Nightlord: Shadows

by Garon Whited

  The spells on my femoral arteries quit; I noticed an ache in each leg. That spell might need some refinement.

  My heart handled the load by itself. It beat, and kept beating.

  I sat there at my desk and watched it for a while. My other choice was to try and come out, and I wasn’t sure I’d be conscious if I did that. The lights in my study were brighter, but still subdued. I decided to wait until things improved.

  It gave me time to think a bit.

  Sometimes, I get wrapped up in doing things. There are good points to taking some time and just sitting and thinking. I don’t do that enough. I should probably schedule at least one day a week where I don’t do anything but sit back, put my feet up, and do some Big Picture thinking. I’ve had this thought before, but I still keep ignoring it…

  Maybe I should schedule a day where I have an afternoon nap, too. Admittedly, I don’t need to sleep, but I’m psychic, and I have dreams.

  While I sat in my mental study, the place where a wizard does most of his serious thinking, I put my feet up on the desk—careful of my internal organs—and thought about assassinations and other attempts on my so-called life.

  My enemies aren’t idiots. Whoever they are, they seem to act like idiots, sometimes, but they can’t really be that dumb. Which makes me wonder… this guy, the invisible one. He has the perfect implement to kill me, utter surprise, and an ideal shot at me from behind. And, against all odds, he fails. He plants the dagger in my heart and leaves it there. Why not a quick in-and-out movement? Better still, why the heart? Why not a quick upward thrust at the base of the skull? That would get the upper spine, possibly, but certainly the brain, and then I am well and truly screwed.

  Could the invisible assassin be someone who isn’t a professional? A thug, covered in invisibility, and sent inside to find me and kill me? Why? If you’re going to go to all the effort to put invisibility on someone, why not put it on someone competent? You don’t spend millions on the best fighter plane in the world and hand it over to the guy who barely has a license to fly. You get the best.

  They didn’t. Why not?

  I thought back to the demonic creature in the moat around the mountain. It really wasn’t a deadly threat, especially with Bronze handy. Yet, summoning it was a huge expenditure of power. There was no one there to help it, no backup for it at all. In fact, all the effort it took to summon something that big would have been better spent summoning a couple of dozen smaller—maybe ogre-sized?—and definitely smarter Things. Having one big monster on which to focus means it gets all the damage; a group of smaller Things would last longer, attack more often, from multiple directions, and do more damage in coordinated assaults.

  Thugs and a magician showed up in Mochara to jump me. They never really stood a chance of killing me, but they were certainly powerful irritants. They had magical weaponry, albeit of a single sort. It was enough to make them think they could pull it off—at least, convince the magician; the thugs might not have known what they were going after.

  A magician tried to dream me to death, and that might actually have worked… but I survived it, partly through Bronze’s help, partly through a background of geekdom, and partly through the magician’s own mistakes. But does a professional magician make that kind of mistake? Sure, the real plan was to occupy me until either his goons or the sunset could terminate me… but would a binding spell like that have such an obvious weakness? It might be a simple case of unfamiliarity; nightlords were extinct for a long time. We’re still quite uncommon. I would think a professional magician would be more careful, but it could be just a case of overconfidence.

  Behind that, though… who sent all these things? Who set them on me? Who paid to have them kill me—or try to kill me? Is it several different people or organizations who want me dead? Or are these they pawns of a singular entity? An offshoot of the Hand? A whole religion? Or just someone with an axe to grind in preparation for my beheading?

  Whoever it is doesn’t seem to seriously want to kill me; this most recent attack could easily have killed me if the guy with the knife knew what he was doing. Could it be that killing me is sufficient, but not preferred? Is capturing me ideal, but murdering me is acceptable?

  For what purpose? Or are there multiple purposes here and I’m only starting to see one of them?

  I’m a nightlord. My blood is valuable. Oh, there might be some other reason, but nightlord blood can make someone immortal. They don’t need another reason. I’m not sure there’s a better reason. That’s certainly one possible motivation for capturing me. But what about this apparent unconcern with killing me by accident? Or is that, as I suspect, simply acceptable rather than preferred?

