Necromancer: Book Ten Of The Spellmonger Series
Page 63
I quietly examined them, each in turn. Two were empty, the rotting corpses of their previous inhabitants still lurking inside, their dead faces contorted in expressions of horror and despair. We were too deep for rats to have their way with them – we were likely too deep for flies and roaches, I reasoned. But the dry, stuffy air kept their corpses intact.
Alka Alon corpses.
Each of the remaining cells had a living prisoner within, though using the term “life” in regard to their conditions was a kindness, if not an overstatement. The three tiny inhabitants looked even thinner and emaciated than their usual slender forms. Their green hair was patchy and listless, caked in filth. Their eyes were dazed and rheumy, blinking mindlessly in the tiny light from my staff.
They’d been tortured, I could see. Tortured and neglected. For a very long time.
The first I examined was near death, staring blankly at the light, completely unresponsive. The second was a whimpering mess, curled up in one corner of the tiny cell babbling in his own language.
The third was the most disturbing of all. The poor creature within had seen his limbs crushed and allowed to set, badly. His hands and feet were shapeless masses of scars and bruises, his wrists and ankles marked with the abrasions of chains. There was a madness in his eye that was unearthly, when my magelight illuminated his drawn face.
I was overcome with compassion for the Alkan . . . and then I realized I recognized him.
It was the Aronin of Amadia.
“Aeratas!” I bellowed, the moment I understood who this was. “Aeratas! I need you!”
I didn’t know much about Alkan physiology, outside the apocrypha about the two clitori, but I knew he was in bad shape. And I knew I didn’t know how best to tend him.
“It’s . . . you,” the Aronin said, when his eyes managed to focus briefly on my face. His voice creaked like a rusty hinge. “The wizard.”
“Minalan,” I reminded him, as I tried to at least make the poor bastard comfortable. I folded up my mantle under his head, summoned a water bottle from a hoxter and held it to his lips. With his hands the way they were, he couldn’t manage to even grasp it. He dribbled badly, but swallowed gratefully.
“Oh, yes!” he creaked, when he paused. “Minalan! I remember you, now!”
Aeratas was at my side a moment later, a startled and then concerned expression on his face. He checked the condition of all three of the prisoners, but returned to the Aronin quickly. He had a silver flask in his hand, and helped the little guy get a few more swallows down.
“It’s herkulinen,” he explained, quietly, as the Aronin sipped the draught. “The essence of the herkulin nut.”
“Never heard of it,” I shrugged, not ready for a lesson in herbology. That didn’t deter Aeratas as he helped the Aronin sip.
“I’m surprised. One who is an ally of ours I was certain knew of the herkulin nut. You know my people’s fondness for trees . . .”
“You’re usually known as the Tree Folk, among mine,” I agreed, absently. The Aronin was starting to perk up, a little.
“The herkulin nut is essential for our health,” he assured me. “We grow it, in one variation or another, wherever we go.”
“I like a good berry pie, myself,” I nodded. Where was he going with this?
“I said the herkulin nut is essential for our health,” he reiterated, finally taking the flask away from the Aronin’s parched lips. “It is not a matter of preference. Within is a potent agent that promotes our ability to commune and concentrate, go beyond the limits of our own small minds and align our spirits with each other, and with the world at large. Without it,” he said, looking sympathetically at the cursed little creature in the dirt, “we go mad. We withdraw, mentally, and eventually we lose the ability to reason, to focus on reality at all.”
“Really?” I asked, suddenly interested. “You get all of that? From a simple nut?”
“There are many varieties, and the substance exists in lower proportions in other foods,” he admitted. “Temors, alonuts, bitterroots. But it is always present. It is the hallmark of Alka Alon society. Some of our lesser cousins consider it mere affectation, it is so ubiquitous in our culture. But it is actually vital, to us. Usually, a trace of it is sufficient,” he said, taking a sip of the elixir himself. “But we make such liquors as herkulinen for times in which our resources are challenged, for great journeys or as a restorative,” he said, nodding to the patient, as he put the flask away.
