Son of a Liche

by J. Zachary Pike

  “Oh, I know.” The Elf wouldn’t look him in the eye; instead, she stared out a grimy window at the gray, drizzly sky. “But I know myself as well. I drive people away. My old adventuring parties. My agent. Even the King in the Wood.”

  “And I hang on to things once I’ve made up my mind.” Gorm sat in a simple oak chair near the bed. “And on that subject, I’m gettin’ the party back together. I want ye to help me track ‘em down.”

  Kaitha gave a small, joyless laugh. “You don’t need me. You’ve got that flying contraption with the sprites.”

  “Aye, but the bastard that built it tells me it has trouble tracking mages, which is nearly half the job. Besides, I want a tracker that I don’t perpetually want to punch.”

  They both looked at the mechanical gazer, which erupted into a tiny, inquisitive cacophony. “Why are they looking here? … What’s she doing? … What’d he say?”

  “I said shut it!” growled Gorm. The mechanical gazer snapped its jaw shut.

  “I still don’t know, Gorm,” said Kaitha. “Honestly, I don’t know if I’d be helping or hurting your cause. I’m a disaster these days.”

  “Aye. That’s why ye fit right in with us,” said Gorm.

  Kaitha laughed again, genuinely this time, but she only shook her head and continued staring out the window.

  “What happened to ye, lass?” Gorm asked eventually.

  The Elf watched dark clouds sweeping over the hamlet of Ebenmyre. “I’ve been asking myself that for a long time.”

  “I meant to your arms and legs.” He nodded to the bandages.

  “Oh.” Kaitha shrugged. “The Myrewood.”

  “And ye don’t want a healing potion?”

  “Oh, I want one,” she said, looking at Gorm with a sudden intensity. “I’ve been lying in bed for weeks just thinking about how badly I want a healing potion. I want one so bad it burns. It just doesn’t burn as much as the memory of withdrawal. The shame of what I’ve done for a kick. Never again, Gorm. Never again.”

  “Feels good to hear ye say as much.”

  “Well, I’m happy for you. It feels thrice-cursed awful from this side.” She waved a hand at her bloodied leg. “A bogling got me in the thigh, and their venom stings like dragonfire. I swear, the Myrewood is one of the hells.”

  Gorm nodded. “Honestly, I thought I’d have to go in myself to find ye when that little flying golem led me this way. I assumed ye’d gone after Thane.”

  “I did. He isn’t there.” Kaitha shook her head. “The innkeeper told me the swamp’s been more dangerous without the King in the Wood around, but I went in anyway.”

  “No sign of him?”

  Kaitha sighed and looked back out the window. “I found the garden he used to keep, but it’s dead. Choked with swamp vines. A blighted crocotrice is nesting in the middle of it now. He’s gone, and I have no idea where else to look.”

  Gorm cursed inwardly. If Thane hadn’t returned to the Myrewood, there was no telling where the Troll was. “I’m sorry, Kaitha,” he said. “For everything. I should have told ye—”

  “I wasn’t angry at you,” the ranger interrupted. “Well, I was, but I shouldn’t have been. I was mostly angry at myself. I’ve been traveling with a Kobold for more than a year, and Tib’rin before him. I’ve been working hard to convince the Guz’Varda we were friends. And still, I see a Troll and I… I just assume he’s a monster.”

  She shook her head. “And I’m angry with him as well, honestly. Why would he hide from me? I was talking to him, Gorm. If he had found almost any other way to introduce himself…”

  “He was scared, lass.” Gorm sighed. “Of what ye’d do if ye found out he was a Troll.”

  “But not everyone else?” the Elf asked bitterly. “I mean, what was so wrong with me that he assumed the worst? Or then again, what’s so wrong with me that I would prove him right?”

  “Nothing’s wrong with you.”

  Kaitha turned back to Gorm, her eyebrows raised in profound skepticism. “Let’s not pay lip service.”

  “Fine. But whatever’s wrong with ye can’t hold a candle to all that’s good in ye,” said Gorm. “You’re the Jade bloody Wind, one of the finest heroes ever to walk Arth.”

  “If that was true, I don’t think I would have wound up here.” Kaitha gestured at her bandages.

