I stared out the window in silence for a while, trying to keep my mind empty, when what she had said finally clicked. “You mean to turn him into a double agent.”
“Exactly. Our first real chance to see inside Henrick’s organization.”
I sighed and went back to just looking out my window. Life was so complicated now; there were so many decisions, so many games within games. I longed for the simple life of the school again, where I only had to deal with bullies and teachers.
“Dusty,” started Spectra quietly. “I need you on my side with this.”
I turned and looked at her. She was crying. “Oh, don’t worry, you’re still my fur face.” I meant it, deep in my heart, but right then I did not feel it. I turned and looked back out the window, unable to watch her tears.
I took a deep breath to steady my voice. “I don’t like this game of betrayal. Shadow, Flame, Phoenix and the others are our family, or the closest thing we have to one.”
“They are our family, and I would never betray them,” she said. Her voice was broken and I knew my comment had wounded her, but at that moment it needed to be said.
“Then why are we out here?” I asked.
There was a long pause and a deep sigh. “You know why. We are building an army of spiritualists.”
“And that is forbidden by the wizard code,” I said.
“Oh, Dusty, do you think Grandmaster Vydor doesn’t know?” she demanded. “Of course he does! He knows exactly what we are up to.”
“How?” I asked.
“Powerful spellweavers can see things like this coming, and the grandmaster of the realm is the most powerful spellweaver in existence. Make no mistake, he knows.”
“Then why hasn’t he stopped us?” I asked.
“Because of you,” she said.
“What?” I asked.
“Why did he let us get married? Do you remember what he said?” she asked.
I turned to look at her. “Our marriage was an important event in the timeline, or something like that.”
“Exactly. I think he knew that day what we would be doing this day,” she said.
“So you’re saying that he wants you to build this force?” I asked.
“Wants? No, that probably isn’t the word he would use, but he sees it as inevitable,” she said.
“But why was our marriage so important?” I asked.
She sighed and collapsed onto the couch. “Because, Dusty, you’re my light.”
“Huh?” I was puzzled. She had used that term before, but I thought she was just being cute.
“Dusty, I was in self-imposed prison for a long time in the realm of the dead. By right, I should be a raving lunatic at best by now,” she said. “Something called me out of there and drew me to you. Like a bug to a light, you drew me.”
“That sounds nice, but I don’t know what you’re getting at,” I said.
“Grandmaster Vydor sees you as a stabilizing force, a light to my dark. I agree, which is why I have never taken the lead.”
I thought back to all the time we had spent together and how she constantly deferred to my judgment. I had tried several times to promote her, but she refused any role that took her out of my direct authority. It made sense. “Then why are we doing this?”
“We have to. For countless generations spiritualists have been repressed, both in our realm in the first age of magic and currently in Korshalemia. It is not fair to our kind, and it is why most spiritualists become necromancers. You and I can change that. Magi like Kymberly, Jade, Saraphym and Chrimson deserve a chance.”
I tried to process that. We had had this discussion before, but not in as much detail. I knew she was planning something big, but I think I had deliberately blinded myself to what it meant. “That is why Master Shadow visited.”
“Yes, I suspect he came to remind us of our family back home. I am not sure what he thought that would accomplish, though,” she said.
“I know Master Shadow, and he is concerned we will become enemies. That is the way he thinks. You are either on his side or you’re against him,” I said.
“Must be an Imperial Human trait,” said Spectra.
“Are we to become his enemies?” I asked.
“No,” she said. “I really don’t want that, but they will be forced to disown us.”
“The treaty,” I said.
“Yes, the treaty. Korshalemia will not see it the same way we do. They will see it as Grandmaster Vydor training up necromancers, and it could mean war,” said Spectra.
“Then we can’t do it. I won’t be party to any plan that brings us to war with wizards,” I said.
“That is why we must break off from the Wizard Kingdom soon. If we break off, then Grandmaster Vydor can tell Korshalemia that we are rebels doing what spiritualists do,” she said.
“Becoming necromancers,” I said, walking back over to the window.
“Exactly. They will understand that, and we can still grow and teach,” she said. “Please, Dusty. I need you.”
“So we continue the plan, knowing that Master Shadow and Grandmaster Vydor know what we are up to,” I said.
“It’s the only way to avoid war and still give our fellow spiritualists a fair shot at a life.”
“What is our next step?” I asked.
“Promote Kymberly and train her to survive in the Spirit Realm,” she said. “Kymberly’s powers have grown enough and we are now entering a critical time for her.”
“And Jade?” I asked.
“Jade is still too unstable. He needs more time to grow,” she said.
“What about Saraphym?” I asked.
“She is a special case, and I think it would be best to promote Greymere and have him teach her,” she said.
“Greymere?” I asked.
“By the time he has returned, he will know how to live in the Spirit Realm and resist the call of darkness there. Their race makes their problem much harder than it is for others, and Greymere is the only one I know of who can teach her.”