I had to admit, the transformation was remarkable. Sure, the Aronin was still wretched, a prisoner in his own tortured body . . . but there was a new awareness in his eyes, now. The familiar sense of self-possession I’d come to expect in the Alka Alon had returned to his face.
“Thank you!” he managed. “I am much restored. Spare a sip for my friends, if you would,” he suggested, nodding his shaggy head toward the other cells. “Poor Ardrey! Poor Rantheil! I’m afraid we are the last of those who were taken at Boval Vale. And I fear that not even good herkulinen will save us. But it will be a comfort to them, to have a taste in their mouths once again before they expire.”
Aeratas nodded, and went to do so. Me, I wanted answers to a thousand new questions.
“What happened?” I whispered. “Aronin, when last I saw you, I was certain you were dead! You and all your folk!”
“Would that we were,” the old Alkan said, coughing. “But the Abomination was cruel, and coveted the knowledge I had. He used our own spells upon us. He placed us in stasis, until his conquest was complete. Then he took us before the molopor, and . . .” his face twisted in torment, at the memory.
“What did he seek?” I asked.
“The arsenal,” he replied. “The ancient arsenal. All the weapons banned by the council, and surrendered from the old great houses. They are among the charges of my guardianship,” he explained. “They tried to force it from me. For years, they tried. Sheruel, himself, contested with me to compel it form my memory. But he failed!” he creaked, triumphantly. “They twisted my mind and memory, but I told them nothing. They beat my body and shattered my limbs, but I stayed faithful to my charge!” he said, weakly, but triumphantly.
“Your daughter!” I said, recalling the beautiful little Alkan maid.
“Ah, fair Ameras,” he sighed. “A pity I shall never see her again. She escaped Amadia,” he said, with great satisfaction. “Sheruel stormed the refuge, but she slipped away. Have you heard from her?” he asked, trying to sit up.
“Nay,” I sighed. “Indeed, her absence has caused much disturbance on the council. There have been rumors, but she has not emerged.”
“Nor will she, in such a time as this,” sighed the Aronin, as Aeratas returned. “Our line has strict instructions in how to conduct our ancient charge. When a crisis emerges, then her duty is to withdraw and protect the arsenal, above all other things.”
“His clan’s devotion to the task is legendary,” Lord Aeratas agreed. “They have guarded their charges for millennia. None but they know its location.”
“It occurs to me an ancient Alka Alon super-weapon would be handy, about now,” I pointed out. I didn’t want to be flippant around the Aronin, but what was the point of having an arsenal if you didn’t use it when you needed it?
“Those weapons are dangerous!” the Aronin countered. “They were placed where they are to still their power, but should they emerge they will pose a threat to all Callidore!” he insisted, trailing off into a cough.
“All weapons are dangerous, my friend,” Aeratas said, sympathetically. “Yet we have no choice in the matter. The Enshadowed have raised Korbal, and he has declared his sovereignty over the realm.”
“I know,” the Aronin whispered, in despair. “When Sheruel brought me here, I thought it was for sacrifice and more torment: to see the fair Anthatiel as shattered as my bones was grievous,” he said, overcome with the power of the emotion. “But no; I was not to be merely tormented with ruin. Or sacrificed, as he threatened so often.
“What are his plans, old friend?” Aeratas asked, grimly.
“No less than conquest of the realm, then the others,” the Aronin said, his rheumy eyes downcast. “Yet he knows he has an insufficiency of strength to accomplish that as his forces stand. He covets the arsenal so that he can seize power over the realms and, ultimately, make war on the Vundel, in revenge for his imprisonment. He blames their ultimatum for the council’s sentence on he and his followers, and he envisions a Callidore in which the Vundel are driven to extinction,” he pronounced.
“He would make war on the Vundel?” scoffed Aeratas. “That is madness! They have wiped greater races than ours from the face of this world! As potent as our ancient weapons were, at our height we were no match for the power of the Vundel.”
