Necromancer: Book Ten Of The Spellmonger Series

by Terry Mancour

  “Nor should he. Very well, I suppose we’ll have to bring them along. This is starting to get crowded.”

  “Oh, no need,” Master Hance said, casually. “I slew them both. Slit their throats.”

  “What? Why?” I asked, aghast.

  “Because they were enemies of the Ducal House of Alshar, to whom I have a certain loyalty,” Hance answered, matter-of-factly. “They committed crimes of insurrection and violated their oaths of vassalage. It was my duty to execute them . . . and in one case, my pleasure. Baron Valkid was responsible for the arrest and execution of two of my friends who refused to capitulate to the Counts. I am empowered to do so,” he added. “His Grace gave me a commission to conduct such affairs, before we left. Their lives were forfeit.”

  I just stared at him. Alshari politics is brutal.

  “Next time,” I said, softly, “perhaps you’ll consult me before you go slaying defenseless prisoners?”

  He shrugged. “If you’d like.”

  Master Suhi followed us obediently as we vacated the dungeon and reassembled back in the main chamber. Lord Aeratas was already there, bearing the Aronin, wrapped in his mantle and carried in a sling.

  “The others were too far gone to move,” he confided. “I sang them spells to give them peace in their slumber, but they will not awaken again. He insisted on coming along, to see the Ghost Rock and join his hallowed ancestors. It will be his final journey,” he warned, grimly.

  “If we have sustained him this far, then why give up hope?”

  “He has been deprived of wholesome life for too long,” Aeratas said, shaking his head. “His essence fades, even as he responds to my treatment. Not even Lilastien could preserve him much longer, and she is an adept physician.” That was strong praise from someone who admittedly didn’t like Lilastien much.

  There was but one doorway we had yet to survey. The one leading to the Cavern of Ages.

  “From what I understand, there is a guardian on the other side of this door,” I began, as I tried to inspire my troops.

  “As long as there aren’t any more bloody stairs!” complained Azhguri.

  “Very few,” Aeratas assured. “We are, indeed, in the deepest part of the undercaverns, nearly half a mile below the surface of the lake. Beyond that doorway is the complex leading to the Chamber of Ages.”

  “I’m guessing it’s a Nemovort, from what the other Nemovort told me,” I informed them, “and I’m also guessing that it’s going to be pretty powerful. She – I have it on authority that it’s a ‘she’ – is supposedly going to enjoy licking my entrails off her fingertips. While I don’t intend to let that happen, from what Stulka Dumi told me she was put here to guard the place.”

  “She shall not deter our quest!” Sire Cei proclaimed.

  “The goal is the Ghost Rock,” Aeratas reminded everyone, cradling the Aronin in his arms like a baby. “Once we deal with the guards and the spells warding the vein, we shall need some time to conduct the procedures we need to. That means the rest of us will have to protect Minalan while he assails the inner recesses of the vein.”

  “We’ll contend with that when we’re able,” I agreed. “Just be ready to defeat this Nemovort. We’ve come too far, endured too many sacrifices, and gone down too many flights of stairs for it to be in vain.”

  “Would that we had the balance of our Scholars,” Azhguri grumbled, good-naturedly. “It seems a waste to enjoy the conclusion of our journey without them.”

  “Until the Ways are repaired, we are on our own,” I said, shaking my head. “And while I miss Mavone and Sandoval, I’m unsure if Lilastien and Onranion’s assistance would be all that beneficial, at this stage, save in technical matters.”

  “Then let us proceed,” Azhguri grumbled, “before we age much more.”

  Aeratas opened the door, which was far harder than it sounds. The thing had been secured with the Alka Alon version of a spellbinding, a simple song of protection that kept the foolish from trespassing within the sacred confines of the cavern.

  True to his word, there were no stairs. The passageway opened into a natural cavern, one that had been augmented and trimmed by a thousand years of careful attention. It was long, sloping downwards as we traversed it, and wide – nearly eighty feet across, in the section we entered.

