by Nat Russo
“Trust me,” Nicolas said.
Something about the scene before him was familiar. No, not familiar. Identical to his memory of Caspardis. They were standing on the same hill where the Shandarian Rangers had held him in the military camp. The camp was gone, nothing more than a phantom of his memory, but the trampled dirt and wagon tracks were evidence enough of the reality of his recollection.
“Are we going into that city?” Kaitlyn asked.
The sting of fear returned and his pulse quickened as he turned away from the wall. What the hell? What he’d gone through had been horrible, but he’d made it! He was here! He’d won!
“That’s the plan,” Nicolas said. “There’s a boat launch at the docks that should get us close. Well, not close, but…that’s where I was thrown into the lake.”
“You were what?”
“Long story. Just a…misunderstanding with the local authorities.”
Get a grip, Nick.
He took a deep breath and faced the wall.
“Wait,” Nicolas said. “Something’s wrong.”
Where were the soldiers?
“Isn’t it odd that the gate isn’t guarded?” Nicolas asked. “Why would they do that?”
Kagan stood expressionless.
“Hey!” Nicolas said. “Dead Kagan. Speak up.”
“Release me and I’ll tell you,” Kagan said.
Even in death Kagan was an asshole.
Nicolas sent a stream of images through the necromantic link. Images of hellwraiths—monstrous shrouded specters with glowing eyes and whips of shadow—from the Plane of Death. Images of how those hellwraiths carried unfortunate souls through a darkened doorway, never to be seen again.
Kagan lowered his head. “Enough! I’ll answer.”
“Keep it up and I’ll make you wish Mujahid had tossed you into Hell.”
“Playing God with your dead father creeps me out a little,” Kaitlyn said.
“He’s not my father,” Nicolas said.
“I thought you said he was.”
“Yes, Kagan’s my birth father. But he’s not my dad. Now answer my question, Kagan.”
“There are no guards because the city watch has probably been reassigned,” Kagan said.
“Helpful.”
“You asked,” Kagan said. “Perhaps if your question were more intelligent, the answer would have equaled it.”
“Listen, you…” Nicolas stopped himself. He hadn’t spent much time with dead Kagan, but the old archmage was well versed in pushing his buttons. He needed to stay calm. “So what question should I ask?”
“Do you notice anything else about the wall?” Kagan asked.
Nicolas scanned the wall. Everything was the same as he remembered. Except…
Except the gate. The city gate is closed. The rangers took me right through an open gate. Why is it closed?
Nicolas didn’t bother speaking. He sent the question through the necromantic link.
“There are only two reasons to seal a city,” Kagan said. “They’re either trying to keep something in or keep something out.”
“Dead guy has a point,” Kaitlyn said.
Kagan smiled a subtle smile.
“Don’t encourage him,” Nicolas said. “So which is it?”
“I’m afraid you’ll have to ask them,” Kagan said.
Nicolas needed to get to the lake. It would be easier to go through Caspardis, but he didn’t have time to deal with whatever was going on there. He’d just have to go around.
“They’ll have to worry about themselves,” Nicolas said. “I have problems of my own right now.”
“Spoken like my true son,” Kagan said.
“The difference is, I’m trying to help people.”
“As was I.”
Nicolas sent a ball of necropotency into Kagan’s mouth, making it impossible for Kagan to speak. Caspardis was making him tense as it was. He didn’t need to listen to this too.
“What was that all about?” Kaitlyn asked.
“He’s an evil asshole trying to justify his evil asshole existence by convincing himself everyone else is just as much of an evil asshole as he is.”
“No, how do you really feel?”
Nicolas faced her, prepared for an argument. But she had a huge grin on her face.
His tension drained away.
“How do you do it?” he asked. “I was a basket case when I ended up here, but you’re acting like you’re on vacation.”
She cocked her head to the side, smiled, and started walking down the hill with Toby’s leash in hand. “That’s the lake you’re looking for, right?”
He shook his head and jogged to catch up with her.
