When the reverberation of the colossal impact faded, the ship was left in an eerie calm. The only sound was the faint lapping of waves around the hull. Into that near silence, Theramon’s voice rang clear across the desolation of the once opulent main deck with the happy tones of a schoolboy after an interesting play in pitchsticks.
“Well, that was instructive. Fortunately, the assault was diluted with enough rage for Urekar to enthrall it into a shield and strike back before it overwhelmed him.”
Sigfus would have called that burst ‘pure’ rage, so potent and disturbing was that feeling from it. But had there been something else to it? Was there some flaw to this shade of a Thrall Lord’s control over dragon spirit? If there was, it might be critical to know. Sigfus had no delusions that their ‘ally’ wouldn’t turn that abomination against them if it suited his purposes.
According to legend, the Dragon Thrall Master could not only absorb dragon-spirit attacks directed against him, he had been able to use their strength as his own and return it back with double the force. Those tales said that few dragons could refuse his commands, and none could harm or stand against him. Yet one had—the storm dragon Yatharia was supposedly instrumental in his original downfall.
Yatharia was known as a berserker, wild and tempestuous even by storm dragon standards. But if rage was a spirit force the Dragon Master could so easily turn to his own power, what had Yatharia used against him? Even the original Thrall Lord must have had a flaw in his complete domination of dragons. And what else was there in Theriaxus’ spirit attack, other than rage that Theramon considered dangerous?
The Dragon Master’s armor stood motionless. Only a dim ember of light flickering from the dark visor indicated it still held the shade of one of the most powerful beings of this age.
The crimson form of Theriaxus sat on her haunches, still and vacant-eyed, apparently unharmed in the epicenter of smashed ship structure. Sigfus’ wizard-sight saw differently. That strike had not been primarily on the physical layer, and most of the destruction was backlash of power through the spirit veils.
The dragon’s spirit had been brutally broken. The image of her anima lay splay-limbed in weird contortions, with wings bent and shattered. Her spirit form was beyond beaten—it was totally and completely devastated. Such was the power of even an unawakened Thrall Lord, and Theriaxus was now completely enthralled in the Dragon Master’s power.
“Look what you’ve done!” Anya called as she picked her way across the ruinous remains of her deck.
“The damage is superficial, mostly decking and a bit of rail,” Theramon commented offhandedly, brushing idly at a small singed area on the side of his trousers. “If you had a competent wizard, you could have it restored in short order.”
Sigfus steeled himself not to react. He knew it was bait, and part of the constant undermining of his credibility. It was a no-win situation. Not reacting would tacitly acknowledge that he couldn’t mend this decking.
Anya made a subtle hand motion for him to stand down. Had he stiffened and acted without realizing it, or had she just assumed he would? The latter was perhaps worse. Theramon trying to insinuate himself as the princess’ only competent magical adviser had to be obvious, even to Anya.
Pointing out that the spirit of the deck itself was damaged two layers deep was a setup he suspected. Or maybe it was a challenge. He had recently discovered a pattern to pierce the third veil. It was a magus level symbol and took a tremendous amount of energy to power, but he took the challenge and took the spirit plunge through it.
Time seemed to stretch taut past the third barrier; movements on the physical level appeared slowed, and one’s spirit form here could move independently of the body in small ways. Although doing so caused a stretched feeling, similar to a green sapling that you could bend away from its position, but would snap back when released. And one felt certain that, like the sapling, moving too far would cause something to break.
Here, as he suspected, the deck still remembered its original form. The dragon spirit had not reached this deep, and the echoes of destruction would take days to permeate so far. But to bring this volume of spirit form up through three veils would be impossible!
And then he saw the third-layer form of Theramon and froze. The spirit of a boy was there, blessedly unconscious, but still somehow motionlessly writhing in pain. Silver barbed threads cruelly enwrapped the spirit form. They jerked at the corners of the mouth and pulled at the head as the puppet form of Theramon turned and smiled at him.
