Court Wizard (Spellmonger Series: Book 8)

by Terry Mancour

  “And I am bloody Court Wizard of Alshar!” she said, after a moment of thoughtful pause during which she had to remind herself that she was married to Arborn, and demonstrating her raw feelings on the matter was imprudent. But this matter needed to be settled. “Not Minalan. I can’t go running to him every time there’s a threat to the town.”

  “But he’s the one who sent you—”

  “We are both partners in a greater endeavor,” she explained, sharply. “You all think he’s some gods-sent mastermind who can accomplish anything. I’m not arguing that he’s bright, witty, and creative, not to mention technically competent, but apart from that he’s really just an above-average mage with a lot of field experience, a lot of toys, and a lot of friends . . . of which I am one of his oldest.

  “But that also means I know him better than any of you do. He trusts me to handle this,” she said, not entirely convinced of that herself, but trying to sound assured. “It would be nice if you did, as well. Husband.”

  Despite her attempt to be gentle, the rebuke had a noticeable effect on her husband as he realized what his request meant to her. He straightened his shoulders and stood a little taller, looking into her eye with an expression of contrition and respect.

  “You are correct, my wife. My apologies. Sgowt yn fyddlon,” he declared.

  He was trying, she knew. That meant much to her. Pentandra sighed. “Look, I’m not stupid. If we get into trouble, I’ll call for help, mind-to-mind. Minalan can come directly to us, like he did at the masque, through the Alkan ways. But let’s not disturb him until necessary. What about your men?”

  Arborn looked startled, as if he’d forgotten the cadre of Kasari he’d brought to Vorone. “They could be anywhere,” he admitted. “They are men, just like any others, and were likely affected by Ishi’s spell. But . . .” He closed his eyes and whistled loudly, like some northern bird she was sure he could recite the name and pedigree of. “If they heard that, they will answer,” he offered.

  “Well, bide for a moment, and keep the lechers off of me while I do some work,” she asked. “I need to hang some more spells. A lady likes to be properly dressed for an important visitor like this.”

  Arborn nodded, and paced around her like a wolf protecting a cub, sword in hand, while she worked. The basic protections were easy, a matter of routine. The more advanced spells took more work and concentration, but fueled by Ishi’s blessing (or perhaps mere desperation) she worked quickly and as efficiently as her mind would allow.

  Finally she lowered her arms, opened her eyes, and sighed.

  “Done,” she stated, simply.

  “That was it?” Arborn asked, stopping in his tracks. “Nothing happened.”

  “Plenty happened, if you were watching with magesight,” she chuckled. “What did you expect? Sparks to fly out of my honeypot?” Most magic was invisible to the untrained eye, especially the more useful sorts. It always amused her when laymen expected more visible results from her magic.

  “After the last few days, it wouldn’t surprise me,” he said, after a moment. “The crypt is that way,” he said, pointing with his borrowed infantry sword. “If we hurry, we can make it before it is completely dark.”

  As they approached the deserted street on which the great stone crypts lay, a mist began to creep in from the riverfront, rising to their knees as they walked. There were few homes in this spooky part of town, as there were less somber wards with less expensive rents.

  What few lights they saw in windows demonstrated that Ishi’s spell was strongly diminished here, as she said it would be. There was little sign of wild rutting in the somber neighborhood, but then there were few mourners who were so devoted to their dead that they would miss a civic festival to grieve them. Pentandra found it easier to concentrate without the overwhelming buzz of her own libido in the background.

  As they came to the looming mass of the Crypt of Murvos, the dark structure’s great pointed arches towering three stories overhead, it seemed to suck the life out of the air, itself. There was little trace of Ishi’s spell left to be felt in this quarter. If their foe truly was bothered by the energies created by procreative acts, Pentandra reasoned, this was a natural refuge from them. Only someone obsessed by death would find the giant mausoleum even remotely conducive to romance.

