《Midara: Requiem》


 Chapter 0

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    Morning on a farm was always busy, but this morning was worse than most. Yesterday''s storm had come with only minutes of warning, as spring storms were wont to do, but this one had a rare ferocity that ripped shingles from the roofs and saw animals lost in weather that their tenders dared not leave to find them in.


    Kalis, the patriarch of the homestead, sighed. "I''ve given up on the cows. If we''re lucky, they''ll find their own way back, but if I were a bettin'' man, I''d say they went into the river. Least we kept the bull and calves, but we''ll be short on milk for the rest of the season." He rubbed his ginger beard, stroking the whole length, as was his nervous habit. "It''s shaping up to be a lean summer."


    Othsa kept her head down, hard at work sewing together new sails for the windmill. They were well off, as far as farmers went, but between themselves, their six sons and three unmarried daughters, and the five farmhands who helped during this busy season, they could ill afford the expenses. "Don''t worry, Cal, I can push the oldest along once I''m done here." Forcing cows to mature faster was taxing, but better than borderline starvation.


    She grit her teeth while tapping into her limited magical potential. Soft green tendrils extended on her breath, dancing across the cobbled together patchwork of old cloth. This sort of nature magic was much better suited for living tissue, but it could work on anything soft that once came from a living thing. Hours, perhaps days, of work completed in seconds, but her body paid the price as if she''d spent all night hard at work.


    She shuddered at the chill that extended through both her body and soul, sapping her strength and causing all the aches of age to flare into the forefront of her mind. She cursed her lack of strength, that even simple magic would deplete her stamina in seconds. As she caught her breath, she imagined that several more of her once lustrous green hair turn gray before her eyes.


    Were she better suited to the arts, were her sylvan blood as strong as her sister''s, then she could have repaired half the farm by now and have strength left over to make herself look twenty years younger. Then, if she had that sort of strength, she could have had a comfortable life as a healer in the capital or high adventure in the frontiers, rather than the humble existence of a farmer''s wife.


    If her husband noticed or cared about her failing youth and melancholy, he gave no indication. "I sent Nasko and Soren out to check the road, clear it if need be. We need it now more than ever."


    Still exhausted from her brief use of magic, she could only nod. It was true, the farm in part survived on the Wayfarers and Reclaimers who passed through on their way to the more dangerous outlands, and those adventurous sorts were prone to cutting straight through the woods if the roads weren''t clear enough for easy travel.


    Annoyed with his wife''s seeming lack of interest in the farm''s needs beyond what her magic handled, Kalis went for the strongbox in the corner of the room. "I''m gonna walk the wall, make sure nothing nasty got through when the shield caved."Not that it matters to you,he added in his mind. Having unlocked the safe while speaking, he extracted his prized possession, a minotaur sarite.


    Othsa eyed the glowing orange gem with fear and resentment; she hated the effect the thing had on her husband. He was brutish and short-tempered enough without the magic of that gem to warp both his mind and body into that of a bestial monster. That fear, more than any concern for her husband''s wellbeing, pushed her to speak through her fatigue. "Are you sure it''s safe to go now? Perhaps you should wait for our sons to..."


    "And lose the rest of our stock to some monster from the Outside?" Kalis'' tone expressed disdain for that idea. "I''ll take Elruin with me. She''s enough."


    Othsa shuddered, a different set of concerns rising to the forefront of her mind. "Are you certain?"


    It was too late to talk him out of his plan; he''d already bound the leather strap holding the Sarite to his upper arm. Orange light pulsed, then traveled through his skin as if his veins were replaced by glowing liquid flame. A moan of half-pleasure, half-rage rose from Kalis'' throat as his face distended forward into a mockery of a bull''s snout while half a ton of mass was added to his frame in the form of height and muscle. His hunched position was necessary, lest he break the ceiling with the vestigial horns which grew from his head.


    "Say what you will about the freak, she''s a good worker." Kalis seemed to miss his wife''s point; were it not such a common event, she might have forgiven it as part of the transformation. "Better ''n most ''f the men."


    Kalis lifted his prize hunting crossbow from the chest as well. It crossed his mind that the weapon might be more valuable than his entire farm. "If she scares the beasts half as bad as the animals, they''ll go running ''for we''re close. Then..." He lifted the bow to his shoulder, as if setting up a shot. "The right trophy might make up for the cattle."


    Crestfallen, Othsa gave up all hope of a moment''s reprieve today. "You know best." Best not to antagonize her husband further.


    An animalistic snort was all she got in return. Kalis ducked to exit the house, then stood to his full height, half again as tall as any man on the farm, and twice as tall as his timid mouse of a wife. His nostrils widened as he sniffed the air for predators, but found no unusual scent. "Elruin! Git yer bony butt out here!" His monstrous voice echoed across the farm, alerting all but those tending the road of the master''s presence. Those who''d worked there for some time recognized the effects of the minotaur shard, and in their wisdom warned the others to stay out of his sight for now.


    Meanwhile, a black haired girl stalked the barn while the horses whinnied and backed away as she passed. Through eyes of pure ebony, she watched a world in shades of gray, with flecks of light lining most of the floor. It didn''t take her long to spot her target: a creature of soft yellow light not much larger than a human hand, with a long, slender tail. It had fled into the barn during the storm, and if ignored it would reproduce and trouble the animals or steal their food.


    The girl gestured, a stream of black energy lanced outward, and the glowing creature vanished. She turned her attention to another creature nearby, raised her hand, then heard her father''s shout for her.


    She blinked, her solid black eyes returning to their normal deep indigo state, then she hopped to her feet and ran out of the barn to learn what task was waiting. The idea of disobeying father, or that she was being called for any purpose other than a new chore, never entered her mind. Nor did the realization that she had been using magic all morning yet felt no fatigue.


    As she left, the rat who came so close to meeting oblivion fled from its temporary shelter, its instincts screaming in terror.


    She spotted her father walking toward her, or rather in a direction that would take him past her. She stared up at his warped and inhuman visage, over twice her height, but stood tall like she was told a good girl should. "Yes, sir?"


    "Come. We''re walkin'' the wall." Kalis kept moving, both because he had work to do and in order to hide his face from Elruin so he could cringe without notice; the child was unnerving enough without the enhanced instincts granted by the minotaur sarite. For a moment, he wondered if Othsa was right to warn him, but it was too late to turn back now.


    "Okay." Elruin dutifully took up her place right behind her father, alternating between a fast walk and brief moments of jogging to keep up with her now-giant father''s long stride.


    The trek through the mud would have left any ordinary person exhausted, but neither of them got tired as they followed the wall which protected the farm from the outside. Every so often, Kalis would stop in order to check the crystal shards embedded in the channeling posts while Elruin looked around for more obvious damage to the stone of the wall.


    "Entek," Kalis muttered, unconcerned that the child hear his profanity.


    Elruin strained to look off in the distance, until she spotted the area where the earth had slid out from under the wall, leaving a portion of it bowed and in danger of collapsing under its own weight. "Can I help?"You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author.


    Kalis rubbed his beard, considering all the work that would be necessary to mend the wall. "You pick up any earth-moving spells while killing rats?"


    "No," she admitted before going silent and waiting for instructions. She knew how her father hated to be interrupted when he was touching his facial hair.


    Kalis approached the wall, too lost in thought to consider the girl behind him. This was well beyond Othsa''s power, and while he was certain Elruin had power to spare, her magic seemed to be limited to killing small animals and putting the fear of death into every living thing that got too close to her. He''d have to either hire an earth mage, which would set him back a month''s income if he got lucky with a Reclaimer, or three if he had to get a city caster to come out here.


    The temporary solution, which was to rebuild the wall around the mudslide, wasn''t much more appealing. It would take weeks to finish and require hiring more laborers until the work was done. Still cheaper than a city mage, but slower, and every day the breach was left open increased the odds that wolves or some even nastier beast would get under the barrier and kill more livestock.


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    Elruin heard, felt it, before her father saw it. The swell of mystical energy was unlike anything she had ever experienced before. Within the mud, a hand rose, then an arm. Muck dropped off the limb, revealing there was nothing there save for grime coated bone.


    "Mother''s Mercy." Kalis spotted the movement, then stepped back. He made no effort to pull Elruin away or shield her from the thing which rose from the landslide. He calmed himself some moments later; it was on the other side of the wall. As worthless as sarite shields were against natural creatures, they excelled at driving back the unnatural. It didn''t get much less natural than this thing.


    It gazed at them through empty eye sockets, a reflection in Elruin''s solid black eyes. Elruin felt it, felthim,a song she''d never heard before yet recognized as if she''d written it herself. Hatred, pain, revenge, the song of a life that refused to die, that was willing to sacrifice heaven if it meant he could drag his hated enemy into hell itself. A hated enemy that stood right behind her.


    Without realizing what she was doing, the little girl sang the song back to the damned soul before her. Its unheard voice echoed by her own flesh and blood vocal chords, granted strength, a foothold on the other side of the grave. The recognition grew, the connection amplified, and for the first time Elruin knew what it was like to be loved by another person. That the person was an undead abomination did not matter to her. This was the family she never knew.


    "Elruin?" Kalis muttered, recovering enough of his wits to recognize something was wrong other than the skeleton climbing out from the muck.


    Around them, the sarite-generated barrier shimmered, struggled against Elruin''s song. It was designed to keep the unnaturalout,not to prevent it from escaping. But an opened gate goes both ways, and the skeleton had an opening it could exploit. It walked toward the barricade, hesitant at first but growing in confidence with every step.Sheknew him, buthealso knew her.


    "Quiet!" Fueled by fear and forgetting his own supernaturally enhanced strength, Kalis gripped her shoulder with enough strength that it could have crushed an ordinary child''s shoulder. He picked her up like that in order to carry her away from the wall.


    Elruin cried out in pain, her song ended, but not the connection which had been created between her and the skeleton, nor the damage which had been done to the defensive shield in the process.


    The skeleton opened its maw to screech in silent rage and indignation. He leapt at the wall with the greater ferocity than a bear trying to protect her cub, to be pushed back by the defenses that kept the farm safe from the monsters outside.


    Blue flame burned layers of caked mud off the creature as it hammered itself against the shield a second, then third, then fourth time. With each collision, the song dimmed alongside the shield, a race between two unthinking forces to determine which would destroy the other first.


    Her shoulder burning, gasping for breath, Elruin lashed out for the first time in her life against her father. Black lightning danced its way across her skin, up Kalis'' hand. First it pushed away the orange power of the Minotaur sarite, then it numbed the limb, then it started to kill the flesh which held her trapped.


    Kalis now roared in pain; a broad, bestial cry to join the enraged shrieks of the undead, crackle-burn of the barrier, and high pitched gasps of a child forced to defend herself against her father.


    Elruin took two steps back toward the skeleton, the song, and the kinship she never knew that she never knew. Despite the pain, she found the strength to sing again. New strength flowed into the skeleton and damaged the barrier further.


    "I said shut up!" Kalis struck Elruin with all his strength.


    She went flying several yards through the air before hitting the mud on her side. In his haste, Kalis made the worst possible decision; he''d batted the girl closer to the wall. Half unconscious, running on instinct alone, Elruin kept mumbling the echoes of the song.


    "Dammit, freak!" Kalis stalked forward. Before, he''d been reacting to the situation, but now his rational mind was starting to catch up. He wasn''t much of a mage, but he understood magic well enough to recognize that she was empowering the monster and refused to stop. In his panicked state, the solution seemed obvious: kill the child.


    He never had the chance to try.


    Empowered and enraged to a point no still-living creature could experience, the skeleton broke through the last defenses of the barrier. He was above Elruin long before Kalis could bridge the distance.


    Mud burnt to ash fell, revealing a deep crack across the left eye socket that left one questioning how the bone hadn''t fallen off, and scaled silver armor that might once have had padding beneath but was now draped over bones like an ill-fitting tunic. He cut a poor figure as far as guardian angels went, but he would fight to well beyond the death for the little girl behind him.


    Kalis hesitated for a moment. "You!" He took a step off to the side, and the skeleton responded by positioning himself directly between him and Elruin.


    "Khee." How a creature without flesh could hiss such unrestrained malice was a question Kalis might have asked himself later, had upcoming events turned out differently.


    "You''re dead!" Kalis recognized how obvious it was the moment after it was said. "I killed you." Two more steps, again testing the creature''s behavior; brilliant warrior he was not, but he knew better than to rush headlong into a fight with an unknown foe.


    The skeleton matched his steps to keep Elruin behind him again. "Ehsss."


    Kalis smiled, though it came out more a sneer. "I knew she wasn''t mine." He hefted his crossbow, aiming not for the monster, but for the injured child.


    *Crack* *Thump*


    He moved fast, positioned himself in time to block the bolt, but it only clipped his bone before embedding itself into Elruin''s side. Her song silenced by the metal which pierced her lung. She had just enough strength to turn her head, to stare at the man who shot her.


    "Kryaaaah!!!" Her failed defender became her avenger, rushing forward on legs powered not by muscle, but by necromantic energies.


    Kalis reacted better than someone so bulky should have, enough to hammer his assailant with his crossbow. Bone and teeth scattered from the blow, but the damage was more cosmetic than actual.


    In return for taking his teeth, for taking his life, and most importantly for takingElruin, the skeleton took his time. A claw raked through Kalis'' stomach, spilling a pile of viscera and guts onto the muddy ground.


    Blood sputtered from Kalis'' mouth to join the mess at his feet. "Guhk!" He stumbled back, before his Minotaur sarite compensated for the injury. It couldn''t heal him, not so soon, but it could compensate enough to allow a retaliating blow to the skull.


    A blow which meant nothing. In terms of strength, perhaps, they were equal. In all other respects, Kalis was outclassed. He was still flesh and blood, wounded and losing blood fast. His foe was constructed of necromancy, hatred, and a love stronger than death itself. It could not feel pain, it could not tire, and it would never relent. Bestial rage was no match.


    Kalis'' arms dropped to his sides, bleeding from the deep gashes where the tendons of his muscles were severed. One more blow folded his knee backward and dropped him to the ground.


    The skeleton didn''t waste time to gloat over his bleeding, dying foe. Kalis would drown on his own lifeblood, and that was the best revenge available. That, and to reverse one last act of spite.


    He yanked the Minotaur sarite from its pouch, then ran back to a little girl herself dying a slow death. In life, he''d done quite a lot of wandering the wilderness, and that life began and ended at the power of concentrated magic crystals like the one he now held.


    Concentrated lifeforce cultivated in the flesh of a monster like a pearl in an oyster, then used to grant some semblance of power to those who knew how to harness them. In the right hands, they could allow mere mortals to go to war with beasts that rivaled the gods themselves. This shard was an impressive one, to be certain, but it was by no means the upper limit of what sarite was capable of.


    With his free hand, he rolled Elruin over, then pulled the boltthroughher body, rather than do even greater damage by carving through her with the barbs of the weapon. That step finished, he held the shard above her chest. In his undead state, he wasn''t suited for this sort of magic, but there was one method still available to him.


    He crushed the crystallized magic to powder in his clawed, bloody fist. Raw magic, transformative energies, and most importantly: regenerative properties. For a few moments, the air itself was alive with magic. In time, that energy would find its way into the grass, the trees, and the various animals of the area. Given time, the magical corruption would likely result in a new monster spawning itself from the native wildlife.


    For now, it meant a little girl,hislittle girl, would survive.


    He lamented the lack of flesh, the inability to smile, to cry. Instead he stared down at her for his last few moments in this world. He got his revenge, the hatred that allowed him to defy death itself died, and with it the necromantic flame dimmed.


    The construct would remain, fragments of his essence blended with Elruin''s Requiem, but its guiding Will left for whatever afterlife was afforded souls like his. From now on, his remains would forever serve as Elruin''s silent angel.


    =====


    A/N- Not strictly speaking a "prologue" chapter, but not strictly speaking ''chapter 1'', soI call it ''chapter 0''.

 Chapter 1

    Elruin climbed up from the muck, disheveled but unharmed. Confused, she began piecing together what just happened. First, Father was dead. Second, he shot her after saying something about her not being his. Elruin couldn''t parse together what that was supposed to mean; she''d have to ask Mama about that.


    Distracted from sorting out the events of the last few minutes, she looked down at the body of her now-human looking father. Not only did he shoot her, he also grabbed her and hit her. She couldn''t understand what she did wrong, but maybe he could tell her. Her eyes turned inky black, as she began to hum the song she learned from her new friend.


    Her eyes observed the skeleton, reading its notes and patterns; there was nothing left of the intelligent will from before, merely the strings needed to allow a puppet to dance. It was a doll, nothing more.


    Elruin smiled. "I have a dolly!" Toys were a rare luxury for her.


    She began in earnest, singing to the corpse of her late father. Necromantic power surged up from within her, washing over the area. Flowers whithered, plants died, and insects fled. The body in front of her twitched while undying threads were woven through the flesh and chained to the bones. Thread too frail to support the metaphysical weight of a human corpse.


