The Third Soul Omnibus Two

by Jonathan Moeller

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  Nightgrim awoke from his torpor, staring at the coffin lid.

  It had been convenient for Marsile to leave the coffin sitting unattended in the woods. Nightgrim doubted the Adept had done it out of kindness, though. He must have forgotten it.

  Nightgrim took a moment to marvel at the simple fact of his continued existence. Staggering through the woods, burning from the hideous wound the red-eyed Paladin had inflicted, Nightgrim had believed his destruction imminent. The presence of sunlight would reduce his demon’s powers further, and he would be vulnerable to destruction. He had fallen into the coffin to rest and regenerate from his injuries, though he had feared the surviving Brothers would find and destroy him as he lay senseless.

  Now, it seemed, the gamble had paid off. He felt beneath his ruined clothes and smiled. His flesh had knitted back together, fueled by his demon’s strength. A faint hollow feeling twisted at his stomach, but Nightgrim ignored it. He had taken much blood in the monastery. His demon could go a few months without the necessity of blood, despite the hollow pang.

  Nightgrim pushed open the coffin’s lid and sat up.

  The coffin still sat in the snow, barren trees looming against the black sky. Nightgrim vaulted from the coffin and stretched, listening. Save the dull murmur of a cold breeze, nothing moved.

  He glanced at his coffin and considered what do. Perhaps he should go back to the monastery. Over a hundred Brothers had survived the attack, and hot blood flowed through their veins. He could go there, go and feast as his demon had not feasted in decades…

  Nightgrim got a grip on himself. “No.” He closed the coffin, sat on it, and forced himself to think.

  He had not killed Raelum, the demonborn Paladin, nor Carandis Marken, the young Adept. Why hadn’t they pursued him?

  Most likely they were still recovering from their wounds. Perhaps Nightgrim should go and kill them both? He pushed the idea aside at once. He had taken the monastery by surprise once. He could not expect to do so again.

  And what of Marsile?

  Nightgrim slid off the coffin and crawled across the ground, his nose pressed to the earth like a bloodhound. He picked up the rotting, decayed scent of ghouls. But he also smelled the scent of a living man, the scent of Marsile’s blood. Nightgrim looked forward to devouring that blood. Both Marsile’s scent and the scent of the ghouls went to the northeast. Nightgrim could follow…

  But why did he care what happened to Marsile? Let the fool plunge into the trackless wild. Let the Paladin and the Adept huddle in the monastery. Nightgrim could go back to the civilized lands of the coast, and live as he had done in Callia City, drinking blood and terrorizing the night. What did he care for these fools? Nightgrim could leave them behind forever.

  But they knew him.

  Suppose at least one of them survived? And suppose their paths crossed again one day?

  Nightgrim could not take that risk. He had been sloppy in Callia City, and the Paladins had come for him. Nightgrim had spent thirty years in hibernation as a result. He would take greater care this time.

  He would kill everyone who knew of his true nature.

  But how to kill them all? Marsile was gone, but Carandis and Raelum were within easy reach. Yet attacking them at the monastery was too great of a risk. And if he killed Marsile and then doubled back, Raelum and Carandis might vanish first.

  Nightgrim laughed as the answer came to him.

  Both Raelum and Carandis had come to kill Marsile, hadn’t they? They would recover their strength and resume their pursuit. In the wild, Nightgrim could kill Marsile, Raelum, and Carandis with ease. He just had to wait for a fortuitous moment.

  Humming to himself, Nightgrim ran to the northeast, moving with superhuman speed.

  Chapter 18 - Hierarchs of the Old Empire

  Something tapped Raelum’s boot.

  Raelum’s eyes shot open. He yanked his dagger free and sprang to his feet.

  Carandis Marken stood before him, leaning on her staff.

  She arched an eyebrow at the dagger.

  “I see your strength returns,” said Carandis.

  “I have you to thank for it,” said Raelum, sheathing his blade. “Marsile would have killed me without your aid.”

  “Ah,” said Carandis, “but Marsile would have slain me, if you had not struck him with that broken bar. So I owe you my life, as well.”

  “But Nightgrim would have killed me,” said Raelum, “if you had not struck him with that spell.”