  “Behold, the Cavern of Ages,” Lord Aeratas pronounced, reverently. “Depository of our ancestors’ enneagrams, held within the living stone for all eternity.”

  “It smells a bit . . . mildewy,” commented Azhguri, wrinkling his nose.

  “Ancient sacred caverns tend to be that way,” I confided. “You should see the gurvani’s . . .”

  “Do not compare the Cavern of Ages to that misbegotten hole,” sneered Aeratas. “The molopor is a powerful curiosity. The ancient vein of Ghost Rock is a repository of knowledge and wisdom that goes back to the dawn of this world.”

  “I’m uncertain they would value the comparison,” I observed. “They are both revered by their people as a sacred space. They are both places of great power. And they both have a moisture problem.”

  “They are both desired by Korbal,” Azhguri pointed out.

  “Together, they are potent instruments,” Aeratas conceded. “Power and knowledge together, at the command of a corrupt and unwholesome mind could cause disaster.”

  “Is it enough to challenge the Vundel?”

  “I doubt it,” Aeratas decided, after some thought. “As powerful as they are, the power of the Vundel encompasses the entire Magosphere.”

  “Is it enough to contact the Formless in their prison in the Deeps?”

  “It may well be, with the proper devices,” he agreed, grimly. “And that is a force that not even the Vundel could return to their prisons.”

  “Then whatever else happens, we have to deny them the use of this place,” I sighed. “Even if it means destroying it.”

  Chapter Forty-Three

  The Cavern of Ages

  Imagine a passageway tunneled through the living rock, deep underground, part natural, part artificial. A cavern carved out by some ancient underground stream, then expanded by the cunning craftsman of the Alon. The natural flow of that long-dead stream had produced a winding, wild grotto hundreds of feet long. I could just imagine the endless ages of flowing water carrying away the softer particles and leaving the harder.

  What remained was magnificent, a forest of natural pillars of harder stone, contorted passageways made smooth by hammer, chisel, song and spell. The Alka Alon had not decorated the great chamber, nor did it need any ornamentation. The natural beauty of the stone was enough: layers of orange, gray, yellow and white, streaked with brown and black. It was as if someone had carved a sunset, deep in the earth.

  While the passageway twisted and turned, there were areas that were far larger in size than the original entrance. As we came to one of them, the remnant of the stream that had carved this echoing chamber tinkled merrily in a channel through its midst.

  “The Cavern of Ages,” Lord Aeratas pronounced. “For more than five thousand years my sires have made the pilgrimage to this grotto, to touch the fabled Ghost Stone, and use its depths to commune with their forefathers who did the same.”

  “You can actually communicate with the enneagrams within?” asked Hance, curious. “I didn’t think that was possible.”

  “The skill of my folk in such matters is beyond your understanding,” Aeratas said, arrogantly. “It is an ancient device that draws the selected enneagram into what you would call a thaumaturgically active, sensitive response matrix. With sufficient energy, a simulacrum of the enneagram’s original consciousness can be temporarily created – sophisticated enough for you to communicate with it.”

  “So . . . it’s necromantic in nature,” Hance reasoned.

  “Technically,” I admitted. “It doesn’t use necromantic energy, I’d imagine, but it probably has a basic necromantic architecture,” I proposed.

  “Could it be used to converse with . . . the o
ther enneagrams, inside? The ancient ones?” Hance continued.

  “It is not recommended,” Aeratas said, gravely, as he carried the Aronin through the twisted passages. “Those entities usually do not have the understanding of their nature, the way our ancestors did. Nor do they have a common language or even context for conversing with us. The few who have attempted it have either failed or gone mad with the experience.”

  “So, we won’t be interrogating the Handmaiden through that thing,” I decided. “Once we get there, we’ll—”

  “Realms of Light and Darkness!” Aeratas said, swearing what I knew was a pretty severe oath, among the Alka Alon. He pointed to a pale, chalky-looking vein of rock in the colorful wall. It was Ghost Rock, the first chunk of it in its natural form I’d seen.

  It was also being hacked from the wall like a chunk of sod in a garden.