  Pentandra had never been to the building itself in her time in Vorone, though one could see its somber spires from nearly everywhere in town. It was made from dark gray stone cut from some nearby quarry, a grand old ecclesiastic design that echoed the great temples of Falas, Roen, and Enultramar in the south. For generations the families of the nobility and even dukes and duchesses had been interred here, either permanently or temporarily before their bodies were transported back to the winter capital or their home estates for final burial.

  The design was strong with the iconography of Orvatas, of course, complete with thunderbolts, clouds, suns, stars, and other celestial phenomenon favored by worshippers of the Narasi sky god.

  But there were also significant elements of his brother, Murvos, Keeper of the Dead, and his six silent daughters. Skulls, bones, and the symbolism of death were built into the supporting columns and frescos. There were few actual temples of Murvos, as few wanted to devote themselves to the god of the dead, but his grand crypts were in every major city. The shrines of his daughter, Brona, the Lady of Sorrows, were traditionally charged with preparation of the dead in most urban centers; Brona was the mythological guide of the recently-deceased to the afterlife, and she was frequently celebrated in song as a sympathetic figure. But even the shrines of the compassionate psychopomp were scarce in rustic regions. To her knowledge, this was the only temple to the god of death in the Wilderlands.

  But she knew such places were also amply provided with the magical power of death, augmented by the lamentations and sorrows of the mourners who prayed here. A great place for a holiday, if you were already dead.

  “Not really my kind of temple,” she said, mildly, as she stared up at the hundreds of grinning skulls that stared back at her.

  “I didn’t know you were religious,” Arborn said, surprised.

  “I once would have called myself a lay devotee of Ishi,” she decided, “but after recent events I might have to reconsider that.”

  The Kasari tended to eschew temples, and used shrines sparingly, usually only in honor of a particularly beautiful natural formation. They preferred a religion of animism to one of polytheism, hailing animals and the spirits of the wild as brothers. A simple, wholesome naturalistic religion that she found utterly boring.

  Pentandra caught sight of something up among the stone bones and whitewashed clouds. A bird. A black bird.

  “Lucky!” she cried, recognizing the black raven despite herself. “It has to be!”

  ‘Yes, I think it is,” Arborn said, peering up. He was better at telling animals apart than she was.

  “Which means that Alurra can see me, maybe! Hey! Alurra!” she yelled at the crow, until she got its attention. “I need Everkeen! Here! Now! Bring me my baculus!” she shouted at the bird. It looked at her quizzically, took two hops, and then flew away.

  “Do you think she heard?”

  “If that was Lucky, and not some random crow, and if Alurra was riding behind his eyes . . . maybe,” she reasoned. “It was worth looking foolish to make the attempt.”

  “I’m certain you looked no different from any other young nun demanding a staff from a passing bird,” Arborn pointed out wryly as he whistled again, listened for a few moments, and then nodded. “I’ve done what I can to summon help as well. Shall we wait?”

  ‘Not with darkness so near,” she said, shaking her head. “You heard Ishi. It’s much stronger at night. Let’s go.” She gave him a kiss for luck. “We can do this,” she reminded him.

  Arborn returned the kiss then opened the great doors of black oak and iron. The darkness within was oppressive. Pentandra tried to will away her anxiety and cast a magelight. She almost regrette
d it.

  As it flared brightly overhead, the magical glow cast disturbing shadows from the row upon row of sarcophagi and the array of macabre statuary upon them. The fog had started to form in the damp recesses of the place, which did nothing for the charm.

  “Gods, the Narasi are creepy about death!” she swore. “What’s wrong with simple cremation?” Her family shrine back in Remere was a simple, stately affair stuffed with urns stuffed with her ancestors. It had flowers as the motif, in honor of the Imperial psychopomp, Perdua. She’d even had her first kiss behind it. Much more pleasant than this.

  “They fear it,” Arborn supplied, his deep voice echoing among the crypts, as he surveyed the shadows. “They put up these effigies and desperately hope to keep the inevitable darkness at bay. The Narasi know how to fight, how to ride, how to plow and how to pray . . . but they don’t understand how to die.”