    Elruin gave up; perhaps some day, she''d be strong and skilled enough to create new dollies for herself, but for now all she got for her efforts was a corpse that looked like it had been sitting out in the hot sun until it turned into a raisin.


    However, this was the first time she truly looked at a human with her sight. The patterns, the structures, the nature of their life and death, wasn''t all that different than those of the rodents she drove from the buildings as her primary duty. As with rats, humans had concentrations of life energy, mostly in the chest and head area. Those were the vulnerable places, if she ever had to defend herself again.


    She noted that the day was getting late, and Father did want the wall repaired, so she sang the details of what a wall looked like in her mind to her minion. But she also remembered when Grandma died, and was buried, so she instructed her dolly to put Father''s body along the path of the fence, so she could both bury her father like she was supposed to, and build the fence as was the chore she was assigned.


    Satisfied that Father was properly buried, she held her hands together and looked at the ground as she was shown. "He''s dead now. He will be remembered."


    With little left but allowing her dolly work, Elruin left the site of the mudslide and began the long trudge back home. By the time she got back to the farm proper, the sun was well into the process of converting a cold, wet morning into a hot, humid afternoon.


    Carob saw her first. He was Elruin''s favorite brother, one of the elder twins, and one of the only that would play with her sometimes. The moment he saw her, noticed she was alone, he left his pitchfork next to the piled hay in order to meet her halfway. "What happened to Father?" He looked at the hole in her dress, caked with mud and blood. "Are you okay?"Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.


    "Umm, a monster got us!" Elruin blurted the first thing that came to mind. "It was big and scary and ate Father!"


    "Merat!" Carob swore under his breath. If he''d been more attentive, he may have questioned Elruin''s story, but he had no reason to believe she was lying. After all, she was covered in blood, and Father hadn''t returned with her. Something serious had happened, of that there was no doubt.


    He raised his hand to the sky, drew on his own limited magic potential, and sent a blood red bolt into the air. The bolt struck the protective barrier and joined with it, which turned the sky deep orange; an artificial sunset that last all of four seconds. It was nothing more than a basic illusion spell, light twisted and warped by magic, but it was a cheap spell that under the right conditions could be seen for miles. Ideal for sounding alerts across a large farm.


    Signal sent, Carob turned his attention back to Elruin. "You''re very strong and brave, making it this far on your own." He knelt to pick up his presumed wounded little sister, carrying her bridal style across the still muddy ground. "I''ll get you to Mother. She''ll heal you."


    "Okay." Elruin put her arms around her big brother, watched as he pushed just a little magical power into enhancing his strength and speed. It wasn''t so different from the methods of necromancy which kept her new dolly moving where flesh had long ago failed, though the two types of energy could not be more different otherwise.


    By the time they got to the central barn, almost everyone living on the farm had begun to gather, including Othsa.


    Carob began to announce the situation to the others; stragglers would be drafted as they arrived. "According to Elruin, there was a monster attack that hurt her and wounded Father. We need to organize a response."


    He set Elruin down on the ground in front of their mother. Meanwhile, he eyed her for signs of censure. With her husband missing and reported dead, she was the farm''s matriarch unless he was found alive, but cultural propriety meant that the responsibility of commanding the men fell to Carob as eldest son. The role of dealing with the women, including Elruin, fell to her without question.


    Othsa, shocked by the news that her husband of decades might be dead, showed little emotion beyond pain and fear. She was in no condition to make decisions, but Carob didn''t need her express permission to take charge, only a lack of forbiddance.


    He glanced over at Onol, his twin, next. If they argued, Mother would be forced to take sides, which she was not equipped to handle at this moment. So he selected the most important secondary task for him. "Onol, I need you to go get the weapons." Phrased as a request, not an order. "Take anyone you need to help; we want every man armed and ready to do a manhunt. Maybe Father''s still alive, maybe we can save him if we move fast. Or at least avenge his death and save others."


    While Carob was busy, Elruin finally got a chance to ask her question: "Mother? Why did Father say I wasn''t his?"


    For a moment, the whole area was silent. Onol stopped in the middle of picking a third assistant, Carob choked over his orders to gather some horses and assigning scouts.


    Othsa, still in shock, said the only thing she could think of. "You must have misheard him."


    There was nobody in that room, save perhaps Elruin, who believed her words for a moment. Some had harbored suspicions of infidelity for years, though others doubted that the unnatural child in their midst could be the scion of any mortal coupling. The belief that she might be a changeling or the result of some fell curse grew as she did.


    Carob cleared his throat. "Darak, get the horses! Eril, I want your hawks on scouting duty! We have no time to waste, men!" That got the message across; men dealt with men''s problems, and women dealt with women''s problems. A rule he was never so grateful for as he was today.

 Chapter 2

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    As the men went out to deal with the "monster" which Elruin made up, which would lead them straight to the other "monster" which was very much real, she remained with Mother and a couple of her elder sisters. Mother shook like she was crying, but no tears came.


    "Are you hurt?" She touched the back of Mother''s hand, cautiously, and looked at the smudge of dirt she left behind. "Can I help?" She didn''t know how; her magic was anything but good for healing, but she felt she was responsible for Mother being hurt, and wanted to try.


    "N-no, I''m okay." Even Elruin wasn''t fooled by that lie. "You''re a good girl, let''s look at where you''ve been hurt." She didn''t have strength enough for a blanket healing spell, so she''d have to focus on the worst damage before treating the wounds in the mundane fashion. It wasn''t perfect, but they didn''t have the luxury of perfection right now.


    With Othsa''s assistance, Elruin was stripped of her soiled, bloody blouse whilst Saria, one of the triplets a couple years older than her, went for some water from the cistern. Kasa and Inoin, the other two of that trio, gathered around to help check Elruin.


    When it became clear Othsa wasn''t going to ask, Kasa did. "Elruin, I can''t find where you were hurt."


    Were it anyone else, Kasa would suspect she''d lied about the attack, but Elruin was... unique. She''d personally seen the girl, then only five years old, get kicked in the face by a horse, and walk away without so much as a cut or bruise for the experience. Then there were the Reclaimers, one of whom she watched rip a tree twice as wide as a man out of the ground with his bare hands, and heard rumors of others who could summon a storm with a gentle sigh, so it was easy to think of Elruin as a child who might one day grow up to be like them.


    Coming away unharmed, or healing, from an attack by a monster strong enough to kill Father when he had the Minotaur shard confirmed suspicions, rather than challenged them. Powerful without question, perhaps even inhuman, but not unbelievable.


    "Uh, Father did something with his magic stone?" Elruin said to her, more as a question than a statement.


    Now she was suspicious; Father was a hard man, and Kasa doubted he''d risk his precious magic artifact to save any of his children, let alone Elruin, who he apparently believed wasn''t his. He might be right about her, too, as Elruin looked nothing like him. Then, she looked nothing like Mother, or any of her siblings, or indeed anyone whom Kasa had ever seen in her life.


    "When?" Kasa asked. "If he was being attacked, when did he have time?"


    "I..." Elruin knew she was caught in the lie, but she behaved as a normal twelve year olds would have for once, and doubled down. "It was the same time as he said he knew I wasn''t his." Which may have been the least believable thing said by anyone that day.


    "You''re lying!" Othsa grabbed Elruin''s shoulders, gripping her as hard as her trembling hands would allow. "Tell me what happened to my husband you freak!"


    Elruin barely felt the pressure, but having Mother scream in her face upset her, as did having her lies fall apart so quickly. She went to the next default behavior of a little girl in such a scenario. "I don''t know." Another child might have screamed or cried, but Elruin remained calm. Inside her head, however, she remembered when Father gripped her, and a little of how she had to defend herself crept forward.Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on Royal Road.


    Her eyes went from deep purple to solid black as she began to tap into her power. She saw her mother, the flaws in her health, and depleted life force. Mother had little choice but to tap into her personal life energies in order to use magic, while Elruin had a special reserve that would allow her to use her magic without hurting herself, though she saw no reason why she couldn''t draw on life force to empower her magic if she needed. It wasn''t all that different from what her skeleton did to destroy her father''s magic stone and save her, as well.


    Kasa again acted. "Look, it''s been a stressful day for everyone. We should rest, wait for the men to get back. Elruin, take a bath, you''re covered in filth. Mother, maybe you should lie down and try to get some rest? When they bring Father back, he might need your help." She crossed a line of propriety by giving instructions to Mother, but it was clear Mother was in no condition to make good decisions.


    "You''re right." Othsa relaxed her grip. She made no effort to apologize for her outburst, but a parent was not meant to apologize to a child. Besides, it was clear to everyone that Elruin was hiding something. They would just have to trust the men to discover what it was and report back before confronting the girl again to get the truth.


    Elruin went to the bath house to clean herself; if she wanted to take the time, she could have perhaps heated some water, but the cold never bothered her, so she began to scrub herself of the dried mud and blood on her body, allowing the dirty water to spill on the ground. She was happy enough to be away from Mother and Father and their bizarre, irregular behaviors. It was better to follow the routine, safe and predictable as it was.


    Still, she had something else to do. Going to the house, she picked out one of her nicer blouses, a hand-me-down that had been gifted to one of her eldest sisters before Elruin had even been born, and now had made its way to her. She couldn''t remember that sister''s face; she got married and moved away long ago. A new dress was needed as well, and so Elruin was in a fresh change of clothes when she went to the barn to play with the rats and test her new song.


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    The rats died as they always did, hiding in holes where they believed themselves safe until the reaper came in the form of a young girl with more power than any child should possess. The difference was that death was usually content to leave its victims alone afterward, while Elruin sang to the creatures.


    Around her, the hay dried and cracked under the necrotic power she radiated. There was no scent in the decomposition; decay was a natural process brought on by mold and insects, while Elruin''s power cleansed those hapless organisms as thoroughly as it did all life.


    The rodents twisted, twitched, stumbled to their feet, then fell again. She could use her power to force the body into motion, but no matter how she tried she could not create a motivating force in them. Every step, every act, had to be guided by the notes of her song. Their small size didn''t help matters, either, as they burned up in mere minutes of exposure to her magic.


    Having given up on the rodents as worthless, she turned her attention to the one dolly she knew she could rely upon, out rebuilding the wall as a good worker should. Her song echoed throughout the barn, upset the animals outside, but she could not sing loud enough for her dolly to hear her from so far away.


    She need not have worried, for her dolly came to her. She first saw it through her life sight; two people retreating back to the farm on the back of one of the horses. Not far behind them, her dolly pursued. One was healthy to her sight, though exhausted and depleted of magic, the other looked to have received a wound that would be fatal without magical aid. The horse was on its last breath, mere seconds from collapsing under the strain of running for its life.


    Once she stepped out of the barn to see with her own eyes, she could see the dolly was missing an arm, what was left of the left side of its skull had been smashed in, and its leg was broken in half. It could only run thanks to the necromantic power holding it together. It was bathed in so much blood that it was hard to find a color other than red on it.


    On the horse was Carob, and a farmhand Elruin had never talked to. Her brother was the one who was fine.


    "It''s coming!" He shouted. "Get indoors! Hide!"


    Elruin knew on instinct and experience that hiding would be impossible; the undead did not see light, nor did they hear sound. Their senses were not all that different than her own, and if her sisters hid then they would be hunted down the same as the rats Elruin hunted.


    She didn''t want anyone else to see her sing, but it appeared that was her only choice aside from letting her dolly kill everyone.

 Chapter 3

    Elruin ignored Carob''s warning; her dolly was no threat to her. Carob tried to slow his horse, to help his addled sister, but the animal ignored his efforts. Death was all but literally at its heals, and instinct alone commanded the beast.


    Her dolly ignored her as if she weren''t there, or was already dead. If she wanted to save her family, she had to sing.


    And so she did.</a>


    Chaos erupted throughout the farm as animals fled from the song, the women hiding in the homestead shouted in fear, and the horse which carried Carob and the farmhand stumbled into the dirt and mud. That it had ran this far through the rough, muddy ground was a testament to its strength, but it was still just a horse, and it had reached its limits long ago.


    The skeleton froze in its tracks, held by the power of Requiem as Elruin picked through what passed for its mind; it looked like her instructions to build the wall were still there, and in a scenario where it was left alone, it might have continued working mindlessly forever, finding stones and piling them until the wall had ceased to be a wall, and had become a mountain.


    Beneath that, if it were to complete its task, it had to protect itself. If her brothers and their employees had left the dolly alone, it would have ignored them. They must have attacked it.


    She was distracted from her exploration of the underpinning nature of the undead when her brother approached them, wielding a splitting maul he no doubt took from the tool shed as a weapon. Trembling, he worked his way around, to sneak up behind the monster while it seemed immobile.


    She could let it happen, but she also wanted to save her dolly. She did what she''d been trying to do all day, and lied again. "Please stay back. I could lose control if you get too close." Ingrained habit and the structure of their language had her phrase it as a request, rather than a command or warning.


    Carob hesitated; he wasn''t a mystic or a scholar. What little knowledge he had of magic was enough to tell that Elruin was doing something with magic, but he had no idea what or how. He could see that the horror had stopped moving, which was better than he and his men had accomplished. Perhaps it was like dealing with an animal; she was keeping the thing docile somehow, but even a docile animal could be dangerous if spooked.


    He did understand that right now, Elruin was outputting more magical energy than he had ever seen of anyone save the occasional Reclaimer that had come through, and that the energy unsettled him almost as much as it did the animals. He wouldn''t admit it, even to himself, but right now he feared his sister more than he feared the monster. "Okay, you know what you''re doing." I hope.


    "Three above, four below!" Othsa gasped after having come out to see the commotion. She may not have recognized the corpse, but to her eyes the armor was unmistakable. Despite having been buried for over a decade, it still glimmered as if it had been shined and polished just yesterday. "No!" She fell to her knees. "It can''t be."


    Her exclamations devolved from shouts to incoherent sobbing and gibberish in a matter of seconds.


    Carob wanted to go to his mother, to comfort her, or at least beg her not to make a bad situation worse by breaking down in public, but he was now the official man of the house. Kasa broke away from the cluster of eight girls; with Mother inconsolable, it now fell on her and her brother to run the household. There would be time enough later for her tears.


    She looked to her brother. "How do we save the farm?" Despite wanting to be strong, she choked on her words; they were an admission that Father was dead, granting permission to Carob to take Father''s role. For the purposes of social convention, he was Father, now. She stamped down the stray thought that at least Carob liked her favorite suitor better than Father had.If you encounter this tale on Amazon, note that it''s taken without the author''s consent. Report it.


    For his part, Carob couldn''t meet her eyes; all the same fears tore through him as well, and the sight of almost half his family butchered was fresh in his mind. "We can''t."


    Kasa reached out to him. "No!" Breaking protocol, but now was no time for protocol. Until Mother got better, she''d be taking the role of the woman of the house and that meant she didn''t have to be subservient to her brother. "There must be a way, you just have to try harder."


    "All the men are gone." Not completely true, but there were only four remaining where they needed at least ten to complete just the daily chores. "And we can''t..." he took a glance at the blood-soaked monster not too far from them. "Nobody will want to come here, not after today." They couldn''t afford to pay them if they would, anyway.


    Kasa couldn''t find an argument to that. Instead, she took the other approach to fix the more immediate problem: that thing standing in the path. "Elruin, how long can you control that thing?"


    "I... I don''t know, but as long as I can sing it''ll be fine." Elruin offered.


    "Tonight, tomorrow at the latest," Kasa decided. "We have until Elruin gets tired to destroy that thing."


    A clear goal helped Carob think. "We won''t find a Reclaimer by then, but if we head for town, we should be able to find a priestess. They''ll be able to send for an exorcist." Magical conventions weren''t his strong suit, but everyone knew at least something of the religious orders and their general practices. "On the plus side, they won''t charge us, not to deal with this. And if we get lucky, we may even find an Ecrosian who''ll help with... everything else. On the other hand..."


    He trailed off; he couldn''t imagine that the priests would treat Elruin well.


    Kasa took to the other concern. "Everyone will know there was an outbreak. We might have to abandon the farm, and nobody will buy anything from us, even if the priests say it''s safe." She left out that ''anything'' included the people. She had a hopeful fiance to consider, her sisters, too, had potential futures for themselves. A farmer''s daughter wasn''t worth much on the market, but it was still enough to marry a farmer''s son and have a future.


    If this news became public, their futures were limited to grave digging for the men, and prostitution for the women. Under no circumstance could she accept that. "Elruin, I want you to take that... thing... head north along the road, let nobody see you and especially nobody see it. You''ll find a place with a wall like ours, only a hundred times bigger, with houses that are made of stone. When you get there, send that thing at the walls. They''ve got real mages and knights there, it won''t even get within throwing distance."


    Carob held his tongue; no good came of questioning his sister''s suggestion in that regard. It would take care of the monster in a way that protected the farm, at any rate. "And the dead? The wall?"


