The sudden appearance of Everkeen in the fray took Ocajon by surprise, but not enough to keep him from blocking a sudden flurry of blows from Arborn. When Everkeen slowed its protections and turned its attention to Pentandra’s desires, she silently commanded it to be ready to attack. Pentandra might not have known many warmagic spells, but Minalan made certain that Everkeen held a goodly variety.
“What is this pretty toy?” he asked, in genuine wonder, as he regarded the rod. “It is familiar . . . the rod of weirwood was crafted by Oruzar and given to a vassal, but . . . it has been transformed! What is that within?” he demanded. “I must know!”
“A paraclete more ancient than your race and mine combined,” Pentandra said, as the tip of her rod ignited with a pale blue glow. She inwardly winced when she remembered just where that tip had been, earlier. “Withdraw, Ocajon, or I will shred that body you wear like a rotten sack of grain!”
“Oh, this is exciting!” the fiend said, unexpectedly. He gave her a smile that was as horrific as it was genuine. “I was told you magi were crude and lacked imagination, but this . . .!” he said, gesturing toward her baculus.
“Unless you want it crammed up your undead arse, withdraw!” Pentandra said, menacingly, poking the air with the tip. “I will not tell you a third time!” Arborn moved to her side, still holding his blade protectively in guard.
“Nor will you need to,” Ocajon said, still fascinated. “I have learned far more valuable intelligence on this expedition than merely where the blind girl is. We had no idea that you magi were this magically advanced, yet. This speaks of a deeper knowledge of magic than we knew you possessed!”
“We’re highly adaptable,” Pentandra reminded him. “And ingenious.”
“So you are,” chuckled the beast. “Here I thought I would merely be venting my rage on this miserable settlement before I returned to my master . . . not meet a foe worthy of my notice! Bearing a weapon of such crude elegance!”
“I tire of our discussion, Ocajon!” Arborn said, darkly. “Heed Pentandra’s warning!”
“You think that toy frightens me?” he asked, snidely. “You are not the only one who may stall for time until allies arrive.” At that a shadowy figure intruded from the passageway behind him, half of Ocajon’s size. And where the Nemovorti was completely hairless, the newcomer was covered in shaggy black fur. “Let me introduce Prikiven, agent of Sheruel the Dead God, assigned to Vorone.”
The goblin bowed as perfectly as any courtier . . . and indeed he was dressed as one. A plum-colored doublet and hose in the southern style, complete with a well-made burgundy mantle. From the neck down and wrists, up, he appeared to be a squat, short burgher of some means.”
“Delighted,” the gurvani said in perfect Narasi. “I’ve seen both of you around court,” he added.
“Around court?” Pentandra asked, surprised.
“A long story,” the gurvani said. “But thank you for bringing masks back in fashion in court. It has made moving about town much easier. Now, I know not how you discovered our refuge, but we cannot permit you to expose it. So you both must die. Nothing personal,” the goblin added, congenially, drawing a slim but sturdy blade from behind his back.
The mutt immediately began growling and circling the goblin. With a wave of his staff, Ocajon sent a magical wave of force that threw the dog against the stone wall with some force. It gave a frightened squeal and was silent.
“Was that necessary?” demanded Prikiven, angrily.
“It was in the way,” the Nemovort said, unconcerned. “Such sentimentality. Is he secure?”
“I like dogs,” Prikiven said, defensively. “And yes, his people just brought him in. He is ready to depart. I still don’t see the point,” he grumbled.
“Your folk continuously miss opportunity when it lands in front of you,” chided the undead. “You see a condemned rat of an exterminated nest, a piece that has lost its usefulness that can be sacrificed without concern. I see a potentially valuable weapon that can be used for useful leverage.”
“I defer to your superior wisdom,” the goblin said, sarcastically. “But if your obsession with the blind girl is behind you, we may safely depart.”
“For the time,” conceded Ocajon. “Let us dispose of these pests and return to our master. We have much to report.”