“A mundane teaching a wizard,” I said. “That seems odd, at best, but I guess in this case there is validity to it.”
“Yes. We will continue to teach her how to use her magic, but the power they wield as butterflies is a great temptation in and of itself.”
“And you are sure we can trust Greymere?” I asked.
“Absolutely. He has been alone for a long time, maybe a century or more; it is hard to tell exactly. His personality is not the kind that relishes solitude. He wants a family, and all we have to do is provide it.”
I rejoined her on the couch, and she climbed up in my lap and asked, “Are we good?”
“Yeah, we’re good,” I said and relaxed a bit. The warmth of her body so close to mine always felt right. I knew she was right, even if I didn’t like it; regardless of which, we had gone too far. Too many pieces were in motion already. There was no turning back.
On the floor was the datapad with its now-broken screen. It was still dutifully displaying a couple of dozen names of wizards requesting transfer to our unit of spiritualists. Spectra had already pruned the list. All I had to do was approve it, and we would grow into a real fighting force by stealing people rejected by the system, just as Henrick did. I left it there on the floor, not wanting to take that step just yet.
I could feel her purr as she snuggled in tighter. We sat there quietly for a long time.
Chapter Forty-One
Three more times I was attacked in the forest by various creatures. I was sore, wounded and hiding in a tree back up in the smog layer. I would have to give up on the trail I was following and find another way to reach the volcano. Drink up, I told myself and pulled out one of the illuminescence potions from the pack Nanny had given me.
None of the various ghosts I had seen flying around had bothered me. All of my attackers were made of flesh and bone. I assumed that meant they were not natives of this realm. I wondered
why anyone would move here. I knew the power of the realm could be a trap once you were there, but why go there in the first place? I made a mental note to find out more about this realm when I returned.
I had been avoiding drinking the potions, trying to conserve supplies, but I was growing too weak. I could not live on my rations alone. I needed real energy to replace what I was using up by just trying to survive here. I chugged two of the potions and wolfed down some military rations. As the illuminescence washed through me, I could feel my body repairing and rejuvenating itself.
Think, Greymere, think! I commanded myself. I had to come up with a way to travel that would not have me under constant attack. The trees were too far apart for me to stay up in the smog layer, and even if they hadn’t been I could not be sure I was going in the right direction. The smoke was too thick to see anything more than a meter away.
I dropped down from my tree and left the trail, heading in the straightest possible line to the volcano. Pushing through the underbrush was slower and not as stealthy as I would have preferred, but I was still making good time. As I walked, I heard talking from the woods in front of me. I slowed my pace and, as quietly as I could, circled around to see who was speaking. I found two humans resting in a small clearing, eating some kind of fruit. They were wearing armor made from metal and animal skin, and both had massive swords strapped to their backs. I could not imagine how they could draw them from their backs like that. My swords, which were much smaller, required my entire reach to be drawn, and their swords were half as long again.
“I wonder why this fruit exists,” said one.
“What do you mean?” asked the other.
“Well, this is the realm of the dead, right? Made to imprison spirits?” he asked.
“Yeah, so what’s your point?” the second man asked.
“Spirits don’t eat fruit, so why is it here?” asked the first man.
The other man shook his head. “Really, Willy, who cares? Just be grateful it’s here and eat.”
Willy reached up into the tree, pulled down another fruit and ate it. “How much longer do you think we gotta wait?”
The other man threw away what was left of his fruit. “No idea, but the boss said to wait here in this clearing and kill him when he comes along. So we are going to sit here until he arrives.”
I wanted to stay and find out if I was the one they were waiting for, but I wanted even more to go home to my new family, so I slowly slipped away from their camp and left that mystery unsolved. Once I felt I had put enough distance between us, I stopped to pick some fruit from a similar tree. If the humans were eating them, they should be safe for me, I reasoned to myself.
I was careful to pick one the same color and size as the ones they had been eating. I assumed that meant they were ripe. When I bit into the fruit, I found it very sweet with a soft, moist texture. There were no seeds in it, so either the whole thing was a seed or the trees had some other means of reproduction.
I was grateful for a change from the rations I had been living on since arriving here. I picked a second one and ate it while I resumed my trek through the forest. After a while I stopped to sleep again, grateful I’d made it through a whole day, or what I estimated to be a day, without having to fight for my life again. As I secured myself in the tree, I wondered about those men. They were here to kill someone, but I couldn’t see how it could be me. No one knew I was here, and even if they did, they could not have guessed in advance that I would choose that time to leave the trail. No, it was just a coincidence that two men happened to be on my path and had been hired to kill a lone, male traveler in the realm of the dead. Yeah, right, I thought to myself.
After another fitful sleep, I climbed down from the tree and continued my walk. Soon I came across a large river. I tested the water with the equipment on my armor and it was surprisingly clean, so I took a break to wash, drink, and clean my armor. The water was cool and refreshing and went a long way toward helping me feel civilized again. I considered lying in the sun for a while until I remembered that there was no sun in this realm.
