Court Wizard: Book Eight Of The Spellmonger Series

by Terry Mancour

  “Well, I’d like to explore the recesses of the Ghost Rock, under Anthatiel,” he admitted. “Korbal has made use of them, in an elementary way, to produce the draugen and other servants. But I believe it is possible to embody the most ancient and powerful enneagrams in modern hosts,” he proposed, boldly. “With the proper adjustments,” he conceded. “To resurrect that which has been extinct since before either of our folk came to Callidore, and let them see the sun with new eyes after so long . . .”

  “That is an intriguing proposal,” Pentandra admitted. “But again, to what end?”

  “Well, there are—” the monster halted.

  “What is it?” asked Pentandra.

  “Sorry, just some . . . trouble,” he said, shaking his head, distracted. “I was saying, there are a multitude of applications. Immortality, of course, is the prime. As well as the thrill of pure research. Under the Council we had strict controls over what we were able to do in that field, that is, until Korbal rebelled. For a brief time we made some incredible advances . . . but then politics intervened, and our research was ended.

  “But now,” he said, with growing enthusiasm, “we are awakened to an entirely new world . . . one which presents us with the perfect subjects for experimentation: the humani!”

  Pentandra tried to suppress the chill that went down her spine at the casual way he spoke of her species.

  “What makes the humani better subjects?” she asked, doing her best to affect an academic manner.

  Asking any researcher about the details of their work, in her experience, was an invitation to a lecture . . . whether you wanted one or not. Right now, she wanted as long a lecture as the creature could spin. When she glanced over at Alurra, who was still kneeling next to Old Antimei, the blind girl was still weeping . . . but also nodding her head decisively and subtly.

  She had arranged the signal code with her apprentice before the undead arrived, and Pentandra was pleased with how quickly the girl caught on. Whether it was her brief association with Sir Vemas and the Woodsmen, helping root out the last of the Rats, living at the palace among deceptive courtiers, or some native talent for deviousness she had on her own, Alurra seemed to naturally able to use deception and misdirection . . . and had the wisdom, usually, to know when to use them.

  Alurra’s nods were counting out the number of draugen scouring the mountain outside of the croft. And the number of beasts she had shadowing them.

  It had seemed a shame to waste the girl’s best talent – beast mastery – in a region that was so replete with animals - one with which she was intimately familiar. When Pentandra had considered allies in her unexpected challenge, she had considered calling Terleman, Astyral or even Azar to come assist her.

  But this plan called for subtlety, not warmagic. Pentandra had instead convinced Alurra to summon as many of her furry and feathered friends as possible to aid them.

  Right now there were owls scouting overhead, watching every draugen on the mount. There were small mammals shadowing the undead, who (Pentandra predicted) would ignore them utterly in their single-minded pursuit of the book.

  And there were carnivores and belligerent herbivores Alurra had called, too. Wolves. Wildcats. Coyotes. Perhaps other, even more dangerous predators - despite her foray through the Wilderlands last summer, Pentandra still was not familiar with all the wildlife here. Alurra had been communing with them for years, now, and she had assured Pentandra that she could enlist their help.

  Bezmiol was entirely ignorant of that, of course. He continued his explanation with more enthusiasm than she expected from an animated corpse, but then he was very invested in his work.

  “Are you jesting? The humani biology is rugged, powerful, and can be raised relatively quickly. And it takes an enneagrammatic overlay like a dream! The humani central nervous system is just complex enough to be able to sustain a pattern for some time, and is far, far more adaptable than any of the Alon. The host is easily replaced, there is an abundant stock, and in such variety!”

  “We do enjoy our little differences,” Pentandra murmured.

  “Of course there are limits,” Bezmiol admitted thoughtfully, looking at his humani hands. “The more complex the enneagram, the more rapid the decomposition. And the host body does, technically, perish in the process. The essential biology must be driven by magic, at this phase in our development,”

  “That explains the sigils on your skin,” Pentandra acknowledged.

  “Yes, they’re—” Bezmiol halted again. “Sorry. They’re crude, but as this is a temporary body,” he emphasized, “they help stabilize the biological system and sustain the basic enchantment parameters,” he said, proudly. “I had to nearly fillet a humani mage to gain the spells for our Master, but they are effective.

  “Alka Alon bodies, on the other hand . . . they are far more durable, and they can accept quite a substantial overlay . . . but it’s devilishly tricky to get the overlay to take. The host is resilient, as my folk are naturally strong. And it isn’t destroyed, like with a human, which creates additional problems. It often struggles with the overlay, and that can be . . . problematic,” he admitted.

  “I can imagine,” Pentandra nodded. “You must be very pleased at the opportunity to experiment, then. But . . . I suppose the enneagrams you could harvest from the Ghost Rock – if I understand the process properly – would degrade the host just as quickly, due to incompatibility.”

  “Well, there is some truth to that, but it really depends on what overlay you select . . . and Olum Seheri has an abundance to select from,” he said, with professional satisfaction.

  “Sorry, what?” Pentandra asked sharply.

