Duchy Unleashed
Page 6
“I only tried it because you are the Duke. I did not expect this result. It also means that mages and mundanes aren’t really that different. It really turns my worldview upside down. I don’t know how we can keep this from the rest of Jaloa.”
I was tempted to share the prophecy with Loma but resisted only because the six of us in the know had agreed to keep it secret. “I think it is much too soon to share. Our results are promising but still very preliminary. Let us continue working through its benefits for us and decide how and if we choose to share it in the future. We have the dark sect working to destroy society. We certainly don’t want to give them a hint of our discovery.”
Loma shivered. “I can imagine how they might use this. Enslaving mundanes to milk their magic would be the least they would do. You are right. We need to keep this very secret. I’ll continue to learn what I can, but we need a strategy for how we use this in our Keep, especially in the short term. We can hide a lot of how we do things, similar to how those who design appliances keep their inner workings a secret. But this can fundamentally change life in our Keep. We will also need to guard and protect our secrets from both discovery and capture,” she warned.
I’d been monitoring my magics and had Loma cut off everything but my fire magic. We chatted about foolproof ways to protect our people, using sigils. One of the issues was always when people took them off or changed clothing. I mentioned the potential for embedding something in our bodies. Loma had not thought of that possibility, but I could tell she was intrigued. It felt wrong to me, but I couldn’t think of another way to protect our people. The rate Loma was going, the Duchy sigil might just be a small programmable quartz crystal.
As she turned off my fire magic spigot, Loma promised to discuss the matter of sigils with Alba. I nodded, still feeling a little uneasy with the idea of microchipping people like you would a dog.
I checked in with Ellte and learned Inoa was still asleep. I asked for Inoa contact me once she checked in. I learned Alba was the only partner left at HQ. As expected, she was in the hospital unit. I walked there to check in.
Alba looked quite lonely in the hospital unit, with nothing so far requiring her attention except for a few minor cuts and a few animal encounters. The most serious case was one poor lad stepped on by a barnta. He was recovering despite several broken bones. Some of our less experienced basas handlers had received bites and kicks, but nothing really serious.
I reminded Alba that Loma and Inoa were both at HQ if she needed help.
“Ellte, do we have someone at HQ who can mind the hospital and call for help if needed? Alba is fretting over patients she isn’t able to take care of at her hospital,” I sent.
“Bolon is on light duty due to a basas kick to the groin. No lifting for the rest of the day. Tobron doesn’t want him back at the Keep until he has healed,” was the prompt reply.
“Ask him to meet me at the HQ’s hospital then,” I sent.
I was pleased to see how quickly Bolon materialized.
“Alba, this is Bolon. Bolon, Alba,” I said, while both looked at me as if I’d lost my mind. They had clearly met several times before, including earlier in the day after Bolon was kicked by the irritated basas.
“I’m assigning Bolon to the HQ hospital watch,” I explained to them. “This will allow Alba to take care of some really sick people at her hospital.”
“Steve, are you sure?” Alba sent. “I don’t want to let our team down.”
“The Duchy probably has the healthiest population in Jaloa,” I countered. “If we get into serious trouble my gut says it will probably be tonight. Don’t restrict your flesh magic usage if you need it for your patients.” I added privately, “When you get back here this evening, ask Loma to top you off. I can’t explain much about it yet, but I want your flesh magic in good shape for tonight. We’ve made a few strides forward on our batteries but don’t want to advertise that yet.”
“Okay, the battery thing sounds great. I promise not to grill Loma about it. I only have a few tough cases in my hospital, so I should be back reasonably quickly. I meant to talk with you about another issue. We need to find me an apprentice. There is a serious problem with you, Argon, and even Cleon as my main backups. You all will be in the midst of the battle and can’t help at the hospital until the battle is over.”
“I agree, but not much we can do about it right now,” I answered.
I ‘ported to the warehouse leaving Alba and Bolon to work out their coverage plan.
The warehouse was a madhouse of activity. There were strings of basas tethered in front. The brays of an unhappy barnta echoed loudly in the alleys surrounding us. Most of those running around were in Duchy livery. Authoritarian shouts and signals from the Duchy Guard kept traffic moving through the narrow alleys, despite its tendency to stack up without warning.
Jord was everywhere, encouraging the idle to pick up a burden and directing where deliveries were to drop off their wares. While no ships were waiting in the slips, supplies and equipment were stacking up on the piers.
I recognized Jeek, an experienced blacksmith on one pier, surrounded by anvils, bellows, and other blacksmithing paraphernalia. He was operating a portable forge and anvil set up next to a broken-down wagon. The rhythmic striking of maul on anvil added to the cacophony of sound. Once he repaired the wagon, Jeek had a line of customers pulling, pushing, or dragging more equipment needing repair.
Jord noticed that line of people standing still and pulled all of them out of line except for the first four. The others scattered to attend to their new assignments.
As I watched, a small schooner maneuvered into one of the empty slips. This caused a major change in the noise levels, as barnta and basas handlers attempted to get their charges moving toward it.