    "Burn them all." Fire was a good way to cleanse just about any magical energy; except fire itself, of course. Water was another good choice, but less useful in this situation. "If asked, say it was a dragon that killed them. If they don''t believe you, I''ll say I saw it and describe a Chimera. They don''t get much larger than a bull, but most of them do breathe fire. I''ve read about them in some books, and no two ever look the same, so it''ll be believable enough. We''ll have to watch after that, make sure no other necromantic taint pops up and do our best to get an Ecrosian priestess out here to make doubly certain when possible."


    "And... the farm?" Carob knew his little sister was smart, but he hadn''t realized how ruthless she could be.


    "I..." she hesitated. "I don''t know. If we can keep it going just a couple more years, that''s enough time to get all our sisters married off. It''s still a good chunk of land, and in an okay spot. Maybe someone will want to buy it? We can sell a lot of the animals, if we''re desperate enough. We can''t take care of all of them now anyway. Or... if we have to... we could turn it into a commune town..."


    A commune wasn''t an ideal choice, but there was always more people than there was land safe from monsters. Reclaimers made themselves rich driving out monsters long enough to build the defensive barriers, then selling the property that they owned by Right of Reclamation. Promising a place to build a home would bring many young men, and later young women hoping to marry a landowner.


    It would mean giving up control of the property, of a legacy started by their great-great grandparents, but they could retain some control by living as what amounted to petty lords, collecting rent for a time, which would keep them going long enough for the family to find a graceful place to take shelter from the fallout.


    Meanwhile, Elruin listened to their discussion and hummed to her enslaved minion; she wasn''t forgotten, but she wasn''t welcome in their plans, and she had her own goals to consider.

 Gods and Cosmology

    <u>Spirits</u>- Midara is an animistic world, where every living (and the vast majority of not living) things have at least some spiritual presence. Every rock, every blade of grass, every drop of water. The vast majority of these spirits are no more remarkable than the physical elements they''re connected to. The spirit of a raindrop is fleeting, ephemeral, less individually meaningful than a mayfly. The spirit of a river can be vast, ancient, and powerful beyond mortal comprehension. Both, by definition, remain water spirits... but that''s almost the only thing they''ll share in common.


    <u>Mages and Monsters</u>- Magic capable beings, including many nonsapient beasts, are the product of spirits "breeding" with living things. First-generation hybrids are highly mutable and difficult to anticipate; as almost any spirit other than the most temporary might breed with almost any living thing, the possible combinations are bordering upon the infinite. The only sure things is that the hybrid will in physical form resemble the corporeal parent (which is the mother in the case of most animals), but may have such traits as extra limbs, wings, or other body parts... and their Magical Affinity will be identical to the spirit parent.


    The power of the spirit parent also mattes; weak spirits may not even have a notable impact on their offspring, while the strongest sire demigods.


    Things get even more messy when it turns out that most hybrids retain their spirit parents'' ability to breed with just about any living thing, producing an endless array of chimera, gryphons, manticore, centaurs, and the like. Many bawdy jokes and tavern songs exist speculating upon the... mechanical difficulties... of these couplings...


    Other patterns are as much imagined as real, with no real rules beyond the assumptions of the scholar writing that particular manuscript.


    It is known without question that over time the magical blood dilutes into the gene pool until it reaches a fairly predictable stable, if weak, point. This often results in odd features- the most common being unusual eye, hair and skin color. Altered eye or ear shapes, unusual body hair, tails, claws, and on rare occasion wings have found their way into the bloodline as well, creating a vast array of peoples... but those people are still descendant of humans, along with some long forgotten blend of spirits.


    To ensure their magical bloodlines, many of the upper class go out of their way to court spirit favors, in hopes of being gifted with a hybrid child. That this lets the powerful remain powerful is... well, there''s no escaping the shackles of power and politics, regardless of the reality.


    However, genetic surprises aren''t unheard of, however, and sometimes long-dormant magical lines can blend together in just the right combination of alleles to produce incredibly powerful people with no direct source of magical blood. In public, they''re often called champions of the people... in the private halls of the old blood, they''re often derided as "mud heroes".


    In any case, it''s the magical monsters that the wealthy and poor alike are more concerned with. Animals and plants, and the spirits which mate with them, vastly outnumber humans... so while the rules seem little different in animals as to how bloodlines work, the sheer overwhelming numbers place humanity at a disadvantage, fighting a ceaseless war with the environment itself.


    If a Mud Hero can turn back the tide, drive back even a single dragon and in doing so save thousands of lives, then the nobility can simply grant them a title and invite them to a party. Meanwhile, the scattered enclaves of human civilization remain cowering behind magically augmented walls, and even the powerful hesitate to traverse the wilds.


    <u>Lesser Gods</u>- In Midara, most people don''t place a lot of seriousness on the "Ideal" of godly beings, or that a being has to be some sort of infallible, perfect thing in order to be worshiped. That''s a luxury for people who aren''t in a constant state of war with the world itself. In Midara, there are only two things one must do to claim godhood. First: call yourself a god. Second: destroy everyone who disagrees with that opinion.


    However, lesser gods don''t tend to be given much attention when they''re not in the actual room with their followers. Powerful as they are, they are given respect, and if they act in a way that is good they can earn loyalty and love, or gain fear and servitude if they inclined to the other direction. But ultimately they can only be in one place, and are often still mortal enough to die of aging sooner or later.


    Few scholars even bother collecting the names of these lesser gods, save in local historical records.The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.


    <u>Ancestral Gods</u>- These beings are spirits, and exceedingly powerful ones at that. Nigh immortal, these beings are locked in one place, their equivalent physical form, but it''s usually a vast body and they can turn their attentions anywhere within it. Ancestral gods can have tens of thousands of people living within their domains, who worship them. They are offered prayer, because they will hear. They are shown loyalty, because they will remember. Sometimes, they even are biological ancestors of many in the villages and cities that line their bodies.


    They also share a symbiotic relationship with their worshipers- the magical energies generated from prayer are individually minuscule, but enough matches can burn as bright as any bonfire. In turn, the spirits (especially water and earth spirits, the most popular Ancestral gods) can drive off monsters, serve as dispensers of knowledge and magical blessings (and sometimes even demigod offspring), and ensure peace between city-states. Even if the culture wasn''t so caught up on respect of elders (it''s hard to get more elder than a river or mountain), it''s just not a good idea to piss something off that can kill everything you''ve ever loved in an eyeblink. Conflict between cities that worship the same Ancestral god are handled with diplomats, lawyers, and priests. War is for outsiders.


    These gods are numerous, only truly noteworthy to those in their territory and neighboring territories, and lack any real power outside that territory save what magical protections they can grant to shield their servitors in wars with foreign Ancestral territories. Still, no scholar who writes a map does so without painstakingly listing the name and core territory of every Ancestral god.


    <u>High Gods</u>- More "concepts" than "beings", these gods are worshiped by peoples across the world and believed to be as old as magic itself. There eighteen High Gods, one for each Aspect of Magic, and these beings have absolute control over that element as well as more than a little power in neighboring fields. They can be wherever their Aspect resides- and each Aspect exists in most places.


    Some debate if there are only the eighteen, or if there are entire micro-pantheons for each element, as it is rare for worshipers to describe their prayer-visions as the same as other worshipers, and most appear of differing sexes, species, objects and sensations with each worshiper. Most scholars who favor the same-being theory point out that even Ancestral gods are often above the limitations of a singular form, and the High Gods are far above any Ancestral god. Some suggest that perhaps they are above even the concept of self, and can be singular or plural as they see fit... in any case, their power to perform miracles and grant visions to their worshipers is never in question.


    Every High god has some worshipers, but they are less active and less interested in mortal affairs, and thus more a concern for scholastic mages and dedicated clergy. The largest churches in question serve the following High Gods:


    Ecross: God of Nature; favored by anyone who enters the wilderness. Is one of the more notable "war gods" of the setting. Ecrosian religious orders believe strongly in large families, self-reliance, and personal growth. Bravery and cultivation are core tenants.


    Ifaril: God of the Forge; favored by the dwarves and and most artificers. As with Ecross, Ifaril pushes a doctrine of growth, but the growth of knowledge and society as a whole, rather than Ecrosian individualism. Responsibility and caution are core tenants.


    Nemil: God of the Rains; perhaps the most universal god, Nemil represents cleansing, healing, and freedom. Would likely be the most popular of all the High Gods, but is notoriously unreliable.


    Yeris: God of Ice; Not a popular ''worship'' god, but one whose priesthood is well respected for their power against the monsters of the land, when not accused of being a suicide cult. Yeris preaches an embrace of the inevitable, and that part of a good life is dying on your terms, without regret or resistance.


    Glage: God of Consumption; Few admit to following this nihilistic god of death and flame. A self-oriented deity that has no interest in bravery and is the opposite of slow cultivation. Teaches a life of callousness, and then going out in a blaze of glory. Favored amongst mercenaries, bandits, and gamblers.


    Klero: God of Light; an that teaches order, discipline, and devotion to Truth above all other things. Their rigid doctrine earns them little love amongst the common people, but their skill, power, and efficiency attract quite a few amongst the military and scholarly castes.


    Lenor: God of Sight; Sometimes also known as Goddess of Magic, this one embraces pursuit of knowledge not as part of some other goal, but as the goal in and of itself. These scholars care not if or how their knowledge is used, simply that they know it. Distrusted for their penchant toward forbidden magic, and their nasty habit of using scrying magic for blackmail purposes.


    (There are plenty of others, but that''s enough for now.)


    <u>The Seven</u>: These beings are above even the High Gods, and have little or nothing to do with human life. They are only known to exist because the High Gods mention them in a manner of respect and perhaps fear. They have no known names, no interest mortal action, and if they act in the world, they do so without mortal knowledge. Can on occasion be referred to in religious texts, or used in creative profanity (Three Above, Four Below is a term for something so morally offensive that only a universe where evil rules can allow it to exist).


    There are no rituals or shrines devoted to The Seven, nor do scholars have any sort of strong opinion on them. They exist, they don''t care about humanity, and they don''t expect humanity to care about them, and there might be seven of them (though that''s questionable), this is all that is known.

 Chapter 4 and 5

    Elruin obediently led her dolly through the gates to the farm, then headed straight for the nearby forest to hide the creature. The first step of her plan complete, she turned right around to head back, perhaps with a lie about how she already got rid of her dolly and plans to go around the farm collecting rodents to play with and maybe her father''s crossbow that he loved so well.


    Plans dashed when she saw the heavy wooden gates had been closed behind her. Unsure of what to do next, and not enthused with Kasa''s plan to get her dolly destroyed, Elruin began to do what she was going to do anyway, but with squirrels. She''d often heard Father and others call them tree rats, so they couldn''t be much different than normal rats save for where they lived.


    As it turns out, squirrels were smarter and harder to find than her usual prey. Normal rats didn''t run until she got closer, and hid in places where she could still see them. Tree rats, on the other hand, liked to hide in, well, trees. Trees were alive, and that meant she couldn''t see through them the way she could see through dead wood. Also, squirrels ran whenever she got anywhere near them, so even when she saw one, she never got close enough to hit the target.


    Her clothes and hair covered in brambles, she gave up on her hunt. On the plus side, she found some ripe raspberries to make up for her missed lunch. It was getting late, now, and she wasn''t sure what she was supposed to do when night fell.


    Locked out of the normal entrance, and with nowhere to go, Elruin took the long way around to the mudslide, with hope of sneaking back into the farm. An hour of traveling through uneven, messy terrain made her even more a mess than she had already been, and when she got to the wall it was still drooping with an area she could climb under.


    Save for the magical barrier backing up the physical. Though weakened by the circumstances of storm and the assault from Elruin''s guardian, it was by no stretch of the imagination broken, and it had been designed to withstand assaults by forces far more powerful than an inexperienced preteen necromancer.


    Using her unnatural sight, she could spot some amount of the magical flow dancing through the air, empowering the field, and it was beyond her strength. Perhaps if a few more of the defensive crystals were broken, but she could only reach those from the other side. Perhaps if they got another superstorm tonight, but that didn''t seem likely.


    While she prodded at the farm''s defenses, both physical and magical, some latent memory awoke within her dolly. It knelt in the mud, then began to pry away at the muck with its one clawed hand. Elruin paid it no mind, for contrary to her lie to Carob, there was no threat from it unless someone attacked it while she wasn''t nearby to hold the leash.


    Then he pulled out a long, narrow dagger. Too long, perhaps, to be called a dagger, but still too short to be called a sword, and too thin and round to be either. Not being an expert in the finer distinctions between instruments of pointy death, the best she could compare it to was an oversized horseshoe nail. It was a pretty weapon which still possessed a sharp, silvery sheen despite its time in the mud.


    As she approached her dolly, it extracted larger, blocky object from the depths. Larger than the dagger by far, Elruin at first thought it might be a small shield covered in mud, but then the skeleton set it on his lap and began wiping the dirt away. It took time, but it was revealed to be a fiddle, of better craftsmanship than any of the instruments Elruin had seen on the farm over the years.


    Having set the instrument on the ground, the creature then proceeded to drag the flat edge of the dagger across the strings of what Elruin might some day learn was known as the violin. A long, sharp, but ultimately monotonous tone was drawn from the instrument by the creature; what memories were still wedged deep in the skeleton''s program stopped well short of performing the music it no doubt knew in life.


    Still, it gave Elruin ideas. Her song, the notes of her Requiem, could carry through an instrument just as surely as through her voice. Better, perhaps; a good instrument would be able to carry the notes further than she could by vocal chords alone. Elruin took the dagger and instrument from her skeletal ally; it didn''t seem to know what to do with them anymore, anyway.Unauthorized use of content: if you find this story on Amazon, report the violation.


    The dagger itself surprised her when she touched it. It drained away her magic, but it didn''t steal it, it stored it within the metal, inside some magical container that Elruin could not guess at how it worked. The power would remain there until... something happened. She wasn''t sure what exactly that ''something'' was, but it looked to her like it was waiting for something. Even so, it wouldn''t be hard for her to draw her power back out if she needed to, so she could use it as a magic battery for the time being.


    Now, it was getting late. The farm had not opened its gates, and she knew no way to sneak in. She began looking for a place to take shelter for the night.


    Which turned out to not be all that hard to find, in the end. Furrows carved by rushing water lined the area, and created alcoves that a small child could take shelter in. With her skeleton to stand guard, she felt secure for the night.


    She should not have.


    Late into the night, she was awoken by deep, cruel, mocking laughter. "What do we have here?" a voice in the darkness muttered. "A child left to die," what sounded like the same voice answered back from a different location. In her tiny cave, Elruin couldn''t make out much.


    One huge, dark shadow passed in front of her hiding place. A glowing, red eye looked inward straight at her, through the ribs of her skeletal guardian. It stood steady, fearless and ready to protect her from any threat. Its core program compelled it to run outward, and kill the closest threat, but that conflicted with the fact that if it did so, the entrance to her hiding place would be vulnerable for another to get through.


    "Oh, little child, why not come out to play?" Any attempt to sound friendly was ruined by the deep, gruff timber of its voice as well as the cackling of other noises around her.


    "We''re harmless puppies." "We''re lonely." "So long since we''ve had any humans to play with." Elruin couldn''t tell which of them were speaking, or from what direction. Every voice seemed identical and they all seemed to come from everywhere and nowhere. When they weren''t speaking like people, there was a constant stream of soft, yipping noises which made it impossible to determine how many there were, or their positions.


    "I can''t come out to play!" Elruin shouted out at them. "It''s my bedtime." The logic of a child is an odd one.


    "Oh, but you don''t have a bedtime anymore." "Your parents don''t care about you." "They sent you out here to die." "So many scary monsters."


    "No, they didn''t!" That her parents had nothing to do with her being out here was a technical truth. "I had to take my dolly to town."


    The yipping laughter began anew. "Three days from here." "Alone with all the monsters in the forest." "Such a cruel, cruel fate for a child." "Better just to end it now, than to suffer such cruelty from one''s own family."


    "Go away!" Elruin shouted at them. "My dolly will save me from the monsters!"


    "Ah, yes, the dolly." "Such a loyal monster, obedient without question." "It makes a magnificent guard dog." "Perhaps it would even be enough." "But, such would be an even crueler fate." "To think, the horrors you would witness if you lived to reach the city." "Do you know what they do to those who play with the dead?" "It would be kinder if your parents slit your throat." "Or come out, play with us." "We promise you won''t feel a thing." "Never see it coming."


    Through all their talk, they didn''t seem interested in attacking. They just circled, over and over again in front of her cavern.


    "But, siblings, she is just one little girl." "A tiny waif of a morsel." "Hardly worth the effort to chew." "I bet all the farm work has made her tough and stringy." "Barely more nourishment than her guard." "And I bet necromancers taste terrible, anyway." "But waste not, want not." "True, true, one mustn''t turn up their nose at an easy lunch, even if it''s a meager one." "Yet there is another way." "Do share, dear brother."