  Keria isn’t my first suspect, even though she leaps to mind. She sent an army of unpleasant creatures after me and they weren’t kidding around. They were trying to outright kill me, and kill Bronze. That wasn’t an annoyance to convince me to come after her; that was a straight attempt at ending my existence. She would have got away with it, too, if not for my home ground advantage.

  Who did that leave? Magicians, like the cabal that once kidnapped me? Some sort of religious sect that wants to sacrifice me—or use my blood in dark rituals? Or some twisted cult that wants a nightlord… I don’t know. Frozen in a block of ice so they can use me as an idol? Or is it the Prince of Byrne, as all the circumstantial evidence suggests? That seems too obvious. Paying thugs in Byrne currency is so obvious that it almost has to be a ploy.

  I don’t like being hunted. I don’t like being baited, either.

  Frowning, I took my feet down off the desk and examined my condition. The schematic showed that everything was working. I fiddled with the map, adjusting things a trifle, encouraging everything back into its regular shape again. According to the dialog boxes on the map, my body still needed to re-balance some blood chemistry and deal with the byproducts of a trauma, but there was nothing structurally wrong with me now… and the lights in my study, while not at full brightness, are at least all on…

  All right. Let’s see if I’m capable of consciousness.

  I muttered something about this being a habit and sat up. Tort sat beside me, holding my hand and monitoring the spells. Torvil and Kammen were by the door, keeping it closed, while Seldar stood next to me, opposite Tort. Seldar still wore the spray of blood across his chest and shoulder from where he severed the assassin’s leg. Malana and Malena stood on opposite sides of the room, ready to spring into action. All three of my personal guard had their weapons drawn and a shield on the other arm, ready for trouble. Everyone else in the room was lying down in the bloody sand, unconscious.

  A little experimental movement revealed that it hurt. I was glued together and it would be a few days before I was up to speed. Well, under mortal circumstances. In my case, I’d be back to full speed after my evening yuck was washed away.

  “My angel?”

  “Yeah,” I admitted, working my shoulders. It hurt a little, but I could do it. “Not a happy angel, mind you, but still here.”

  “I am pleased at your presence,” she told me, seriously, and put her arms around me. I hugged her in return and let her keep on hugging me until she was done. Never stop hugging a woman until she does; you never know how much hug she needs. It’s a good rule, even though I wanted to wince when she squeezed.

  “I’m pleased to have you here,” I told her. “What did I miss?”

  “An assassin stabbed you and was slain,” she said, still holding me. “While Seldar worked to preserve your mortal life, Torvil and Kammen summoned others to your aid. Most of these around you are simply the first passers-by who could be drafted to this duty.”

  “Fair enough, I suppose. I’m guessing you and he were the ones who did most of the work?”

  “Actually,” she said, leaning back from the hug, “Torvil’s elder brother, Norvil, was the most help. He had the idea to stop your heart for the flesh-joining, and the idea to move your blood in another fashion until then. He also suggest
ed a spell to keep you breathing, just for caution’s sake, but we did not require its use. We three then worked quickly to seal up the layers of the wounds.”

  She bit her lip and then hugged me again. I still didn’t object. When she spoke, it was a whisper.

  “When your heart was once more intact, it beat but once,” she said, “and I was afraid.”

  “I took care of that,” I told her. “I’ll show you how to do that, and soon. I really do need to teach more classes on how to care for massive trauma. We’re training fighters, after all, and they should know how to deal with the results of fights.”

  “Promise me,” she said, squeezing me fiercely, “that you will always come back to me. Promise!”

  Seldar cleared his throat. Tort stopped squeezing me quite so hard.

  “Please,” she added. I had to think about that for a minute.