  Gorm put a hand on her shoulder. “If it wasn’t true, I wouldn’t have come here after ye.”

  The Elf shook her head. “You’re different.”

  “You’re thrice-cursed right we are,” said Gorm. “Now, are ye coming?”

  Kaitha laughed despite herself. “Why are you doing this? Handor’s dead, Gorm. Who will you hold a grudge against now? The Orcs still hate us. We can’t best Detarr. We failed.”

  “First of all, never tell a Dwarf he can’t hold a grudge,” Gorm held up his index finger. “We can always find someone worthy of a good grudge. Johan is still out there plottin’, and nobody’s touched Goldson or Baggs.”

  “True enough.”

  “Second,” said Gorm, counting on his fingers. “I’ve an idea that may get us back into the good graces of the Guz’Varda, and more importantly, get them into the good graces of the Freedlands. And third, we couldn’t beat Detarr. That doesn’t mean we can’t. This time’s different.”

  “How so?”

  “I’ve got a plan for getting the staff back.”

  “You had the staff before. You’d need an army.”

  Gorm grinned. “I’m pretty sure I can get one of those as well.”

  The Elf shook her head with a smirk. “Well, what your plan lacks in specifics it makes up for in absurdity.”

  “We find the party. We get ‘em back together. We save the world. Everything else is just details,” the Dwarf said. “Point is, the undead are threatenin’ everything, and whatever comes of it, there’s only going to be two kinds of people in the end. Those that gave it everything, and those that quit.”

  He stood. “We both know which group I belong to. Which one will ye be in?”

  “Oh, don’t make a mummers’ play of it,” the Elf chided him as she shifted her legs over the edge of the bed. “You already know my answer.”

  “Wouldn’t have come all this way if I didn’t.” Gorm extended a hand to the ranger. “But it’s good to see I was right.”

  “Turn left!”

  “I ain’t turnin’ left!” Gorm twisted around in his saddle to shout at the mechanical gazer. “There isn’t even a bloody intersection here! Where is there even a left to turn on?”

  “I think it means that game trail,” said Kaitha, pointing to a small gap in the undergrowth. “It’s just confused.”

  “There’s an understatement,” grumbled the Dwarf. “At least we must be getting close to them wizards if their magics are scrambling the sprites this much.”

  “Turn around!” pleaded the mechanical gazer as it bobbed along behind them. The construct had brought Gorm and Kaitha to the northeastern edge of the Green Span after they left Ebenmyre, but over the past day it had grown increasingly disoriented. Now it seemed convinced that its target was somewhere in the middle of Drakehead Lake. “Make a u-turn! … Take the next available left!”

  “Is there a way to turn it off?” Kaitha asked.

  “I don’t think so, short of taking an axe to it,” said Gorm.

  “Let’s not rule out any options,” said Kaitha. “But for now, I think we’re getting close. Look. There isn’t supposed to be anything but an old ruin out this way, but a lot of carts and horses have been through here as of late.”

  “Could be trouble,” said Gorm.

  “It could be a conclave of omnimancers,” said Kaitha.

  “Same thing.”

  “Turn around at the next intersection!” screamed the gazer.

  Gorm sighed and spurred his mount on.

  The ruins of an old granite fort came into view just before noon. Ramshackle wooden structures were haphazardly perched atop the crumbling ramparts and f
allen towers, and long black banners with a strange gray symbol hung from the windows, gently flapping in a spring breeze. Gorm and Kaitha dismounted and tethered the mechanical gazer to a tree before approaching the fort’s gate.

  A thin slot in the door opened before Kaitha could knock. “And what exactly is it that you want?” said a muffled voice.

  “We’re looking for a friend,” said Gorm.

  “You won’t find any here. Try taking up a hobby or talking to people in pubs.” The tiny peephole slammed shut.

  “Clever git,” Gorm growled, and hammered on the door three times.

  The slot opened once more. “We don’t take visitors.”

  “And I don’t take ‘no’ for an answer,” Gorm barked. “We’ve come to see a specific friend. Jynn’s his name.”

  “How do you even know he’s in here?” said the hidden guard.

  “There’s two ways to find out,” said Gorm. “But only one of them involves a battleaxe.”