“You may find that harder than you think,” Pentandra said, angrily. She felt Arborn prepare for action, his muscles tensing almost imperceptibly.
“Not really,” Ocajon said, gesturing with his staff again. Though Pentandra’s protections kept his spell from affecting her, Arborn was suddenly flung against the wall with as much force as the poor hound. He slumped to the floor, unmoving.
Her danger forgotten, she ran to her husband’s crumpled form, Everkeen held in her left hand. Arborn was still alive, she saw, but wounded and unconscious.
Raw rage flashed through her as she whirled to face the pair, her baculus in hand and spells flying. But as the first volley of Everkeen’s wrath impacted on the Nemovort’s protections, the gurvani pulled something else out of his mantle – a rough metal sphere – and twisted it.
The magelight overhead failed, and Pentandra felt her protections go down. In fact, all of her connections failed: she no longer felt the attachment to her witchstone. Everkeen was suddenly a dead stick in her hand.
Or the warmagic spells that were sustaining her. It was a thaumaturgical annulment. Again.
She collapsed across Arborn’s body, barely conscious.
“Leave them,” Ocajon commanded, as Prikiven started toward them, his knife at the ready. “They may yet prove useful. Perhaps they will lure that sightless brat here. If they aren’t dead of their injuries by morn, the rats will finish them off.”
Chapter Thirty-Three
Ocajon the Nemovort
Pentandra did not know how long she lay there, atop of her unconscious husband in the damp darkness of the crypt, but when she finally regained some sense of awareness she knew, without evidence, that darkness had finally fallen over Vorone. Her grasp on consciousness tenuous, the mage did what she could to evaluate her situation, but the haze of the aftereffects of the annulment spell were just too great. Not only could she not restore herself magically, she could barely move her body. The fatigue and exhaustion her spells had kept at bay were back with a vengeance, now.
And she heard the skittering of rats and perhaps worse in the darkened catacombs. That did not bode well for an extended nap.
Yet as much as she knew she needed to do something about their situation, her mind was not inclined to cooperate. Neither was her body. For several long moments she could do nothing but cling to Arborn’s quietly rising and falling chest and weep in the darkness.
But then her innate stubbornness came into play. It wasn’t the prospect of allowing a Nemovort loose on an unsuspecting Vorone or the idea that her new apprentice was in mortal peril that motivated her. It was the potential for embarrassment at being found - dead – in a nun’s habit in a crypt. While it would likely mortify her mother delightfully, Pentandra’s subconscious reasoned, she could not allow her professional reputation to suffer even in death.
She, Pentandra of . . . Vorone, Ducal Court Wizard, was not going to her own funeral defeated and nibbled to death by rats. Her subconscious would not allow such an indignity.
There was precious little she could do about her situation, she knew. Magic, as such, was out of the question. Though Everkeen was a tantalizing few feet away from her hand it might as well have been back at the palace, for all the use she could employ it. The annulment spell affected nearly all magic, she knew, even the powers of her paracletic baculus.
But that did suggest something else to her hazy mind: while an annulment affected nearly all magic, clearly it hadn’t affected the Nemovort’s function, else it would have collapsed like the corpse it was. The goblin’s sphere seemed to affect standard Imperial vibratory power, but if it did not extend to Death Force, then it likely did not pro
hibit working with the Life Force, either.
That was a lot harder said than done, even her sleepy mind knew. Life and Death magic were difficult powers to control under optimum conditions, and the nature of the energy belied easy mental domination.
But Pentandra realized she didn’t particularly need control. She just needed to send a message for help. And there was only one way she could think of doing it.
Climbing up her husband’s muscular body while he slept was far more difficult than Pentandra expected, partially because she faded out and became distracted every few moments. But when her lips finally made the acquaintance of his face - unshaven in three days, now, and full of scraggly stubble -- for the first time since they’d met the Nemovort she began to feel hopeful.
“Oh, you’d better be paying attention,” she whispered in silent prayer. It was about as coherent as her thoughts could get, in the darkness, but it was sufficient.
