“I understand your concerns, but I don’t think they’ll let it happen a second time.”
“No? Think of what we’re talking about. What would some men pay—or do—to get a hold of such a thing? Everlasting life? Forging new lands in the middle of the ocean? Or worse, destruction on a scale we’ve never seen before? What would the Zyvdredi do with such a thing? Does that not bother you?”
“Of course it does, but—”
“And if Harridan ever decided to use it with ill intent, what would that mean for the rest of us? And for us who, here and now, have a chance to prevent that possibility? How would it weigh upon our minds, our souls, knowing that we gave it to him? Some things were never meant for the hands of men, Lae. I wish you could see that this Bloodmyr Tome is one of them.”
Laedron paced for a while, not knowing what to say or do. For some strange reason, perhaps out of a sense of loyalty or indebtedness to the Uxidin, he didn’t want to destroy the tome. Would Ismerelda want this? Would she have told me to return it to Harridan for her own sake, or would Marac’s words make an impact, causing her to smash the tome? It matters little. For she is dead, and the dead have little care as to whether the living join them.
“Well?”
“I’m thinking,” Laedron said, then recalled what Tavin had told him. ‘Doubt is the true mage killer, and even an Azuran teacher would have told you that. Give up your meaningless morals, for they do not apply here. Have you heard nothing that I’ve said? You blind yourself with a lie perpetrated to control you. Set yourself free.’ He stared at the ceiling. Right and wrong… meaningless morals. The lies meant to control us. Set myself free.
Valyrie came close and took his hand. “The Uxidin had their chance, and if they were to return and rebuild their empire, we would see more suffering than what the Drakkars would have caused. Let us be done with this. The Uxidin, the Zyvdredi, and the madness must all end.”
“They’ll die without it, Val. How can we return and tell them that we’ve not done what we promised them we would do?”
“There are things worse than dying. You and I both know that.” Her face shone with a broad smile. “Living in a hole in the ground isn’t living, Lae. They, like everyone else who has ever lived, will have to make a new life, adapt to the way things are, and move on.”
“All right,” Laedron said with a sigh, then glanced at Brice. He’s said nothing this entire time… no matter. He’s not said anything to the contrary, so I assume he’ll agree with whatever we do. “We seem to be at a consensus.”
“That ought to do the job.” Marac took the great axe from its rack. “Stand back.”
When Marac raised the axe above his head, Laedron waved his hand. “No, no, wait!”
Marac stayed his blow, the axe still suspended in the air. “What is it now?”
“We haven’t considered an important part of the problem. Put it down and hear me out.”
Marac lowered the blade. “Okay, what?”
Laedron asked, “What will they do without the spell?”
“They’ll eventually die of natural causes, I would imagine. Same as everything else.”
Laedron shook his head. “If you had something your whole life, something important to you, and you lost that thing, what would you do, Marac?”
“Learn to get along without it? I don’t follow.”
“Let’s say that you had a golden watch from your youth and on into adulthood. Then, you lost that timepiece in a river and couldn’t find it again. What would likely be your next course of action?”
“Get another one?” Marac’s face contorted with confusion.
“Precisely.”
“I still don’t follow. What are you saying, Lae?” Valyrie asked.
“I’m saying that, without this spell to rejuvenate their bodies, to maintain their eternal lives, they might find other ways, whatever it takes, to replace what they’ve lost. They might fall into using the same methods as the Zyvdredi.”
Valyrie tilted her head. “They seemed to be rather strongly aligned against the way the Zyvdredi have done things. From what Harridan said, they abhorred the thought of stealing essences for their own uses.”
“An animal caged will do anything to escape.” Laedron crossed his arms. “With no other options available, the Uxidin might become what they hate if only to survive. Self-preservation is a strong instinct, after all, and we’re not speaking of people ignorant to the different ways by which they can avoid death. These people have lived with knowing that immortality can be achieved by magic for too long, I think, to simply give up on the idea.”
“If that’s the case, you recommend giving them the book? After all we’ve discussed?” Marac asked. “I thought you agreed that the artifact should be destroyed.”
“I do, but I think we should take those pages—the ones for their rejuvenation spell—and return them. The rest of it, we could—should—smash into a thousand pieces.”
Marac seemed to contemplate the choice. “Lae may be right. Harridan didn’t strike me as the type to just let go, and we cannot doubt his ruthlessness, considering that he was willing to sacrifice one of his own just to beat Kareth and get the tome back.”
“My thoughts exactly. Brice?” I wonder if he’s even been listening all this time.
“You’re probably right,” Brice said. “I felt a kind of desperation looking at those people hiding in the dark, a feeling like they’d do anything to get their lives back.”
Laedron turned to Valyrie. “You?”
“That may be the case, but how do we do it? Scratch it on a piece of paper?”
“I don’t think that will work. Harridan said that they require the original pages in order to cast the spell, for the pages themselves are an instrument for spell channeling.” He sighed, then returned to the tome. “I’ll have to find the spell, I suppose, then carefully cut out the pages.”