  “Ha! This gate is made from solid oak with steel bracers and is enchanted with the secret wards of the Fane Amada!” the guard crowed. “Your axe won’t do much against it.”

  “Perhaps,” said Kaitha. “But the wall over there is patched up with some pine boards and a broken barrel.”

  There was a thoughtful silence.

  “Um, those have wards too?” the guard suggested.

  “I could check for ye,” said Gorm, brandishing his axe.

  “No, no!” said the guard. “We’re… uh…. We can make an exception for you. But you’ll have to leave your weapons in the gatehouse.”

  Gorm shrugged. “If ye really think that’ll make us less dangerous.”

  The door clanked as it was unlocked, then creaked open to reveal a young, knock-kneed man in an omnimancer’s ragged gray robes. He scuttled back to a relatively safe distance and then pointed to a wooden bin, where Gorm and Kaitha deposited axe and bow, respectively. Once they were disarmed, the wizard pushed open the inner door, or more accurately, he began a laborious attempt to push open the inner door. The entryway had been built to withstand a siege and the omnimancer had been built for a life of reading in the corner, so the way was opened with more struggling than ceremony.

  Kaitha leaned close to Gorm as they watched the frail man labor. “I’m glad the guard could be intimidated, but if we’re going to get Jynn on our side, it can’t all be about threats and violence.”

  “Oh, come now. We made our careers on threats and violence.” Gorm snorted. “We got paid because sometimes threats and violence are the only way anything gets done.”

  “Sometimes,” conceded Kaitha. “But if we want to convince him to fight for us, we need to stay calm and make a compelling case.”

  “If ye say so,” said Gorm, unable to conceal his doubt.

  The panting wizard finally finished opening the door and ushered them into the courtyard. The grounds beyond were teeming with omnimancers. Young men and women in gray robes stared at them from every corner of the courtyard, looked down from the ramparts, and peeked out from the windows of the inner keep.

  “They might be dangerous,” Kaitha whispered in his ear.

  Gorm glanced over to a makeshift training ground, where a group of omnimancers were practicing their weaving. One of the older mages attempted to hurl a spell at a burlap target. Nothing came of it except a few pathetic sparks of sorcery.

  “I’m pretty sure we’ll be fine,” he said to Kaitha.

  They hadn’t made it halfway across the courtyard before an omnimancer in a tall, plumed hat burst from the keep and stormed toward them. He was decidedly plump for a man living in the middle of some overgrown ruins, and his gray robes were decorated with a multitude of feathers and other trinkets. His beard was thin and curled, and put Gorm in mind of moss clinging to a stone. “What is the meaning of this?” he screeched. “Rob, you were to drive off all who dare approached our fortress!”

  Rob muttered an apology and kicked at the gravel.

  “And you!” The omnimancer in the ridiculous hat turned to Gorm and Kaitha in turn. “You would dare to trespass in the lair of the Fane Amada?”

  The discussion was momentarily interrupted by a commotion from the communal gardens on the east wall, where a young omnimancer was waving her arms to avoid falling off a stack of barrels. Her wild gesticulations sprayed twisting threads of elemental magic in every direction, scattering the omnimancers around her. An errant bolt of sorcery flew into the henhouse, and after a moment of ominous clucking, something hideous, scaled, and vaguely resembling poultry lurched from the coop and began chasing screaming mages around the courtyard.

  “…Yes,” said Kaitha.

  “Oh, for the love of Musana—Wilt, just hit it with a shovel! The shovel! The one in your hand!” The omnimancer in the hat was crimson-faced when he turned back to the adventurers. “Ugh, very well. What do you want, anyway? I’m very busy.”

  “Clearly.” Kaitha tried to hide a smirk and failed.

  “We’re looking for our friend,” said Gorm. “Thin, Human, always looks like he’s sick, black goatee. Know where he is?”

  “Do I know?” laughed the omnimancer. “Why, you stand before Rathwyne, High Amada of the Fane! I am the master of night and day, of ice and fire, of enigma and paradox! I alone have seen the tet ahua rise above the Emerald Infinity! All secrets of the gloaming are at my command.”

  “So you’re the head wizard here?” said Kaitha.

  “We are not wizards!” snapped Rathwyne.