  I’ve already gone over the reasons for being a bit behind the curve about relationships. Can I please me excused for a little emotional difficulty? But Tort needed me to be here for her. What I felt wasn’t the issue, and I realized it was selfish of me to continue. I should get off my overly-emotional, whiny backside and, for Tort’s sake, I should man up.

  Fundamentally, that’s what it really comes down to: Tort needed me.

  I pressed my lips to her ear and murmured, “Not here. Tonight, in my chambers.” She accepted that and released me.

  “So,” I continued, aloud, “am I fit enough to disconnect everyone?” Seldar and Tort looked me over with eyes and spells. “Hey, where’s… Norvil?” I asked.

  Torvil pointed him out. He was on the floor next to me, part of the wound-sharing spell. I made a note to expedite testing that man for knighthood.

  Once they pronounced me fit enough to survive on my own, they disconnected the spell. I thanked everyone and gently sent them on their way. There was some difficulty getting them out; the corridor was full of people who wanted to find out more. We spread the word that I would be at dinner and everyone could see for themselves. That helped clear the corridor.

  Then I turned my attention to the assassin and his dagger. Well, what was left of the assassin after they made sure he was dead. Someone had gathered up all the invisible bits and laid them out on the now-bloody table. Good thing it had a raised lip at the edge; the blood pooled rather than running off. Messy.

  I found that if I moved with a bit of care and caution, the welded-together parts didn’t mind too much. Fair enough; I could do that.

  The body was still invisible. The dagger wasn’t, nor was the blood, but his flesh and his clothes were. The dagger was also plain steel—not even very good steel—without a trace of enchantment or magic. As far as a vampire hunter’s weaponry was concerned, this almost didn’t qualify as a weapon at all. When I laid the dagger on the largest piece of his torso, it remained visible.

  Tort and I conducted an analysis of the magic involved, with Torvil, Kammen, Seldar and the twins joining us for the examination as though it were a lesson. This wasn’t a spell; it was an enchantment. While I had thought enchantments were either impossible or potentially awful on a living being, Tort showed me the reason it worked.

  It wasn’t a mortal enchantment. It was an alteration made by a Thing from outside the world. This wasn’t a magician’s work; it was demonic. Whoever this person was, or used to be, he made a deal with such a creature.

  I’ve met my first sorcerer. How nice. I am not encouraged to be friendly toward them.

  Further examination and a little jigsaw puzzle work revealed that he was a man, about five foot six, well-muscled, with long hair. I also noticed that his invisibility was slowly starting to fade. A bright light appeared to dim slightly when viewed through his head and his clothing was starting to reappear. The process appeared progressive, which cut short any ideas I had for harvesting his skin to make invisible leather and a cloak of invisibility.

  Yes, I can be a bad person. Getting stabbed in the heart makes me cranky. I think that little quirk can be excused.

  On the other hand, I did get to observe the invisibility magic close up. It was instructive. Since it was demonic, rather than human, it used principles most magicians have never seen before. We called in T’yl and Thomen to see it, as well, and it was Thomen who made the observation.

  “It looks much like the enchantment on your horse, Sire.”

  Once he pointed it out, I could see some similarities. It was similar in that it held power inside it, much as Bronze’s essence is contained inside her. The structure of the enchantment was also similar in some ways, leading me to believe that it was a… less structured?... form of magic. It looked like the things I do when I’m playing directly with the raw forces, rather than building wiring diagrams for spell-circuits. Something closer to a shamanistic style, rather than the detailed formulas of wizards or magicians. It seemed as though someone—well, some Thing—had drawn on primal forces directly to build it, formed it out of raw magical energy, and bound it to the flesh and soul of the sorcerer.

  I realized something, then. A sorcerer that makes a deal with a Thing generally gives the Thing a free ride into the material world in exchange for a power of some sort.

  How is that different from a priest and the gods? A priest acts on the will of his deity in exchange for power. Is there a real difference? True, the gods don’t necessarily live inside a priest in order to manifest in the world when he dies, but I have seen a goddess possess a priestess more than once. Are demons really all that different from the gods? Or are the gods just demons with more long-term goals? Or are priests just descendants of sorcerers with better bargaining skills?