  It was said without judgment, merely as an objective observation. Pentandra thought it rang true, though. Culturally speaking the Narasi were terrified about death in a way that was almost disturbing.

  They started forward, their footsteps echoing through the catacombs, the magelight following obligingly overhead, casting a gleam off of the edge of Arborn’s blade. He stood protectively in front of her. That gave her the opportunity to cast a particular kind of thaumaturgic detection.

  As she struggled to recall the particulars, she realized just how much using Everkeen had made things simpler . . . and how reliant she had grown on the enchanted rod. The result came far slower than if she’d used the paraclete, too, she noted once she cat the spell. But it came nonetheless, revealing a field of strong death-related energy nearby.

  “Over there,” she whispered, lightly touching Arborn’s arm a few moments later. “Down those stairs. We’re close.”

  “Beware of the voice,” her husband murmured back. “It can ensnare you, if you let it.”

  “So can my mother’s,” Pentandra replied. “I’m resistant.”

  He smiled grimly at the joke and started down the stairs. The air was cool enough for her to feel under her borrowed clerical robe, and as damp as a dishrag on her skin. They had to be close to the river, here. Even with the magelight the passageway seemed oppressively dark as they descended.

  “Noises ahead!” Arborn said in the quietest whisper Pentandra had ever heard. The big ranger was as still as a stone, for a moment, as he surveyed the situation with his ears . . . and then moved forward, sword in hand, with the silent smoothness of some nocturnal predator.

  Pentandra readied the few offensive spells she knew, nothing in the class of a real warmage but certainly enough to hurt, perhaps kill.

  Undead, she knew academically, were powered by magic, using simple implanted enneagrams to control the motivation of formerly lifeless limbs. In some cases the recently-deceased’s own latent enneagram could even be used, if the necromancer was skilled enough, but the effort took immense power and control. The result was usually short-lived, for a variety of technical reasons.

  But there was a reason why such study had been prescribed as far back as the early Magocracy. Bringing the dead back to life was just plain creepy. And not terribly useful, usually.

  Of course, she reasoned, the gurvani had managed to find a good use for brute-force necromancy. Sheruel, the Dead God of the goblins was the result of their experimentation, an all-powerful disembodied goblin head. That had been the one time she had faced undead before . . . and it hadn’t gone well.

  She was better, now, smarter and far more powerful, but the earlier experience still filled her with sheer terror, and the possibility of doing it again was frightening.

  But her husband had just plunged into the darkness without even a shirt, a crappy infantry sword in hand, to face the unknown foe. Could she do any less?

  “Sgowt yn dewr!” she whispered to herself to marshal her valor, and pressed on.

  Almost immediately she heard the sounds of fighting in the darkness and summoned magesight. The chamber they had entered was the size of a small cottage, with three or four passageways leading still deeper into the catacombs. Grinning skulls and somber gods flanked each entrance in stone, supporting keystones depicting religious symbols for various divinities. Under their sightless eyes her husband was fighting for his life.

  The thing that Arborn struggled with was man-sized, but it moved with alacrity few men could muster. Under the circumspection of magesight she was able to tell it was taller than the tall ranger, and broader in the shoulder . . . indeed, it appeared to tower over him to the point where it had to take care lest its bald head should collide with the vaulted ceiling. A dark robe covered it to the ankles and it bore a thick iron staff in its bony fingers.

  But though it looked like a man, magesight revealed the unearthly nature of the creature. It radiated no head, and it moved with a strange jerky motion for all of its speed. Though it did not move naturally, it moved efficiently. Arborn was throwing a strong flurry of slashing blows at the foe and it was blocking them each with casual dexterity, the steel of the ranger’s borrowed sword ringing off of the iron of his sorcerous staff.

  Though her husband was fighting valiantly, it was instantly clear that he was overmatched. Not only did the soulless creation have an advantage in height and with his longer arms, but his staff gave him reach and leverage, which he knew how to use to great effect. Arborn was forced to back off his aggressive approach almost at once, and under the press of its attack he had to move quickly to the defensive.

