Nightlord: Shadows

by Garon Whited

  Tort squeezed my arm and stretched up to kiss my cheek.

  “You do very well, my angel. And, as for my King, I will be here to help you.”

  “And let me know when I’m being an idiot?”

  “Indeed. No one else is likely to do so.”

  “You make a very good point.”

  “I should hope so.”

  “All right, now that I’ve had a lovely time getting my self-image put through the wringer, I’d like to be distracted by something a bit more intellectual than talking about those feelings thingies.”

  “Naturally.”

  “When I started connecting living things to spells, basically using them as magical power-gathering nodes, I realized that their souls are tied into the flesh in particular ways…”

  Our discussion moved into technical realms, but the gist of it is that there are a lot of physical places in a body where a soul has to be connected, kind of like installing a computer network in a building. You have to have power connections, data connections, routers, switches, personal computers (with attendant monitors, keyboards, and so on), and a server. All of that has to be tied together and balanced—the power can’t be spiking or browning out, the data cables can’t be run next to power cables, and so on—before the computers will work together and the building network be on-line.

  In a human or humanoid body, there appear to be about a hundred and eight vital tie-in points for a soul. Thirty-six of them are major connections—call those the power plugs. The other seventy-two are less power-intensive, so call those the data connections. You could argue it the other way around, I suppose, but that’s just how I think of it. Then there are a bunch more little connections, most of which seem to manage a spontaneous linkage as long as the main links are established.

  The transfer process works a lot like a transplant operation. Once you get the soul out of a body without killing the body—for most magic-workers, this is problematic; for me, it’s just tricky—you can then start removing the soul from another body (or other receptacle) to place it in the empty one.

  I discovered through experimentation that simply pouring a soul into an empty body like water into a wineskin isn’t the way to go about it. You can’t just pump energy into the body like power into a battery. The matrix of the entity tends to disintegrate quickly, too quickly for it to come to grips with its new container. It has to be fitted into the new body and tied into it. So, putting in a new heart is probably a good metaphor; souls just require less mopping if you botch it.

  Again, the trick is seeing the soul so you can tell what you’re doing. For most people, it’s like doing that heart transplant operation blindfolded. It probably isn’t even going to be a case of, “The operation was a success, but the patient died.” It’s more likely to be, “Did anyone hear where that landed? Feel around and see if you can find it.” Of course, if it comes to that point, you probably need a new patient.

  “These three,” I said, indicating two orku and a galgar embedded in the wall, “are my two best cases. The orku has the galgar’s soul in it; the galgar has an orku soul in it, and the empty orku was the donor for the galgar. A little bit of musical chairs, there, I’m afraid.”

  “Musical chairs?” Tort asked. “Chairs can be instruments? Like bells?”

  “Not what I meant. It’s a sort of children’s game. I’ll show it to you, sometime. But it takes an empty body to move the others around, that’s what I’m getting at.”

  “I see. Like pouring water from one glass to another, you always need an empty glass.”

  “Yeeeeeees… but more complicated.”

  “Naturally.” She examined my work. “I do not see how they are any different,” she admitted. “I suppose I should not expect to.”

  “Oh, they’ve been switched,” I assured her. “They seem to be having some trouble adapting to their new bodies, though. All they do is scream and gurgle and try to thrash about, but part of that is their terror; they were awake for the transfer, and it’s apparently somewhat painful. Hopefully, it’ll be painless for T’yl, since he’s in some kind of stasis, rather than in a living body.”

  “I am certain he will appreciate that.”

  “No doubt, if it works. Now, let’s interrogate some elves. Then we can see about finding T’yl a new home.”

  “As you wish, my angel.”

  I kept Tort up past her bedtime, but she didn’t complain. I think she rather enjoyed sitting back and watching, plying her spells to poke and pry at the subjects while I did the questioning. I woke them up, one at a time, and had a series of little chats.

  It is utterly amazing how cooperative people can be when you put a pointy fingernail in front of one of their eyes and ask if that’s the one they want gouged out.

  We took notes for each interview. Afterward, we settled down to compare them. They mostly agreed, with a few minor discrepancies—opinions differed, as well as what rumors each one had heard. Overall, they seem to have believed me implicitly about suffering horribly if they lied.

  I wonder if they could tell if I was telling the truth.

  Queen Keria, the Empress of the Undermountains, was definitely having some troubles with her titles. Being Queen wasn’t the problem; ruling the entirety of the Undermountains was. While the average unpleasant individual was definitely willing to bend the knee to a stronger power, they had a nasty habit of needing constant reminding. A community of rugged, barbaric individualists would start eating representatives of the Crown instead of sending back tribute with them. Which, of course, required an expedition-in-force to re-convince the locals that they were, yes, in fact, part of her empire.

  It was a constant struggle.

  Yet, despite this, she seemed to have a personal beef with me. Rumor had it that we were once lovers and I broke her black little heart. Other rumors included that I’d stolen something valuable from her—a magic cup, an enchanted ring, or some such; stories varied. Another said that I had her heart in a jar, hidden away, and she wanted it back.

