Which gives me hope you can repeat the task. Lord Aeratas told me of your feat, and the involvement of your gods. If you have both the Celestial Mother and the Handmaiden, you may attract their attention – and their ire – far more quickly than you suspect. The Vundel are long-lived. They are also highly reactive.
I’ll keep that in mind. And I shall deal with that when it happens. But I’m not going to let timidity keep me from my goal.
Nor should you, he agreed. I just want you to understand the nature of what you do. Even things done for the best of reasons can have catastrophic results, he warned. The ancient history of this world bears testament to that.
During the Vundel’s war with the Formless, eons ago, the vassals of the Formless contrived to strike at their ancient foe indirectly, by directing a mountain of stone from the Realms of Light, floating in the Void, to strike at a weak spot in Callidore’s crust. A region of volcanic instability in the north of this continent. It was hoped by the Formless that puncturing the land so powerfully would blind the skies with dust for decades, and choke the sunlight that feeds the reefs that fed the Mothers.
For the best of reasons, the Celestial Mothers tried to destroy the mountain. It was difficult, as matter formed in the Realms of Light are highly resistant to magic. But they struck the mountain before it could strike the volcano.
But it came at a terrible price: though they had crushed the mountain, it became many great boulders. The spell preserved the world. But in the process, it weakened the Celestial Mothers to extinction. Enough of the rock struck the world to cause massive waves that dashed their carefully-contrived systems. During the ensuing cataclysm, the Formless and their allies struck and hunted them to the brink.
One of those great stones struck below the great Bay of Enultramar, he continued. It shattered the land and the seas, sending a great wave north of the Alshari gates and depositing an ocean, for a time. Another struck near to the original target, far to the north. It failed to force the volcano to erupt, but the earthquakes and tremors gave the Land of Scars its name. It did blacken the sky, though not as long or as thoroughly as the Formless desired. The sites of the two impacts have permanently scarred the Magosphere, creating holes in it by their presence.
That’s fascinating, but . . .
My point, Minalan, is that whatever your initial intentions, the results of your actions can ruin the very thing you seek to preserve, he said, with an ethereal sigh.
Oh. I thought the lesson was that no matter what I do, we’re screwed.
That’s . . . another intriguing perspective, the Aronin conceded, politely.
Let’s do this, I decided. Before I lose my nerve. Or fate intervenes. That happens to me a lot, these days.
With the Aronin’s assistance, making the transfer of the impression to the centerpoint was much easier than when we moved the Celestial Mother from the Grain of Pors. The process was helped when Azhguri sang the Ghost Rock at the Aronin’s direction.
Returning to our bodies, we oversaw the transfer from the silvery pillar to the center of the Magolith – with the Aronin’s help in opening the side of the irionite sphere to access the throbbing, ever-changing crystal within the viscous thaumaturgical medium. I held my breath for a few moments as there was a flare and a spark when the transfer was complete.
“It is done,” I said with a sigh of satisfaction, as he sealed over the irionite sphere with a wave of his battered hand. “Thank you.”
“Not quite,” the Aronin said . . . and sent his consciousness into the Magolith.
I wasn’t prepared for it. I was still connected to the sphere, of course, and when the ancient Alkan started tinkering with it the process set off all sorts of dizzying effects in my mind. But a moment later he withdrew.
“I attached the major points of reference to the nodes within the stone,” he explained, tiredly. “I’m hopeful I did enough to allow the Handmaiden to begin repairing herself. Check and see,” he directed, his eyes beyond weary at the effort.
I did. Inserting my consciousness into the Magolith wasn’t something I did often, as it required the totality of my focus and concentration. It was like taking a journey within a journey, after I’d just gotten back from a journey . . . but I did as I was bidden.
There, after I negotiated past the security measures Onranion had put into place, I found the enneagram of the Handmaiden, where the Aronin had fastened it to more than a score of nodes of arcane power in the stone, just as we had done with the Snowflake.