“You’ll have to look into the book for that, and that’s something that we all agreed would be a bad idea.” Valyrie tapped her cheek with her forefinger. “What if you wrote the name of the spell, and someone who can’t read the language were to find it in the book by matching the symbols?”
Laedron shrugged. “I could do that, but I have no way of telling what they might have entitled it.”
“Write a few of the names that you would call such a spell,” she said, unfurling a blank scroll from Kareth’s bookshelf. “If that doesn’t work, we’ll try to find another way.”
Laedron took a quill from the table and scribbled the Nyrethine names for “rejuvenation,” “font,” and “everlasting life” onto the paper, then passed the scroll to Valyrie. Marac, Brice, and Valyrie gathered around the tome. Laedron kept his distance while they searched the ruby pages.
About halfway through, Valyrie raised an eyebrow, placed her hand over the bottom half of a page, and asked, “Is this the one?”
Joining them, Laedron eyed the first bit of the spell. “This could be the one. Yes, I think you’re right. Did any other spell contain these symbols?”
“No.”
“Check the rest,” he said, stepping away again and taking a seat in a chair. “And make sure. In this, we get no second chances.”
Brice, probably from his short attention span, and Marac, likely on account of his disinterest in magic, left Valyrie to scan the remainder of the book.
Reaching the back cover, she said, “That had to be it. I saw the words once or twice on other pages, but each time, they were deep in the text and seemed unimportant to the spell being discussed.”
“Right.” Laedron stood. “Flip back to it, and I’ll extract the spell.”
She turned the pages, then sat on the corner of the table. Laedron gazed at the open book before him. If only I had a few spare hours, I could read to my contentment and see the secrets the Uxidin have held these millennia hence. He shook his head. I’ll have to settle for a peek at the rejuvenation spell while no one’s watching. It’ll have to be enough. He pulled his sc
epter and, page by page, skillfully separated the ruby leaves from the spine of the tome until he had extracted—and mostly read via stolen glances—the rejuvenation spell.
He snatched a shirt from the coat rack, wrapped the pages inside it, then put them into his pack. “All done. Now, axeman, you may swing to your heart’s content.”
“Never have I heard sweeter words,” Marac replied. He raised the axe and struck, shattering the ruby book. He must have wanted to be sure because he continued chopping until the table nearly split in two.
Laedron peered at the mess of ruby chips and wondered if they had done the right thing. Are we—a handful of young people foreign to this land, to Uxidia, to her people and her customs—honorable enough, wise enough to decide this for the rest of the world? Is it our place to settle the matter conclusively for all time? He heaved a breath, and with it, he tried to expel the questions lingering in his mind. Little can be done to fix it if we were wrong. The deed is done, and there is no turning back. “Let’s return to Harridan, bring him his bloody spell, and be done with this place.”
Marac tossed the axe onto the table. “You can say that again, Lae.”
Once everyone had cleared the room, Laedron cast a spell at the roof of Kareth’s chamber, causing the ceiling to collapse and sealing, under tons of rock, what remained of The Bloodmyr Tome.
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Land of the Trappers
Back in Kareth’s throne room, Laedron glanced at the mangled bodies of Tavingras and Kareth lying on the platform, then looked at the Trappers. They stood as if with their master slain and no new orders issued, they had little to do.
“Ah, you’ve returned. Did you find what you seek?” the Trapper on the right asked. “The book you said you were trying to find, was it there?”
It speaks far better than it did earlier. What has caused its sudden advancement? “Yes, thank you. We’ll be going now. Will you point us toward the exit?” Is it learning somehow now that its binds are broken? Or did all the essence that Kareth contained change them somehow?
The Trappers both bowed deeply. “We can take you there, Master. Your wish is our duty.”
Master? No, I think not. And a bow to top it off? “You must be mistaken. I’m not your master.”
The Trapper on the right spoke again. “Not until recently, no. We have decided that you, the four of you, are now our masters. We thought it might be a shock to you, but we know, in the end, you shall learn to enjoy it.”
It has developed an understanding of emotions, no less. Laedron folded his arms. “Well, we won’t be. If you’ll show us the door, please, we will be on our way and out of your business.”
“You must.” The Trapper approached, and the vibrations from its heavy footsteps were enough to send a tingle of fear straight to Laedron’s knees. “We must have a master, for it has been the way of our kind since we were made. Without a master, the Myrdwyer cannot continue.”
“We can’t lug one of those things back into the cities, Lae,” Marac said, his hand firmly on his hilt. “Imagine the people running in terror at the sight of it.”
“As if you’re telling me something that I don’t already know?” Laedron stared at the creature, wondering what he should do. It’ll have to be another way, then. “Tell me, why do you need a master?”
“To guide and nurture us, to show us the things which need to be done. Our master gives the tasks, and we happily abide, for Master leads and instructs in all things.”
“You don’t need anyone to do that for you.”
“It is the master’s place to do—”
“No, you’re free now.” Laedron tried to think of what words to say next. It’s your life; do what you will? Do these things even have lives, in the conventional sense or otherwise? “Only you can determine your own destiny.” There, that fits, I think. “The door?”
The Trapper pointed at a large tunnel in the far wall, and when Laedron started toward the exit, the creature asked, “Master wishes us to stay here?”