“The weapons are not to fight the Vundel, directly,” revealed the Aronin, with another bad cough. “They are a means to another end. While he tormented me, the fool bragged about his grand plans. They are madder than we ever imagined,” he said, shaking his head. “I learned far more than he suspected. He intends on challenging the Vundel, but not on his own strength. He seeks allies.”
“Allies, against the Sea Folk?” I snorted. “No one is crazy enough to make that bargain.”
“Even the Vundel have ancient enemies,” Aeratas countered darkly. “Though none on the face of Callidore would be so foolish as to interfere with them, there are creatures that exist below the face of Callidore. There they remain, exiled by the ancestors of the Vundel and entrapped in the Deeps,” he finished.
I nodded, feeling dazed. “The . . . Formless? That’s what Lilastien called them.”
“Elre? You released her?” the Aronin asked, curious.
“She was in our expedition, before we were separated,” I informed him. “I persuaded the council we needed her aid.”
“I always thought they were too harsh on her,” the Aronin offered. “But yes, Lilastien is correct. Korbal seeks the unthinkable: to release a power sufficient to lay waste to the mighty leviathans and their manifold children, so that they can never again threaten to expel the Alon from Callidore. It is a power he has little chance of communicating with, much less controlling . . . but he is willing to unleash a tempest, if it destroys his enemies.”
“Few among my people are even aware of the Formless,” Aeratas admitted. “It is a matter for deep study among the scholars and long policy among the rulers. Yet it is known that it took a power that is no longer living on Callidore to secure them in the first place – and even those ancient forces could not destroy the Formless, or expel them, but merely contained them in the Deeps.”
“How does he expect to challenge the Sea Folk, much less find a way to the Deeps?” I asked. “Your folk don’t even build ships!”
Most of the Alon are mistrustful of water, and treated bodies of water more like borders, not highways. While they built boats, of a sort, they did not build ships, nor did they travel by sea. At least not to my knowledge.
“No, but your people do, Minalan,” the Aronin pointed out. “Things have changed in the realm since Korbal and his sect were entombed. The humani arrived, and the world looks much different, now. When he assumed a human host, he began to appreciate the many different crafts of your species. Such as the use of ships. He is both repulsed and fascinated by you.”
“Something I can appreciate,” Lord Aeratas murmured.
“Korbal intends to use both your craft and your bodies. He sees you as an easy conquest, a resource he can consume without consequence. By dominating human society, he would be provided with the one thing he and the Enshadowed have always lacked: numbers. There are millions of humans in the Five Duchies. Millions more beyond. He aspires to conquer you all.”
“That might be more difficult than he imagines,” I said, taken aback. “And does that not contradict the gurvani’s genocidal plans for us?”
“The gurvani are but a tool of the Enshadowed,” Aeratas said, darkly. “I suspected their involvement from the moment I heard of the Abomination. The gurvani are a cunning folk,” he conceded, grudgingly, “but they have neither the lore nor the longevity to create irionite from scratch. It takes nearly a century,” he explained. “Under very specific conditions. Gurvani live no more than forty, fifty years.”
“The plot goes back centuries,” the Aronin sighed. “We have not time to discuss it all. The Enshadowed contrived to stir the gurvani, create the Abomination, and use it to capture the molopor, driving us away from its protection,” he added, sadly. “A common attack we could have withstood . . . but Sheruel is no common weapon.
“From thence they recovered their master and his elect from their tomb and dared to take fair Anthatiel in one stroke. Now they seek to spread their influence throughout the human lands. They used the gurvani to test you, before they contrived a plan to defeat you. They expect resistance. But they also expect a quick capitulation, due to your people’s disunity and squabbling.”
“Nor do they understand the humani gods, their unique capabilities, and how they might react to such a plan,” Aeratas pointed out.
“In their defense, not even the humani gods understand the humani gods,” I observed.
