by Nat Russo
Nicolas faced the Orb of Zubuxo. “I’ve been thinking about how your people used the Orb of Arin to travel.”
“I warned you against hope.”
“What about this one?”
Lamil approached the orb and Nicolas followed him.
“If this orb does allow travel, it would take the traveler to a place they’d rather not be,” Lamil said. “A place where the dead stand on a vast plain before Zubuxo’s throne and await purification. There’s only one way back from the Plane of Death, and that is to be summoned by a priest.”
Nicolas’s hopes sank. Lamil had spoken of the Plane of Death in his lessons; the endless field of souls, the giant throne, the gate to the Plane of Peace.
“The only way you will return home is to fulfill your purpose here,” Lamil said.
“I don’t even know where to begin, Siek.”
“Could you summon the dead on your home world?”
“Does waking a sleeping beagle count?”
Lamil faced the orb. “Let the future worry about the future. You would do well to concentrate on your present instead. Time remains for you to prepare. I suggest you do so.”
Lamil left toward the training dome.
Nicolas followed the siek in a surreal daze, knowing this could be his last walk through the Temple of Zubuxo.
Nicolas meditated at the center of the training dome as Toridyn and the other students lined up in three formations. He was serene. His love for Kaitlyn played some part in his necromantic power, and that brought him a measure of peace. Trying to keep her out of his mind had been the wrong thing to do. It was a mistake he wouldn’t make again.
Are you prepared?
Nicolas recognized Lamil’s telepathic voice.
As much as I’ll ever be.
“Students,” Lamil said. “Against the dome wall.”
There was a flurry of activity as the formations backed against the dome. Jurn approached the siek with two undead penitents, each carrying large, curved swords at their hips, but wearing no armor. Jurn barked an order and the penitents took up guarding positions at the entrance to the dome.
Nicolas knew Jurn was trying to intimidate him. It was the secret weapon of bullies everywhere, just like dad had told him.
“You will restrict yourselves to arcane combat,” Lamil said as he placed a hand on Jurn’s arm. “Lay down your weapon.”
Jurn retrieved a small dagger. Its blade glinted blue as he laid it on the floor between them with its black jeweled hilt facing Lamil.
“Nicolas, do you have a weapon?” Lamil said.
“No,” Nicolas said.
“It is each combatant’s right to search the other for weaponry. Do wish to search Jurn, or are you satisfied with his honor?”
“He’s ok,” Nicolas said. “We’re both priests.”
Lamil nodded, and Jurn made a noise that sounded like a laugh.
“Jurn,” Lamil said. “Do you wish to search Nicolas, or are you satisfied with his honor?”
“The human has no honor,” Jurn said. “I invoke my right.”
Lamil harrumphed, but allowed the search to proceed.
Jurn was rough. Every time he’d touch Nicolas he’d hit him with the back of a closed fist, or squeeze a muscle until Nicolas winced. Lamil either didn’t notice or didn’t care.
It didn’t matter. He had found his cet, and he didn’t know how or why, but Kaitlyn lived at its center. He focused on her face and let the serenity radiate through him. He was aware of Lamil repeating his instructions and Jurn taunting him again. But words no longer mattered. Jurn no longer mattered. Neither the past nor the future mattered any longer. There was only now. There was only his cet. There was only Kaitlyn.
Nicolas shifted his focus back to the training dome.
“You may begin,” Lamil said.
Nicolas saw everything as if time had slowed.
He had control over an armed human penitent and had begun summoning a cichlos before Jurn had a chance to move. He sent his first penitent straight at Jurn, raising its long sword in an attack position.
The namocea left him weakened. Mujahid had been right. Summoning without a corpse was no easy task. He couldn’t let his weakened state destroy his focus.
Jurn’s new penitent met Nicolas’s half way, and the two undead warriors clashed in battle, the steel ringing of swords reverberating through the dome as the fight swung back and forth. Jurn’s penitent got the upper hand and split the human penitent’s torso from shoulder to hip.