    They stopped speaking for a moment, but the yipping barks continued without pause.


    "If our abandoned farm girl were to help us, we could get so much more." "Oh, I see." "You always were the smart one." "All you have to do, little girl, is help us open the farm gates." "Imagine all the food!" "So many delicious cows." "And pigs!" "And sheep!"


    "Yes, all the food we can imagine." "We would be so fat!" "And happy!" "Certainly, we''d have no need to hunt little farm girls, with such a feast awaiting us." "And you owe no loyalty to them." "They abandoned you." "Left you to die." "Torn apart by monsters." "Or worse, by men." "Humans are such cruel beasts." "Nothing in this world so twisted." "Sending their children to die." "Too cowardly to do the deed themselves."


    "Turn the tables on them." "Open the gates." "Send them to the fate they were sending you to." "It is only fair." "It is only just." "Teach them the law of nature."


    The forest went silent, waiting for Elruin''s response.

 Chapter 6

    Suggested Listening</a>


    Huddled in the back of her tiny shelter, Elruin could think of nomeans to escape. If she left, the scary dog monsters would no doubt kill and eat her, and if she stayed they would still kill and eat her. Even if they were telling the truth about letting her go if she opened the farm to them, she had no way to open the farm; her family locked her out here with these creatures. It wouldn''t take long before the monsters figured that out, and then she''d be killed and eaten.


    Her special vision offered little insight; aside the one or two that would pass close to her cave entrance, wanting to be seen, they all hid in the greenery of the forest which blocked her sight. The forest teamed with life even, perhaps especially, at night, and there was nothing special about them other than that they were larger than most creatures in the woods.


    Other ideas exhausted, she turned to her newly discovered ability, and began to sing anew. Her skeletal guardian received the bulk of the benefit, but Elruin gained some advantage as all life in the area besides them began to flee. Even the rabbits and mice, safe in their burrows, bolted from Requiem. Belatedly, Elruin realized that she could have used Requiem to flush the squirrels from their hiding places.


    The monsters'' yipping changed, gained an urgency it hadn''t had before. They converged on her hiding place, intent on silencing the song. The first to arrive swept his claw through, taking her skeletal protector with him. Through her sight, Elruin saw the absolute darkness of undeath clash with the glowing orange of living, struggling muscle.


    Unlike the battle between her guardian and Father, this beast was strong enough to overcome the necromantic empowerment of the skeleton. Elruin sang for it still, bolstered its power, and was rewarded by the sight of Black carving through Orange, releasing a torrent of spilled lifeforce that took not but seconds to go from orange to the dim blue of lifeless material on the ground.


    The creature yelped, roared and growled, but it did not stop fighting. It slammed the skeleton into the ground in retaliation for its own injuries. Both of them were suffering damage, though with Elruin resupplying her ally, it would win the encounter. Unfortunately, they weren''t alone. Two other monsters joined the assault on her ally, and between the three of them the skeleton was overwhelmed.


    A fourth rushed into the shelter, it''s massive jaws open wide with the intent of stopping the necromancer, and so ending both the song and the skeleton. Or so it believed; it couldn''t know the skeleton would persist with or without Elruin''s power.


    Elruin acted on reflect, blasting the monster in the face with her bolt; for a moment it slowed in confusion as the necromantic energies struck its skull and dimmed the life energies coursing through its brain and all but shutting down higher reasoning for a moment. The second and third blasts sent forth by the panicked child did further damage, perhaps permanently damaging upper brain functions.


    Unfortunately for Elruin, this form of magically-inflicted dementia accomplished little to against the instincts driving the monster forward on its attack; predator by nature, it didn''t need to think in order to kill.


    Pain shot through Elruin''s leg, as the snapping jaw finally found flesh, and it clamped down hard enough to break bone in spite of the current of necromantic power draining the strength of its muscles. In this, the beast made a mistake; it should have let go, should have backed away and let the prey bleed out from a safe distance, but the tactical parts of its brain had been scoured of function by necromantic power.


    Reacting on instinct of her own, the little necramancer jabbed her new dagger into the eye of the beast, which then created a torrent of death as the weapon drained its battery of magical energy into the eye socket of the monstrous wolf-creature. It collapsed into convulsions, struggled once more to raise up and bite, but then rested its head and accepted the inevitable.


    Its eyes, wide and yellow, stared out at her from a skull of slackened muscle, saliva and blood dripping down its mottled gray muzzle, but it had stopped moving, and then the orange light began to cool like blood outside. It was now dead, an easily ignored blue blur in Elruin''s unnatural vision.The narrative has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the infringement.


    Another dog-monster approached from behind the first to examine its now-deceased companion, not realizing that Elruin was long past the point of fear or reason. Reflex alone guided her as she dug deep into the well of power that had been depleted throughout the long, difficult day. The energy wave, too, was stronger than any she''d ever created before.


    Her target stumbled back, almost fell on its side, and then retreated for the safety of the trees. The fact that she could hit them through their dead companion blocking the path was unexpected, and not something they could easily overcome.


    "You have made enemies, little farm girl." "No wonder your family abandoned you." "You''re a monster." "Nasty little freak." "Not wanted here." "Not wanted anywhere." "Better off dead." "One day we shall find you." "One day we shall kill you."


    They taunted her as they retreated, two of their number limping away on half-dead limbs while a third stumbled and fell into objects as if it was drunk. A fourth lay dead before her, serving as a door to her shelter.


    Wounded, exhausted, and growing more certain by the moment that her family intended her to die out here, Elruin fell into a heavy but fitful sleep.


    When she awoke, it was morning. Her leg throbbed in pain, obviously broken, but she knew little about how to treat the injury. Whenever a farm animal was hurt, it was her mother or sisters who tended their wounds. They kept Elruin herself far from the animals.


    The monster that had wounded her remained dead before her, its saliva and her blood had dried in the night, leaving only a stale odor of wet dog. Elruin knew from experience with the animals that it wouldn''t be long before the body started to truly stink and draw in the scavengers. She didn''t want to be here when that began.


    She began to sing again, pushing the necromatic energies through the creature''s body and forcing it back one exaggerated muscle-twitch at a time until the hole had opened enough for her to crawl out on her three good limbs.


    Once outside, she got a look at the carnage her attackers left behind. Paw prints almost as big as her head had been dug into the mud, most of them slathered in blood. The remains of her skeleton lay scattered about; she guessed that bone embedded in one of the trees was the skull of her dolly. The animating necromantic energies were nowhere to be found, which meant she''d lost her dolly. The only thing intact was the chain armor that had stayed on the skeleton all this time.


    She stood, leaning against the corpse of the first thing she killed larger than a rat and, for the first time since she was a baby, she cried. She cried for the relief that she survived, for the pain of her broken limb, her family abandoning her to the woods, and above all else for the lost of the only true friend she''d ever known in her life.


    Suggested Listening</a>


    Elruin lost track of time when a voice shouted from behind her. "Setel!" Elruin turned to the voice; a girl whose face didn''t look much older than herself, dressed in leather that was much more functional than showy. "Uh, I mean I''m here to help!"


    A quick burst of magic through her legs allowed the girl to leap from her position, up into a limb several yard away, and then clear the rest of the distance to Elruin in a second jump. Three long, orange braids trailed behind her, too clean for someone who was jumping through foliage. The girl hit the ground on her feet, somehow managing to not sink up to her knees in the mud.


    It was fascinating, and no doubt all sorts of magic in nature.


    "Oh, jeez," the girl knelt down by Elruin''s wounded leg. "That... is a mork bite, no doubt." She looked at the dead wolf-monster, a Mork, apparently, then back to Elruin. "How on Midara do you still have your leg attached? These things will chew their way through plate armor if you give ''em half a chance."


    She stopped for a second, not to take a breath like most people would have needed to, but to look. Elruin saw the girl''s eyes turn from a natural looking soft green, to a deep green that spread in from the outsides until it covered the entire eye, so that there was no white or pupil, just a beautiful solid color. "Oh. Necromancer."


    She blinked, and the green covering vanished. "Uh, not that there''s anything wrong with that!" She hurried to add. "I mean, Negation is still a natural part of the cycle, every bit as necessary as Creation. Could you imagine what a world where nothing could stop existing would look like? But, uh, most people don''t feel comfortable around it. Y''know, because of the whole ''death'' thing. How does a girl your age end up being a necromancer strong enough to fight off a Mork, anyway? I don''t even know if I could do that, but I''m fast enough they''ll never catch me. Is that why you''re on the road? I''m running a scouting check on the nearby farms and settlements, that storm the other day did a lot of damage, and the outskirts don''t have the support you get closer to the city."


    It seems not much could keep this girl from rambling. "So, uh, yeah, my name''s Calenda, but you can call me Cali for short. What''s your name? And, uh, do you want me to heal your leg? I know necromancers aren''t all that good at healing magic, being as they''re basically the exact opposite affinity. Oh, and, why don''t you have any Sarite? Did you burn it all to fix your injuries?"


    If Elruin didn''t say something, Calenda would probably spend the rest of the day holding a conversation for both of them.

 Chapter 7

    Elruin, taken aback for a moment by Cali''s abruptness and, frankly, rudeness, finally got her opportunity to speak. "My name is Elruin." She maintained absolute politeness; she hadn''t realized there was any another way to talk until now. "You can call me Ell?" She found it awkward, but not entirely unpleasant. "I''d like it if you heal me, please." She slipped back into the submissive position as the younger speaker right away.


    "Sure thing." Cali dropped down so she was sitting on her heels, knees spread out to keep balance. Magical energy swelled up from within the strange girl, until it surged outward in a pattern more elegant and controlled than any Elruin had ever seen before. Not that Elruin had much to compare it to; her only experience with healing magic was Mother, who would have killed herself attempting to draw on even a fraction of this much power.


    "And that''ll do for ya!" Cali hopped back to her feet, confident that Elruin''s injuries had been dealt with. To Elruin''s surprise, she was right; it took Mother the better part of a minute to mend wounds far less severe than this one, and Cali did it in a matter of seconds.


    "May I ask you to tell me if there''s anything useful in Mork bodies?" Elruin paused for a moment. "Like, anything special that you can use or sell?"


    Cali stopped to think for a moment. "No, not really. I mean a good tanner can make some use from the hide, but only ''cause it''s so big. They''d rather have a deer or bear if they can afford to be picky. I guess they might be edible, but I''ve never been desperate enough to try. Besides, after being pumped full of enough necromancy to kill a giant coyote monster, I don''t think anyone''s hungry enough to take the chance. Or maybe the teeth could be used for cheap ivory, but it''d be some really cheap ivory."


    "Ooh, I bet if you can find a taxidermist, you might get a few coin selling trophies. There are rich people with more money than hunting skills who''d pay to have a monster like this mounted on a wall. But then you''d have to drag this thing to a taxidermist and find a buyer, and I don''t think they''d want this one, what with all the necromancy. Even that wouldn''t be much; most wealthy collectors want the big game, like dragons, or at least a manticore or gryphon. Mork are basically the weakest thing out here that''s still a threat to an adventurer. They''re only dangerous ''cause they run in packs. Being honest, the only thing worth taking is the sarite, and even that''s not all that good. But any sarite is worth keeping, right?"


    Elruin knew nothing about sarite, and thus couldn''t share an opinion. "Father had a sarite, but I''ve never had one."


    Cali blinked for a moment. "You can''t be serious. You came outside without any sarite? Like, none at all? How are you still alive?!" Elruin tried to say something about her dolly, but never got the chance before Cali interrupted her to continue ranting. "You''d have to be insane, or insanely powerful, to be out here without at least something to protect you! And I''ve gotten a look at you; you''re pretty strong for your age, but you''re nowhere near ready for the wilderness. Why are you out here? Where''d you come from?"


    "I''m from the farm that way." Elruin pointed in the general direction of her home. "Brother and Sister locked me outside." Elruin used the grammatical structure to indicate her siblings were in charge of her, rather than referring to either her parents or to non-guardian elder siblings. "They made a mistake."


    "Locked out? Mistake? You mean they took you outside the gates, then closed the gates, which if it''s the farm I''m thinking of take three people to move, without checking to see if anyone was still outside?" Cali didn''t bother to hide her disbelief in Elruin''s lie. "So how long have you been out here without them opening the door for you?"


    "Yesterday afternoon."


    Cali brought her hands up to cradle her forehead. "Three above, four below, what is wrong with this world? Doesn''t even know about sarite, and they send her out here to..." She gave herself time to take a slow, deep breath. "In that case, guess first thing''s first, time for you to learn how sarite works."


    Calenda pushed up the sleeve on her shirt, then extracted a more traditional looking dagger than Elruin''s new toy from the sheath on her belt. "I guess you don''t know that sarite has another name... well, lots of names, but the important one is heartstone. That''s because it''s found..." she traced the dagger along the Mork''s neck, carving the hide away from the throat. "Right above and behind the heart."


    The neck cavity carved open, she shoved her hand into the gullet. "Huh, drier than expected, guess that''s the ''necromancy'' thing at work. Now, ugh," she grunted as she forced her arm deeper. "You gotta be careful doing this... even lots of weak shards are attuned to dangerous elements; you don''t want to hold a poison or fire shard unless you''ve got some sort of protection. And powerful sarite has a nasty habit of overwhelming weak people... it can get real ugly real fast."


    "But!" She yanked her arm out, then held a dim gray crystal up to the light. "This is just a Mork. If it had sarite that powerful, we wouldn''t be having this conversation. You would be dead, and I''d be running to the capital to find dragon slayers. But let''s not dwell on hypotheticals." Her eyes began to glow green again, the song of her magic a discordant chaos to Elruin''s ears.


    "Well, I told you it wasn''t going to be special, but this one''s kinda disappointing even by Mork standards." Calenda twisted it around in the light, as if she might discover some hidden facet to the gem with time. "Boosted sense of smell, some nightvision, and a minor increase in the power of wind magic that doesn''t do either of us much good. Oh well, it never hurts to keep a few junk shards to burn, instead of something valuable.


    Calenda handed the shard over to Elruin. "Now, just focus on it for a moment, and let nature take its course. Can''t believe a mage of your strength doesn''t know how to do this, already."


    Elruin concentrated on the crystal in her hand, and the energy it represented. The process was slow at first, but it didn''t take long at all before the sarite''s spirit joined into her own, creating a new spirit that was neither her, nor the sarite, but something new. Despite Cali''s words, Elruin''s sense of sight didn''t change at all, but a thousand new sensations hit her nose. The dead Mork, the stink of the sweat, mud, blood and spittle which coated her own skin, the soft aroma of Cali who, despite how long she must have been traveling smelled like she just got out of a bath. Elruin even had a good idea where the squirrels were hiding, if she needed to find one.


    The new information was confusing for a moment, but Elruin''s mind and deeper essence remained untouched by the transformative nature of the sarite. Still, if more powerful sarite had a stronger effect, she understood why more powerful sarite would be dangerous.


    "There you go." Cali clapped her hands together. "Some people buy armor and weapons that make direct use of sarite, but most make do with wrapping it with cloth. I hear there are even crazies who stitch it inside themselves. But there''s no need for any of that; long as it''s in contact with your body and isn''t conflicting with incompatible magic, it''ll work fine. Oh, right, and there are limits to how much sarite a person''s body can tolerate at once. Depends on the strength of sarite and the user, but I think it''ll be a while before you gotta worry about that."


    "Thank you." Elruin clasped her hands together over her heart, as was the formal position to show gratitude.


    "As I walk." Calenda''s smile faded a moment after. "Now, let''s go talk to your family about how careless they were to misplace a sister."


    Healed of her injuries, Elruin had no difficulty keeping up with Calenda on the trail. Soon, the walls of her home came into view, a bastion of stone that she had never questioned or appreciated until the experiences of the last sixteen or so hours. How fragile life on the farm was, hiding behind the walls while there were monsters like Morks and worse crawling about outside.If you come across this story on Amazon, it''s taken without permission from the author. Report it.


    "And that''s one lost lamb returned to the flock." Cali stood looking at the wall. "Though the wolves bit off more than they could chew with this one. Go on, Ell, let your family know you''re back after they misplaced you all night." She sniffed the air. "Smells like they were having themselves a barbecue last night, and now I''m curious what they were cooking."


    Elruin stood before the gate, and pulled the rope which held the bell to alert those inside. It wasn''t long before the voice of a man, one of the farmhands, shouted through the door. "Who is it!"


    "Elruin!" The luckiest little necromancer shouted back. "I''m back!"


    "But... Carob said..." The man seemed hesitant, whether because of the gender taboo or having expected Elruin wouldn''t make it make past the night. "Please forgive me, I must go find Kasa."


    "Not one of your brothers, I take it." Cali kept a position leaning against the wall, in a blind spot where she''d only be seen if someone climbed up to peak over the wall, or used some form of magic.


    "No."


    Several minutes later, a girl''s voice, Kasa, shouted through the gate. "Elruin? You''re not supposed to be back for days. I told you, you have to go to the city."