This is what Theramon had meant by a ‘new skin’!
Sigfus, as jaded as he was by the many acts he had performed over the years in the name of his princess or simply through his own vices, recoiled from the nature of this evil. The perversion of innocent human souls for their own power was the purview of devils, not man nor wizard, no matter how far fallen.
Although not as numerous, or enveloping as on the boy’s spirit, threads were attached to the wispy smoke-like form of the Dragon Master. But these were not positioned for direct puppet control; they seemed mostly placed to anchor the spirit as if it would sink down, or drift upward, depending on your point of view, if not held to this world. With the weight of evil on the Dragon Master’s soul, Sigfus was certain that direction would be downward.
The Dragon Master’s armor here appeared translucent and multicolored. Closer examination revealed a multitude of dragon spirits tangled, stretched tight, and in constant angry motion. The buzz of their rage was a din across the third layer this close to that fell armor.
From the Dragon Master sprang black chains that wrapped the spirit of Theriaxus in tight binds. These chains were not subtle threads as Theramon spun; they were like the anchor chains that great warships used. Nor were they sadistically barbed, but were cruel in their weight and constriction nonetheless.
Nearly a dozen similar spirit chains branched out and vanished into the faded distance of the spirit realm. The number of dragons that the resurrected Thrall Lord already had under direct control, and out in the world doing Theramon’s bidding, was unnerving. How much longer would he need Princess Anya’s help in his plans? Especially now that the dragon shard she used was sabotaged.
There were broken threads hanging off Theriaxus. Theramon has been influencing her before the burst, but she had broken free of that subtle influence only to be ensnared by the clumsier but more powerful chains of the Dragon Master. The type of influence thread he had used there was not strong and barbed, but subtle and near-invisible wisps, even with third sight.
It was all too much—there was no way to compete with the power of this man who, unlike Sigfus, was a true master. Sigfus had always been a fraud, a boy rejected by masters, kicked out of his school. Only through bumbling luck did he stumble across the princess fleeing the purge and save her with stolen spells. And even in that, he bungled. His constant failures lead to Anya’s year of the rabbit, which twisted her psyche and nearly broke her mind. He should just leave her now to save her from further incompetence. He…
Sigfus found the thread yanking on his feelings of inadequacy and broke it.
Anger welled through him at this man, this creature, who thought him a puppet. He was a wizard! And he would give this wretch a proper lesson in that. He ran through his cluster of spell patterns at ready. He would…
And then he broke the thread pulling on his anger and regained full control of himself.
Perhaps not useless after all. The smooth voice of Theramon whispered behind the third veil, where only Sigfus could hear it.
Theramon smiled wider at Sigfus; it was creepy on the physical layer and downright frightening seeing the overlay of his puppeteer victim. Then his smile vanished and he looked up at the sky.
Sigfus saw it, too—how could he not? Not just on the third, but on the second and first spectral levels, the Aerde crystal flashed overhead, lighting the spirit heavens like a brilliant meteor would across a moonless sky. All those with any form of spirit-sight on the ship
saw that.
“Our crystal? How dare she?” Anya exclaimed.
But Theramon’s gaze was not on where the soaring gem was heading, but on where it came from. A ripple beneath the third veil, like the roll of water and shadow of a leviathan, passed beneath the surface as his attention focused shoreward.
There was no way he could follow that view—the range of his senses was too limited on this layer. And Anya’s voice brought Sigfus’ attention back to the physical.
“Theramon! What is going on?” Anya barked the name as a command, but the petulant question gave lie to it. She was finally realizing it was too late to control this man, if man he ever was.
“An integral part of your ship was just tossed far out to sea,” Theramon waved distractedly toward the ocean, but his attention was directed toward the bluffs.
“Not thrown by her, of course,” Theramon mused to himself, “just some local peasants she duped. But best to be sure.”
“Theria, my dear firebug,” he turned to the enthralled dragon and said in a pleasant conversational tone, “fly up there and incinerate those pesky humans for me.”
