He saw that the golden creature was beset by the skeletons as well. What Lorian did to them was nothing compared to what the creature was doing to them now. Its power seemed limitless, casting numerous spells at once, unrestrained by any barriers, and using its trident at the same time. Orbs of pure energy struck and destroyed its undead opponents in large numbers.
Feeling a pulse of anger at being denied what he felt was rightfully his, Lorian began casting his most powerful spells. With their increasing number, he would have to do it eventually, or else they would be overrun by sheer numbers.
The battle raged on till Lorian lost track of time. He stopped thinking, and was reduced to pure action. He did not know whether he was getting fatigued and his spells getting weaker, or his enemies were getting stronger. Whereas earlier a single arrow of fire could shatter his opponent, it was now only denting its armor and pushing it off balance.
He had exhausted most of his spells by now.
The creature, however, was still doing very well. He had few spells left, and those too required a greater time to cast. They would, however, be effective.
Lorian quickly cast a defensive spell enclosing his body in a shell of force that radiated outward. He felt it weaken as the skeletons tried to cut through it. It wouldn't last forever, but gave him time to cast one of his most powerful spells.
Just before his barrier broke, Lorian finished the spell. A small cone of fire formed in front of him. As soon as he unleashed it, it ripped through his protective barrier and expanded outward, spreading conically, covering the entire ground in front of him. Lorian kept fueling the spell. The longer he held on, the more strain it would be on his mind, and the farther the spell would travel, and with greater force.
He closed his eyes and gritted his teeth, commanding every cell in his body to not give up. When he could hold on no longer, he let go, and felt his fingers tingle as the fire trailed away. He fell to his knees gasping for breath. When he got up, as far as he could see the ground in front was covered with smoldering bone. He turned to look at the creature, which stood motionless. It did not appear the least bit tired. Lorian turned around to see if there were any more, but he couldn't see over the smoke and ember.
"Are there any more?" he asked.
"None on the ground," said the creature.
Puzzled, Lorian looked up towards the sky. He felt his heart drop. Six skeletons were flying in the sky and heading towards them. They moved in perfect unison, carrying no weapons and wearing no armor.
But they radiated magic. Liches.
This was bad. Lorian had never really seen a lich, but he knew about them. Necromancers who chose undeath as a way of prolonging life. What in hell were they doing here? Were they the ones summoning the skeleton hordes?
"No. They appeared just now," replied the creature.
Looked like severing the essence link between them didn't hinder it from reading his mind. It continued, "These ones come only for you."
"What?"
The creature didn't respond and looked intently as the liches floated toward them. All six liches began casting a spell. Lorian quickly summoned a barrier against magic. It wasn't enough. He felt the skin grind against his bones as six black lances struck his barrier at once. His balance wavered for a second as the barrier dissipated.
Lorian coughed up blood.
The liches were casting again. The same spell. Lorian couldn't survive another hit like that, but knowing the spell gave him an advantage. He carefully timed his own spell. He finished casting at the same time the liches did.
The black lances struck the ground, leaving a small crater there. Teleporting twenty feet away from the crater, Lorian lifted his hand to release a jet of flame.
Disorientation. That was the biggest disadvantage of using teleportation in battle. Normally, his jet of flame would have enveloped all six liches, but it only struck one of them, doing very little to deter it at all. He immediately regretted teleporting.
He held up his other hand and uttered the words mentally to release a small-sized comet from him hands that headed toward the liches. It struck one of them with a resounding crack, hurtling it to the ground. A wave of pain passed through his body radiating from his thigh. He nearly bit off his tongue in reaction. His thigh was mangled. An arrow of flame had struck it leaving a ruined mass of bloody flesh.
Rejuvenated by the adrenaline surge from the pain, Lorian began casting spells. This time, there was none of the finesse or fluidity that was present when he fought the lesser skeletons. He was wild and released spells in a frenzy, one after the other, some striking their targets and some missing them entirely. His recklessness was dangerous. He was quickly being drained of magic. He needed to switch to defensive spells if he wanted to live.
He barely pulled up a barrier before a glowing black orb struck him and sent him hurtling into the floor.
"Do something!" yelled Lorian to the creature. The words came out with bloody spittle.
No sooner had he finished speaking than Lorian took another hit. This time directly to his chest. He was pressed into the ground by the force, his head slamming into it, sending a wave of pain through his already battered body.
His last sight was that of the golden creature, standing there stoically, simply observing. He managed to mutter a curse at it before his vision blurred and he lost all sensation.
Chapter 42
Lorian was barely regaining his consciousness as he heard the clank of chains being fastened to the wall. He was bleeding and his body was battered. From his position on the ground, he could see that he was in some sort of dungeon. All manner of undead creatures were running around. Standing in the center of the room was one of liches he had battled a while ago. He would have felt angry at it, but he was still reeling from the shock of having lost.
Lorian knew he had potential, and he was told that numerous times by two of the greatest mages he'd known as masters. He also knew it would be a long time before his name could be counted among the likes of Gawain.
But this defeat. He felt ashamed.