  “Oh, the name? Olum Seheri. It’s what Korbal’s folk call the City of Rainbows, now. Our new laboratory. And citadel. Better name than ‘Anthatiel’. I don’t know where it came from,” he confessed, “but I think it means ‘city of the dead’ or ‘city of the necromancer’ or something. Languages were never much of a strength of mine.”

  “It’s . . . a strong name,” Pentandra said, searching for a compliment. Snarling insults and defiant threats at the creature, while emotionally satisfying, would never had gotten Bezmiol to reveal so much valuable intelligence to her. She continued probing.

  “Pardon me for asking – professional curiosity, again – but to what purpose, besides pure research and revenge, could Korbal possibly have in wanting that place? I’ve heard it’s pretty – or was – but it’s on the arseend of pretty much everything.”

  “It’s a satisfactory base, for now,” Bezmiol said, a little defensively. “And it is extremely well-defended, which, alas, has become one of our unfortunate requirements for a new headquarters. The Alkan Council does not look upon our work kindly. Some even conspire to destroy us.”

  Since Pentandra was one of those conspiring, she tried to shift the subject. “Oh, I can see the defensive advantages, as well as the research potential. But that does not explain why Korbal and your kin are doing this in the first place. What could he possibly want?”

  “Why, a better future for us all!” Bezmiol said, as if it were obvious. “Is immortality not worth the price of labor and sacrifice? Consider how adept you could become if you had five lifetimes to learn your craft!”

  “But the Alka Alon are already long-lived, by humani standards.”

  “Long lived, perhaps, but not immortal. Not yet. When this body expires, thanks to Master Korbal’s research, my enneagram will remain intact, albeit incorporeal for a time. Once it’s recalled to Olum Seheri, it can be easily restored in another body. Can the Alkan Council do that?” he boasted, proudly. “At this stage in my development it would require a powerful force to destroy my enneagram. And being able to change bodies as easily as you change clothing would be a very useful thing,” he pointed out.

  “So it would,” Pentandra admitted. She could imagine a few improvements she could make . . . and that started to lead down an unproductive path, so she quickly returned to business. “But you do
understand that we humani might object to being hosts, if it means our destruction,” she pointed out. She wanted to gauge the creature’s empathy. She was not disappointed.

  “Well, you folk live such a short period of time, you barely notice,” Bezmiol said, dismissively. “And considering the boon you are giving to knowledge, I don’t see why you would object. It’s not as if we’re slaying you merely to fuel our spells – what a waste of resources!” he said, disgustedly, referring to the gurvani’s unsavory thaumaturgic practice that kept the Umbra intact. “Besides, the majority of our subjects are from your agricultural class, no better than the River Folk. Only a select few of your warrior and priestly classes,” he admitted, flexing his dead human muscles to demonstrate, “and they were subject to execution anyway, under the gurvani’s rules. This way they may yet serve, even in death.”

  “Ah yes,” Pentandra said, her eyes narrowing. “The gurvani. How can you bring yourself to work for such vile creatures?” she asked the vile creature in front of her.

  “It’s humiliating,” Bezmiol agreed, leaning on the hilt of his plain greatsword. “But if those little wretches hadn’t intervened and freed us, we may have been in torpor forever. We owe them a debt,” he admitted. “And they do have their uses. Who would have thought a race of janitors and laborers would develop even a rudimentary culture?” he asked, arrogantly.

  “And then there’s Sheruel, Korbal’s master,” Pentandra prodded. Bezmiol winced at the name.

  “That . . . travesty!” he wailed. “Of all the perversions the gurvani could have chosen, they thought they could elevate themselves through . . . that? The thing is insane,” he insisted. “I’ve seen it! It has no real understanding of enneagramatics,” Bezmiol began ticking off points of irritation on his tattooed fingertips, “it has no appreciation of the work we do, and it thinks . . . it thinks it’s better than us!” Bezmiol said, scandalized.

  “Well, that’s the undead for you – present company excepted,” she said, nodding. “Arrogant.”

  “Yes, well, if it wasn’t for the escape from death, one might wonder why we bother. Sheruel is so proud of his little furry army and his dragons and nightsails and other toys that he barely invests the time to see the possibilities. The power that could be garnered from proper use of his tools! That’s why we offered to win this war for him,” explained the Nemovort. “The sooner his folk are satisfied with their conquests, the sooner we can begin finding a way to properly harness the molopor and all of that irionite.”

  “I wonder if you actually need the goblin head inside,” Pentandra said, with undisguised disgust.

  “You know,” Bezmiol said, after a thoughtful pause, “I don’t think we would. In fact, I—” he halted his speech a third time.

  “What is it?” Pentandra asked, alarmed.

  “I . . . I actually think those deadskulls found it!” he revealed, triumphantly, showing a mouthful of teeth that had started out as a Wilderlord’s and endured his diet and lifestyle, and were now as gray and dead as any flesh could be.

  Pentandra looked surprised. And dismayed.

  “Are you . . . certain?” she asked, her tone falling.