“Yes, yes! You stay here and decide what you should do next.” He continued walking, but stopped at the tunnel mouth, considering exactly what he had just told them. No, I can’t leave it at that. If Uxidin might resort to Zyvdredi techniques to preserve themselves, no one can predict what these things might do if loosed upon a hostile world. “How many of you have been created?”
“Four hundred and thirty-one.”
Laedron couldn’t stop his jaw from dropping. “Four hundred and thirty-one?” Creator… “Four hundred…”
“And thirty-one,” the Trapper said, as if Laedron could have forgotten so quickly.
He sized up the creature, its broad shoulders, tall stature, and massive hulk of a body, intimidating even when engaged in cordial chatter. “All exactly the same as you?”
“That is how many the master has created in total, in all of the forms he has decided.” The creature seemed to glance at its twin. “Like us? Sixteen guardians. The rest are harvesters and builders.”
Laedron gestured at the broken shards of crystal, the remains of the Trappers Tavin had killed with his spell. “Is that counting the ones who perished here?”
“Yes, we have subtracted them from our number. Sixteen of us remain,” the Trapper replied, no sense of emotion or concern in its words.
I couldn’t imagine four hundred just like this one. Breathing a sigh of relief, he said, “It’s not as bad as I thought, then.”
“Bad?”
“Nothing.”
“What do we do, Lae?” Brice asked.
“I can’t say. What does one do with a sentient, crystalline race?” The thought of it. Fascinating. “We can’t take them with us, but we can’t leave them here to their own devices.”
“Perhaps some basic instructions, then?” Valyrie gazed at the pair of Trappers. “Tell them not to leave this place?”
“That’s a start. Any other ideas?”
“Don’t hurt other people? Would that work?”
Laedron considered the question, then imagined the deeper implications. If I tell them not to hurt others, would they stand idly by and be destroyed by someone coming to steal their riches? What if someone else happens upon them and tries to enslave them? “Trapper, this is your home.”
“Of course it is, Master. It is your home, also.”
“No, you have no master. You are your own masters now, and you shall be until I, personally, tell you that you’re not. When in your home, you decide the rules.” Laedron watched as the creatures seemed to think about his words. “Also, you shouldn’t harm any other people, people like us. Help them if they need help; however, if they try to do you harm, you should defend yourselves.”
Marac raised an eyebrow. “Should we be telling them that, Lae? That leaves a bit of room for interpretation.”
“It’s the most sensible advice I can think of. Oh, and another thing. Everything within these caverns is your property, and anything you build or make henceforth is yours.”
“The platinum, Lae? You’re giving them the mountains of treasure?” Brice asked, his eyes wide and his brow furrowed. “What about Harridan’s people?”
“The platinum, the crystal, everything belongs to the Trappers, for no one would have even known about it if not for their hard labor in digging it up. Besides, if Harridan needs money, he should have to ask for it from those who did the work.”
“But you said you would give it to Harridan’s people. You promised, Lae.”
“I promised to give it to Harridan’s people, yes, but are these not also Harridan’s people? Tavin’s kin? The same essence that gives them life once fueled the fallen Uxidin, the same Uxidin that Harridan and Tavin called brothers and sisters. Tavin, I think, wouldn’t have cared one way or another knowing what we know now.”
“Which is?”
Laedron sighed. “That the whole thing was a ruse. Tavin was sent here specifically for the purpose of dyin
g at Kareth’s hands. Harridan used some sort of spell to poison Tavin’s essence, and once it had been absorbed, the essence tainted Kareth’s staff.”
“And the next spell,” Valyrie said, “caused his staff to explode.”
“Precisely. Harridan knew that Tavin would meet his end down here, but he wanted Kareth out of the picture, once and for all.” Laedron glanced at the Trappers, and they stood there like confused children listening to a conversation between adults. “Sorry for that. We’ll leave you to it.”
“Since we may never see you again, we have questions before you go, Master.”
“I’m not—” He cut himself off. “What questions do you have?”
“Are we evil?”
This must be some sort of cruel torture for some transgression I’ve committed Laedron thought. “No, you’re not evil.”
“How do you know, Master?”
Of course, we’re stuck here in a hole in the middle of nowhere being asked about philosophy from some giant crystal construct. “The nature of evil is complicated, but in order to be evil, you must have certain qualifications.”
“What qualifications?”
This shall never end. I see it now, standing here for eternity talking to this creature. “Well, I don’t know… greed, avarice, selfishness, that sort of thing. And you have to take them to extremes, to the point of harming other people for your own benefit.”
“We have done that, Master. We must be evil.”
“Would you stop calling me—” He paused. Though frustrated and ready to leave, he formulated a question in his head. If I don’t ask, I’ll always wonder what its response would have been. “What have you done that makes you think that you’re evil?” How long, pray tell, might the answer to that take?
“We have killed at our master’s command, taken souls from men to power our bodies, and been a blight on the forest.”
“Did you do those things knowing that they were wrong?”
“No, but when you listed the things that we should or should not do, we realized that we have done everything wrong.”
The Immortals of Myrdwyer Page 18