“What do we do once we get there?” Kaitlyn asked.
Well, the original plan was to…he supposed he should…if he could just get…
“You have no idea, do you?” Kaitlyn said.
Hell’s bells, do I seriously not know what I’m going to do?
“Give me a break here,” Nicolas said. “I’m sort of covering new territory.”
“That’s not true.”
“How so?”
“You said you’re taking me to this…fish city…to talk to someone who can help me, right? So how did you get there the first time?”
“By nearly dying, for starters. Then hallucinating until I summoned…”
That’s it!
But this time it would be different. This time he knew what to ask for.
“Now that’s the face I wanted to see!” Kaitlyn said. “Like I said, you’ve done this before.”
Large boulders peppered the sandy shore to the south of Caspardis. Nicolas led them a short distance away to a relatively flat, firm surface with an unobstructed view of the lake. He could have summoned a cichlos anywhere, but he still had no idea what was going on in Caspardis. He couldn’t afford the delay of another run-in with authority.
“I don’t know how to prepare you for this,” Nicolas said. “But what I’m going to do next might seem a little scary.”
“I’ve seen you dance. I think I can handle it.”
The sensation of laughing emanated from the necromantic link.
“You shut your cake hole,” Nicolas said to Kagan. “And what’s wrong with my dancing?”
“Nothing…if The Seizure is a new line dance I haven’t heard of.”
“Nice. Just so you know—”
Kaitlyn doubled over and grabbed her head.
“Kait!” Nicolas said.
He released a tiny amount of necropotency and directed it into her head, hoping to see something obvious so he could slow her Awakening himself. But he may as well have been staring at the engine of his car; anything more complicated than filling the washer fluid required a mechanic.
He created the pattern of power Mujahid had shown him and surrounded her brain with it, allowing it to sink in like a mystical shrink wrap. There was nothing else he could do.
“I am so tired,” Kaitlyn said. “Can we just rest a bit?”
“We can’t. Remember what I told you…no sleep for you…for either of us…until we get this figured out.”
“Then we better hurry. I don’t know how much longer I can last.”
Nicolas embraced his cet and let go of all the worry, pain, and stray thoughts that had been keeping him from focusing. He concentrated on an image of Cisic, the cichlos he had summoned when he was drowning in the lake.
When the power embraced the skull symbol hovering over his well of power, he cast it forward into the water. It struck an invisible wall and rebounded on him from the void. It didn’t hurt, but it was disorienting.
If at first you don’t succeed…
Nicolas tried again. This was the first time he’d tried to perform a pure summoning—the act of raising the dead without a physical body—on a person he’d summoned once before.
Again, the power struck the wall and rebounded, but Nicolas pushed back, trying to break it open.
A sensation of wrongn
ess overcame him and he released the power. It was like the feeling he’d had when he went near the white door in his hall of power. He wasn’t sure what he was trying to do, but whatever it was…it was just plain wrong.
He sent a question through the necromantic link. Why?
“The being you seek has passed beyond the Plane of Death,” Kagan said.
Cisic had told him his time would be short. Well, Cisic was a cool dude. He deserved his spot in the Plane of Peace.
But Nicolas was running out of options. He had no idea how to make a bubble of air, like Cisic did to help Nicolas breathe underwater, and he sure as hell couldn’t swim as fast as the undead cichlos. That fish dude could swim as fast as—
The Aquonome transport bubbles! Why didn’t I think of that first?
He considered sending dead Kagan to ask the cichlos to send one, but thought better of it. The cichlos could be a little touchy about who walked through their barriers. And there were certain laws of physics to think about. As enhanced as a penitent could be, dead Kagan had a human body, and a human could only swim so fast.
Once again he created a channel of necropotency from his well of power to the skull symbol, wrapping the skull in power and casting it forward. But this time he didn’t concentrate on an image of Cisic or any other person. This time he concentrated on what he needed.
A cichlos who can swim as fast as the day is long.
The power radiated away from him this time, and he prepared an image to cast forward that would give him control over his new penitent.