Unlike the Snowflake, there was already the stirring of power and control happening around the nodes. The Handmaiden was already filling with thaumaturgical energy from the irionite, through the thaumaturgical medium. With every pulsation of the centerpoint, every transformation of the crystal, the nodes connected to the complex enneagram seemed to expand, drawing a little more power from the irionite each pulse. The Handmaiden was starting to awaken, like a seed bursting through its shell.
I wasn’t certain how to address or approach it, so I tried to think good thoughts in its direction as a general introduction. I’d like to think she paused, slightly, but it very well could have been my imagination.
“I think she’s settling in,” I agreed, when I pulled my head out of my sphere a moment later. “How long do you think it will take for her to integrate?”
The Aronin shrugged his tiny shoulders. They were about the only part of him unmangled by torture. “Impossible to say. Once she regains some awareness, she should start repairing herself. After that it’s just a matter of how quickly that happens.
“But that crystal – that is amazing, Minalan,” he commented with a weak smile. “I’ve never seen anything like it.”
“The one I have at home is even bigger,” I bragged. “Can you tell me anything about it?”
“Oh, I left my impressions within the sphere,” he assured. “But it’s clearly what you would call a –”
“My lords,” Sire Cei interrupted. “I think it would be best if we considered how we will retreat, now that our mission is accomplished. The fact that we haven’t been disturbed since we arrived in this chamber makes me more fearful every moment we tarry.”
“A reasonable suggestion,” Azhguri, agreed, though he’d watched the entire operation with interest – and seemed over-awed from the experience of singing the Ghost Rock. “We must depart soon, ere one of Korbal’s folk discovers us.”
“That’s—” Lord Aeratas said, and then stopped. His eyes opened wide, and he fell forward . . . revealing a slightly smaller version of Mycin Amana, Consort of Korbal, standing behind him, a strange blade in her hand.
“. . . sooner than you might think,” she finished, coolly, as she stared down at the Alkan lord, blood dripping from the point of her blade. “Did you fools think to defeat me so easily? Did you think I had no other bodies to choose from?” she asked, haughtily.
I didn’t think – I had Twilight in my hand and threw a bolt of blue-colored energy at her, enough to knock her back into the wall behind her. She bore the brunt of the spell on her bloody blade and leapt to the side, narrowly missing a blow from Azhguri’s warhammer. She might have cut the Karshak’s extended arm off at the elbow, had Suhi not plowed into the Nemovort from the side.
The next thirty seconds were hot chaos, as the undead monster began dancing around the grotto while we tried to kill her. Twice we crossed blades, and both times she used speed and strength at least the equal to my best warmagic spells . . . but then she spun away to face Sire Cei.
He was no match for her speed and agility, and if it hadn’t been for his dragonhide breastplate the blast of necromantic energy she shot from her own short sword would have cut in him two, I’m certain. As it was, he was rocked back on his heels and would have taken a harder hit, had I not re-engaged her from behind.
She was wickedly fast, changing hands with her strange curved blade with elegant dexterity. There was a kind of lopsided grimace on her face, as she threw her sword against mine
and tried to take down my arcane defenses.
As the others were trying to find an opening to take advantage of, she spun effortlessly around the room, dealing out minor wounds with the tip of her blade or spells from her right hand. When Hance attempted to repeat his strike on the back of her neck, she blocked it neatly with the guard of her blade . . . and kicked him in the side of the knee for his trouble.
That proved to be her undoing, however. As he was going down, he flicked his weighted cloak around her forearm, neatly binding it and pulling it out of line. I didn’t waste the opportunity, though Twilight was out of line. I pulled her light green hair back, hard, and slammed her in the side of her face as hard as I could with my mailed fist.
That still didn’t put her down, but it made her dizzy long enough for Sire Cei to repeat the gesture, adding some measure of his magical strength to it. She dropped to the floor and didn’t move.