She leaned down and began kissing Arborn. Kissing him passionately, if not neatly.
Her lips seemed unwilling to obey her commands, but they knew the road well enough by now. Pentandra allowed her emotions to unfurl themselves in the darkness, and as she kissed her unconscious husband she poured every bit of devoted longing she’d accumulated while he’d been out on the road into the kiss. She cupped the back of his shaggy head with one hand to steady it, and then Pentandra kissed him as thoroughly as she ever had on her wedding night.
During the entire episode, while her tongue was busy dancing against Arborn’s, her mind was calling: “Help us!”
She had no idea how long the process took. Time was meaningless in the darkness, nor would her befuddled mind have appreciated it. Once launched on their mission, however, her lips knew their business.
“You two should consider getting a room,” a female voice finally said in the darkness. “This crypt is kinky, but you’ll catch your death screwing here all night.”
“Ishi!” Pentandra whispered, hoarsely, into the oppressive darkness. “We failed!”
“Only in a matter of speaking,” the goddess said, standing and reaching out her hand. From the moment Pentandra touched her dainty fingertips, her fatigue fell away from her like a sodden cloak. Pentandra pulled herself to her feet, her limbs restored from their lethargy but still tingling from disuse. Under her, Arborn’s breathing changed, and he began to stir. “While you were keeping it preoccupied, I managed to prohibit it from leaving Vorone.”
“I thought we wanted it to leave Vorone!” Pentandra said, confused, as she bent to retrieve her baculus when summoning it to her hand did not work.
“We do, but not before we’re ready,” Ishi replied, casually. “If it merely escapes to harass us again another day, we’ve gained little. If it escapes with its prey, we’re . . . screwed,” the sex goddess admitted. “But if we can both deny it its quest and drive it forcefully away, then we will have gained some valuable knowledge about these . . . these . . .”
“Nemovorti,” Pentandra supplied.
“‘Conquerors of Death’?” the goddess asked, surprised. “Arrogant bastards!”
“That’s what they call themselves,” Pentandra nodded. “There are at least five of them, he revealed, and they’re all ancient Alka Alon released from their prison along with Korbal.”
“His servants, I’m guessing,” Ishi nodded prettily. “Well, there’s only one of them here, from what I can tell. The hunter. The irritating thing about them,” Ishi continued as she assisted Arborn shakily to his feet, “is that even if you do manage to kill one, Korbal can merely forge one anew from the same enneagramatic pattern. Asshole,” Ishi accused, sullenly.
“I don’t understand,” Arborn said, dully.
“It’s as if you wore a glove, Arborn,” Pentandra tried to explain through her fog-shrouded mind. “You can use a glove until you’ve worn the fingers out and it’s falling off . . . but it’s easy enough to toss it in the rubbish and put a new one on. It can have the same shape, size, and materials, but it’s still fitting over the same hand.”
“I still do not understand,” he repeated.
“It’s magic,” Ishi explained, irritated. “Imagine Korbal has a well. Each of these . . . Nemovorti? Nemovorti is a bucket from the well. If we tip that bucket over, the water is lost forever . . . but he can refill the bucket from that same well.”
“That . . . almost makes sense,” Arborn conceded. “
“Not that it will do you much good,” Ishi shrugged. “They’re still immortal. And passionately devoted to Korbal and his experiments.
“They are powerful fighters,” Arborn agreed, gravely. “Strong as any man, and they retain the physical skills of their hosts.”
“They also smell vile,” Pentandra added. “Their dead flesh is kept from decomposing by their spells, but they are only partially successful.”
“Are you certain that wasn’t you, dear?” asked Ishi, concerned. The goddess leaned into Pentandra and sniffed in the darkness, before she could react. “I detect the faint aroma of sweaty nun, horny wizard, dust, mud, mildew and . . . six or seven doses of high-quality prime randy Kasari?”