  “That is . . . is blasphemous!” Aeratas said, so angry he was shaking. “When I’d heard, I did not think it was true . . . but to damage the stone in such a way is vile!”

  I examined the site, which didn’t seem to be all that large. But at least a third of the stone had been hacked out of the vein, about three or four cubic feet. They weren’t done, apparently, and had left a large piece of the stone and a couple of smaller shards on the ground, below.

  “How did they do it, I wonder? Just hack at it with chisel and hammer?” Hance pondered.

  “Yes,” came a voice from behind us, “but when we did that, the miner died in the attempt,” it explained. It was a female voice, low, liquid, inhuman and quietly amused. We were immediately on our guard, drawing our weapons and searching for its source, among the columns of the cavern.

  “We went through six draugen to get enough for our test. A common animated corpse cannot strike more than a blow before it disintegrates. The feedback from the rock is . . . potent.”

  She stepped from behind a column of rock, revealing herself slowly. She was no common Nemovort.

  Instead of a scarred and tattooed human body, this ancient Enshadowed had taken the old militant form of their species. It was shaped differently than the bodies of the Tera Alon – shorter, but more impossibly slender, with proportionally longer arms and legs, a more elongated head and face, and a shorter torso. She was wearing a tight-fitting doublet of black. The effect was elegant, but did make her look uncomfortably like a large humanoid spider.

  “And you are, my lady?” Sire Cei asked, his hammer at the ready.

  “She is Mycin Amana,” Aeratas answered, his voice dangerous and low. “Consort to Korbal, and condemned to share his fate. She is a criminal behind only the Necromancer, himself.”

  “Necromancer!” she snorted, as she approached. She didn’t make any threatening moves. Somehow, I wasn’t put at ease by that. “It makes him sound like a technician. I prefer ‘demon god’, myself. It has a more compelling effect, I think. But you have named me, Aeratas. Mycin Amana.” She bowed, elegantly, as she repeated her name.

  “She is a criminal, the worst kind of killer. She slew thousands of Alkans with poison,” Aeratas accused. “She oversaw horrific attacks on the council during their uprising. She personally tortured hundreds, using them in their foul experiments!”

  “You make it sound so . . . tawdry,” Mycin Amana said, her big eyes blinking in the light of the Magosphere. “What a pretty bauble! What is that inside?”

  “Why are you harvesting Ghost Rock?” demanded Azhguri, indignantly. “You damaged the stone! Have you no shame?”

  “Not particularly,” she said, blinking, but never taking her eyes off the sphere over my shoulder. “Being imprisoned in a hellish tomb for a thousand years gives you perspective. We’re using the stone to expand that intriguing molopor effect in the north,” she explained, amused. “I wonder how large we can get it to grow?”

  “But why?” pleaded Azhguri. “Do you not realize what you have lost?”

  “Less than the bones of those boneless creatures, forgotten long before we came to this world? Of what loss is that? Worry not – we have preserved the areas where our ancestors are preserved. That is far too valuable a resource to consume, just yet.”

  “You don’t seem particularly bothered by our presence here,” I pointed out. “Or threatened by it.”

  “Oh, I’m not,” Mycin assured us. “I’m just bored. I’ve been working on my project for months, now, down here. With only the draugen to talk to, for the most part.”

  “Not getting enough quality time with the husband?” Hance quipped, in mock sympathy.

  “Well, he’s working constantly,” she pointed out. “It’s hard for him to get down here, at the moment. But I’ve been . . . well, would you like to see what I’ve been working on?” she asked, with surprising eagerness.

  “You . . . want to show us your secret weapon?” Sire Cei asked, confused.

  “Why not? I’m bored, down here. It would be nice to show off my work. Come along,” she directed, suddenly turning on her heel. “It’s not far from here,” she said. “We can fight and I can kill you, afterward,” she added. “But there’s no reason you cannot admire my work before you die.”

  “That’s quite thoughtful of you,” Hance called out, as he began to follow her. He caught me out by eye. “Minalan, why don’t you and I go take a look, and when we’re done we’ll come back here and then she can kill us with the others?”