  I am not amused.

  We watched the invisibility effect break down over time, now that it was no longer drawing on the life-stuff of the sorcerer. I couldn’t be sure during the day, but I thought it was consuming the sorcerer’s soul and starting to run out of fuel. Once it finished, it would collapse completely and the body would again be fully visible.

  “Doesn’t a sorcerer generally promise something in return for his powers?” I asked.

  “Yes,” T’yl replied. “Typically, the bargain is that a demon gets to—oh.” He wiped one hand through the blood on the table and started to draw a triangle on the floor around the table. Tort and Thomen saw what he was doing and quickly joined him, forming a triangle around the triangle, the inner one with points at the midpoint of the outer triangle’s sides. I puzzled out what was going on as they worked their way around the room, inking the bloody containment symbol.

  They finished and empowered the containment, chanting and pushing energy into it.

  “There. Now, as I was saying,” T’yl continued, as though he had only paused for a sip of tea, “the demon usually rides inside the bargainer, shielded from most forms of detection and, of course, from the sunlight. When the sorcerer dies and whatever gift the demon granted ceases to be, the demon is then freed into our world, at least for a while.”

  “We need to do something about that,” I noted. “A demonic Thing loose in the undercity could survive indefinitely.”

  “Does the sunlight from the spells not affect them?” Tort asked. “As I understand it, the light truly is sunlight. Would it not destroy them?”

  “I don’t know,” I admitted. “On the other hand, the light is only in the corridors; it could hide anywhere else during the day and only come out at night.” Tort and Thomen looked concerned. T’yl shrugged.

  “We can establish some demon defenses in various corridors,” he suggested. “That will confine any invading demon in its small area of the undercity, making it easy to hunt down. We could treat them like dangerous vermin, then, rather than a roaming threat.”

  “Good idea,” I told him. “Could you please show me a plan for that at tomorrow’s breakfast meeting?”

  “Of course. Nothing simpler.”

  “Thank you. Meanwhile, this thing. Do you think it’s about to manifest?”

  T’yl, Tort, and Thomen all looke
d at each other. Tort spoke.

  “The gift of invisibility is breaking down,” she said. “Everything not of the sorcerer himself has returned to visibility. It is almost possible to see a faint shadow of the flesh. If this continues, I should think the demon will be free in no more than a single band of the candle. Such things are dormant during the day, though, or it would have broken free the moment the sorcerer died. It is possible that even when the demon’s gift finally fails, the creature will not manifest until after dark.”

  “Is it worth interrogating it?” I asked. The three of them shook their heads in unison.

  “It will lie,” T’yl said. “They do that. We could subject it to pain for weeks and get nothing but lies from it—lies with, perhaps, enough truth mixed in to be especially dangerous, if it is one of the smarter ones.” He glanced at the former person on the table. “I should think it is, actually. I wouldn’t trust anything it says, no matter what we do.”

  Tort and Thomen agreed. I shrugged.

  “Okay. So, destruction or banishment? Or do we want to bind it into something and stick it in the basement?”

  “Destruction.” “Destruction.” “Destruction.”

  “Well, that’s a pretty clear vote by the panel of experts,” I noted. “We’ll wait until it manifests, then eradicate it.”

  While we waited, I gathered the sand into a pile and cleaned it; I didn’t want sorcerer blood contaminating my sand table. Admittedly, I had hopes that I would get it to be a hologrammatic table, someday, but I was going to need it working as a sand table until I was ready to work on the hologram part.

  About then, the mirror to Baret chimed. That is, the bell built into the frame rang, signaling someone trying to call. I activated the mirror and saw the court wizard of Baret, Velina.

  “Good afternoon,” I offered. “What can I do for you?”

  “Your Majesty!” she said, looking surprised. “I did not expect you to… I mean, I thought someone else…”