He had studied the basics of necromancy while at the Shadow Spire...rudimentarily. He was never intrigued by it, and had dismissed it as an obscure school, that thrived more on fear and appearances than actual results. The last few hours had increased his respect for the school.
Slowly, he began analyzing the battle. How his opponent had drained most of his potent spells using lesser minions. And then came the liches. He began to play out scenarios where he could have beaten them with whatever spells he had remaining. He began to unearth several tactical mistakes he could have avoided.
Lorian was brought out of his analytical reverie with a cough of blood. The cough sent a wave of pain through his head blocking all thought for a few seconds. Slowly, as the pain subsided, he became aware of the damage to his body. He had broken at least a couple of ribs. His fingers were cracked and hurting. His thigh was mangled, and it was charred black.
He moved his hand and felt the scabbing. It seemed almost methodically burnt. Cauterized. Seems like someone didn't want him bleeding to death. But most of the other non-fatal wounds were left untouched.
He would be kept alive for now.
Very quickly, his mind started assessing his present situation. He was in a dungeon inside the massive castle. He did not know what would happen next, but he needed to regain control. The first place to start would be by securing his freedom. That meant escape.
He forced himself to a sitting position and looked at the chains that bound him. They glowed faintly with magical runes. Lorian tried connecting to the elemental plane. The connection was faint. He wondered if his spells would work.
He noticed that the lich at the center of the room was staring at him. It made no move. Something simple, thought Lorian. He tried summoning up a small gout of flame from his fingers. He felt the connection to the plane. He felt his essence connecting with a pillar of fire. He uttered the incantation under his breath to draw from the pl
ane.
Almost as suddenly as he felt his fingers glow with the promise of fire, he convulsed and fell back to the ground on his side and retched. His eyes drew back into his skull and he felt blood dribbling on the side of his face. The runes on his shackles glowed radiantly before becoming dull again. Lorian coughed as he regained composure.
Magic was out of the question. The runes wouldn't let him cast. He got back up again to see the skeletal face of the lich. Absent its skin, Lorian couldn't be sure what it was thinking, or if it was thinking at all, but he was certain it was smiling.
He looked around to see if there was anything else that could help him. There were several cells lining the room. He did not know what was inside each cell. It was far too dark to tell, but he was certain he could feel presences, both natural and unnatural from them.
One cell in particular.
He looked at it now and felt eyes staring at him. The longer he looked at it, the more he felt as if his soul was being stripped bare. He tore his eyes away from the cells back to the center of the room. The lich still stood motionless.
"Who are you?" Lorian asked. His voice came out in a croak, but it resonated through the dungeon over the clatter of undead.
No answer. Great. The lich had several runes branded on it.
Lorian sat and observed the room. There was a marked difference in the way the rest of the undead moved and the way the lich moved. Liches were not summoned creatures. There were powerful skeletal mages that could be summoned, but very few of them could present any formidable challenge to a moderately accomplished mage.
Liches, however, were not merely reanimated dead. They were a transformation that a necromancer chose to gain immortality. And strength. Lorian knew little of the benefits of lichdom, but only beings truly desperate for power and unsatisfied with what their mortal shell could achieve chose lichdom. It offered certain benefits in battle. Liches were far more durable than humans, and their connection to necromancy far overshadowed anything a normal human could achieve.
This raised a few questions for Lorian. Was the lich guarding him under someone's orders? Lorian had read about some mages who had successfully transformed to liches, but they were the arrogant kind. Not ones to bend to another's will. Yet this lich stood before him.
Runes. The lich was covered in runes that glowed in patterns not too different from the ones on his chains. These liches were enslaved. Lorian shuddered. Not something that could be done easily.
"They didn't transform into liches... He created them."
Lorian's head shot up and darted around. It was deep and grating. The voice seemed to be inside his head, but it seemed to come from a direction.
"Who are you?" asked Lorian aloud. The lich was standing motionless as it had been since the beginning.
It wasn't the lich.
"In time," came the grating reply.
This time it felt deeper but Lorian could place a certain direction to it.
Lorian looked at the cells again. Several of them pulsated with a dark energy that made him feel uncomfortable. No... He thought as he continued looking at them one by one.
Lorian felt eyes boring into him when he looked at one of them in particular. The one that was making him uncomfortable moments ago. This time he met the invisible stare. Whatever the creature inside that cell was, it was communicating with him telepathically. A link of that kind was not easy to create. Especially without the knowledge of the person at the other end.
"Who are you?" asked Lorian again. "And what do you mean, 'He created them'?"
"You will know everything soon enough."
Lorian quickly tried to summon up a mental barrier against the intruding voice. He wasn't sure of its intentions, but he had no desire to be in a weaker and more vulnerable position than he already was. Until he knew what he was dealing with, he needed to block it off. A familiar feeling of sickness rose up in his stomach. The runes on his chains.
"Do not hurt yourself." The voice sounded amused. "He does not want you dead. Yet."