“If they recover the arsenal, then not even your gods will be of help,” the Aronin sighed. “Your people and mine will become slaves to Korbal’s rule. And then exterminated, if he is foolish enough to challenge the Vundel . . . or free the Formless.”
“So let’s keep him from discovering the arsenal,” I reasoned. “Your daughter is there, apparently . . . and you did not betray its location. Perhaps it might be time to reveal that to us?”
“I . . . I cannot,” confessed the Aronin. “Even that would betray my charge. But you are intelligent, after your kind, Minalan. You have the cunning to discover it, and then convince my daughter to open it on your behalf.”
“A hint might be helpful,” Lord Aeratas grumbled.
“It’s a matter of logic, really,” the Aronin said, apparently pleased with irritating Aeratas. “If one must hide an arsenal of magic from magical detection, there are a limited number places where that may be done securely,” he said, after a pause.
“That’s your hint?” I asked, feeling a little irritated, myself. I expected more. A vaguely-worded poem or ancient prophecy or snippet of lore. Something. But the tortured old Alkan was intent on being obscure.
I decided to goad him a little. “Any chance that the . . . Forsaken are nearby that arsenal?” I asked, fishing for information.
It only earned a faint chuckle. “Nay, Minalan. The arsenal is a legacy from our past. The Forsaken are a legacy of yours. They are no longer within this world, perhaps with a few exceptions. Look to your own history, if you seek them. Look to the prehistory of Callidore to seek the arsenal. The land itself will speak to you, if you have the wisdom to hear its tale.”
See what I mean? He was being obscure. On purpose. I wasn’t alone in thinking so, either. Lord Aeratas sniffed.
“Just like an Avalanti lore master!” he said, shaking his head. “Can you not acknowledge the great crisis we face, and relent in your charge for our cause?”
The Aronin sighed. “And you speak just like a Versaroti pragmatist – the same philosophy that has brought us to this place,” he reminded Aeratas, earning a wince.
Almost all the Enshadowed were from the Versaroti kindred, from what I knew. They were far on the fringe of Versaroti society, outcasts and fanatics whose devotion to their antiquated ideals of Alkan purity seemed to epitomize some of the conservative attitudes of the Avalanti. The more arboreally-minded Versaroti
rejected their extreme creed, nor were the nature-loving kindred welcome among the rebels, who saw them as culturally inferior. Apparently, they don’t like how obscure the bastards were, either.
“Forgive me, my friend,” the injured Alkan sighed. “My time is short – I’ve known that for some time,” he said, apologetically. “Your draughts and songs can restore me temporarily, but they cannot heal me or prolong my life. Korbal . . . damaged me,” he said, shivering at the memory. “I’ve persisted on behalf of my poor friends who accompanied me this far, but we are all doomed to die. I have clung to life because in death I may not be able to resist the power of the Necromancer. Now that you are here . . . but why are you here?” he asked, suddenly confused.
“We seek to commune with the Ghost Rock,” Aeratas said, “and prohibit Korbal from using it to his purpose.”
“I seek to find the enneagram of an ancient creature known to loremasters as a Handmaiden,” I added. “It’s a long story, but I think it might help cure my wife.”
“You . . . you entered this cursed pit to . . . to heal your mate?” the Aronin chuckled, despite himself. “Truly, you humani amaze me! There are few Alkans who are so devoted to their mate. One would assume that such a short-lived race would be less attached to their partners. Or perhaps it is an extension of the compulsion I laid upon you,” he said, casually.
I stopped. “I beg your pardon?”
“When you first visited Ameras, and I showed you the coming darkness, I placed a compulsion in your mind,” he informed me, calmly. “One that made you feel responsible for the protection of your people. The root impulse was already there, else I could not have inflamed it. It made you take responsibility for the lives of humanity.”
“Made me?”
The Aronin sighed. “My boy, you must understand . . . I did not expect you to live out the month, after the invasion happened. I was evacuating my home, preparing for its inevitable destruction, and attempting to learn the full extent of our foe’s capabilities.”