  “Unless she was in the habit of hiding these books all over the Wilderlands, I think so,” nodded Bezmiol, cheerfully. “From what I understand they usually are not proof against the elements?”

  “Parchment can be fragile, if not properly protected. But if your draugen found it . . .”

  As if to answer, one of the red-eyed creatures (who might have been a handsome Wilderlord, before he died, lost his hair, and was imbued with the spirit of some long-extinct sea creature, Pentandra reflected) lumbered into the croft bearing a book in its arms. There was no triumph or excitement in his movements - he was merely carrying out orders -- but Bezmiol certainly took it as a good sign.

  “They did find the book!” he exclaimed, his human voice breaking with the effort. “This will be a great--“

  Bezmiol was interrupted by the sudden and completely unexpected appearance of a swordpoint from the neck of the draugen. As the creature fell headless to the floor, spewing a black substance from its neck, book still clasped in its cold fingers, Pentandra could see three arrows protruding from its back.

  Then Arborn stepped into the room, his sword held steadily in front of him. Bezmiol just stared for a few moments, alarmed, then remembered he had his own weapon. His dead hands went searching for the hilt of the greatsword, behind his back, while he tried to keep his eyes on the steely-eyed ranger.

  “You didn’t—!” Bezmiol began, when Arborn’s blade flashed in the magelight. Before his hands could find the hilt of his own weapon, the Nemovort tumbled to the floor, decapitated, as his rotting skull landed at the foot of Pentandra’s chair. A bare moment later, two dogs – actually, a wolf and a coyote, Pentandra realized – sprang into the room and began tearing at the rotting flesh of both bodies.

  “About time you showed up, Husband!” Pentandra sighed with relief. “I thought that damn thing was going to bore me to death!”

  Chapter Forty-Six

  Pentandra Confronts The Alka Alon

  “You . . . brought my mother along to rescue me?” Pentandra asked in an astonished voice, after Arborn had dragged the corpses out of the croft.

  Pentandra guessed that he wasn’t alone – there was no way that he could have crossed the hundreds of leagues between here and Vorone in that short of time without help – but she didn’t quite expect the party he brought with him.

  Especially as it included – for no good reason that she could see – her mother.

  “Amendra was . . . adamant,” Arborn confided, hesitantly. “When she saw how you had gone off literally into the unknown, she was beside herself with worry. When I told her I was going after you, she insisted on coming along.”

  “But what help could she possibly be?” demanded Pentandra, angrily.

  “She did not come to offer help,” Arborn replied, simply. “She came because her daughter was in danger.”

  “Oh. Uh . . . oh.” Pentandra honestly didn’t know how to respond to that.

  She rarely credited her mother with any actual authentic maternal feelings, largely due to how often the two women were at odds with each other. If Pentandra had been forced to take an oath about how much and in what ways her mother cared about her, “socially” would one of the few words she could have come up with. Pentandra had always seemed to be a disappointment to her socially-conscious mother, and she could not for the life of her think what could have possessed her to risk her own skin to come see what Pentandra did at work.

  “But . . . but did you have to bring her?”

  “She insisted,” Arborn repeated. “Who am I to tell a mother that she can’t go try to rescue her daughter?”

  “My husband, that’s who!” Pentandra nearly yelled. “Damn it, Arborn! This place was crawling with undead an hour ago, and now my mother is here!” Part of her mind wondered which she dreaded more.

  “The undead are . . . dead, again,” he informed her, gently. “I am sorry it took me so long. I could not get any of the High Magi in Vorone to transport me through the Ways. Terleman rides with His Grace to destroy one of the gurvani castles near to Vorone in recompense for the Midsummer raid, and the warmagi in Tudry were likewise occupied. Minalan returned to Sevendor before I arrived at the palace. So I imposed on Ithalia to give me some assistance. She’s the one who tracked you here,” he added, thanks to your ingenious tracking sticks.

  “Ithalia? The Alka Alon emissary?” Pentandra asked, impressed. The very, very beautiful Alka Alon emissary, she amended in her mind. “How did you get in touch with her?”

  “I’ve known Ithalia since I was a boy,” Arborn shrugged. “She and her kin have always worked closely with the Kasari. When I needed a boon, she was happy to help. Especially after the help I gave her this summer, searching for the lost Aronin.”

  “So Ithalia got you and Mother through the Ways,” Pentandra reasoned.
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br />   “And then she helped me hunt the draugen,” Arborn said, nodding his shaggy head. “She and two of her folk. There were five of them,” he added. “We took them by surprise, in the dark. Though I am uncertain if darkness gave us favor. They seemed to see as well or better in the night.”

  “According to Bezmiol, they are stronger at night. They probably see heat,” she guessed.

  “That would make sense,” Arborn nodded. “They did not die easily. Arrows have a limited effect – even the arrows of the Alka Alon. But decapitation seems to work,” he said, nodding toward the sticky black spot where he had slain the undead.

  “So it does,” she nodded. She looked up at her husband’s dark eyes and realized that she had missed him terribly. “I am sorry for not having a better plan, when I vanished. But time was short.”