Nicolas’s necromantic link vanished and his penitent crumbled to the ground.
As Jurn’s second penitent materialized behind Nicolas, an energy beam shot through Nicolas’s torso.
Nicolas looked down and saw a spectral beam of light connecting Jurn to his newest penitent. So he wasn’t going crazy yesterday. There had been a beam coming from Jurn.
The deeper Nicolas retreated into his cet, the more visible the beam became. Three more emanated from Jurn, each one ending at a different penitent.
Nicolas concentrated on the beam passing through him. It pulsed with necropotency.
A skeletal hand the size of his head slammed into his chest and tossed him backwards, breaking his concentration.
As he flew into the air, Jurn fired a sphere of necropotency toward him.
Nicolas reacted instinctively. He channeled energy into the skull symbol and hurled it at a point between him and the oncoming sphere.
A penitent materialized and absorbed the full blast of the sphere, exploding and sending jagged bone fragments flying in every direction.
As Nicolas landed hard on his back, he summoned a penitent and directed it toward Jurn.
The air rushed from his lungs, as it had done in the cell when Mujahid kicked him, and Mujahid’s last words echoed in his mind.
It’s all about the energy.
The beam that had been passing through him hovered above his face, and realization dawned as if the beam itself had shed light on Mujahid’s meaning.
Mujahid wasn’t talking about the lake. He was talking about necromancy. It’s all about the energy!
He willed the beam to feed the well of power in his mind, treating it like any other power source, and the necropotency poured into him.
The beam vanished and Jurn growled.
Jurn’s penitent disappeared, leaving no bones behind.
He’d done it. He’d done something Mujahid told him was impossible.
Jurn roared, but Nicolas remained at peace. He no longer feared the sadistic albino. Instead, he saw Jurn as an object of pity—a cautionary tale he would never forget.
He repeated the process with the next beam of energy, and the penitent at the other end disappeared.
Something began to pull at his necromantic link. The beam extending to his own penitent was curving, creating an arc that moved toward Jurn at its apex. As the arc grew more pronounced it grew weaker. It would snap if he didn’t do something about it.
Nicolas released energy along the surface of the necromantic link, coating it in a protective barrier of energy. Jurn’s pull grew stronger, so he modified the spell he was casting. The protective barrier became slick, as if coated in oil.
Jurn lost his grip on the link, and the rebounding burst of energy threw him backwards into the air. He crashed into the dome wall behind him.
Nicolas ordered his penitent to attack, and the skeletal warrior charged. Jurn was lying in a heap on the floor, recovering from the whiplash of energy as the warrior reached him. The penitent shouted a battle cry and lifted its hands as if preparing to rip Jurn apart.
“Stop,” Nicolas said. The word wasn’t necessary, but Nicolas wanted Jurn to hear him. The penitent lowered his arms and took a few steps back.
Nicolas knelt next to the albino who had become the bane of his existence.
“Are you gonna stop acting like an asshole?” Nicolas said. “Or does that friendly skeleton over there have to stomp a mud hole in you?”
J
urn grunted and looked away.
“Siek,” Nicolas said. “Should I walk away?” He hoped with all his strength that Lamil would say yes.
Lamil looked from Nicolas to Jurn. “The rules of engagement are specific, and you are both honor-bound to fulfill them. Withdraw at your own peril, Nicolas.”
Jurn’s remaining penitent leaped toward Nicolas from the entrance of the dome.
Nicolas reached out with his mind and banished the skeleton, drawing the beam of energy into his well. Now that he understood the process, it was effortless.
“Jurn,” Nicolas said. “You can end this. We can both walk away.”
“You have no honor,” Jurn said.
Another penitent materialized in front of Nicolas, and he banished it without hesitation. As Jurn’s power waned, his own well filled from Jurn’s absorbed penitents.
Jurn couldn’t sustain this much longer. Even with a siborum he’d run out of power soon.