Within seconds a great splash and spray of water came from the lake as an undead cichlos shot out of the water and landed next to them.
Toby jumped back and started baying.
“It’s okay, boy,” Nicolas said, but Toby was having none of it.
Kaitlyn grabbed Nicolas’s arm.
“No, seriously,” Nicolas said. “It’s okay.”
“I’ll take your word for it,” Kaitlyn said.
Nick sent a stream of images through the necromantic link. He knew just who to contact in Aquonome for help.
The undead cichlos vanished back into the lake.
“It won’t be long now,” Nicolas said. “I have friends there.”
“That looked like that strange fish person I saw at the shrine,” Kaitlyn said.
“A cichlos,” Nicolas said. “I spent time with them when I was here. A lot of time, actually. They taught me most of what I know about necromancy.”
Kaitlyn shook her head. “And they’re going to help me too?”
“If they can? Absolutely. No doubt.”
“And what if they can’t?”
Nicolas didn’t want to think about that. The cichlos had to help. He had no other options.
“Let’s not borrow trouble right now,” Nicolas said. “The cichlos should be here soon, and then we’ll see what we see.”
A wave appeared on the lake’s surface, several hundred yards out, and headed toward them at incredible speed. Water sprayed in every direction, obscuring whatever was causing it.
When the wave slowed, the spray lessened and scattered into a diffuse mist, revealing a cichlos transport bubble. Two figures stood in the bubble; Nicolas’s penitent and a living, red-skinned cichlos. As the living cichlos faced the front of the bubble. Nicolas smiled at the familiar scar around his left eye.
Toridyn!
Nicolas would recognize that goofy fish anywhere. Toridyn had been the only cichlos student to risk befriending Nicolas when the others shunned him.
The bubble floated to a halt on the beach, and Toridyn stepped out. Something was different about him. He was sure of himself, less self-conscious. And that wasn’t all. Toridyn was wearing a midnight-blue cowl.
“So they went and promoted you,” Nicolas said through a wide smile. “Is the siek just giving those damned robes away now?”
“It’s about time you came back,” Toridyn said. “Siek Lamil was wondering if you’d be here for the new temple dedication, but you took his sweet time. Really pissed on him.”
“Took your sweet time. And pissed him off, Tor. Jeez, how many times I gotta tell you?”
“Why’d you bring dead Kagan?” Toridyn asked. “He’s not going to be very welcome in Aquonome.”
Toby bayed and hopped on Toridyn’s leg.
“Aw,” Toridyn said. “What happened to your dog?”
“What do you mean? He’s fine. Doesn’t bite, either. He might beagle hug you to death, though.”
Toridyn stooped and pet Toby with his massive, webbed hands.
“Poor disabled puppy,” Toridyn said. “I’ll look out for you. I’m not all here either.” He pointed to his injured eye.
“Kait,” Nicolas said. “I’d like you to meet my good friend, Toridyn.”
“What?” Kaitlyn asked. She narrowed her eyes.
“Not a good time to be rude,” Nicolas said, confused. He nodded toward Toridyn and beckoned her closer. “This guy and I, we’ve been through a lot.”
Kaitlyn pointed at her mouth and said. “I…don’t…un…der…stand…you.”
Nicolas felt silly when he realized what was happening. During his first trip to Aquonome, the Orb of Zubuxo had given him the ability to communicate with the cichlos.
“What language are we speaking right now?” Nicolas asked Toridyn.
Toridyn looked Nicolas up and down with his one remaining good eye. “Cichlossean.”
“I’ll be damned.”
“I understood that!” Kaitlyn said.
How was he slipping between two languages without knowing it? The words he was speaking sounded English to him!
“What’s her issue?” Toridyn asked.
“She says I’m talking funny,” Nicolas said.
“I always said you talk funny.”
“You’re a real comedian. You gonna be here all week? Incoming handshake, by the way. Prepare yourself.”
“Don’t worry. I’m used to humankind’s habit of touching people inappropriately.”