    Cali rolled her eyes, but held her tongue. She caught Elruin''s poor attempt at a lie, and in her opinion the girl''s elder sister wasn''t much better.


    "But I don''t have to! There were monster dogs called morks and they were scary and bit me and broke my dolly and it''s safe now! You can let me inside."


    "I don''t believe you!" Kasa shouted back through the gate. "Be a good girl and go to the city like you were told!"


    "Okay, I''ve seen enough of this bullshit!" Cali stepped away from her position on the wall, into view of the small holes though the gate. "I am Casenda na Andara! In the name of both the Ecrosian Third Order and the Imperial Scouts, I command you to open this gate!"


    "But I-" Kasa tried to fish for some lie, some excuse to keep the gate closed, but Cali wasn''t interested in hearing it.


    Calenda dipped deeper into her pool than Elruin realized she could, into perhaps the strongest upspring of power the nature mage could draw upon. A burst of disruptive earth-oriented magic carrying the weight of the most powerful spell Elruin had ever seen in her young life, slammed into the gate. Wood popped, debris fell from the stone, and a combination of orange and blue light warred against one another on the magical plane. The spell used was, in many ways, like Elruin''s own Apoplectic bolt, but stronger and relying on earth instead of death energy. The punch which joined it was for show, nothing more.


    "You left your sister out here to die! I can smell burning human flesh in there! And I am out of patience!" Calenda used magic to amplify her voice, making her sound more like a giant than a person. "If you don''t open this gate right now, I will bring this entire farm down around your ears! See how you like the night without a wall to protect you!"


    Elruin doubted she could accomplish her threat; the magic of the barrier still held strong, and Cali couldn''t have much more than two, maybe three more attacks like that one before she has expended her reserves. On the balance, it looked like her siblings were in no danger from Calenda.


    Moments later, Cali began to glow with power as she drew upon a spell which... did nothing but make her glow with power. Elruin was no expert on magic, but it didn''t look like it had any real effect on the world, all it did was trick people by making the caster look scary. It was also a trick that Elruin was pretty sure she could imitate with a little practice.


    "Okay!" Kasa shouted out the gate. "We''ll open the gate!"


    "Good choice." Cali looked back at Elruin and smirked.


    They had to wait a minute while the people inside the farm removed the brace and slid the gate sideways to let them through. Kasa and Carob stood at the gate, but neither could quite meet Elruin''s eyes.


    "Okay, we can explain," Carob said. To Elruin''s surprise, he took the same passive tone he used when talking to Mother or Father, instead of the more commanding tone she''d have expected.


    "I don''t think you can." Calenda walked past him, into the safety of the farm with Elruin following behind. Calenda showed no interest in following the rules of polite society with Elruin''s family. "But, go ahead and try. I love listening to people try to justify sororicide and what appears to be some sort of corpse-burning ritual. Nothing I''d rather do with my time. Oh, and before you make me add injury to the insults? Truthsaying. Easy spell for a nature mage. Every time you lie to me, I break one of your fingers, in accordance with Imperial law. Now do you think you can explain?"


    Elruin''s elder siblings shared a glance. "It is an easy spell," Kasa admitted. "Almost anyone with Creation affinity and enough magical power can learn it."


    Carob took a slow breath. "Let''s start with the burning bodies. They were dead when we started."


    "That''s a good start." Cali looked up at the young man, but kept enough distance that he couldn''t easily reach her. "Now, tell me who killed them."


    "Nobody!" Carob insisted. "They were killed by a monster. It looked like a human skeleton. No matter what we tried, it just kept attacking and killing until somehow Elruin made it stop fighting. Kasa said it was undead, and we had to burn the bodies to prevent the taint from spreading."


    Cali thought about it for a second. "Looks like a corpse, mindless killing machine, easily controlled by necromancers. It''s either the undead or elaborate illusion magic. Burning''s a bad idea, though." She looked at Kasa. "Your read it in a book, right?"


    "Yes?" Kasa hesitated, but answered. "All my books say fire works."


    "We need to burn books that spread that lie, along with their authors." Cali shook her head. "Burning is only guaranteed to work if the fire gets so hot that even the bones turn to ash. Worse, it does nothing to stop the taint that raised the dead in the first place, and it can spread the taint in the smoke of the fire. Don''t worry, I believe you didn''t know that. You strike me as someone who''s a lot more clever than smart. How fortunate for you that ignorance is not a crime. And that none of the bodies were tainted."


    Kasa wanted to say many things in retort, but she knew better than to question an Imperial officer. To her face, at any rate.


    "Since that''s settled, let''s move on to sending little Ell out into the woods to die. Do you know what the punishment for child murder is?"


    "She''s a monster!" Kasa shouted. "She has these freaky powers, kills rats by pointing at them. She was never right in the head! And then there''s that horrible song she sings, it made the monster obey her! I bet she even created it!"


    Carob put his hand on Kasa''s shoulder, to encourage her to settle down.


    Cali blinked. "Wait... are you saying she just does these things. Like, nobody showed her how? She didn''t have a teacher? You''re telling me she learned to Reveal as a wild talent?"


    "I don''t know what a wild talent is, but I guess so," Carob said. "She''s always been... off... stronger than other children, even as an infant she rarely cried and never got sick, and as she got older, she..."


    "How old is she? When was she born?"


    "She turned twelve three and a half months ago. The winter solstice."


    "If there was ever a time for a wild talent necromancer to be born, that would be it." Calenda ran her hand over her face. "So we have a twelve year old who''s learned to Reveal without any help, and your plan was to just, what, send her into the wild so that something would kill her so you wouldn''t have to deal with her anymore?"


    Carob kept his eyes on focused on the ground. "We couldn''t think of any other way."


    "Any other way? I thought of two in four seconds." Cali stepped closer to Carob. "First, you could have tried being a decent human being and not murdering your family. It''s amazing how often people use that one. Or, maybe, and I''m just throwing this out there... you could have sent her to any academy in the nation."


    "But we can''t afford-"


    "Three above, Four below, and not a one of them could outwit a turnip!" Cali''s shouting interrupted Kasa. "They don''t charge anything to teach a mage like her. They pay you so they can have them. I''m a natural talent, two mage parents, trained since I was four years old, get called a credit to my bloodline every upper-class party I get dragged to. I''m considered a prodigy, and I didn''t find my Revelation until I was almost two years older than Ell. They pay sums fit for kings to recruit mages like her, yet here you are, literally treating her like dog food. How did you not know this? I know you have Reclaimers come through here, did not a one of them notice Elruin''s potential?"


    Nobody in the group spoke for a moment, until Cali sighed and continued. "Let me guess, you made her hide in the barn because you didn''t want them to know about your child necromancer, even though they''re the only people who''d be able to help her. Of course you''d be that stupid."


    Calenda stopped, taking some slow breaths to calm herself. "Okay, now that that''s out of the way, you''re both under arrest. You''ll be taken to Engewal, and either sold as slave labor or executed by this time next week. That''s for the judge to decide."


    Kasa gasped, and turned into her brother''s arms. He stood tall, a miserable attempt to act brave and intimidate the ranting redheaded mage. "Why?"


    "Official charge being the attempted murder of a child," Calenda snapped. "Enough people die of monster attacks without people like you. Unofficially, it''s because I don''t want people as dumb as the two of you to breed. I know, I''m contradicting myself, I''m complicated like that."


    She switched back to a smile. "Hey, Ell, wanna come stay at my place for a day or two? It''s not much, but there''s a warm bed, it doesn''t smell like cow dung and burning corpses, and nobody''s going to try to feed you to wild animals."

 Chapter 8

    Suggested Listening</a>


    "Don''t hurt them!" Elruin blurted out after Cali''s declaration of having her siblings enslaved or executed. A moment later, she remembered her place and returned to passive language. "Please, I would prefer them not be harmed."


    Shock took the smile off of Calenda''s face. "What? Why!?"


    "Because they''re my family. I don''t want you to hurt them." She wasn''t educated enough in the ways of the world to know what ''slavery'' or ''a judge'' were, but she could guess it wasn''t nice, either.


    "I... but... they tried to feed you to morks..."


    "I don''t care, I don''t want them hurt," Elruin said again. She put on her best ''serious'' face, like she saw Mother do when it was extra important. The slender twelve year old girl accomplished little more than ineffectual pouting in the process.


    "But..." Cali sighed. "Fine. I''m sure if you get famous, the bards will love this act of undeserved mercy; there are holy orders who''ve canonized people for less. But if they''re staying here, then I have to insist you come with me. You''re not safe here; their idiocy might be contagious."


    "Okay," Elruin said. She planned to accept Cali''s offer, anyway. Cali seemed nice, other than the stuff about killing her family. Plus, she was smart and knew more about magic than anyone Elruin ever met, even Kasa and Mother. Speaking of whom. "Can I go talk to Mother, first?"


    "Depends." Cali turned her attentions back to Kasa. "Tell me, did your mother have anything to do with sending Ell into the wilderness?"


    "N- no," Kasa kept her eyes down. "After Father was killed... I don''t think she''s thought of anything other than him since yesterday."


    "Okay, Ell, go ahead and say goodbye to your mother." Cali watched Elruin run off out of earshot before she spoke again. "So if I get the picture right, your father dies, your mother''s insensate, and the first thing that pops into your head is to start killing off your younger siblings? Are you sure you''re not related to the royal family?"


    "Don''t answer that question." She interrupted after Kasa started to open her mouth. "In fact, just don''t talk to me again ever."


    Elruin, meanwhile, entered the door to her home for what promised to be the last time in a long time, perhaps forever. Inoin was already in the house, near Mother who sat facing away from the door. Inoin looked at her younger sister for a moment, but opted not say anything to the girl who''d returned from the wilderness alive.


    "Mother?" Elruin asked. She waited for a moment, but Mother said nothing so she came closer. "Mother, I have to go away soon. Can I please speak to you first?"


    Othsa seemed to shake herself out of her daze, at least for a moment to look at Elruin. Her eyes were sunken and red from crying. "Did you do all your chores?"


    "Yes, my chores are finished." To Elruin''s knowledge there was never a time she or anyone had all their chores finished, that was the life everyone lived on the farm.


    "Okay, good." Othsa looked back toward the wall again. "Where are you going?"


    "On a journey to the city." Or that''s where Elruin guessed Cali lived.


    "Right, Kasa told me about that. I thought you left, already."If you spot this story on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.


    "No, but I''ll be going soon," and not a lie told to Mother so far. "Can you tell me why Father said I wasn''t his, now?"


    Inoin gasped, and reached out to touch Mother''s shoulder. "You don''t have to..."


    "I was younger, then. Old enough to know better, but I..." Othsa said, still looking forward instead of at the daughters positioned on either side of her. "He was in a group of four Reclaimers. He was my age, but he seemed so young, and he said... he said a bunch of lies, is what he said. He said he''d never leave, then said he''d come back for me. That''s your real father, a liar and coward! Merat! I was so stupid! But Kalis forgave me, and we were happy, and now he''s gone, too!"


    "Oh." Elruin now had the answer to her question, for what little it was worth. Even she knew there was more to the story, but she could guess some and it didn''t seem like would tell her the rest even if she knew. "Thank you, Mother."


    Elruin left a still-crying Othsa behind and returned to where Cali was pacing near the gate. The other members of her family stayed back, watching but doing their best not to remind Calenda that they were still free.


    "So," Cali said. "Did you get what you were looking for?"


    Elruin couldn''t find an answer to the question; she didn''t know if there was an answer. For a moment, she thought about trying to go find Father''s crossbow, but she couldn''t think of a good excuse to do so. Besides, it was clear enough that the crossbow belonged to Father''s real children, not her. She spent one more moment to look at the farm that could no longer be called her home. Cali was right; this place did stick of cow dung, and what she now knew was the acrid stench of burnt human flesh which made her eyes water. She would never forget either smell.


    "We can go now." Not quite an answer to Cali''s question, but it would have to do.


    "Don''t worry, once we''re back on the open road, it''ll all feel like a bad dream."


    Not a minute after they left the farm, the gate slid closed behind her once again. This time, she knew they were abandoning her, but she had other things to think about. "Cali, may I ask you about that glowing trick you did at the gate?"


    "Oh, that?" Cali kept walking as she spoke. "Nothing special about it, just a generic sort-of-illusion that almost any mage can learn to do. I can teach you it if you like, shouldn''t take a Revealed mage more than a couple tries to learn. Then again, I''ve never met a mage who had a Revelation before learning these sorts of simple- Na entek!"


    As Cali was talking, Elruin began going through the effort of emulating what she watched Cali do earlier. She sang to her power, drew it up and around here so that the energy matched the intonations of her Requiem. The power needed not go anywhere or do anything, so she was free to allow it to exist around her, building to a crescendo with her song.


    "Stop!" Cali shouted.


    Elruin obeyed, slowing her song and drawing the music back to herself. "Did I do it wrong?"


    "Wrong?" Cali calmed her breathing. "No! You did it fine! It''s just that, well, we draw out our element when we use that ability. With me, I just have to be careful the area around me doesn''t get covered in dust and humidity. Fire mages have to be careful not to accidentally start small fires. Your version seems to drain light from the area around you, and I''d bet money there''s some sort of magic-enhanced fear effect. Usually shadow magic is useful for stealth, but I''m sure everything in earshot felt your power. I think it scared them off, but we should get moving just in case."


    After a few minutes of casual conversation, mostly Cali talking about her personal maid who did all the cooking in her home and the sheer pleasure of a well cooked meal after a few days of traveling the roads, Cali slowed and sighed. "Entek ne. Morons."


    Elruin caught sight of it a moment later; a wagon had slid off the side of the road, while what appeared to be a woman waited nearby in a long, dirty dress. It was modest, well made, and probably worth something when clean. Far better than threadbare and patched clothes Elruin had grown accustomed to on the farm. It ''appeared'' to be a woman, but Elruin''s unnatural sight it was clear enough that this was a man- women had notable glow of life energy just behind the belly button than men lacked. True, that light wasn''t present in children or the elderly, even if they were women, but children had a completely different sort of pattern, and the elderly were far more dim.


    This was either an adult man masquerading as a woman, or some sort of weird magic Elruin knew nothing about. She also noticed that there were at least five other similar adult man lifesigns in the woods, but three of them seemed strange to her. Whatever they were was a little like a human, but also like something she''d never seen before.


    "So," Cali looked at Elruin. "Does this look like the most obvious ambush in the world to you, too?"

 Chapter 9

    Suggested Listening</a>


    Elruin answered Cali''s question with a question of her own: "Why is that man wearing a dress?"


    Cali chuckled for a moment. "It''s a trap. People are less likely to suspect a woman, so some fool goes to help with the wrecked wagon, then his two buddies hiding in the trees jump them from behind. Threats made, victims robbed, killed, maybe worse stuff depending on who''s caught. Simple highwaymen, nothing special." Cali dropped her voice some. "I don''t get it, though. This is a terrible spot, nobody comes through here in the rainy season."


    "There are five men hiding in the woods," Elruin interrupted Cali''s thoughts. "Well, that''s how many I see."


    "Five?" Cali hesitated, looking out at the woods. "You''re sure?"


    "Yes, but three of them are weird." Elruin said. "There''s one-"


    Cali caught Elruin''s hand as it started to go to up, then brought it back down. "Don''t point. Don''t do anything that might show them we know they''re there. Just tell me where they are. The two I can spot are past the man in the dress, ducked behind that Pixie Vine, right?"


    "I guess." Elruin had no idea what ''Pixie Vine'' was, or how Calenda could identify it from this far away. She couldn''t see any vine at all from this distance, only the soft green of generic foliage and its accompanying coloration of life. "And there''s the one hiding in that big tree to the left. He''s up on the big branch."


    "The red oak? Are you sure... oh, oh wow, that is tricky." Calenda sounded impressed. "How did you see them from here?"


    "They glow," Elruin said. "Trees and plants have a little glow, animals glow more, and people glow the most."


    "Lifesight?" Cali smiled a little. "Useful. Keep that trick of yours a secret; lifesight can be beaten, but most people don''t bother. It''s not always laziness, either. You can only pile on so many stealth spells before you radiate magic like a miniature sun, which defeats the whole purpose of stealth magic. And there are several senses more common and threatening to prioritize first."The author''s tale has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.


    "Okay." The advice sounded reasonable enough to Elruin. "The other two are right behind that hill, and I think there''s one under that leaf pile near the front. He''s the closest." That covered all the others she saw, but after Cali talked  about ways to beat magic senses, she didn''t know if there might be more. "What do we do, now?"


    Cali stretched her arms above her head. "Normally, I''d walk in, let them spring their little trap, then beat them to a pulp and drag them by what remained of their necks to the nearest village. The sheriffs love it when I do their job for them. But these guys are way better prepared than normal bandits if they got three people past my watersight, and I have to worry about you getting hurt."