Nicolas sensed a penitent materializing behind him and he faced it. He banished it before it had a chance to attack.
Without turning back, he said “I’m done with this, Jurn. The next words out of your mouth better be I surrender.”
“I’m better than you, human,” Jurn said. “You don’t even have the honor to kill me.”
Nicolas didn’t want to kill Jurn. He didn’t want to kill anyone. Why couldn’t Jurn see reason? The fight was over.
The students along the wall drew back in surprise, as if they’d seen something horrible.
“No!” Toridyn yelled.
Pain exploded between Nicolas’s shoulder blades as something sharp dug into his back. He sank to his knees and reached for the source of the pain and felt the hilt of a dagger.
The black jeweled dagger was right where Jurn had left it, on the floor near Lamil. He must have had a hidden one.
Toridyn and Lamil ran toward him.
A group of students converged on Jurn, dragging him towards the wall. They weren’t being gentle about it either.
“No,” Nicolas shouted at the students. “Leave him.”
They stopped in place, as if unable to believe he had spoken.
Strength seeped from his body with every drop of blood that ran down into the small of his back.
Lamil stopped where he was, staring at Nicolas with a look of shock and disbelief, but Toridyn kept running until he was Nicolas’s side.
Toridyn knelt and helped Nicolas to his feet. “Your back, Nicolas. You’re losing a lot of blood.”
Nicolas stumbled backward and almost fell. He faced Lamil, hoping the old teacher would stop the duel, but Lamil stared back, saying nothing.
Nicolas released a small amount of necropotency into his wound. The dagger slid out then dropped to the floor. He shuddered from the pain, but he’d survived worse. Far worse.
He reached out with a tendril of energy and lifted the dagger off the ground, spinning it so that it pointed at Jurn. The dagger floated through the air until it was mere inches from Jurn’s face.
“Not like this,” Lamil said, shaking his head.
Nicolas realized what he had been about to do and let the dagger drop to the ground.
He wanted this to end, but he knew too much about Jurn.
As long as Jurn lived, Nicolas would be in danger. The albino would never relent. If he let Jurn walk away from this dome, he would kill Nicolas at the first opportunity.
Nicolas felt the weight of the world sit on his shoulders. He knew what he had to do.
Jurn glared at him.
Nicolas recognized the pure hatred in that look, having seen it time and again in the countless lives he lived. He was watching his own life play out, as if he had stepped into his own namocea, into a world devoid of quaint definitions of good and evil, a world turned on end. He judged himself and what he was about to do from outside the confines of his battered body.
The command wasn’t complex.
Two simple words.
Two simple words, which he never thought he’d hear himself say, began as a tightness in his chest, igniting war in its wake…a war of emotions with no clear victor. One side would get the upper hand, only to be pushed back in the ebb and flow of battle.
Two simple words that would forever change him into something he never imagined he would become.
As the words left his conscious mind and passed into the necromantic link, he knew them for what they were—a choice that would haunt him for the rest of his life.
Kill him.
Nicolas’s penitent lunged forward and plunged his fist into Jurn’s chest. He twisted his hand and tore Jurn’s heart out of his rib cage, crushed it, and threw it on the floor. Jurn’s corpse collapsed onto the ground and Nicolas felt the life leave him.
“The duel is over,” Lamil said. “Nicolas has emerged victorious.”
Bile rose in Nicolas’s throat. Victorious? The word angered him.
“No, Siek,” Nicolas said. “Both of us died here in this room. Both of us.”
Nicolas stormed out of the training dome toward an uncertain future, leaving his innocence behind him.
CHAPTER TWENTY THREE
Mujahid was powerless in a cage on a wagon, and it wasn’t helping his mood. A group of ten guards marched in front of the wagon, which was pulled by two horses, and two guards marched behind. That’s how it had been for the last several hours since his capture at Three Banks.
He had allowed himself to hope Tithian had changed, but the man was a traitor through and through. If Mujahid managed to get out of this cage, Tithian would pay a dear price for his treachery.