“Nick,” Kaitlyn said. She didn’t look amused. “Mind sharing with the class?”
Nicolas tried to force his mind to shift languages. He imagined the words he spoke were English.
“Do you understand me now?” Nicolas asked.
“Yeah,” Kaitlyn said.
Good. That works.
“This is Toridyn, my good friend from Aquonome. He’s a large part of why I’m still alive. I was just trying to introduce you and somehow the language thing happened.”
“You learned an entire language while you were here?”
“Not exactly,” Nicolas said. “I’ve got these…things in my head. I think they’re responsible for it.”
She stepped toward Toridyn. Nicolas was expecting her to shake his hand, but she spread her arms to hug him instead.
“If you kept him alive, then I owe you a big one,” Kaitlyn said.
Toridyn’s eye spun. He must have been even more surprised than Nicolas.
When Kaitlyn put her arms around Toridyn, something pushed them apart, as if they’d been electrocuted. Kaitlyn was on the ground, but Toridyn stood holding his head.
“What the hell was that?” Kaitlyn asked. “Something…happened.”
“Yeah,” Toridyn said. “Which hell did that come from? It’s like you poked my brain, lady.”
“I’m sorry,” Kaitlyn said. “I was just trying to give you a hug.”
“That’s one violent hug you’ve got there,” Toridyn said.
“Um…guys?” Nicolas said. He looked back and forth between them with wide eyes.
“What?” Kaitlyn and Toridyn said in unison, each holding their head.
They pointed at each other. “I understand you!”
“But what happened?” Toridyn asked.
“That’s a question for later,” Nicolas said.
“Your timing is good,” Toridyn said. “You need to come to Aquonome as quickly as possible.”
“Yeah, we need to talk to
the chimeramancers about Kaitlyn.”
“You pissed on them too, by the way, asking for this transport,” Toridyn said. “But it’s not that. It’s the siek. Something’s wrong with him. It’s not good.”
Nicolas had no idea what Toridyn meant by asking chimeramancers for the transport. All he’d done was send his penitent to find Toridyn. But thoughts of the siek in trouble was a greater concern.
“What happened?” Nicolas asked.
“A few days ago, he collapsed outside the temple,” Toridyn said. “We don’t know why, and he won’t tell anyone. He just…. He’s…. I’m worried. It’s not good. Not good at all.”
“A few days ago,” Nicolas said. He turned to Kaitlyn. “I don’t think this is a coincidence. Didn’t you say you saw a cichlos in your vision?”
Kaitlyn nodded.
Nicolas helped Kaitlyn to her feet and started walking toward the transport bubble.
“Then it’s time we left, don’t you think?” Nicolas said.
A guttural scream drew Nicolas’s attention to his cichlos penitent. Something was wrong. The skeleton was clutching at its head, and a confusing stream of images entered Nicolas’s mind; a man with long red hair raised his arms over a small white object and his eyes glowed white. The man stood within a ring of fire…cold fire that swirled like a whirlwind leaving shards of ice behind it. As the whirlwind grew in power and surrounded the small object, a tear in the atmosphere formed in front of Nicolas’s penitent.
Something pulled the penitent away by the necromantic link. Nicolas poured energy into the link, trying the first thing that came to mind—he’d make the link too slippery to grip.
But the penitent wasn’t slowing. It floated steadily toward the tear in the atmosphere.
Nicolas embraced his cet and allowed more power to flow into the link.
A strange tension pushed against him, as if the link had reached its capacity to channel and would burst if any more power entered it.
Nicolas cut the flow of power off and the penitent vanished into the rip in the air leaving nothing behind…not even the necromantic link.
“What the hell just happened?” Kaitlyn asked.
“Yeah…what she said,” Toridyn said.
Nicolas shook his head. “I wish I knew. I really wish I knew.”
The cichlos transport was every bit as strange as Nicolas remembered it being. All six sides were translucent, which did nothing to conceal the incredible speed at which they were traveling.