    "Probably smarter just to back away and take a different route, then contact the mercenary guilds and let them know we got a nice, juicy, bandit gang that got hold of some valuable magic or sarite," she continued after finishing her stretch. "That''ll bring the adventurers running. Sometimes the only way you can tell the difference between the guilds and the bandit gangs is that the gangs stick to low risk, low reward targets... while mercs don''t care about risks, only rewards."


    "I can help," Elruin offered.


    Cali stopped to consider it for a moment. "No, I don''t think that''s a good idea. True, you can take down a single mork, but these guys are murderers. You don''t find any work with highwaymen if you haven''t killed before. They can and will slit your throat, or take you and... well... a girl your age doesn''t need to hear about what they do to captured women. Wild talent only goes so far, and you don''t have the training to fight in close quarters."


    "I don''t have to get close." After years of hunting rodents with her magic, Elruin felt confident in her abilities.


    "You have ranged magic?" Cali''s smile widened. "Hmm, that might even work. If I bring up a fog cloud, it won''t do anything to block your Lifesight. They might be fighting blind, or close enough to it. With you sniping and me running interference, yeah, we might be able to do this." Her smile faded a moment later. "But it''s still a risk, even for trained mages. If things go bad, my abilities are mostly defensive or personal, I won''t be able to protect you from them if they get hold of you."


    "Does that mean we should let them go?"


    "Like I said, I''d take the gamble if I was alone. But that''s because I can run if I have to. I don''t think you have that option," Cali said. "I guess it all comes down to whether you think it''s worth the risk of getting hurt to stop the bad guys."

 Chapter 10

    Suggested Listening</a>


    "Maybe we shouldn''t," Elruin decided after taking some time to think about it. There were six of them, with weapons and magic, and she almost died to what she later learned were some of the weakest monsters in the forest. "As you said, I''m not good at fighting."


    "Okay," Cali agreed. "It is the wiser decision, so we can leave them to well armed professionals."


    "Can you teach me how to fight?" Elruin asked, once they set off on their path. It seemed like something she''d want to learn, to stop Morks and bandits from trying to hurt her more. "I don''t want to be in danger anymore."


    "I don''t think there''s much that I can teach you," Cali said. "Generic stuff like situational awareness, sure, but my whole combat style is built around the magic I use. It wouldn''t work for you, and you''re far too small to stand a chance in mundane combat without augmentation magic. Best I can do is practice with you and spot the obvious stuff. But once we get back to Engewal, there are a bunch of people who will know how to work with your magic."


    "Oh, okay." Elruin took Cali''s word on this matter. "What did you say before about Revealing?"


    "Ah, that, well there''s no great secret there," Cali said. "Or, at least, the secret is the art itself. You see, most people can learn to use some magic, maybe one or two related spells that are all part of their core nature. That ''native power'', as it''s called, is limited. It can still be quite powerful, someone who trains a native power enough can equal the strength of a Revealed mage."


    "Like my brother can increase his strength," Elruin said. "Like you do when you jump."


    "Yeah, we call that augmentation. It''s perhaps the second most common native ability, right behind Elemental Blast abilities," Cali agreed. "Sounds to me like your native ability is Elemental Senses. How long have you had that ability?"


    Elruin couldn''t remember a time when she didn''t have the ability to see life energy, though she only learned about her ability to see the opposite after meeting her dolly. She pushed that thought out of mind, so she didn''t start crying in front of Cali. "I think I''ve always been able to do it."


    "That explains a lot," Cali said. "It takes most people a lot of training to spot magic use that precise, and you also have Lifesight that doesn''t seem to slow you down the way Detection spells slow most people down. But if you were born with the ability, that explains why it comes so naturally to you. Sooner you start, easier it is, like learning a second language."


    "Okay." All of this was fascinating to Elruin, who until this point was given the impression that nobody else in the world had abilities like her own.


    "Of course, picking up Revelation so young is... maybe it''s another part of that ability," Calenda continued along her train of thought. "Most of us born with a lot of magical potential are discovered young, taken to academies where our talents are cultivated for the betterment of themselves and society. Or, at least, that''s what the schools say. My parents say the whole process is a military recruitment drive. Find the strongest, instill loyalty from a  young age, and by the time they''ve graduated, they''re eager to become the next generation of generals and royal concubines. That''s why I was trained at home, instead of the academy."


    "Is that why Revelation is special? It makes us stronger than normal people?"


    "No, and yes," Cali took a moment to stop and extend her own magical signature for a minute. "Good, doesn''t look like anyone''s followed us." She started walking again. "Revelation is... how to explain it to someone who can just do it instead of having to train for years to find it? You''re a Music Revelation, what nobles call a Virtuoso, and what the soldiers call a Songmaster. I''m what they call a Kineticist, or a Battledancer for the soldiers. My power taps into physical movement, I can feel the flow of magic like you''d feel the flow of wind over your skin, or see a ripple created by tossing a rock in a pond."


    She twirled her hand in a circle, drawing a swirl of magical light which chased her finger. "You sing magic, I touch it, but in the end both our abilities are just our brains trying to find the true patterns of magic. All Revealed mages sense fragmented glimpses of a level of reality that would break a human mind if we saw the full Truth, so our minds translate this Perfect Pattern into lesser patterns that we can look at without destroying ourselves."


    She stopped moving her finger, and the magical lights vanished as well. "Or, that''s what the scholars say at any rate. I don''t know if they''re right, but I know they''ve never seen proof of it. I mean, if they did, wouldn''t that mean their minds would have been destroyed?"


    She shrugged as she walked. "So, mystic mumbo-jumbo aside, there are real practical advantages to Revelation. First, every one of us can sense magic, at least if it''s active or powerful; we can miss weak or distant magic, like you''d miss a whisper from across the room. We can also guess the general strength, element, and purpose of any spell being used in range of our abilities."The narrative has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the infringement.


    "Second, we have a lot more options than the Unrevealed. They have to learn and memorize every step of a spell to use it a single way, while we can construct ours on the fly, if we have to. We can also reshape the patterns to better suit immediate needs, waste less power on structuring spells, and can even learn new spells just by watching someone else use them. But in terms of raw power, there''s not much difference between a Revealed and Unrevealed who have similar natural talent and training. In some ways, they can even be stronger. We have the ability to learn new abilities faster than they do, so they keep up by devoting themselves to training their native abilities to their limits, and many a Revealed mage has died underestimating Unrevealed enemies. But there''s no doubt that we have a lot more options than they do overall."


    "Does that mean you can teach me healing magic? Would you please?" Of all the magic she knew of, that seemed like the most useful; if she could use healing, then everything would have turned out better back on her farm.


    Cali sighed, but didn''t stop moving. "Ah, no, that''s one thing Revelation won''t allow. What types of magical energy you can access is inborn, and I know of nothing that can change that. You''re a Negation mage, so there''s no chance of you being able to use Healing magic. You could imitate the pattern of healing magic, but once you channel energy into it, well, my guess is it''ll break the spell structure. Or the outcome would be a death spell. Might still be useful, but not going to heal anyone."


    "Besides, I''m not a healer, either. I just have a sarite that''ll let me cast a couple generic low-power spells. Which is Life-oriented, so it wouldn''t play nice with your natural energy. But don''t take it too hard, a good dragon slayer can save more lives than a healer, in the right circumstances."


    "Oh," Elruin would have to give some thought into what being a dragon slayer might be like. It didn''t sound very safe to her, that''s for certain.


    The conversation drifted off to less important things, such as Cali''s job as a scout, and even some small details about where she lived on the outskirts of a small town not far from the Engewal, the very city that Kasa had wanted to send Elruin and her dolly. As they talked, their path to circumvent the ambush took them back around to the main road.


    Cali looked up at the sky. "I was hoping to get my route finished today, but looks like we''ll have to hole up at our last stop for the night."


    "Okay." Elruin was surprised to see the sun had long crossed its zenith. The excitement of the day had distracted her and made her forget her appetite, but now that she was thinking about it she could use food, or at least water. Her clothes remained bloody and dirty thanks to her Mork encounter, and while the hours of walking didn''t cause her the discomfort it would have for a normal girl, she was happy to hear they''d be taking a break soon.


    Cali approached another farm, which had another wall not unlike the one Elruin left behind. Cali tapped on the gate, but did put enough magic in her motion to cause the defensive barricade to become visible for a moment. It was a much more peaceful display of light and sound than what she did last time.


    "Who''s there!" A man''s voice shouted from behind the wall.


    "Calenda na Andara, Ecrossian priestess," Cali stated in a clear voice, but one devoid of shouting or magical voice. "I''m doing a checkup after the storms, to see if anyone was hurt or lost."


    "I must go tell Mother of your arrival." Now that he knew he was talking to a woman, the farmhand switched to the polite not-quite-submissive language of inter-gender conversation.


    "I understand." While Calenda''s official status as an Imperial Scout gave her authority to cut through the delays of polite conversation, she didn''t like to throw her weight around, unless she was dealing with criminals. Especially when she was about to ask for a place to stay for the night and maybe a meal. Once again, she could have demanded both with her legal authority, but she considered that a last resort. Never a good plan to insult the people who were going to make your food.


    They weren''t waiting long before a head poked out over the wall above the gate. "You say you''re Ecrosian?"


    Calenda looked up and offered her best friendly smile; farm types were difficult to deal with at times, always suspicious of outsiders. "Third Order, serving under Naliel Sar." She couldn''t blame them, with the bandits and monsters and whatever other horrors crawled out in the wilderness. "I was here with her just last year, if you recall. The chicken-blight?"


    "Yes, I''d recognize that red hair anywhere." She looked down. "It''s okay, Sanel, she''s who she says."


    The gate slid open, requiring three strong men just as the one from her home farm. Behind it stood a large, barrel-shaped man like Father, but with more gray hair and lacking the beard. "Please, come in, be welcome." His eagerness belied the desperation of a man who would sell his soul for whatever he was about to ask of her. "After the storm, we were afraid-" he stopped for a moment. "Elruin? Elruin, is that you?"


    "Yes, Uncle Sanel, it is I." Elruin did her best polite pose, with her hands together in front of her lap. ''Uncle'' Sanel was not really her uncle, but one of his sons was married one of her sisters, Kasa might end up marrying one of his other sons, Father''s brother was married to one of Uncle Sanel''s sisters, and she was pretty sure Mother was a cousin to Aunt Leyli, somehow. To save the trouble of delving deeper, they were just ''Uncle'' and ''Aunt'' to her and her siblings.


    Sanel hesitated for a moment, before his wife called down from the wall. "Don''t worry, I''ve got her. Neda, take the priestess to Sera. Husband, go with."


    It was a little impolite, a priestess dealing with anyone other than the Lady of the estate, but such was the life she''d grown accustomed to. Emergency situations called for a loosening of the social norms at times, and the woman who was assigned to escort her appeared to be the eldest daughter, along with the Lord of the estate to follow along. It was an acceptable show of respect to her station.


    "Show me," Calenda said with her command voice. She paused just to look back at Elruin. "You''ll be safe here, right?"


    Elruin saw no reason to think she wasn''t. "Yes."


    "Don''t worry, I''ll look after her like she was my own," Aunt Leyli said as she began her slow descent down the ladder. Elruin waited for her, then cooperated with the poking and prodding as her Aunt checked her over. "You''re filthy! Did you roll all the way here? You''re covered in dirt and... is that blood? What happened to you?"

 Chapter 11

    Suggested Listening</a>


    Aunt Layli brushed Elruin''s clothes some as they moved to the side of the gate, where they could be out of the way of the men who''d soon close it again. "By Ecross, girl, what happened to you?"


    "Our farm was attacked by a monster, Father died," Elruin answered. She considered mentioning the others who were killed, but decided against it. "Now Cali''s taking me to the city to teach me magic."


    The older woman looked at the young men, who were now far more interested in the conversation than their jobs. No doubt, this would be all anyone was going to talk about for the rest of the day, if not for the other problems going on right now.


    "That sounds like a story for later, after dinner," she said more to them than to Elruin, not that the girl realized this. "When we can get the whole story from Elruin and the priestess together. For now, it''s been a rough day for all of us. Let''s get you cleaned up and out of these clothes, I think I''ve got something that''ll fit."


    She ushered the child off to the baths where, if nothing else, she wasn''t going to tell people more evil news on a day which had so much of it already. "One good thing about the storm, if you can say such a thing: our cistern won''t be running dry any time soon. Take your time, get yourself clean while I scrounge up something for you to wear."


    Elruin looked down at her dress, reduced to little more than rags, then set about cleaning herself of the caked mud, blood, and mork spittle. By the time she was done, there was a new dress waiting for her by the doorway. It was a little large for her, and worn out from long periods of use, but it was nicer than most of the clothes Elruin possessed over the years.


    Once she was done with her bath, she got a look at Aunt Leyli''s house, and the tree which had landed on it and caved in part of the roof near the side door closest to the bathing room. Cali was there, as well as some of the men and women of the farm, including Aunt Leyli. One of the younger children, a boy perhaps half Elruin''s age, walked up to her.


    "The nice lady is going to fix everything!" He was either too young to have learned the social norms, or he didn''t realize Elruin was a girl.


    Elruin wasn''t sure what Cali would do to fix a tree, but it sounded interesting, so she stopped to watch.


    First the more experienced mage tapped the tree, which created a soft, deep echo that Elruin wasn''t sure anyone but her and Cali could hear. Another tap in another part of the tree, while Calenda stepped to a rhythm that made sense to nobody but herself. Elruin had never seen such controlled use of magic before, as the energies began to build up, held together by a dance.


    The tree shifted, twisted, and moved as if it was the stringy branches of a willow instead of a maple. It folded away from the house, swaying to the undetectable currents created with Calenda''s magic. There was nothing Elruin could compare it to; it was far beyond her abilities, but she watched and remembered in the hope that some day she could do something so beautiful.


    Now that the tree had rolled itself away from the house, it stretched out and parts of it began to fall off. Long, thin strips of wood shed from the tree in the shape of wooden boards. As she worked, some of the farmhands rushed in to pick up the boards and pull them away. No doubt, they''d be put to use rebuilding the house and any number of other projects.


    Knowing Cali would be a while, Elruin left the spectacle behind in order to try what she had learned. She began to sing her song, reaching out to hear her magic. She heard Calenda''s power at work, and kept her own ''voice'' down so she didn''t disrupt the harmony that Cali had created. Elsewhere, in the farmhouse, she felt echoes of death wrapped in life in a way she had never heard before, and could not puzzle out.


    Elsewhere, however, was a more familiar song; the song of a death fulfilling, a life which felt itself wronged, unable to surrender to the night and strong enough to resist the clawing power of death. It was the same will that powered her last dolly, the part of the recipe that she failed to create when playing with the rodents.


    She walked in a straight line toward the source of the song, finding herself near a pit where a number of animals were dumped including a couple dogs, one cat, and a pair of sheep that had been butchered before being dumped; a mass grave for beasts lost to the storm, with a stench of offal and blood that had not quite given way to that of decay. The stink and corpses were of little consequence, save for a single dark chestnut horse who had a clean cut where its throat was slit.


    She noted her brother-in-law, Laor, approaching her. "Elruin, you should go back to the farmhouse. This isn''t a place for children." He had the most leeway, as far as social taboos went, in ordering Elruin around. Especially out here; the bloody work of disposing of dead animals was not meant for women.


    "What happened to the horsey?" She couldn''t tear her eyes away, nor could she ignore the song and echoes from it. A song of pain, of anger, and of betrayal directed toward the man speaking to her. "Why did you kill him?"


    "How did you?" He stopped himself from finishing his outburst; had nothing to be ashamed of or hide, but he felt the need to justify himself. "He was my prized horse, cost almost my whole savings, but worth every penny. Then the storm hit, and his back was broken." A tear ran down the man''s cheek. "A quick death was better than letting him suffer."


    "Oh." One didn''t grow up on a farm without learning the fragility of life. However, that did not stop the echoes of the animal before her, twisted in pain and frustration, and a hatred of his former owner. She began to sing anew, adapting her notes to the corpse before her, using the lessons she learned from Calenda''s soft, omnipresent touch rather than the clumsy, brute-force method she had been using before. One note in ten changed, then one in five, then one in three. Soon, its song became her song, and her song became its song.


    "What are you doing?" Her in-law sounded terrified just as Father had, but he didn''t try to kill her so Elruin ignored him. In the pit, bodies began to move. Not just the horse, but the other corpses in the pit. They soon stopped, while the horse forced itself standing, the bones of its spine breaching through its skin and flesh sloughing away like that of a cicada shell. A large, wet, horrifying cicada shell that would give the other witnesses nightmares for years to come. "Seven below!"


    "He doesn''t want to stay here, anymore," the girl said as if that was an explanation. "He wants to come with me." Not quite true; what the creature wanted was to stomp the man beside her until his brains were spread across the farm, then do the same to everyone else, but Elruin told him that he had to be a good horsey, and that meant he wasn''t allowed to murder her family.