With a sigh, I donned my armor again and decided to move on before I pushed my luck too far. A watering spot like this must draw others that lived in the area. Crossing the river in full armor was a chore, but I eventually made it across, some way downstream from where I’d started.
I walked for the equivalent of two more days before I reached the base of the volcano. The volcano was active, as Spectra had warned, and there were several lava flows moving down the side of it. The air temperature was dangerously high, even with the protection of my armor. I had to limit myself to short trips up the slope to search for the caves.
I had come back down to cool off from one of these trips when several ghosts appeared around me. They were moving fast and screeching something I could not understand. I started to reach for my swords to defend myself, when I noticed that they all bore a slight resemblance to Nanny.
In as loud a voice as I could manage, I called out, “I bring a message for the chief of the Tribe of Diamond!”
The screaming faded a little around me and a voice came from nowhere, asking, “Who are you?”
“I am known as Greymere, and a spirit by the name of Nanny, in the service of a spiritualist named Master Spectra, has charged me to bring a message to the chief of the Tribe of Diamond.”
A hush fell over the various ghosts and they settled in front of me. “Remove your helmet so we can see you.”
“Why do you need to see me? Take me to your chief so I can deliver the message.” It had not been long since my fights with the wraiths, and I was very conscious of the fact that removing my helmet would expose me to their power. I was not yet ready to trust them.
“Remove your helmet,” came the voice.
“I cannot. The smoke and heat from the volcano are dangerous to me,” I said. It was not a great excuse, as we could have walked a short distance away where it was safer, but there was at least some truth in it.
I reached into my bag and pulled out the scroll. “This is the message, so you can see I speak the truth.”
One of the ghosts broke off from the others and reached out to touch the scroll. There was a loud crack and the spirit pulled its hand back as if in pain. “It’s protected. Come with me.”
I did not know if I could trust him, but I didn’t think I had much of a choice. Nanny had not told me how to know if I’d found the right tribe, or even which one was the chief. I had nothing to go on, other than that they looked a little like her.
We traveled back up the slope, and they brought me to some caves that I had missed in my search of the area. They were disguised to look like shadows in the slope, and I had ignored them. They brought me into the caves where the air steadily got cooler and cleaner.
I was brought into a large room hollowed out of the rock, which had the look of an amphitheater. I wondered, with the amount of lava coming from the volcano, if this room had once been outside and had been covered in layers of fresh rock over a long period. There were countless ghosts flying around doing whatever it is that they do. Floating in the center of the room was a large, stone chair, and in that chair was a much larger ghost. All the other ghosts stayed clear of him, except the one that had led me to the room, who had flown up to speak with him.
The chair lowered until it rested on the floor in front of me and the large ghost said, “Speak.”
I decided the best bet was to repeat myself. “I am known as Greymere, and a spirit by the name of Nanny, who is in the service of Master Spectra, has charged me to bring a message to the chief of the Tribe of Diamond.”
The giant ghost reached out his hand. “Give me the message.”
I figured he must be the chief, judging by how the others reacted to him, and it did not seem wise to refuse him. I took the message out of my bag and held it up as I approached the chair. The giant ghost took the scroll and opened it. There was silence in the room while he read
it, and many of the ghosts stopped and tried to get a peek without being noticed. They were failing miserably at it, but that did not seem to discourage them from trying.
“Is my daughter Nanny well?” he asked.
“I don’t know how to tell that exactly, but I believe so. She is happy and seems to be enjoying her work,” I said.
“Thank you for this message. It has been a long time since we heard from her. Please stay with us while I prepare a message for you to take back,” he said, and his chair floated back up.
“Come, I will show you where to find food suitable for your flesh,” said the ghost that had led me in.
“Thanks,” I said. I was still trying to process the fact that Nanny was the daughter of the chief here. That raised all kinds of questions I did not know how to answer, and I didn’t think it would be polite to ask Nanny. Maybe I could pull Dusty aside at some point and find out.
Chapter Forty-Two
I was slowly working through the standard maintenance checklist that I had learned on the station when a voice came out of nowhere and said, “Chrimson, what are you doing? Can I help?”
I looked around, but could see no one. “Running my standard checklist,” I said. The room appeared empty but there was a lot of equipment around me, making it impossible to say for sure no one had sneaked in.
“Oh. I can do that for you,” said the voice.
“Who is speaking?” I asked. I had not heard anyone come in, but all the noise I was making opening hatches and dissembling sections of the engine could easily have covered the sound of someone entering.
“It’s just me,” said the voice.
I realized then that it was coming from the computer system speakers. “I still don’t know who you are.”
“Oh, I think I should introduce myself, then,” the voice asked.
“Yeah, that would be grand,” I said.
“I am Nemesis, and that is my power core you were poking around in,” said the voice.
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