  “And the draugvir would have slain me if you had not distracted it,” said Carandis. She laughed. “So we owe each other our lives twice over, eh? Perhaps that makes us even.”

  Raelum snorted. “I suppose so.”

  “Come,” said Carandis. “First Brother Ulrich wishes to speak with us. He wants to decide what to do next.”

  “I know what I will do,” said Raelum. “I shall hunt Marsile to the ends of the earth.” Despair tugged at his mind. “But I don’t know where he’s going.”

  “I think,” said Carandis, “that I have an idea.”

  “You do?” said Raelum. “Tell me!”

  “Come,” said Carandis. “I will tell First Brother Ulrich of it, as well.”

  Intrigued, Raelum followed the red-robed Adept. Solemn chants rang through the corridors, along with the dolorous clanging of iron bells. They passed the shrine doors, and two dozen Brothers stood around the altar, saying prayers for the dead. Most of the Brothers were weeping.

  “They have been saying prayers for the dead all day,” said Carandis.

  “Aye, and can you blame them?” said Raelum. “How many Brothers did Marsile kill?”

  “Less than he might have,” said Carandis, “thanks to your valor.”

  Raelum shook his head. It hadn’t been enough.

  They walked in silence to the library. Ulrich stood by the window, looking down at the smoldering remains of the funeral pyres in the courtyard. Lionel sat slumped at one of the tables, rubbing the bandages on his wrist. He looked bleary-eyed and exhausted, his face dusted with blond stubble.

  “A grim day for us all,” said Ulrich, turning from the window. “Our monastery guarded that vile book for nearly a thousand years. Yet what value are paper and ink weighed against the flesh and blood of living men?” His big hands clenched into fists. “May the justice of the Divine find Marsile, and find him quickly.”

  “I wish to find him myself, lord First,” said Raelum, banging the pommel of his sword.

  “But how?” said Ulrich. “Marsile is long gone with his ill-gotten prize. We have no way to find him.”

  “He will flee,” said Raelum, “now that he has his books. The only safe way back to the civilized lands is the road to High Morgon. I will chase him there. I may even overtake him on the road.”

  “Yet suppose he has gone northeast, not southwest?” said Carandis. “By the time you realize your error, he will have vanished into the wild lands, perhaps even the former lands of the Old Empire itself.”

  “I will not tell you what to do,” said Ulrich. “I have no right. You came here at great peril to warn me, and I disregarded you. My monastery has paid for my folly, and I shall curse myself for it to the end of my days. If you wish to set out at once, I will equip you with goods and provender. Or, if you would rather stay here until winter has passed, you shall be our honored guest.”

  “I will go after Marsile,” said Raelum.

  “You will not find him,” said Ulrich. “And even if you do find him, he is too strong. I will not command you, but let me advise you. Stay here until winter has passed. At least one merchant ship dares the wilds around the Alderine River every year and comes to the docks. Take that ship back to the civilized lands.”

  “I will do as the lord First advises,” said Lionel, his voice faint. “I am tainted.” He wrung his hands, as if trying to wash them. “I am no longer fit to be a Silver Knight. I will travel back to Tarrenheim, to a monastery under the patronage of my lord father
, take a Brother’s vows, and spend the rest of my days within cloister walls. That way, when I die, my body will be burned on hallowed ground, and I will not rise as a draugvir.”

  “Foolishness,” said Raelum. “If you find and destroy Nightgrim, you can be free of his curse.”

  Lionel said nothing.

  “You may do as you will, my lords,” said Carandis. “But I know where Marsile is going.”

  Ulrich blinked, the old suspicion creeping into his face. “How?”

  “Lord First, why did Marsile steal those books?” said Carandis.

  Ulrich shrugged. “I know not. A mind steeped in wicked knowledge and sinful pride will lust after more wicked knowledge. Does it even matter?”

  “It matters a great deal,” said Carandis. “Those books were only a means to an end for Marsile.”

  “What end?” said Raelum. “Stop speaking in an Adept’s riddles and say what you mean plainly.”

  “Your bluntness becomes you, Sir Raelum. Very well,” said Carandis. “I think Marsile means to find the tomb of a Hierarch of the Old Empire, summon the Hierarch's high demon, and bind it to his own control.”