    Elruin heard Cali''s magical power moments before the girl landed in front of her, putting herself between the skeletal beast and the humans, including Elruin.


    "He''s safe," Elruin said. With all the logic she learned in her decade or so of language skills, she presented her case. "He''s mine. I''m going to call him Mister Clackybones."


    "What?" Calenda didn''t look away from the monster, but she could tell it wasn''t attacking or moving. "You''re controlling it?" Her brain filed the name away under things to address some other time. Instead, she did her best to listen to Elruin''s song, and the echoes between it and what she was feeling off the horror standing before her.


    "Yes," Elruin said. Now that she established her power over Mister Clackybones, she began to draw away from her magical abilities. "He''s mine, now."


    "Uh, we''ll talk about that later." Calenda had more questions than she cared to voice about this situation, especially with superstitious farm folk listening to them and coming to whatever weird conclusions they would come to. She slipped some, and Elruin realized that Cali must have burned herself out with her work, then the power needed to make the jump over here. "Let''s just go, Lady Leyli says it''s almost time for dinner."The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.


    "And, the, uh," Leor glanced at the skeleton. "That? What do we do about that?"


    Calenda took another hard look at Elruin. "She seems to have it under control. You do have it controlled, right?"


    "As long as nobody attacks it," Elruin said. She remembered her lesson from before. "Mister Clackybones will be the most obedient horsey ever."


    "Then we put it somewhere far away from people, and we''ll take it with us when we leave." Cali forced herself to stand tall, despite her exhaustion. "I''m sure your parents will ask these questions when we get back."


    "Right." Leor accepted that answer, not because he liked it, but because he had no idea what to do about it and it wasn''t his place to make these decisions anyway. "The corner east of the gate is empty. It''s fallow this season."


    A handful of notes from Elruin sent Clackybones trotting toward the corner, earning terrified stares from everyone as it earned its name, but otherwise caused no problems as it stood in the corner of the farm. It paid no mind to the people of the farm, and they did their best to stay as far from it as they could.


    A dinner of roast lamb and chicken that would otherwise have only been had during a celebratory feast was waiting for them at the table, though there was no sign of joy or cheer at this table. They ate in silence, as was tradition with guests who were expected to stay after dinner for conversation. Despite the circumstances, everyone ate well; farmers and soldiers alike learned to take their food when they could, regardless of other concerns.


    After the meals were over, it was time for the necessary conversations, ones which would ruin meals. The young children were ushered from the main room, off to their rooms or what chores they had to do before bed.


    Aunt Leyli picked her subject of choice as the young women of the house, Elruin''s sister included, began clearing the table. The exception was a young, heavily pregnant woman, who Leyli chose as the first topic to discuss. "Thank you, for helping Lena." It was a safe start to a dangerous conversation.


    "Yes, thank you so much," Lena said. She kept her hands over her stomach. "Will... will they be okay?"


    It was Leyli''s place to ask that question, but nobody rebuked her for the lapse in of protocol.


    "I don''t know." Perhaps the worst part of any priestess'' job was delivering terrible news. "One''s strong, and I did the best I could with healing, but I''m worried about the other two. I''ll send a midwife the moment I get back."


    "One''s dead," Elruin said, breaking protocol just as Lena did, though the gasps and cry of dismay were more from the nature of her news than the method of delivery. "The other two are alive, though one''s hurt." This was the strange thing she had seen before, a woman carrying a dead fetus, in addition to two living ones.


    Lena began to sob, while her husband held her. Aunt Leyli decided now was time to take control back of the conversation. "And you can be certain?" The question was directed at Calenda.


    "She is a death mage," Cali admitted. "On this subject, I trust her abilities more than my own, but Elruin''s inexperienced and could be mistaken." She wasn''t, Calenda knew she wasn''t, but she also knew the value of a comforting lie. "The midwife will have the right magic and skills to help. Please, try not to focus too much on what you may have lost until then. It could put your healthy babies at risk."


    Uncle Sanel reached over, squeezing Aunt Leyli''s hand under the table. Now was the time for the other elephant in the room. "And this death magic, that horse-monster she created?"


    "She didn''t create it," Calenda said. "She doesn''t have the skill, nor was there enough time for her to try. This one was natural, they sometimes happen when a lot of things die at once." Cali hesitated for a moment, then decided there was no need to tell them it required sapient death to spawn undead taint, natural or otherwise; it would upset the soon-to-be-mother carrying a dead fetus.


    "You should be glad Elruin recognized it so soon," she continued. This was a truth that would help rather than harm. "Sometimes they take years before the taint allows them to move, but they fester and corrupt the land from the moment it takes hold, and exorcists can only do so much for tainted ground. She may have saved your farm, today. Maybe lives as well."


    "Right, thank you," Leyli said. She didn''t sound grateful, but she had a lot on her mind. "You''re taking her for training?"


    "Of course. She''s got great potential in her." Tact demanded she leave out the utter nightmare a Wild Talent with Elruin''s strength and affinity might unleash if allowed to develop without careful supervision. The little necromancer was controlling the undead at the age of twelve, while many an adult had been ripped apart by the very things they sought to command. "With the right training, she''ll be able to help many people. She proved that, today."


    Elruin smiled in her seat; praise was a rare treat in her life, and now she was receiving a great deal of it.


    Leyli wanted to ask more, like about what happened at Othsa''s farm, but they had settled on the closest thing to happy news. Once things were settled here, perhaps they''d send someone to see about their neighbors and cousins.


    "We should get some rest, it''s been a hard day for all of us." It was phrased as a request for the sake of the priestess, but her children would accept it as the command it was in truth. "I''m sorry we don''t have anywhere for you to stay, but the tree..." Custom demanded Calenda be given a comfortable place to sleep alone as a guest, a priestess, and as someone who saved some of their lives. If a spare bed wasn''t available, then some of the family would be sleeping in the same bed for a night.


    "No, you need not apologize." She felt bad enough for the family after having to deliver the news that they''d lost a baby. But she wasn''t about to share a bed with a stranger, either. "A sheet and a place in the hay loft is enough for me."


    "Can I come with you?" Elruin said. She wasn''t keen on trying to find a place to sleep in the house. As family, they''d probably stick her with her sister and Laor, and Mister Clackybones didn''t like him. "I like hay, too."


    "I see no reason why not," Calenda said. Nobody objected, nor did she expect them to, and it would let her talk to the little girl who seemed to think a walking supernatural plague was some sort of pet.


    Later they sat down on their makeshift beds, and Calenda watched with amusement as the last rodent fled from the building. Elruin''s magical aura felt like an unpleasant stickiness on her skin, but at least she wouldn''t wake up with a rats or bugs on her in the morning. "About that horse."


    "Mister Clackybones? He''s my favorite dolly"


    "It has to be destroyed."


    "But... I just named him..."


    This is going to be harder than I thought. "It is a walking plague," Calenda put on her command voice. "Even if you can control it, you can''t control the infection it carries. It will spread, others will rise, and people will die. The church, every church, will mobilize. They''ll destroy all of the dollies, and then you, if you try to keep them."


    "But you said controlling him was good."


    "I said it saved lives, and it did." Calenda fell back on her cot. "Lots of necromancers don''t have the power to kill the undead, so they''ll chain them long enough to find someone else to do the cleansing. But you have to destroy it at earliest opportunity. And there''s something weird about these outbreaks. This makes the third undead creature I''ve heard of in the wake of this storm. Maybe it''s best to take it back with us, get a royal mage or two to take it apart to see if there''s anything special."


    "But I''ll miss him," Elruin''s attempt at a whine was weak at best.


    "We''ll talk about it in the morning." Calenda had pushed her magic to its limit, and now a headache was creeping in. "The world is clearer after sunrise."


    As it turns out, the world was not clearer after sunrise. Both were awakened by Aunt Leyli. "My apologies, priestess, but there is a man who insists he must speak to you. We haven''t opened the gate, and we don''t plan to, but he is making threats."


    Both Aunt Leyli and Uncle Sanel were waiting for them, along with a few of the other men.


    Calenda and Elruin both had no trouble seeing the person outside of the gate using their respective senses, and others hiding further back. He was exchanging shouts with a farmhand on the other side of the wall, but that was too far away for Elruin to determine what was being discussed. It didn''t sound nice, whatever it was.


    "I see the three of them," Cali said. "I''m going to bet there''s three other weird ones I can''t see."


    "Yes," Elruin said after a moment. She pointed them out one after another.


    "Good spots to rush the wall," Uncle Sanel said with careful-chosen neutral language. "If the gate opens, they''ll be in before we can close it again."


    "I take it you know them?" Aunt Leyli phrased it as a question, or perhaps as a request for Cali to share what she knew. "How dangerous will they be?"


    Cali shook her head, then began to check her equipment. "We thought they were bandits at first, but now I''m not sure what to think. It seems obvious they''re interested in coming after me, whatever their story. But they can''t be too strong, or we wouldn''t be having this conversation. They can''t get through your wall, I''m sure of that much."


    "What do we do?" Leyli asked.


    Translation: what are you going to do. Calenda slid her knife from its sheath. "Normally, a situation like this means I should run and take shelter, then wait for the Guard to come for me. I''ve got that shelter. But if I do that, then I won''t be able to get to town in time to alert a midwife, and we could be here a week before the Guard arrives. I doubt Lena or her babies can afford to wait that long."


    Leyli and Sanel nodded; the topic would have been brought up by one of them if Cali hadn''t done it first.


    "Second choice? I run, hope they follow me," Cali continued. "But they might think the farm''s a bigger target than I am. Or maybe they''ll try for hostages thinking I''ll come back.


    "Or, and this is the one I''m inclined to go for," Cali added. "We take the fight to them."

 Chapter 12

    Suggested Listening</a>


    "I want to fight," Elruin said after a moment. "They''re bad men who want to hurt a baby."


    Calenda didn''t bother correcting Elruin''s assumptions; bad men who didn''t care whether they hurt children was close enough to count. "Okay, that''s the two of us, but it''s not our home." She turned her attention to Sanel and Leyli. "If you''d rather we try a different strategy, please speak up."


    The two of them hesitated. One or the other might have considered the unspoken fourth option of Cali surrendering to the bandits, but neither was going to speak that out loud for a number of reasons.


    "No," Leyli said. "You''re better equipped to make this decision than we are. Please, do what you think is best."


    "First question is what sort of weapons you have, then," Calenda said. She was the one expected to be in charge, after all. "The wall means they can''t get in, but it makes it hard for us to get out as well. Going over the wall isn''t an option unless we shut down your defenses, and I''m hoping to avoid that if at all possible."


    "I can hit them," Elruin said.


    "So-" Calenda stopped her planning. "What do you mean you can hit them?"


    "Through the wall," Elruin clarified. "I can zap them through the wall. It was my special chore to get rid of rats that way. They like to hide under things."


    Cali smiled at the younger mage. "After today I am never going on another mission without necromancer backup. If you were any more convenient, you''d be able to teleport us to Engewel and back."


    Elruin thought about it for a second. "I don''t think I can do that."


    "Nobody expects you to," Cali said. The people on the planet with long-range teleportation could be counted on one hand. "Now, we have a way to hurt them through the wall, which means we can drive them away from the wall, which gives us the ability to open the gate and get out, then you can close the gate behind us."


    "You''re certain that will work?" Leyli asked.


    "They were smart enough to set a fake ambush, then track us here. Once they know they can be targeted, they''ll move." Calenda said with the authority of someone who''s commanded troops in the past. "If they don''t, Ell can keep zapping them until they stop moving, but I''m not that optimistic."


    Which brought to mind a question Elruin had been considering for a while. "They''re tracking you, right? How''d they know where to find you? Do you have enemies that want to hurt you?"


    "Knowing our route''s no big task. We run the outskirts several times a year, especially after a big storm, so ''where'' and ''when'' are easy. Too many to count would take revenge if they could get it. You don''t make enemies working as an Imperial Lawkeeper, that means you''re not doing your job. Families of people you bust, the occasional noble scions who forget that Imperial Law applies even to them, the list goes on."


    Calenda looked over at the gate, where they were still arguing with the would-be attacker on the other side. "What I can''t figure out is who''d be crazy enough to try. Either they fail and get executed, or succeed, then get hunted down and executed. There is no win scenario for these people."


    "Will we have any weapons to help? Or people?"


    Cali glanced at the farmers, noted them flinch back. "No, there''s no point." She could hear their relief thanks to her sarite-enhanced senses. "I have a better weapon than you''d find here, your magic''s strong enough to take down a mork, which means its better than any mundane equipment, and putting these farmers into a battle against people who can fight a Scout? It''d be a slaughter. Unless they''ve badly unerestimated the Scouts, then this will be a joke. Either way, we''re in this alone."


    "Mister Clackybones can help!" Elruin offered. Clackybones was a strong horse, and he liked killing people, he''d be perfect.


    "I should probably turn that offer down, but I''m not about to look a gift damage soaker in the mouth. Just remember that I''d like to take at least one of them alive. Actually, know what? I''ll take one of them alive. Just keep it away from me and my target, and that''ll work fine. Now, for the rest of the plan..."


    With a plan established, the pair of them walked with Aunt Leyli and Uncle Sanel to the wall.


    "-you inbred mudpuppies! She''s not your sister, so you can just give up on any chance of her letting you f-"


    "Fine! I''m here! What do you want!" Calenda yelled through the wall. She''d heard enough to extrapolate how the conversation had gone up to this point.


    "You to come out and surrender, right now!" The voice shouted back. "You have my word of honor that nobody else will be harmed, and that you will be given a fair trial to answer for your crimes!"


    "A fictitious trial with no legal meaning, and the honor of a criminal!"


    "Listen here, you..." the voice trailed off for a moment. "Oh, I see what you''re trying to do! You''re pushing for information! Well, how''s this for information? If this gate isn''t opened-"


    Cali gave a quick gesture with her thumb, the signal for Elruin to act. She raised her hand, taking a moment to angle it just right.


    "-in the next five seconds, we will-"


    Elruin unleashed the full power of her Apoplectic Bolt, at the nasty man''s mouth.


    "-cook your goats!!!" With those cryptic words brought on by a necromancy-induced stroke, the rude man collapsed. He remained alive to Elruin''s sight, but she wasn''t sure if he''d ever recover.


    Calenda covered her mouth; it would not do to giggle under the current circumstances. Later, when she was alone, she''d devote half an hour to laughing.


    Meanwhile, Elruin kept silent watch as one of the other beings, this time one of the not-right ones ran forward to his downed comrade. As instructed, she waited for him to get close before she blasted him in the chest. He stumbled, but remained standing, so she hit him again. He turned to flee, she shot him in the side, then the back. After the fifth bolt he stopped moving, fell to the dirt, and his light vanished from her eyes.


    "One of the weird ones came. He took five hits," Elruin said once she was sure she didn''t have to continue. "All to the core, like you told me. Now the rest are going back into the woods." She smiled at Cali, awaiting praise for her job well done.


    "Flawless," Cali said, then she gave the little necromancer a pat on the shoulder. "It''s not the most reliable measure of power, but they can''t be much tougher than normal people if he went down that fast." She looked at the farmhands at the wall, where only some of the men remained while Leyli had rushed off to take charge of the women and children as was both custom and plan.


    "Based on what I saw, I think these men could survive two core hits." She left out of her estimate that most of them would be crippled, or that she would be able to take maybe a dozen of them. Neither was something they needed to know. "So I''m guessing they''re low power, but with high power sarite to help them."Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit.


    "Two down, four falling back." The plan to this point had been an exploratory attack to test the enemy''s strength, as well as Elruin''s, before committing themselves. "Open the gates, then run for cover."


    Despite their misgivings, the men obeyed, seven of them instead of the usually required three. The door slid open, and Calenda stepped out first. She began her movements, the position of her hands and steps of her feet did look like a dance. Elruin''s vision became nothing but gray when a single stomp on the ground brought up a fog bank so thick that it was too dark to be white.


    This has no impact on her Bleak Sight, however. The four remaining opponents decided caution was the better part of valor, so they remained at the edge of the tree line. Two crossbow bolts rushed toward them, both focused on Calenda. The girl ducked under both of them, relying on her own unnatural sight- though in her case it was more like she could feel through the fog, using it as a means to extend her sense of touch.


    Then a stream of lighting shot out, between the enemy and the metal bolts now behind Cali. She screamed when the electricity pathed its way through her body, then dropped to her knees. Now the remaining four rushed forward to attack; it seemed they weren''t blinded at all by Cali''s fog magic. Laying on the ground, Calenda forced enough control into her muscles to trace her hands on the ground, crafting her power as best she could.


    Vines lashed out of the ground, catching the attackers as they rushed forward. It was a good tactic, but it wasn''t fast enough to trip them, nor was it strong enough to hold back the swings of their swords. It would slow them down, a delay tactic and nothing more. Calenda forced herself back to her hands and knees, her still-trembling hand gripping her dagger. A pulse of energies hardened the metal past any natural state, and the force of water empowered its speed.