  “That would be acceptable,” she agreed. “I doubt if—”

  Before she could complete her sentence, Hance had drawn his short, slender blade and, with a strike so fast I barely saw it, cut through her slender neck with one graceful pass. Her head tumbled to the floor while her body crumpled.

  “I hope you don’t mind,” Hance declared, as he cleaned the sword. “I know these Enshadowed haven’t had much experience with humans, but they really should learn not to turn their backs on a thief.”

  “That . . . that was not an honorable act, Sir Hance!” Sire Cei reproved.

  “Thankfully, I am a knight only by courtesy, not profession,” Hance said, sheathing the blade under his cloak. “I like you Narasi, but you forget that Imperial culture placed little stock in chivalry or honorable warfare. We focused on victory.”

  “This is not an honorable war,” agreed Lord Aeratas, stepping over her still-twitching body. “This is a war of extinction.”

  “Let’s at least see what the old girl was going to show us,” Azhguri proposed. “I’m wondering what got her so eager to show it off.”

  We discovered her lair – laboratory – private apartment – by the simple expedient of following a trail of tiny magelights that led there from the main pathway. I didn’t know if the undead really needed such things, but Mycin apparently liked them. They led right to her door.

  The chamber on the other side of the ornate doorway was impressive, if terror and horror impress you. It was easy to see what Mycin wanted to show off. There was a nine-foot tall body in the middle of the room.

  It was neither human nor Alkan, though it shared characteristics of both. The great face was both fair and severe, with fair green hair and slightly pointed ears. The broad chest was muscled far more like a human than an Alkan . . . and the arms seemed more appropriate a Karshak than anything else. The legs were huge trunks with massive knees and wide feet.

  We won’t discuss the naughty bits. As I mentioned: impressive.

  “This must be Korbal’s new body,” I remarked, as we walked around the giant stone table it rested upon. A smaller, female version was on a nearby slab. “And that was hers.” It was decidedly feminine, but not in a way that tickled the typical human aesthetic. The breasts were small, the shape was more slender than curved, and the short, dark green hair was not particularly attractive.

  Yet I could see the reflection of the Alkan aesthetic for such things in her form. By Alka Alon standards, she was a goddess, as he was a god.

  That’s what they were doing. They were making themselves unliving gods.

  Not in the humani w
ay, of course, but Korbal and his minions were not content with virtual immortality, hopping from one host body to another. This, I reasoned, was the prototype of the final form they were constructing. Growing. I pulled Insight out of its pocket and began examining both of them closely.

  “They have potent spells woven into their very cells,” I reported, as I worked. “Their skin is . . . it’s near impervious. Their central nervous systems are complex enough to contend with an Alkan consciousness, or more. Fully Talented, I’m guessing. Damn, I wish Lilastien was here – she would know how they produced them. They have to be transgenic enchantments. She loves this sort of thing.”

  “Are they . . . alive?” Sire Cei asked, skeptically, as he studied them.

  “Technically? Yes,” I said, putting away Insight. “But they are empty. They have no native enneagrams. These are . . . grown from scratch, I suppose, not taken from an existing host.”

  “Note the lack of callouses anywhere on them,” Hance pointed out, fingering his chin. “The nails and hair are soft. The feet have never trod.”

  “So, are they alive? Or dead?”

  “Currently alive, soon to be undead,” I guessed. “Or perhaps they’ll persist in keeping them alive. Technically?” I asked myself. “It’s definitely necromancy, but . . . we just don’t have words for this sort of thing,” I confessed.

  “They must not be quite ready, yet,” Aeratas observed. “They are formed, but just barely mature enough to maintain the transfer of enneagram, I would venture.”

  “You are correct,” sighed the Aronin in his small voice. “These forms are similar to the Kulla Alon,” he decided.

  “I am not aware of that race,” I confessed.

  “No reason you should be – or anyone should be,” Aeratas said, distastefully. “They were an . . . experimental form. One that was used early in our settlement of Callidore. Highly inefficient, but nearly indestructible.”