Questions were racing inside Lorian's head. What was going on? Who was his captor, and, more importantly, who or what was this creature communicating with him. The telepathic link died out. Lorian looked at the cell again. He felt drawn to it. It was like staring into a black whirlpool that could suck you in.
He then felt it.
A surge of electricity ran through him making him extremely alert. The hair on his body was standing up.
Something was approaching the dungeon.
A creature of immense power. He had only felt such power in Gawain. And Gawain's power felt more comforting. What he felt now was hopelessness as the source of the power drew closer. Normally, the feeling of his own magic flowing through him would give him a sense of comfort, but disconnected as he was, he felt utterly vulnerable.
The creature stepped into the passageway. Dressed completely in black and bearing a human face.
It was human! He was human! And a mage from the patterns on his robe. They bore a magical sigil that was unfamiliar to Lorian. He did not recognize it.
"You bear the mark of the Lumen," said the man. "A very fresh mark at that. How did one as young as you even touch it?"
The voice sounded normal. This was just a human being in front of him, Lorian told himself. Lorian did not reply. He was still taking in the man standing in front of him.
Hardly a few seconds of silence passed and without warning, Lorian's entire body was wracked with pain. He felt as if he would explode from within. The runes on the chains were glowing white-hot. Lorian tried to scream, but his mouth was clenched shut in pain. The feeling stopped almost immediately.
"It would be in your best interests to answer my questions quickly. What is your name, boy?"
"Lorian," he replied, panting. His body was covered with sweat.
"You're an apprentice of Cerevax?"
"Cerevax?" asked Lorian, thinking back. The name of the long-dead arch-mage of Norvind who was the second keeper. The master of Gawain's master. "Cerevax is long dead."
A smile crossed the stranger's face. That news seemed to have made him happy.
"Do you know who I am, boy?"
Lorian looked at the sigil again. It was still alien to him, but the deep pleasure he felt at Cerevax's death and immense magical power he contained told him a little. Add to that he was an incredibly powerful necromancer. He had only one guess.
"Amadeus?"
The man nodded.
Interesting, thought Lorian. After Geleb had mentioned it, Lorian did visit the history section of the library. There he read about the rise of Black Legion and how it was merely a tool for Amadeus to achieve his goals. Once Iothen had died, Amadeus had wasted no time in assembling the commanders of the strongest mercenary companies on Ryga, along with the dragon Anacalor. Together they had assaulted Norvind. Only a wounded Cerevax and his apprentice Amara had escaped alive. Everyone else at Norvind had been killed and Amadeus had control of the castle for a full two years.
There was nothing in the archives about what Amadeus had done at Norvind. Most of the books focused on the Black legion and Anacalor. It ended with a single line stating that while Azanar was being retaken by Gawain and his companions, Cerevax and Amara had assault Norvind and killed Cerevax. Lorian thought it was surprising that such a significant event was never documented in detail.
"I thought arch-mage Cerevax had slain you..."
"That fool, kill me? I do not know what is spoken of me today, and I care little for what they say in those books in your precious library. But Cerevax was the reason Norvind fell. He was wise, and knowledgeable, but he was not a battle commander. He understood the power that he held, but he was too weak to use it fully. His master, Iothen, was a different matter. I could never have defeated Iothen, even at his weakest, so I had to wait patiently until the castle fell into the hands of Cerevax."
Iothen. There was very little in the archives about him. It was very surprising, considering he was the fir
st keeper of Norvind. The true master of the Lumen. Its creator. Lorian had written it off as being too long ago to care, but the grudging respect that a mage as powerful as Amadeus had shown Iothen only served to further his opinion of the first keeper.
"The books say that Cerevax killed you. He assaulted Norvind with a band of adventurers—"
"Adventurers?" laughed Amadeus. "Is that what they called themselves? He made do with what he could get. It didn't take him long to understand that no one would be doing an apprentice of Iothen any favors."
The way Amadeus was describing it, keeper Iothen wasn't very well liked in his time.
"How did he defeat you?" asked Lorian.
"He never defeated me. Not truly. What he defeated was but a shadow left in my place as I tapped into the powers of the simulacrum and entered it. It does appear I overestimated the strength of my own forces absent my command. His band of Sellswords had proven resourceful enough to defeat my commanders allowing him and Amara to retake the castle."
The band of Sellswords Amadeus was referring to were probably master Gawain's companions. Master Gawain was still young back then and hadn't joined Norvind yet. What Amadeus was saying fit in properly with everything he read in the book. Yet, how was he still alive? He had mentioned tapping into the powers of simulacrum. Perhaps that's how he also created the shadow that he spoke of.
"Why are you here? Inside the simulacrum?" asked Lorian.
"That's an amusing question, and something one as young as you can never understand."
"Is it for the Lumen?"
Amadeus snorted derisively.
"Service myself to a dead god like those fools in Norvind? I think not."
Lorian felt a slight sting in his own mind. He was still uncomfortable with the idea that the dead god retained some form of control over him and he realized that somewhere, deep inside, he grudgingly shared Amadeus's feelings towards the Lumen.
Apprentice Page 27