I was at Aeratas’ side in an instant. But it didn’t look good when I inspected the wound, which ran deep, and crossed the bottom of his spine savagely. His pulse was faint and he was unresponsive. There was magical damage, too – his cells were withering at the site of the injury, and it was spreading, fast.
I immediately plunged myself into the Magosphere, seeking spells that could give him some aid. Azhguri and Hance helped by trying to bind his wound, but we could all tell that it was for naught. Her strike had included a necromantic spell, I could see. It was consuming his flesh and body from the wound, outward, and it was already affecting his heart and brain when we began.
The Lord of Anthatiel was dead. Despite his might and power, Mycin Amana knew precisely how to slay him.
A moment later, we discovered that he was not the only casualty. While she was dancing around, Mycin had slain the Aronin, too. His blood stained the silver pillar he leaned upon, his eyes closed in a last moment of serenity.
“Damn her!” I thundered, kicking Mycin’s unconscious body. “Damn her! We were so close to being out of this . . . this . . .”
“Easy, lad,” Azhguri soothed, as he closed Aeratas’ eyes. “There’s no bringing them back with rage.”
“May Trygg and Duin bless them,” Sire Cei said, making the sign of passing over his heart.
“I’m sorry,” Hance sighed, regretfully. “I didn’t think she’d . . .”
“You couldn’t have,” Sire Cei said, quickly. “But it would be poor of us to honor our fallen comrades by getting captured. If haste was recommended before, it is doubly so, now. We cannot return them to life with rage,” he repeated.
I stared at Lord Aeratas’ body, thinking about how the proud, strong Alkan was willing to do whatever it took to protect this place – even destroy the city his father built over a thousand years ago. Then I looked over at the unconscious body of Mycin, who deserved to be dead . . . had been dead . . .
“You’re right,” I said, my throat dry. “We can’t bring him back with rage. I can bring him back with magic.”
No one else was in favor of the idea. Sire Cei was scandalized, while the dwarves thought it a waste of time, if a morbidly interesting technical problem. Hance didn’t say much, but what he did say let me know his feelings on the matter.
I didn’t care.
The Aronin was ready to die, when we rescued him. He knew he was at the end of his journey, and everything he’d said or done since we’d discovered him supported that.
But Aeratas was different. He had a goal in life, a great quest to protect these sacred caves. He’d sacrificed his life to do so, and left the task undone, thanks to a dishonorable attack.
This war was never honorable, I recalled him saying. I’m certain he would not regret his sacrifice – Aeratas was not that kind of Alkan. But I also know he would be frustrated to leave his sacred trust go unguarded, at the mercy of Korbal and those who would pervert it.
It occurred to me that I had everything at hand to fix that last part.
“Give me some room,” I instructed, picking up Mycin’s sword and handing to Suhi. He took it gratefully. “Make certain I’m not disturbed by any other Nemovorti, please,” I instructed them all.
“For how long?” asked Hance, frowning.
“Until I’m done,” I said, flatly, bringing those enchanted steel manacles out of my hoxter. “Bind her up, before you go.” I was sure he would enjoy it, after his long captivity at the hands of the undead. I wasn’t wrong.
Every time you traverse into a piece of Ghost Rock, you leave a psychic imprint, an impression of your enneagram at that moment that lasts in the stone forever. It’s a psychic footprint in the arcane mud, or something like that. Aeratas, of course, had entered the Ghost Rock hundreds of times over his long, long lifetime. Most recently to visit his wife’s memory in that place.
Yet here I was, with everything I needed to restore not just Aeratas, but his beloved wife, as well. There were two perfectly good bodies in the next chamber over, just waiting for a powerful consciousness to command the strong, nearly-indestructible limbs of the giants. I didn’t want Korbal to use them.
It was an exacting process, much more difficult alone than it had been with the Aronin’s assistance. But with effort and focus, I was able to capture the imprint from Aeratas’ most recent journey within the vein. Then I captured the last image of his wife, keeping them both temporarily in crystals.