  Dead silence answered the Adept’s pronouncement. Lionel looked up from the tabletop, blinking.

  “But,” said Lionel, “the Hierarchs of the Old Empire were destroyed fifteen centuries ago when they ripped open the barrier to the astral world and let the demons into our world. They were destroyed, and the Old Empire fell.”

  “Not all of them, not right away,” said Carandis. “And some of them were buried by their vassals and servants. In fact, some of the demon-cults plaguing the civilized lands today are descendants of the old Hierarchs’ followers. They still pray to the Hierarchs and their high demons, Ramhirdras and Baligant and all the rest.”

  “What sort of man would turn from the Divine to worship the false immortality of the demons?” said Lionel.

  Raelum remembered the demon-cult Sir Oliver had destroyed in Khauldun and said nothing.

  “And Nightgrim, it was rumored, was once the head of a cult in Callia City,” said Carandis, shrugging. “Or so the story goes.”

  Lionel blanched and looked away.

  “My point, lord First, is that some of the tombs of the old Hierarchs survived,” said Carandis. “I think Marsile seeks such a place. The tomb of a Hierarch, hidden somewhere in the trackless wild. The books he has stolen merely provide him with the tools he needs.”

  “How can you know this?” said Ulrich.

  “Thinks, my lord First. Did not the Hierarchs of the Old Empire write the books themselves?” said Carandis. “Do not the books contain all their dark secrets? What better place for Marsile to find the spells he needs?”

  “Why would Marsile do something so foolish?” said Raelum. “He told me he would never die. Does Marsile think the Hierarch’s high demon will give him immortality in gratitude? Or does he plan to bind himself to the creature’s service?”

  “Hardly,” said Carandis. “A man like Marsile would not submit to another’s rule. No…I think Marsile plans to bind Hierarch’s high demon within his body and control it, the way the Hierarchs did themselves. In essence, he wishes to transform himself into a Hierarch...or, at least, to claim a Hierarch's power and high demon for his own. That is why he raided the libraries in the Ring of Araspan and Chrysos. He sought the location of both a Hierarch’s tomb and books containing the spells to raise the Hierarch’s enslaved high demon. He has found both, and now makes his way to the tomb.”

  “Then if we find this tomb,” said Raelum, “we can lay in wait for him there.”

  “We must do more than that,” said Carandis, frowning. “Marsile may well call up the high demon only to find that he cannot control it. And what then? It will take control of him, and a high demon will walk the mortal realm once more. And even if he succeeds, that means the power of a high demon will be at the command of a cruel man like Marsile.” She looked them all in the eye. “Marsile deserves death, aye, a hundred times over. But for this, for what I have just told you, he must be stopped. Revenge, even justice, are petty in the face of the crimes he might yet commit if he succeeds.”

  “Yet how can we stop him?” said Ulrich. “If all you have said is true, and I fear it is, he knows the location of the Hierarch’s tomb and we do not. How shall we find him?”

  “I can find him,” said Carandis. “I have my means.”

  Ulrich frowned, not quite hiding his distaste. “Some sort of arcane art, I presume?”

  “Quite,” said Carandis.

  “How?” said Raelum. “Sir Oliver told me of such spells. You will need a piece of him to...establish the astral resonance, or something like that. But few Adepts have the talent for it.”

  Carandis smiled. “I happen to be one of them. And would blood suffice?”

  Raelum shrugged. “So far as I know.”

  “Then we can thank you for it,” said Carandis. She reached into her cloak and pulled out a rusty iron bar. Dried blood stained its jagged edge.

  “That’s,” said Raelum, blinking, “that’s…”

  “The iron rod you stabbed into Marsile’s side,” said Carandis. “I had just enough wit to scoop it up after he vanished.”

  “But if he was wounded so sorely,” said Lionel, “how can he be alive? He may lie in the woods as we speak, dying from a rust-poisoned wound.”

  “He knows enough blood sorcery to heal himself, I am sure,” said Carandis. “But we can find out right now if Marsile yet lives. With your permission, lord First?”

  Ulrich sighed, but nodded.