The wagon had bounced its way along East Bank’s bumpy streets until it left the busy city behind. The terrain turned to dusty plains, and the sky changed from its ubiquitous pale yellow to amber.
Mujahid tried in vain to break free of the shield around his energy well. If he didn’t escape soon it would be too late. The route they were on was taking them toward Arin’s watch, where Tithian would have a ship already prepared. The man was a fool if he’d cross the Sea of Arin at this time of year.
The wagon slowed and Mujahid looked out through the bars of his cage. He had to look twice for fear he was hallucinating. A half league to the east, down a hill in a large valley, an army flying the banner of the Red Dragon of Religar was preparing a camp.
There must be twenty thousand soldiers in that valley.
The Union must have gone forward with its insane plan to invade Religar, and that would render the Treaty of Three Banks null and void. The only festering agreement keeping a full-scale war from erupting was no longer worth the paper it was written on. That army was here because Religar was certain the Shandarian Union wouldn’t join the fight.
Tithian’s betrayal seemed like a trivial irritant next to this.
The army filled the valley from one side to the other. Siege engines were spaced evenly twenty yards apart. This was more than retaliation for a border violation. This was conquest.
And it doesn’t make sense, Mujahid thought.
The Emperor could scarcely afford the border skirmishes with the Shandarian Union. How could he sustain a war with the Kingdom of Tildem?
“Guards,” Tithian said as he walked around to the rear of the wagon. “Leave us.”
Two guards saluted and left.
Tithian stopped behind the wagon, never taking his eyes off the army.
“Now do you understand?” Tithian said.
There were questions that Mujahid needed answered. Was there a secret alliance between the Shandarian Union and the Empire? Had the border skirmishes been a ruse? Stranger things had happened in Mujahid’s lifetime.
“You see an army,” Tithian said. “Men, catapults, ballistae, mounts, whores, and everything else that takes part in the games of men. But you don’t see the real evil—the puppet master with his hands on the strings, making nations dance to the music of a divine plan. His plan.”
Mujahid squinted at Tithian.
“He killed him.
And I watched through the necrolens as he raised him up and brought war to Erindor.”
“Speak plainly, man,” Mujahid said. “Who killed whom? Who raised whom?”
“I was a fool. You were right all those years ago. He was just a man all along.”
“This is Kagan’s doing?”
Tithian told Mujahid how Kagan had killed the Religarian emissary and used necromancy, a magic Kagan himself had forbidden, to start a war.
When Tithian had finished, Mujahid pitied him. It had taken decades, but Kagan had betrayed Tithian just as he had betrayed Mujahid.
“And I know why,” Tithian said. “He needs the eyes of the world focused away from the Pinnacle.”
“No.” Mujahid swept his gaze across the valley. “This is consolidation of power. He’ll use the Religarian Empire to conquer, and then he’ll assert his divine leadership over that fanatic of an emperor, who will, no doubt, hand Kagan control on a platter. The Three Kingdoms will cease to exist. Kagan will rule all of Erindor.”
“You can’t confront him now.”
“That army is on its way to Arin’s Watch. I can do something about that.”
“Arin’s watch is lost already, man. That valley holds twenty thousand battle-hardened Religarian soldiers. Even if I join you, how long do you think two necromancers would last against that?”
“What do you mean if you join me?”
“Kagan doesn’t know I’m aware of what he did. I can still try to subvert his plans from within the Pinnacle.”
“This smells of—”
“King Donal is the only sovereign in the Three Kingdoms who takes a stand against Kagan. Your place is with him…for the sake of us all.”
Mujahid considered. As much as he didn’t want to admit it, Tithian was right. If Mujahid had any hope to gather a coven of necromancers to go against Kagan, he’d have to protect Tildem. He held up his arms and clanged his chains against the bars.
“Will the king be joining me in my cage?”
Tithian retrieved a small sphere from his cloak and handed it to Mujahid. “I believe you know what this is. It will take you to a cave outside Rotham.”