Pentandra glared at the catty goddess in the darkness. “Are you certain that’s not yourself you are smelling, my lady?” she returned in a similar voice. “I understand it’s been a busy few days.”
“Oh, I assure you, I’m as fresh as a daisy!” Ishi riposted, an edge in her voice.
“I assume that ‘Daisy’ is the name of the lass who was taking on all of those lads so energetically from behind, back at your place, then,” Pentandra finished, smoothly.
“Oh, you are such an evil bitch!” Ishi said, with a note of admiration in her voice. “You would have made such a magnificent avatar!”
“I’ll be content with wife and Court Wizard, once we settle accounts with this Nemovort,” Pentandra assured her. “Apropos to that, did you just want to insult me all evening, or did you arrive with a plan?”
“The two are not mutually exclusive,” Ishi replied. “But in this instance confrontation is likely to be as good a tactic as any.”
“The last time we tried that,” Arborn pointed out, “we ended up in a pile on the floor.”
“You weren’t supporting a goddess last time,” Ishi replied, a confident tone in her voice. “I was afraid they would try to use this avenue to gain entry to Vorone. An old Alka Alon waypoint, here beneath the temple,” she pointed out, indicating the staircase the Nemovort and its goblin counterpart had disappeared into. “Not only did it let them in, the Death Force obscured their arrival from me.”
“That is rude,” Pentandra agreed, gripping her powerless baculus. “Anything you can do about the annulment spell?”
“Alas, until it’s closed, we must endure it,” the goddess sighed.
“Which makes me as powerful as the nun who was originally wearing this habit,” Pentandra said, frustrated.
“I still have my sword,” Arborn pointed out.
“We will find additional weaponry. And you will both have my blessing,” Ishi said, shaking her head. “Here,” she called, and reached out her hands in the gloom.
Pentandra felt the nimble, long fingers find where she was clutching her baculus, and then a faint magical glow came over them both. Arborn looked surprised in the brief flare, but as the light faded Pentandra felt strangely energized. Everkeen was still ‘asleep’, she realized, but she could feel some sort of power buzzing within the rod.
“Let’s go chase this thing,” Ishi said, when she had blessed them both. “Right now it seeks your apprentice like the falcon seeks a hare. The moment it finds her, she will be gone, likely beyond any of our aid. We must not let that happen,” she declared, as she led them down the stairs to a yet lower level.
“Why is Alurra so important?” asked Arborn, confused.
“Because she can lead them to a secret prophetess in the wilderness,” explained the goddess. “One who has mapped out the future with breathtaking detail. Including elements tha
t our enemies would find most helpful.”
“I thought prophecy was forbidden.”
“So is poaching,” pointed out Ishi. “Yet there is no lack of poachers.”
“These prophecies could be instrumental in our failure or success, Arborn,” Pentandra explained as she followed the tall blonde goddess. “They could also be very helpful if Sheruel or Korbal used them to frustrate our efforts.”
“Either outcome is equally likely, I think,” Ishi agreed.
“Well, can’t you just ask Ifnia what we should do?” Arborn asked the goddess. “She’s the goddess in charge of luck . . .”
“That crazy bitch?” sneered Ishi. “Believe me, she’s the last one you want to invite to the party. Sure, she’s fun – skating the edge of probability has to be fun – but unless you’re in a really, really serious game of dice, I wouldn’t bother. People call me capricious, but I always have a plan and a purpose. That crazy goddess will do nearly anything, if the odds are against her.”
“So you don’t want her to manifest?”
“Ifnia brings luck,” Ishi explained, slowly, as they descended. “Not good or bad, just luck. Random factors operating in the favor of one thing or another. Ifnia herself takes no sides, and delights in the outcome regardless. When she manifests, she causes all sorts of completely unlikely things to occur. Her influence can even break the bounds of prophecy. Which means that half of the time her amazing wonders don’t involve good fortune, but calamity. I can think of a dozen other deities I’d prefer to see manifest,” she added.
Court Wizard: Book Eight Of The Spellmonger Series Page 70