  The fundamental point, that she was after me on a personal level, was supported by the way she reacted to news of my presence. She set her elven forces to crafting specialized magical weapons for the troops and called together a sizable portion of her standing army. Several days later, she sent representatives to try and lure me into a trap; when that didn’t work, she came after me.

  Other things we discovered:

  Firebrand was apparently happy as a fiery clam in a lava flow; killing things was its chief delight. It spent a lot of time in the northern reaches of the Undermountains as a symbol of the new imperial law and as a weapon of moderately-massive destruction. It cut down on the local rebelliousness. Recently, though, it had been recalled to Vathula. They had no reason for it, only speculation that it involved me, somehow.

  The elven forces at Keria’s command were mostly here, my captives. She had about thirty more in her service, but they were assigned to population centers, acting as governors and representatives of the Queen.

  Her armies were, potentially, quite formidable. Her elite troops—the regular troops, the veterans with discipline and training—were mostly dead, however. Another eight to ten thousand might be available, but they were the garrisons left behind to maintain the stability of her empire. She could still raise a militia of many thousands more, but it would be somewhat inexperienced and unwieldy, as well as prone to desertion.

  She was also courting some of the Rethven realms, possibly for an alliance to expand her power on the surface, possibly to get trade opportunities. My informants weren’t in the loop on that.

  One of the things they did know, however, was that Keria had at least three magicians in her service. There were also a few shaman-like wizards for spells and elves for magical craft-work, but that was all.

  That struck me as peculiar. I asked each of them about Keria, herself. After all, she was once a magician of Arondael, even if she did quit to join a coven of vampiric immortality-seekers. The answer
was pretty much the same all the way around: Maybe she was, but she doesn’t do that sort of thing anymore. No one knows why. Her prerogative, of course, as Queen, if she wanted to delegate all that.

  Which reminded me. People had spied on me almost from the moment I woke up. If Keria was short on magical muscle, who did it? My prisoners didn’t know, but the numbers involved implied that, while Keria might have people trying to watch me, someone else was also interested. And Keria could spy on me easily; elves can make magic mirrors, scrying bowls, crystal balls, and so on. She didn’t have enough of them, though, to account for all the ones I’d seen in use at the same time.

  They did recognize the guy in the blue robes, the one I bashed in the face with some superheated metal. His name was Tyrecan, and he was a scrying specialist. They didn’t know what happened, though; they hadn’t been in contact since the attack.

  They did confirm that Keria was probably the one watching during the incident at the bridge; she has a flat, hexagonal crystal that will work for both sight and sound with whomever she chooses. That was the scrying distortion behind Zaraneth. The rest of the scrying distortions were other people, probably trying to hide their observation in a convenient thicket of troops.

  As for how long it would take for her to assemble another attack force, their guesses varied from two weeks to ten weeks, depending on how big a force she wanted to field. They all doubted that it would be anytime soon, if at all. The total loss of an entire army was regarded as impossible, and therefore worthy of considerable deliberation before facing the cause.

  I plugged each of them back into the scryshield spell when I was done with them and let them sleep.

  “What do you think?” I asked Tort.

  “I believe them. They were beyond terrified and barely holding their poise. If you had so much as raised your voice, they would have lost control of their bowels.”

  “Yeah, I got that impression. And, since they all pretty much verified each other’s story on most points, I think we can assume that not only do they believe what they’re saying, it’s probably close enough to the truth to give it some weight.”

  “I agree, my angel.”

  “Good. Now, do me a favor?”

  “Anything.”

  “Pick out an elf for T’yl. I don’t know what he’d like.”

  “My angel?” she asked, puzzled.

  “If I’m going to put him into a new body, it ought to be one he likes. Since I can’t actually ask, and I’m not going to do this sort of thing twice just for aesthetic reasons, I’d like you to pick out an elf body that you think he would feel comfortable occupying. I never knew him well enough to judge, but you’ve known him for decades. Surely you can guess at what he’d like.”

  “Anything that isn’t a female,” she promptly replied. “He spent much of his early life in Kamshasa.”

  “So?”

  “It is a matriarchy. He was not well-treated as a young boy, despite his talent for magic. Perhaps because of it; only women are permitted the study of magic, or even of writing. His talent was exceptional, however, and he learned many things before he escaped across the western deserts to the kingdom of Praeteyn. He has not been fond of any females, except, possibly, for me.”

  “Ah. But, among the male elven bodies… the tallest? The shortest? The one with the violet eyes? What would he like?”

  “They are all immortal?”

  “As far as I know. They’re elves, Tort.”

  “Then I would select the tallest. I doubt he will care too much about the details of the appearance.”

  “Got it.” I started un-cementing the victim. “Do you want to watch?”

  “Not especially,” she admitted. “You are working directly with soul-stuff, as I understand the process. I will see very little of it, even if I do observe. True?”

  “You have a point.”

  “Then, by your leave, I will retire for the night.”

  “Sure.”

