limbed, and perhaps even stocky, but in undeath whatever spare flesh the body contained had long been consumed by the animation process.
What remained looked more like straps of twisted leather under the draugen’s ghastly skin. The gape-jawed expression and the bald head were crowned by the pale-glowing red eyes of the type. But it was large, clasping hands that concerned Tyndal. They weren’t moving like normal human hands. Indeed, they had some sort of artificial steel claws attached to them. The creature was running toward them, but was using its hands as well as its feet to propel itself forward at them.
Noutha didn’t spare the time to assess the threat – she raised her mageblade and thundered a blast of white-hot magic past Tyndal’s cheek and shoulder at the charging draugen. The shot missed, but it did cause the beast to alter its trajectory.
Tyndal reacted instinctively to the charge, throwing himself back while he drew his mageblade from over his shoulder. He felt the mass of the brute hit his shoulder just as the blade came free, and felt the blow from one of those claws on his armor.
Noutha didn’t let her first attack’s failure dissuade her. She met the draugen full-on, only failing to slice its right arm off at the shoulder when her sword became entangled in the left claw. But it did slice an ugly, jagged cut across the bare chest of the foe, leaving a trail of dark ichor to stain its horrific brands and tattoos.
There wasn’t room for Tyndal to bring his sword into play, but that didn’t limit his response. He saw a moment’s opportunity and kicked at the back of the creature’s sinewy knee. The heel of his heavy boot buckled the limb, unbalancing its attack on Noutha.
The nimble warmage didn’t waste the opportunity. She used her momentum to twist the trajectory of her blade, and managed to impale the spitting creature’s shoulder briefly to the floor. The draugen did not react to the wound with pain, he noted. It screamed hideously in frustration as it scrambled to free itself.
Fortunately, Noutha was already moving, as Tyndal got to his feet, narrowly avoiding the flailing legs of the beast. He conjured a withering blast from his mageblade against it as the warmage vaulted over the supine draugen, using her sword as a fulcrum. She nearly made it, too – until a well-timed strike by the flailing steel claws caught her leg and sent her sprawling into the wall . . . along with her sword.
If the draugen noticed his attack, it didn’t show it. That was dismaying, Tyndal thought. The warspell was powerful enough to incapacitate a half-dozen men, but the undead bastard shrugged it off like an unpleasant fart.
He didn’t have much time to react, even with his warmagic spells speeding his thoughts and movements. But when he found his body moving seemingly of its own accord, he elected to trust its judgement, and its predilection for survival. Without really thinking much about it, Tyndal flung his mageblade at the draugen, activating one of the enchantments he’d cast upon it as it left his hand.
The draugen barely reacted to the flying sword – and in a show of arrogance, instead of trying to block or dodge out of the path of the missile, it boldly pushed its wounded shoulder into its path, as if to taunt the mortals with its ability to endure damage without human pain.
Whether by luck or out of some inherent understanding of the nature of arrogance, Tyndal had chosen his warspell well. Less than a second after the slender leaf-shaped blade buried its point into the pallid shoulder of the creature, earning Tyndal a sneer of contempt, the enchantment activated, producing an explosion of pure concussive force. Whether or not it felt pain, even draugen were subject to the sacred laws of physical action and reaction.
The blast shook the entire floor, and part of that floor was unable to bear the force. A gaping hole spanning nearly the entire corridor opened up at the site of the blast. The draugen was blown back down the corridor to its end, narrowly avoiding Noutha.
It took a few moments for the dust to clear, and for the ringing sound to wane in his ears.
“My congratulations, Sir Hero,” Noutha said, sarcastically, as she pulled herself to her feet. “You managed to not kill us both with that clumsy spell. And you threw away your sword,” she added, with professional criticism.
“I abated the threat,” he countered, defensively.
“In the most inane way possible,” she said, disgusted.
“Believe me, I could have come up with worse,” Tyndal said, apologetically, as he stepped over the smoking hole to join his comrade. “I’m talented, that way. Shall we go finish him off?” he asked, drawing one of his favorite, most destructive warwands from his harness.
“I’ll lead,” Noutha said, with a sigh of resignation. “I’m the one who still has her sword.”
Once they’d ensured the rest of the floor was clear of further foes, they freed the few prisoners from their cells that they found. The floor was only partially occupied, it seemed, with several
empty cells that had either not been used, or had been used but briefly and were now vacant.
“I think we’ve found where they were keeping our Dradrien target,” Tyndal told Noutha, when he’d opened the last little cell. The walls were chalked with diagrams and numbers in a strange script. “That looks like the type of writing my three Dradrien vassals used,” he pointed out, sagely. “I haven’t seen any other sign of Alon Dradrien. This place would be torture to them, though,” he said, shaking his head.
“What do you mean?” asked Noutha.
“I don’t know much about the little guys, but when they were staying at Taragwen I noticed that they really, really don’t like heights,” he said, gesturing toward the wide window in the wall. Though it was secured with a well-fashioned iron grate, it still allowed an ample – and vertigo-inducing – view out over the island.
Noutha nodded. “That would be tortuous,” she agreed. “Like sticking me with a half-competent warmage who pauses his mission to reflect on something shiny!”
“Exactly,” Tyndal said, ignoring the jibe. “This bears out the idea that Uncle Suhi isn’t working here of his own free will.”
“You had doubts?” Noutha had become familiar with the three Dradrien prisoners rescued on their first foray to Olum Seheri when she was protecting them at Taragwen for a few weeks over the winter. “I thought they seemed pretty sincere.”
“Oh, I believe them – but the Dradrien have a long history of contending against the Alon Council, from what I understand. Several clans of them were essentially exiled, a thousand years or so, and they have a habit of throwing in their lot with the Enshadowed. My fellows insist it’s just a few bad clans . . . but then, they also admitted that they were amongst the most gifted in the craft of forging, too.”
Necromancer: Book Ten Of The Spellmonger Series Page 54