  Carandis gripped the bar in one hand, closed her eyes, and began casting a spell. A low thrumming went through Raelum’s bones. Ulrich’s scowl deepened, and Lionel cringed away. A flash of blue fire danced around Carandis’s fingers.

  “He’s…” Carandis blinked and shook her head. “He’s…fifty miles from here. To the northeast, moving in that direction. I think he’s asleep right now.”

  “You saw a vision of him?” said Raelum.

  “Not quite.” Carandis laid the bar on the table and wiped her sweating brow. “It’s…akin to the sun. Even a blind man knows where the sun is. What I just did is somewhat similar. I know where he is, what he is doing, but nothing more.”

  “And you can continue doing this?” said Raelum, eager.

  “Aye,” said Carandis. “But only a few times a day. It’s draining.”

  “I must go after him at once,” said Raelum.

  “Alone?” said Ulrich, aghast.

  “I will come with you,” said Carandis.

  “But that would be folly,” said Ulrich. “The lands past this monastery are filled with demons.”

  “The lands south of here are dangerous, but I came through them well enough,” said Raelum.

  “Some people still dwell here,” said Ulrich. “Not many, but some. But east of this monastery the lands are utterly desolate, cursed and empty, filled with wandering demons left over from the fall of the Old Empire and the destruction of Arvandil. There may be a few half-mad hermits, a few villages. But the villagers will have no doubt fallen into demon worship, and the hermits will not welcome travelers.”

  “Nevertheless,” said Carandis, “we will go.”

  “Young fools,” said Ulrich. He sighed. “But I have no right to command you. Very well. I will give you supplies, as many as you can carry, and pack beasts as well. And some advice, if you will take it.”

  “We shall,” said Carandis.

  “If Marsile means to travel to the Silvercrown Mountains, to the lands that once belonged to the Old Empire, then sooner or later he will have to cross the Alderine River,” said Ulrich. “The only crossing is north of here, a bridge at a place called Abbotsford. A century and a half ago a village and a monastery stood there. The monastery fell into ruin, and its books were taken here. What became of the village I know not. No monk of St. Tarill’s has taken the northeastern road for years. But Marsile must make for that bridge.”

/>   “How do we know this bridge is still there?” said Raelum.

  “Apparently the bridge was there even before the Old Empire,” said Ulrich. “If you believe the old lore, the Elder People built long before the legions of the Old Empire ever came over the Silvercrown Mountains. It is probably still there. And as for the rest of my advice, I fear you shall need a guide.”

  “For what?” said Raelum. “Carandis can find Marsile anywhere.”

  “But the lands between the Alderine River and the Silvercrown Mountains are dangerous,” said Ulrich. “There are many demon-haunted ruins, and Ashborn tribes live among the trees. You might follow Marsile’s trail into some ruin filled with ghouls or worse.”

  “But where can we find a guide,” said Raelum, “if no one has traveled these lands for years?”

  “There is one,” said Ulrich. “One of the hermits I mentioned.”

  “These half-mad fellows?” said Carandis.

  “This one is wholly mad,” said Ulrich. “He calls himself Arthuras. He’s a smith, a metalworker. Every year, Arthuras comes from the forests to sell his wares. He is the best smith I have ever seen. We have often purchased his work. And yet, and yet…” Ulrich shook his head. “I have lived here for twenty years, eversince I retired from the Inquisitors. Arthuras has not aged a day in that time. I used to fear he was possessed, or perhaps a renegade Adept. Yet he is kindlier than I would expect such a man to be. But there is something…uncanny about him, something I have not the words to describe.”

  “We already have arms and armor,” said Raelum. “How can he help us?”

  “Arthuras has woodcraft beyond compare,” said Ulrich. “He has often spoken to me of his journeys. He knows the lands between the Alderine and the Silvercrown Mountains, and even claims to have traveled in the ruin of the Old Empire.”

  “Surely he lies!” said Lionel. “No man has been beyond the Silvercrown Mountains since the Seeress led the nations from the wreck of the Old Empire.”

  “I do not know if he speaks truth,” said Ulrich. “Yet I respect him, for he has never dealt us false. If you can convince him to aid you, his knowledge would be invaluable.”