  She walked over and tapped me on the shoulder to turn me around. When I did, she hugged me and laid her head against my chest. I put my arms around her and stroked her hair.

  “Please, my angel, remember that you are loved.”

  “I’ll remember,” I promised. I didn’t promise to believe it, just remember it. That was enough. She let me go and breezed out.

  I shut the door and told the mountain I didn’t want to be disturbed. The crack around the door went away. Then I took T’yl’s crystal out of its case and regarded it.

  This was going to be tricky.

  Friday, May 21st

  I rubbed my eyes and stretched. Dawn doesn’t feel any better buried under a mountain, but at least I wasn’t hungry.

  To get T’yl a body, I removed an elf from stone storage, laid him out comfortably, disconnected him from the spell that sucked the vitality out of him, and magically started marking off the points where I would need to connect a soul. True, there was one in the way, but I wanted to get ahead of the game and be prepared.

  When my donor body woke up, I reached in past the animal vitality, deep beyond the flesh. I wanted the body to have all the vitality and energy it could; I just wanted it unoccupied. If it was a car, I’d want it fully fueled and running perfectly before I put it in Park and yanked out the driver.

  It takes a while to really eat an elf-soul. They can have hundreds, even thousands of years of experiences and memories. Also, I wanted to make sure I got every last bit of it—to clean the body out completely—like licking the bowl clean after Mom finishes frosting the cake. I took my time and did it right, going over it thoroughly, then back again.

  Putting T’yl into the empty vessel was still a challenging operation. Unlike a living being, the crystal didn’t allow me to transfer connection points one at a time. If I plugged him in, connecting various energy conduits in sequence, his essence would fragment. As each point came on-line, it would try to move in time with the rhythms of the flesh. Since the rest of the soul was held in stasis inside a crystal, that was a problem.

  I worked around it by treating a tendril like a piece of string. I ran one tendril through an anchor point in the flesh, like a shoelace through an eyelet, and attached the end to a connector in T’yl’s soul that corresponded to that “eyelet.” I repeated that process over a hundred times, until T’yl’s crystal had a whole web of tendrils stretched between it and various points throughout the elf-body.

  Once I had the major points connected that way, I gently pulled T’yl’s soul out of the crystal, handling it carefully to avoid accidentally gulping it down. In many ways, it was like taking a mouthful of something and just moving it without actually swallowing it.

  As I pulled my tendrils back, they slid through the anchor points in the flesh and drew the soul into alignment, pulling the energy centers into the anchor points all at the same time. With those held in place, I worked quickly to, well, tack them down, sort of—think of it as a few quick stitches to stop the bleeding. That was the tricky part of the operation. With over a hundred individual places where T’yl’s weakened, immobile soul needed to fix to flesh, it bled energy rather rapidly and disastrously. I’ve never moved faster in a fight than I did then. Connect here, I told it, again and again. Lock to this place. Fasten on to this energy center. Flow into and out of the flesh, like so…

  With the initial stitches in place, I went back and carefully worked over each one to connect it properly. I spent the rest of the night going through the body, making sure it was running and in balance, finding places where minor connections should go, even things that should naturally find their own way. I wanted this to go as easily and comfortably as possible for him. I even juiced the body with some extra vitality, just to make sure it wasn’t going to expire from exhaustion.

  Now, he’s floating comfortably in my gate pool—it’s still just a pool of water, after all; my effort has been on the archway—and seems to be sleeping. It looks as though he’ll be all right, but I won’t know for sure until he wakes
up. If he wakes up. I know I performed the operation correctly, but I don’t know what effect occupying the crystal may have had, if any.

  I guess we’ll find out.

  I had a couple of the guys get a stretcher; we’ve relocated T’yl to better quarters in the upper mountain. I’ve put Tort in charge of nursing him back to health while I’m out. And, for her safety, I’ve assigned a pair of cadet knights to guard duty. I’m concerned that he might have some brain/mind interface problems and be confused about who he is; elves do have long memories. I have personal experience on the subject of too much in the memory bank.

  My next plan was to head down to Mochara and see Flim, as well as take along a sack of gold and silver to buy more stuff. The diamonds are still growing; even my best crystallization spell takes time.

  Oddly enough, the larger the diamond is, the faster it grows. More surface area for binding carbon into the crystalline matrix, I think. I’ve pushed several of them together to start forming one big diamond; it should grow faster, allowing me to simply take a chunk off whenever I need a bit. That should actually be quicker than growing lots of small ones. Well, unless I want to grow a lot of little ones, but there’s only so much effort I want to go to in the diamond department.

  As I walked out the door in the throne room, I saw the line of light from the morning sun and the shadow of the doorway tunnel. That’s when the idea struck me. Light that hits the ground is, effectively, wasted. Why not use it? A magical version of a fiber optic conduit, conducting light from somewhere—the courtyard floor, the outer wall of the courtyard, or even the face of the mountain itself—anywhere the light was hitting something, rather than illuminating… if I add in a frequency-shifter to move all the non-visible stuff into the visible range, there should be enough light hitting the ground to shed light through all the layers of the undercity.