  Pentandra quickly came to his aid, first by illuminating the area with a bright light, and then by throwing her most vicious attack spell at the creature’s flank.

  Neither had the anticipated effect. Arborn blinked stupidly at the sudden light, stumbling and allowing his undead attacker to knock his blade out of the way. The offensive spell Pentandra placed so much faith in had no visible effect on the cloaked figure who threatened Arborn.

  But it did capture the fiend’s attention at a moment where pressing the attack might have meant her husband’s death. It paused, and turned slightly toward her. The eyes that peered out had a yellowish light in them, but it was not a human light, despite the pale human face it wore.

  “Magic . . .” it breathed in Narasi. “Human magic!”

  “Best kind!” Pentandra said, throwing her next-best spell at him. There were strong limits to what she could do without significant preparation, but the spell she cast should have had the dark creature writhing on the ground in pain. There was no effect.

  “Apparently not,” it chuckled in a voice like graveyard dust. It blocked two successive blows from Arborn without effort. Her husband backed off, looking over at her briefly before he returned to studying his foe for a weakness.

  “I was wondering if I would have the opportunity to face a real human mage,” the horrific mockery of a man informed her. He looked her up and down. “I find myself unimpressed.”

  “I just got out of bed!” she protested, snarling. Damn it, did effort account for nothing in this universe?

  “As did I,” it said with its evil chuckle. “After a thousand years.”

  At least it had a sense of humor, part of her mind pointed out.

  “What are you?” Arborn barked, holding in a strong guard position.

  “What am I? How rude,” the beast said, lashing out suddenly at him with the back of his staff. Arborn blocked it at the last moment. “Is that how you humans introduce yourself? Is there no decency in your society? Who I am is what is important, not what I am, at the moment.”

  “Then who are you?” Pentandra asked, producing flame from her left hand. She doubted it would do much, on its own, but maybe if she set the damn robe on fire . . .

  “I am Ocajon, the Herald of Korbal!” he said with a great deal of satisfaction, and with the expectation of recognition. Pentandra glanced quizzically at her husband, who shrugged.

  “Your name means nothing to us,” Pentandra said, wondering if she could try a thaum
aturgic disruption spell one-handed.

  “That’s because the last time my eyes saw the stars this land was unblemished by your race. I have been reclaimed and restored, after an age.” It surveyed her with a curiosity and interest that she associated with a cat’s interest in a mouse.

  “So you are a friend of Korbal’s,” Pentandra suggested, surprised. The thing apparently wanted to chat, after its thousand-year nap. She decided to indulge it. It was better than throwing useless spells and getting herself killed, she reasoned. In the absence of a better plan, she kept him talking. “He’s the one responsible for that rotting corpse you’re inside. Usually when humani come back from the dead, they aren’t this eloquent. It appears Korbal has improved the art.”

  “That is the name you know him by,” conceded the wraith. “Nor is this some primitive trick to reanimate a corpse. We are the Nemovorti, those who have conquered death, itself. Our master elected to restore me to this – temporary – form, to further his ends. Already it falters under the power rushing through it, and will soon expire. Yet I shall be restored into another form, one far more durable for the coming struggle. I relish the opportunity to serve,” he added, as a point of pride.

  “You said we, Ancient Ocajon . . . how many are you?” demanded Pentandra. She might not be able to defeat the thing with magic, but if she could learn something it would be helpful. If it didn’t kill them.

  “And what are you chasing?” added Arborn, never dropping his guard with the short sword.

  “Five of the most loyal, Korbal has restored, thus far . . . though only in poor humani vessels, such as this . . . hairy beast,” he said, distastefully, though there was not a hair left on the walking corpse. “Supposedly a valiant warrior of yours and I suppose the form will do; as ungainly as it is, there is great strength in it.

  “But scores more of us await the opportunity to be restored to our previous glory. And then we shall descend upon you humani, and put you in your proper place. Our age is finally at hand!” it said, menacingly, as it circled Arborn, striking and feinting as if in sport.