  Gorm watched an omnimancer throw a spell at the rampaging ex-chicken. The magical missile missed its target, ricocheted off a wall, and struck the caster’s face hard enough to knock him to the ground. “Well, I’ll grant ye that,” he said.

  Rathwyne sniffed and waved a dismissive hand. “We have moved beyond your petty concepts of mages and wizards and heroes! We are the Fane Amada, the secret-keepers! We know the names of the four—”

  “Right, right,” said Gorm. “But ye know where Jynn is?”

  “Yes. Fine. Brother Jynn chooses to regard the mysteries of many things in the Chamber of Silence,” said Rathwyne.

  “He what now?”

  The High Amada sighed. “He’s studying in the library, if you must speak of things in the old ways.”

  “And where’s the library?” asked Gorm.

  “You will have found it when you come upon the third portal on the weaveward side.”

  Kaitha thought for a moment. “So that’s the third door on the…”

  “The left, fine. The third door on the left,” conceded Rathwyne, pointing to the keep. The courtyard rang out with renewed screams as the fowl abomination cornered a cluster of Fane Amada. “Excuse me, I’ve got to deal with this.”

  “Don’t let us keep you,” said Kaitha.

  Rathwyne set off across the courtyard without so much as a nod. “I said to use the shovel, Wilt!”

  “Omnimancers,” muttered Kaitha under her breath.

  “Aye. Barmy to the last,” said Gorm. “Come on, let’s go find ours.”

  They found Jynn seated at a large table in the center of the library in the Fane Amada’s keep. The walls were lined with glass cases. Papers and notes blanketed the furniture and floor around the recent omnimancer, including several pages carefully balanced atop Patches. The dog lay dutifully next to his old master, motionless except for the thumping of his tail on the floor as Gorm and Kaitha approached.

  Jynn didn’t look up from the page. “I didn’t expect to see you again.”

  “Didn’t expect to have to come all the way out here to find ye,” said Gorm. “What are ye doing with this lot?”

  Jynn gestured at the papers surrounding him. “Researching my father’s work. Trying to figure out what he was planning.”

  “I’m fairly certain he’s marchin’ for Andarun,” Gorm said.

  “The bannermen are evacuating Aberreth,” Kaitha added.

  Jynn glanced up at them just long enough to be condescending. “Ye
s, I’m well aware of his current plans. I’m researching the Leviathan Project.”

  “The one you and your father were working on before he died?” asked Kaitha.

  “The one that he and some other mages were working on,” Jynn corrected her. “Father may have let me see an experiment from time to time, but he didn’t trust me with his plans. I knew that it was a secret project and that it involved live test subjects, but I didn’t put it all together until Father unleashed the hellhound and the… uh… fire pig?”

  “Demon boar?” suggested Gorm. “No, I think it was a netherboar.”

  “Ah, yes. Gods, it’s like he has an involuntary reflex for the grandiose.” Jynn reached down to scratch Patches behind the ears. “Regardless, it was no coincidence that Patches and the dead pig appeared after we killed the infernal beasts. I realized that it must have something to do with the Leviathan Project. And so I came here to research it.”

  “Here?” Kaitha’s doubt was punctuated by a final-sounding squawk from the chicken-beast outside.

  Jynn gave an apologetic shrug. “The Fane Amada are… misguided, but if they’re good for anything—”

  “Doubtful,” Gorm muttered.

  “It’s collecting hidden knowledge,” continued Jynn, ignoring the interruption. “Forgotten tomes, runic glossaries, compiled notes; exactly what I need for my investigation.”

  “I can believe that,” said Kaitha, looking over at the glass cases lining the wall. “Just look at all of these old books.”

  “They’ve assembled an impressive collection of forbidden grimoires,” said Jynn. “Encyclopedia Daemonica, the Seven Cryptical Books of Solumn, a translation of the Al’Thadac Shards, the Psalms Mannocolai; the list goes on.”

  “What’s this one?” asked Gorm, picking up the only tome not locked within a glass case.

  “That’s perhaps the most powerful book never written,” said Jynn.

  “It’s all blank.” Gorm flipped through the empty pages. “No, wait, there’s a line at the front.”

  Gorm read the small, neat script on the page aloud.

  Imbalanced. Too powerful. Breaks mechanics.