“Leave them alone, you monster!” A girl’s shout was punctuated by a booming thunderclap as a blast of coursing lightning enveloped the form of Theramon. A blackened husk collapsed to the deck in its wake.
Sigfus rapidly began forming another shield as he located the new threat. A slender blonde-haired girl in her mid-teens perched on the one remaining section of railing on the port side main deck. Although screwed into an angry scowl at the moment, her features were clearly similar to Vestiralanna’s human form.
With his third-veil pattern still vibrating with remnants of energy, he could sense something more around the girl. So, he fed some precious power to that as well and took another spirit-dive down through the layers. He was surprised to still find a girl rather than the dragon he expected through the first and second veils. Shape changes almost never went deeper than the first.
Behind the second veil, another form stood next to the blonde girl. A raven-haired woman whispered in the girl’s ear, pointing at Theramon. Spirits could only rarely interact with people from beyond the veils unless there was some bond. Indeed, this spirit appeared wearing an identical dress as the dragon-girl, except the pale-yellow flowers on the front were glowing like shards of sunlight.
It was apparent from the cast of her eyes that the dragon couldn’t actually see or hear the woman’s spirit, and perhaps just followed its directions on impulse. The dress was the link between them.
But the spirit definitely saw Sigfus. Frowning at his presence, the dark-haired woman faded easily through the third veil, vanishing from second sight. So, he pushed through.
On the third, he found the spirit of the woman again. Next to the woman was finally the image of the storm dragon he expected, but the girl-form was still there, too. This assumed human shape was superimposed on her dragon form, almost like at the deepest core of her spirit she was both.
Looking at where the corpse of Theramon’s avatar should be, Sigfus realized the effects of the lightning had reached all the way through the third veil to here. But the energy of the dragon girl's strike had not burned the spirit of the boy dominated by Theramon. On this level, just those cruel barbed threads that entwined the bound soul were charred. It had almost freed it!
But even as that hapless spirit threw off the last of the cruel thorns, a dozen more barbed threads seemed to flash from the depths to ensnare it.
Immediately, the spirit woman flew across to the boy and began pulling those new entwining strands off.
Magdeena, you pathetic witchling, the voice of Theramon echoed up from the spirit depths, still doing my sister’s bidding even in death? I should have destroyed your spirit the first time, rather than just kill you. I will correct that mistake.
The barbed silver threads began attacking the woman’s spirit, too, but she held up one hand. Attached to the pinky finger of her right hand was a spirit thread of another type. It was red, and softer in appearance like string, but no less strong as it grew taut when she made a fist and pulled it to her heart.
“You still have that fatal blind spot, Xantos,” the spirit of Magdeena said. “You could never fathom love. I am not alone in my vows beyond life.”
A man sped through the spirit aether, following the tug of the red string which was strung around the pinky of his left hand. He landed on the deck, clasped Magdeena’s string-bound hand with his, and drew a slender azure blade of light with the other. A pulse of light passed from the sword, through the man to the woman, and through her to her opposite hand, where a similar blade appeared. Then the lady began to sing, and they both began slashing through Theramon’s remaining control threads in rapid order.
The threads stopped forming around the boy and suddenly erupted everywhere around the dragon girl. The man made to dash over to the dragon’s aid, but the woman caught him up and shook her head.
“Behold the Aes Aeris, the true heir of storms, and the first sign in the prophecy of your doom, wretched one!” the spirit woman intoned like a righteous pronouncement.
Where the writhing mass of cruelly barbed spirit threads fell on the dragon-girl, they withered and disintegrated. The dragon did nothing to fight them—she, like everyone else rooted to the material plane—was moving in slow motion and had barely shifted from the pose in which she cast the first bolt. The threads were just utterly destroyed on contact with her aura.
No! the psychic shout preceded a surge of horrible malignant rage that began to breach up through the lower reaches of the fourth veil.