I noted with approval that Grik was leading the barnta drive. Grik thought the slavers had ruined his chances to ever work with barntas when they crippled his arm. He was one of the ex-slaves I’d healed from Augun. I remember telling him we had plenty of work for barnta drivers. He looked well and in complete charge of his barnta teams.
I was glad the schooner was equipped to transport animals, this had been a problem Capt. Malek was working through. The schooner couldn’t transport all the barntas and basas squalling and braying around the warehouse, but it would make a dent.
I decided I would only complicate an already complicated mess and left Jord to his logistics nightmare. I could teleport some things to the Keep and looked around for a likely candidate. I should have guessed my team was on it. I was directed to a location that had a big sign announcing it as the teleport pad. Boxes and crates were stacked under different categories.
I strapped myself to the three top priority items, and ‘ported to the Keep front gate portal. The portal coordinator asked me to pass through the ward and load the high priority items on a cart staged there. The cart driver looked at the delivery instructions and sped off. I never learned what I’d ‘ported in, but someone wanted it pretty badly.
I told Ellte I was at the Keep and ported to meet Argon. It was taking too long for the barntas to go from the pier level to the Keep level. Going up the five levels took a long time and supplies were stacking up on the piers. This was keeping the ships from departing.
Argon and Tobron were clearing out several pier level warehouses. They’d been certified glappner free this morning, but none of us was completely confident the critters were really all gone. She and Tobron were working in the nearest closed off area and were effectively trolling for glappners to attack them. They were happy to see me. Tobron had handed over the traffic cop role to Marfo, and she had everything except emptying the ships moving well.
So far, the warehouse was glappner-free as advertised. Our exterminator, Ronar, left several hundred detectors guaranteed to alert to glappners in the miles of closed off warehouses. Tobron said Ronar had hired more than 100 exterminators for the removal and he needed the large number of detectors to keep them safe. Ronar only ag
reed to leave the detectors for us to use after a serious showdown. Ronar was given the choice of being barred from the site thus giving us access to the units already deployed or finishing the job and leaving them in place.
After it became very clear, we had to get some of the built-in warehouse area opened up, Tobron and Clive conjured a 3-foot diameter pipe to exhaust the blocked corridor. They ran the pipe out through the portcullis and dropped the end nearly 10 feet underwater. Tobron was sure any escaping glappner would be immediate fish food. Since I couldn’t imagine any but the tiniest glappner exiting that way, I was sure he was right. Argon had mounted a detector inside the pipe as insurance.
So far nothing had appeared.
In addition to trolling for glappners, we needed to rid the warehouses of their residual dampness and clear out the accumulated debris. That was the main purpose for Tobron’s pipe. Argon had set up several units which I might have called fans on Earth. These served the same function but exhausted heated or cooled conjured air instead.
Tobron and Argon had already cleared out four warehouse areas with only 20 more to go in this corridor. They’d accumulated a large pile of debris. I suggested they put on a forced air helmet while I torched it. I suspected the debris had bits of glappner husks and the like and felt that incineration was the best choice. I hit it with a plasma torch, and it flared momentarily and disintegrated into light-colored ash. I blew it down the corridor toward Tobron’s pipe.
I went into the next warehouse on the corridor and used force magic to bulldoze the debris into the corridor. I aimed the air unit at the floor and cranked up the airflow and heat to max.
After my fourth warehouse, it dawned on me to use water magic to pull the water out of the stone surface. I suggested it to my teammates and Argon promised Tobron she’d give his rooms the once over. By the time we finished the 24 rooms in the corridor, they were bone dry and debris free. We also were forced to admit they were probably glappner free as well.
Tobron removed the stone blocking the corridor entrance and extended his pipe to the next blocked corridor. As we disappeared into the closed corridor, our people were already moving the backed up supplies from the piers into the newly opened warehouses.
By the time we handed over the second corridor, all the ships but the Malek had left, and the piers were empty of goods. While clearing the warehouse, I checked in with Inoa, telling her I had refilled my magic and depending on her need she could get a fill up from Loma. Inoa had kept most of her magic in reserve, so she was fine, though she hoped we didn’t encounter another lich lord.
While we cleared warehouses, Argon filled me in on this morning’s cleansing. It was the most difficult cleansing ritual she had ever encountered. What her team lacked in prior experience, they made up for with their grit and resilience.
The ritual started easily with a lineup of errant spirits eager to leave this plane. This group gradually transitioned to a host that fought to stay behind. None of these was a serious challenge for Argon and Avia’s acolytes. Their purification rituals were very much up to the task of moving this group on.
Most of the acolytes’ problems came with the last group of spirits. Those spirits had been part of sacrifices and other vile rites which imbued them with supernatural powers. They felt they had ruled this plane for so long that it was now theirs. Fortunately, their evil nature prevented them from working closely together.
“I’m confident they would have sundered our circle if they had attacked in force,” Argon sent. “I don’t know what would have become of us. I’ve never heard of it happening. It is possible both Avia and Shala would have come to our aid, but I’m glad we were allowed to recover between attacks.”
“What are the acolytes looking for now?” I sent.