That was the easy part. The difficult part was installing them into the bodies waiting for consciousness. I’d never done that sort of thing before – that was straight-out necromancy, not merely enchantment with a necromantic component. I wasn’t using a long-dead enneagram to fuel a magical weapon. I was raising the dead.
In coming to fight against the schemes of the Necromancer, I’d become a necromancer, myself.
It took hours, how many I did not count. My friends kept checking on me, bringing me food and water during the elaborate procedure, and ensured that the single passageway to the elaborate chamber was guarded. I barely noticed them. I was possessed with a sense of purpose to repair the injustice done to Aeratas.
It was grueling work, removing the impression from each crystal and overlaying them on the naked, empty central nervous systems of the giants. In a process similar to what the Aronin had done with the Handmaiden, I began attaching the major anchor points of each enneagram to the nodes in the nervous system that I was reasonably certain would adhere, and were in the proper place. Some were easy to see, others were subtler. But each one had to be done with my full concentration.
Then I realized that I had help. It took me a moment to realize it, but at some point, I understood that something else was assisting me as I moved from one node to another. I took a break from my work and examined the Magolith. Indeed, the Handmaiden within was not only repairing herself, she was lending me aid in my work.
At first that was intriguing, and I delighted in watching the emerging intelligence in the Magolith go to work on each thaumaturgical node like a spider attacking a fly in its web. Then I realized that she was doing it because I was working too slow, too sloppily, for her tastes.
So I moved back and allowed the Handmaiden to work alone. She worked much faster, alone, once I made it known to her what I wanted.
I finished up with Hynalinae, first, before I began on Aeratas. He was slightly more complex, but the Handmaiden seemed to be getting better and faster at the work as she went.
When I was done, I sat back, exhausted. Their enneagrams were intact. Their bodies were ready. They were still dead.
Saying a little prayer to Trygg – which I was not entirely sure was appropriate, under the circumstances – I began raising power to activate the two bodies. I was guessing at what it might take to initialize life functions – or unlife functions – based on my conversations with Kedaran, and my limited experience with such things.
But it worked. Five minutes after I nearly collapsed in a heap from the effort, Hynalinae began breathing. A few moments later, so did Aeratas.
“What . . . what have
you done?” the new body asked, blinking its new eyes and speaking its first words.
“I brought you back,” I informed him, wearily. “Not in your old body, I’m afraid. But we had this one lying around out back, so . . .”
“You . . . what have you done?” he asked, staring confusedly at his large new hands.
“I brought you back,” I repeated. “And I didn’t bring you back alone. Your wife,” I said, indicating the other body, just now starting to gain consciousness. “From her last impression.”
I won’t describe the joyous reunion between the two, or the things lovers long parted shared – Ishi would roast my nuts for that. It was intense and intimate, and I felt like an interloper as a witness.
But eventually I had to break up their tearful reunion, two old souls in two new bodies. I had things to do.
“I don’t know how long these bodies will last, or what sustains them; hells, I’m not really certain if you’re really alive or undead. But I’m sure that Korbal provided everything they need, down here.”
“You . . . you wish us to stay?” Aeratas’ new face asked, confused.
“I wish you to continue to guard the vein of Ghost Rock from Korbal. We’re going to seal the chamber, when we leave, and ensure that it will be nearly impossible for anyone to disturb the Grotto . . . not until your descendants restore Anthatiel to its glory,” I proposed.
“Descendants?” Hynalinae asked, confused. “Aeratas, what descendants? Fallawen is but a baby!”
“There is much I have to speak of, my love,” Aeratas assured his risen bride, gently. “Many years have passed.”
“Hopefully, many more will pass before Korbal comes knocking at your door. I plan to use that contingency we prepared, on the way down,” I informed him. “Now that I have what I came for, I can return to my own bride,” I said, standing. “I wish you both the best in the coming time together. But the world above is ours to contend with, now. Keep the world below safe for us until we can come back in peace.”
Necromancer: Book Ten Of The Spellmonger Series Page 67