The spirits of Magdeena and her partner grabbed the boy and escaped in a different direction through the fourth veil in a flash of light. Instinctively, Sigfus knew they had passed through all the remaining veils at once, and that flash was the brilliant light of piercing the seventh. Depending on one’s beliefs, beyond that last veil lay oblivion, reincarnation, or the judgement of the true god. Regardless, they were well beyond the reach of even a monster like Theramon.
Crush that dragon and bring her to me! the command vibrated across the threads attached to the Dragon Master.
It gave Sigfus great satisfaction to hear that tone of desperation creeping into Theramon’s command. With his local avatar gone, he no longer had an anchor to this place. The fourth veil was holding, and this was their opportunity.
Coming back out of the spirit dive was even more jarring than usual. Going so deep was a serious strain on its own, but now he was trying to keep half an eye on the spirit realm down through three veils while focusing a shield against any lightning attacks.
“Come here, little one,” the Dragon Master’s deep voice flowed out of the dark helm with a muffled, empty-sounding echo.
One armored gauntlet made a grasping motion toward the girl on the rail as he said it, and five heavy spirit chains shot out to enwrap the dragon’s spirit. They held for only a split second, never having a chance to tighten, then fell off their target as her spirit form flowed from dragon to girl and back again.
“Why don’t you bite your own tail, kettle-face!” the girl exclaimed as she launched herself backwards off the railing. In midair, the girl exploded in a flash of electrical energy and a bronze-scaled dragon hit the ocean waters below.
“Bring her to me,” the burned throat of the boy’s corpse croaked the command past blackened lips.
Sigfus hadn’t seen the one taut thread grasping up through the veils to manipulate the abandoned body of the boy. He dropped the now-unnecessary shield and prepared the pattern for psychic shards.
A flick of the Dragon Master’s finger and Theriaxus was forced to leap into the ocean after the storm dragon.
“No,” Princess Anya cried, “You idiot! Fire dragons can’t swim!”
Anya ran up and kicked the burnt corpse in frustration, saying, “That was my dragon!”
Sigfus didn’t dare contradict his princess and point out that Theriaxus was certainly no longer ‘h
er dragon.’ When he saw the heavy chain from the Dragon Master to the dragon go slack and vanish, he felt considerable relief to have the flaming menace of that dragon good and drowned.
The Dragon Master turned toward Anya as she kicked the corpse again to make sure she got the point of her displeasure across.
In a flash, Delandria stood with her blades just inches from the armored throat. It was a flash, literally, and very annoying to Sigfus’ spirit-strained eyes. As was the high-pitched humming sound emitted by the golden dagger shards of Jesira’s Hundred Blade Assault, which now hovered about the armored form waiting eagerly to strike. The name was a lie—there were only forty-eight blades. Sigfus had counted them, although he doubted any opponent would live long enough to point it out to her. And he certainly wasn’t going to.
Oripeah was at the rail, scanning the ocean for targets. The barbed point of her nocked arrow was tipped with dragon’s blood and gave off the faint wisps of black smoke that indicated her slayer curse was on it. Sigfus avoided looking at that with spirit sight—the whirling vortex of malignant evil attached to the arrow always made him slightly queasy. Or maybe it was knowledge of whose blood it was.
He had spent many an hour staring longingly at the beauty of Vestiralanna during the few nights she was their ‘guest.’ The thought of Oripeah using Ves’ own blood to slay her upset him greatly, for then he would never get a chance to claim her. But the arrow might also be very effective on Ves’ sister dragon. In that endeavor, he wished the archer the best of luck.
“Bring her to me,” the corpse croaked again, and Sigfus realized that parroted phrase was all a single control thread could make it do.
He looked from the corpse of Theramon’s puppet to the Dragon Master’s armor, which was also effectively his puppet. And then to Anya.
“Shall we take the armor as recompense for the lost dragon?”
Anya matched his wry smile with a wicked one of her own.
Tales From Thac Page 39