“They need to find the resting place of the lich lord you sundered,” Argon sent. “It is likely there are remnants of the death cult wherever he was nesting that needs spiritual cleansing. If we are lucky, they will just be remnants. The remnants act like magnets, pulling spirits toward them and away from the next plane. It is possible there will be spirits stuck there we’ll have to free, although I would have expected them to be bound to the lich.”
“What is a lich lord and how sure are we that what we faced this morning was one?”
“Liches are the elite of the undead. No longer spirits but not really corporeal either. They absorb malevolent spirits into their essence. The more spirits they absorb, the stronger and more substantial they get. Lich lords are the elite of the elite. Whether the one you killed had achieved that status yet isn’t clear. I certainly hope it was the toughest lich here because Tobron said they were all worried you’d run out of fire magic before it died. Inoa was smart to use the fire bands to hold it in place and make sure it died. If it had slithered off, we would all be vulnerable when it struck back, and it would have been hungry,” shivered Argon.
Liches, another area on Jaloa that I knew nothing about. Another bit of progress, we now had 48 warehouse sections verified free of glappners. Only thousands more to go. Argon ported to meet her fellow acolytes, hoping to check out the lich site before dark.
Ellte alerted everyone in the Keep that food was being served at the main building. We had figured serving dinner an hour before dusk was one way to get everyone under cover by dark. We knew there would be stragglers, but Cleon and his Duchy Guard were charged with getting everyone safely inside the building Clive had prepped as our initial Keep HQ.
Although Argon and I had a suite in this building, we expected to sleep in the first-floor barracks, along with most of the other pathfinders. I couldn’t decide whether that was putting all of our eggs in a single basket or prudent preparations for defending our people against whatever might arrive in the night.
While the meal was supposed to be a rustic stew, I was amazed that it was accompanied by plenty of fruit, bread, and cheese. I expected the large urn of chee was going to be very popular as the night wore on.
Tobron and I were discussing the most likely options when Argon ‘ported in, followed closely by Inoa. Clive walked in with his team of builders and pushed them toward the food line as he angled over to pour a cup of chee and join us.
Within a short time, all of our inner circle assigned to the Keep had joined us except Cleon. Argon briefed everyone on the cleansing scheduled for the predawn hours. The lich lord had a foul nest located in the palace, near one of the blocked passages. There was room for a proper spiritual containment sphere, but they would need Inoa, Cleon, Tobron and me for backup.
“Avia’s main acolyte has requested we allow them to build a modest shrine to Avia on the site of the original blight. They feel if it is left alone, it will forever be a dark magnet. They feel a consecrated shrine will eliminate the blight. They think embedding a blessed medallion in the palace might be enough there, but will know better after the cleansing at dawn,” said Argon.
Seeing no objection, I said, “The Duchy would be honored to have such holy sites in our Keep.”
It took all she could to keep the humor out of her response as Argon answered formally, “I will let Avia’s spiritual leaders know when I join them for the cleansing.” It would have been more solemn if it hadn’t been accompanied by an air thump to my ear.
My team got up to get dinner as the rest of us wrapped up our meal, waiting for Cleon and his on-site commander to join us. Since I was the one with the ‘feeling’, everyone wanted me to elaborate, even after I reminded them that wasn’t how it worked.
Cleon and the guard were escorting a reluctant group of farmers and foresters, who weren’t ready to stop work. Cleon stayed with them until he was sure they wouldn’t sneak back to the fields once he left. Several wanted to sleep in the barns to protect the basas. Others were used to working late into the night during planting season. I knew from my own experience with them, they wouldn’t be satisfied by my ‘feeling.’ Argon wasn’t so sure since many Jaloans were known for their abilities to warn of the future.
Cleon ‘ported in on the run, and I waved him to get some food, assuring him mentally there was no need to rush.
“I do not know what I expect to attack in the night. But I feel confident something will happen. I do not feel good about everyone sleeping in one pile, I think we should split up enough that a single spell or whatever cannot affect us all. It may even come while some of us are purging the lich nest,” I told my group.
“Break us up into squads, with militia, mages, guard, and others together. Have our guards patrol the building, checking in with Ellte and her team frequently. If they fail to check in, have Ellte initiate a cascading call out. Make sure everyone has a weapon and is prepared to use it.”
Cleon acknowledged my instructions. Tobron announced the plan to the assembly, but everyone had to wait for the arrival of the rest of the Duchy Guard before final squads could be assigned.
Tobron and Cleon split up the mages pretty equally between squads. Clive, Tobron, Cleon, Inoa, Argon, and I, were assigned guard duty for a portion of the night. Clive was assigned the two early morning shifts since the rest of us would be fumigating the lich lair.
Argon warned the acolytes that we might have to delay the cleansing if we were up to our necks battling some other problem. We tucked them into a strong squad and hoped they would be safe. Their main answer was always, “Avia would provide.” Apparently, Avia and Shala had slightly different philosophies on this issue.
Tobron had magical lights placed throughout the keep, lighting the main streets, farms, and buildings we were using. It had looked like overkill before the sun started going down. As darkness descended the area around our building still looked dark and bleak, despite the lights. I knew this was more from my sense of apprehension than any identified threat. For much of my life, I’d considered darkness an ally not something to be feared.