    The blade shot through the fog fast enough to leave a visible swirl in its wake, then one of the two remaining human enemies flickered and vanished from Elruin''s vision. She began a slower spell, now, one to draw up a barrier of stone around them. There was no possibility that it would be completed in time.


    And so, Elruin sang. She sang to the fog, she sang to Mister Clackybones, and she sang to her internal power. Her black flames washed out, joined the fog, and cast a shadow that denied the very concept of light.


    Mister Clackybones rushed through the impossible darkness with not a care in the world, until his fleshless jaws caught hold of the face of one of the unnatural men. The hapless victim put up a valiant fight, shoving his curved sickle into the open ribcage where a heart should have been. Clackybones did not, could not, feel the attempted counterattack. He just clenched the necromantic energies that served as his jaw muscles, and crushed a man''s skull in his teeth.


    These six, now reduced to two, were prepared for the speed, durability, and battlefield control magics that made Calenda such a good advance scout. Their weapons, their tactics, everything was planned to bring down a Plant Mage like her.


    What they were not prepared for was a little girl and her undead war horse. The sickle was a perfect weapon against someone like Calenda, with a thin point would help pierce her armor and curvature would flense, leaving nasty wounds that caused uncontrolled bleeding and made healing difficult.


    None of this mattered to a thing which had no flesh, blood, or armor to bypass. The weapons best suited against the undead were heavy, bludgeoning tools that could break apart the bone and overtax the necromantic energies holding it together. Lashing out with both hind legs, Clackybones demonstrated that bone-shattering force worked well against living opponents as well, and smashed the chest of the last unnatural opponent inward. That one survived, but the struggling flicker of lifeforce indicated it wouldn''t be for long.


    Elruin remembered Calenda''s desire to take a prisoner, so she altered the tune of her song, drew back the blanket of darkness she unleashed, and granted new instructions to her new favorite dolly. Now the horse bit the last remaining victim in the face, just like he had his first, but he held back from chomping down.


    Trapped in the blood-and-brain slathered jaws of the monster, the remaining attacker could do nothing but some minor, futile, struggling.


    Meanwhile, Calenda seemed to catch her breath, and began the patterns to dissipate her fog cloud. Now they could look upon their enemies with their eyes for the first time. Three, the normal men to Elruin''s special sight, were nothing special with natural sight, either. Two, including the one caught by Mister Clackybones, were uncommon shades of forest green, but she''d seen a few people with similar coloration, and weirder things by far when the caravans came through.


    The strange looking ones were hideous, twisted abominations. Their faces, save the one that was crushed, were twisted, demonic, like the things called ''gargoyles'' that she saw in one of Kasa''s books. Their muscles were swollen, twisted and contorted as if someone had tried to make them bigger by stuffing more meat inside them as one would stuff a duck for a fancy dinner. And, like the stuffing in a duck, there was nothing alive to it. It left large, empty pockets inside the flesh of these three.


    "What happened to them?" Elruin knew it could not be natural, whatever it was.


    "Sarite abuse," Calenda said. "I don''t know how it works, myself, but there are ways to do things with sarite that, well, even accidentally mishandling Sarite can cause mutations. When it''s warped with the right magic and tools, it can provide a massive boost of power, but it''ll turn you into... these things, or worse. The practice is illegal, I''m sure you can see why."


    "Oh." Elruin listened deeper into the swirling magic, where the sarite joined with flesh. The magic was well beyond her skill, but there was something more than that. "I don''t think I can fix it."


    "No one can," Calenda said. "I''m not sure even gods can fix what this stuff does to the mind and soul. Oh, and while we''re on the topic, it''s fatal. The power of overtaxing the sarite burns it out, but the body needs it to survive the mutations. A week, maybe two, and the system collapses. Don''t touch them or their stuff, we need an archmage to clean this mess safely."


    Calenda turned her attention to the still-living enemy. She spent some time going over his equipment while he was held firm by the undead horse. She tossed a dagger to the side, pulled a vial of unidentified chemicals out and set it down, three hidden knives soon followed, and she took his boots off since they had spiked cleats. The only thing of real interest was a number of coins and two sarite shards. "They armed you to the teeth, didn''t they?"


    Nobody answered, save for Clackybones who did the fleshless equivalent of a snort. It sounded like a poorly blown horn.


    "Okay, drop him." Calenda stepped back, and watched the man spill to the ground now that the monster no longer held him up by his face. She got a good look at all the lacerations, and could only begin to guess what sorts of nasty infections might arise from them.


    "So, the Empire is so corrupt that it now consorts with the undead? Does your degeneracy know no limits?"


    Calenda held her long-practiced neutral face and tone. "Says the cowards who dress up as women and give people corrupted shards."


    "They were patriots! They did their duty, knowing the costs!" In spite of his defiant words, he scooted away from her.


    "Oh, I''m sure." Calenda stepped forward to keep her position over the man. "I''m gonna bet you picked out the dumbest, most easily brainwashed, addle-brained people and told them they could do good. But I''m not interested in who you throw away. I want to know who gives the orders."


    "I''ll never talk!" His bravado, such as it was, was ended by screams when Cali stepped on his foot and pushed down with her augmented strength. His bones bent under the pressure, leaving him gasping and crying beneath her. She made certain she didn''t push hard enough to break them, not yet.


    "Oh, I''m sure you won''t." Calenda twisted her heel, drawing more gasps and whimpers. "Not at first."


    "Then I''ll rip off one of your fingernails. You''ll scream, but maybe you won''t talk." As Calenda spoke, she continued applying pressure. "Then another, maybe you''ll even make it to three. Then you''ll talk. You''ll lie, but I''m a Truthsayer. That''ll be another fingernail, and another. Then you''ll tell the truth until I ask an important question, the name of someone you love, perhaps? Another nail. I''ll get maybe four or five important questions from you, less if you''re as strong as you imagine you are. Then you''re out of fingernails, right? Wrong. I''m a decent healer." True enough, for this conversation. "You''ll get your nails back, and we''ll start all over again. As many times as it takes before there is nothing left for you to tell me. Then, if you''re lucky, I''ll kill you. But if you waste too much of my time, I''ll hand you over to the professionals. Give them five minutes and an hour with me will look like heaven itself."


    She stepped back, having inflicted no more damage than perhaps a dislocated bone or two. It was rare she needed more than just the threat of torture to make someone talk. He, to her surprise, looked more enraged than terrified, though there was plenty of both.


    "Mortem Tyrannis!" Last words joined with a blossom of magical power as their captive sacrificed the sum total of his life energy to fuel one, final, spell.


    Elruin heard the upsurge of magical power too late to do much more than bring her hands up. Cali acted somewhat quicker, enough to fall backward and bring some earth up between her and the explosive magic.


    Moments later, the energy rushed over them with enough power to... knock Elruin to the ground and ruin her new dress. It was still a powerful blow, by normal standards, perhaps enough to break an ordinary girl''s ribs, but all Elruin had to do was sit up pat out a small flicker of flame on the hem of her dress.


    Clackybones looked over at the girls laying on the ground, then returned to not caring noticing the layers of gore, and now baked gore, which coated much of his body.


    Cali, still laying in the dirt, tilted her head back to look at Elruin. "So, umm, if anyone asks, he blew himself up before I interrogated him, okay?"

 Necromancy, Taint and the Genius Loci

    <blockquote><cite>VociferousVidar Wrote: </cite>So, to check I''ve understood this, when there''s a lot of death including sophonts any spirit that was angry about its death can hoover up the latent necrotic energy in the area and rise naturally?</blockquote>


    Well, strictly speaking there are two processes going on simultaneously, but only tangentially connected.


    1- The font of death energy.


    2- The walking corpse.


    Like all energy interactions, death creates spirits and *is* spirits. A raindrop is a spirit, a flicker-being snuffed out not long after birth. Death is... much the same thing, but with a lot more energy than a raindrop since it is the dissipation of a entire lifetime of experiences, released in a single burst of energy (which is why a human sacrifice is a great source of energy if you''re lacking in both power and scruples).


    Thing is... if you put together enough raindrops, you can create a puddle, or a pond, or a lake, or even an ocean. A genius loci spirit is born of this condition. Spirits of this nature grow to various strengths before natural limits hold them back. Eventually you reach a point where water evaporates as fast as it gathers, and power bleeds off as fast as it''s generated.


    Thing is, in any "conglomerate" spirit (like, say, the spirit of a forest or city), the strongest force of will in the crowd will take control over the crowd. The strong rule, while the weak add their strength to empower the strong beyond what they can achieve alone. Packs, gangs, families, mob mentality, all the way up to the highest structures of economic, military, and governmental power. The same holds true to spirit.The story has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.


    The "taint" is that spirit, one created of pain, death and hatred instead of falling water. A will strong enough to refuse to cease, empowered by the energy of all those who succumbed to death in spirit as well as flesh. And that''s the problem... hate is just about the only thing that''s powerful enough to drive a spirit to defy death. And even that isn''t enough, the vast majority of the time.


    Undead bodies, on the other hand, are... more like side effects. A corpse once spent an entire lifetime (literally) sheltering a spirit, a life, and a will- that ability remains, damaged perhaps, but not gone. The more compatible (compatibility is a big deal in Midara''s magic system) the body is with the tainted genius loci, the easier it is to animate. The former body of the animating will is by far the most compatible thing one could hope to find, save perhaps a willing live sacrifice or some really high level magic.


    But, spirits grow in strength and experience, and the new, twisted, genius loci gains strength with all the death energy surrounding them in the world. Because everything, even gods, will die sooner or later. One animated body becomes many, the spirit grows, death propagates, and the spirit of an ember becomes the spirit of a conflagration.


    And, like a forest fire, most animating taint is nonsapient. It exists as a thing of emotion and instinct. It kills for the same reason fire burns- that is how it fuels itself. Until eventually it burns every source of fuel, and dies out.


    Usually. Things get a whole lot more terrifying when you have sapient taint spirits. But, then, a sapient forest fire ain''t the most pleasant thing to fight, either.


    That is how undeath works in Midara, and part of why it is so feared and hated.

 Chapter 13

    Suggested Listening</a>


    The duo returned to the gate, with Clackybones left behind to keep an eye on the bodies. Calenda didn''t think anyone would be coming for the group, or that they''d get back up any time soon, but it was a good excuse to keep the gore-slathered horse monster away from the farm.


    "It''s safe!" She shouted at the gate. "Turns out, they weren''t as tough as they thought they were!" Her bravado belied the fact that had it been her alone, she would be dead right now. While they weren''t strong, their weapons and tactics were built around countering her abilities. She looked down at the twitching, drooling mess of the man at the gate. Well, he''s alive, I hope that''s enough.


    "You''re certain?"


    "Blue. Catfish. Diamond." Three random words agreed upon beforehand.


    The gate slid open, with both Sanel and Leyli waiting for them when it was cleared. Now that the emergency was over, it fell on Aunt Leyli to represent the farm for the priestess. She couldn''t help but glance at the man laying in the dirt.


    "Aunt Leyli?" Elruin trotted up, stepping around the catatonic man. She held her hands over her chest in gratitude. "Thank you again for the dress. Sorry I ruined it. May I please have a new one?"


    Leyli looked Elruin over. "What happened to you, child? You were only gone a matter of minutes."


    Elruin ran through the events in her head. "First we beat up the bad guys, then one of the bad guys exploded, then Cali interrogated him."


    Cali choked a little, but covered it by clearing her throat. "Don''t worry about the dress, it''ll hold up for now, and the road won''t be kind to anything you put her in, anyway. I''ll get her some traveler''s leathers when we get to Engewal, right after getting a midwife and an escort for you."


    "Does that mean this... terrible business is over?" Other concerns aside, she had Lena to worry about. The health of her daughter-in-law and grandchildren meant more to her than a mountain of strangers'' corpses.


    "For the most part," Calenda said. "I''ll need to deputize two of you. Pay''s twelve billon each. One to look after this-" she took the time to give a light side-kick to the brain damaged man still at her feet.


    Leyli frowned, considering all the work they had to do on the farm. "I''m afraid our only healer is Jena, and you''re far stronger than she is. If you can''t help him, I can''t imagine what we can do." The coin was good, more than most of them made in a week, but putting food on the table and the rest of their roof back over their heads was a greater priority than the money.


    "She doesn''t have to be," Cali said. "Tie him up, toss him in a barn, and make sure the rats don''t chew on him too much in the night. Break his arms and legs if you''re worried he''ll wake up. I don''t care about his wellbeing, just that he''s alive long enough for the Inquisitor to read his memories." If there''s anything left to read. "Then they''ll execute him for banditry and crimes against the empire."


    One of the younger girls in the crowd stepped forward. "I can do it, Mother. I''ll keep eye on the chickens, too."


    "Very well, Maris." Leyli had to admit the money was too good to pass up, now that she was confident it wouldn''t distract from the priority tasks. "And the other deputy?"


    Cali looked over at the men for a moment. "I''ll need to borrow four of your men for an hour at the most. I''d offer to deputize all of them, but my boss would skin me alive if I made them pay that kind of money. So the deputy will have to pay the other three out of his wages. All I need you to do is carry some stuff and lock it in a dry shed."


    One of the men took the offer. "If it''s alright with you, I can take the Belis boys with me." Even split four ways, twelve billon for an hour of work was the easiest money any of them had made in their lives.


    "I better not find you slacking your other work. In fact, take something to eat with you. This is your lunch break. Everyone else? We''re wasting daylight."


    The matriarch had spoken, and so the women scattered for their jobs. The men waited just a moment longer, for the nod from Sanel that confirmed his wife''s orders. Only the five volunteers remained at the gate.


    Cali pulled a pair of diamond shaped pieces of metal from a pouch, handing one to each of the volunteers. "Thank you for your service. Congratulations, these badges represent the honor and trust being given to you by the crown. If you abuse that trust, you''ll envy that guy''s fate." She pointed to the comatose man that the girl would be watching. "Be sure to give those to the Inquisitor when he arrives. That''s when you''ll receive your pay. But first, you have to earn it."This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.


    Cali knelt by the insensate victim of Elruin''s power. A quick burst of regenerative magic to ensure he''d survive until the morning unless something actively ended his life, but healing the damage inflicted on his brain went well beyond her power. She suspected nothing less than resurrection magic could undo what happened to his mind.


    She used her own sensory magic, then regretted it now that she knew he had soiled himself. One of those unfortunate hazards of her career. She ignored that and pulled a pendant with a sarite shard from under his shirt. She kept the shard, set the pendant itself aside. It was soon followed by taking several throwing knives from the concealed strap along his hip. The strap came off next, and she tossed the weapons on that. Five minutes of prodding and taking items off the man followed.


    "Okay, he''s safe. Put him wherever you think is best. Someone else, bundle all this stuff together and store it somewhere safe. I''ll need all of you to go do the same for all the other piles near the bodies out there. Be very careful not to mix anything from one pile with anything from another pile, and wherever you put them, do not let any pile touch any other pile. When you''re done, there''s a camp about a hundred yards that way." Cali pointed toward one corner of the woods, off the main path. "You can put all of that in a single bundle, separate from the others. Oh, and whatever you do, don''t touch any of the bodies. I''m safe, but they might kill you."


    The deputized man whispered to his sister, then she spoke. "If you don''t mind me asking, what are you doing with all of this stuff?"


    "Investigation and scrying," Cali answered. It was common procedure, though not too much of a surprise that farmers wouldn''t know. "The mages can get clues off their possessions, and track down their allies and accomplices from them. Stolen goods might be returned to their rightful owners, but I doubt this group has anything that can be traced that far. When the Inquisitor''s satisfied, the rest is considered abandoned. Then, it belongs to the landowner. Or first come, first serve in the wilderness."


    The group took the moment to appreciate what that meant. The sickles and some of the knives could be useful on the farm, new boots and jackets did not come cheap, and the spare handfuls of coins would help just fine. It was just a question of if the shame of robbing the dead applied under these strange circumstances.


    "Elruin, I''ll need you to help me bury the warped bodies." Calenda moved on, with the little necromancer behind her. "We can''t risk touching them or their stuff, not until an Archmage disables the corrupted shards, but only the living can connect to sarite."


    "Clackybones will be happy to help!" A handful of soft notes sang to the horse instructed him to bite one of the warped bandits by the wrist and drag him along.


    "Uh, right. Oh, and while we''re away from prying ears, I feel like I owe you a couple of these." Calenda handed off a pair of Sarite shards to the girl. "Got a really nice lightning shard there. If I could use it, I''d be tempted to keep it. It has a lightning bolt, a major speed boost, and a prescient ability to help guide your aim. In short, a perfect counter for my abilities. The other''s a generic cloak; good for hiding magic auras to some extent, which should keep others from being able to tell your a necromancer from ten feet away. The rest are basic regeneration and ability enhancers. They''re good, but you''re not compatible, and I''ve got better. Give me some time and I might be able to trade around for something you can use."


    "Thank you for the gifts," Elruin said. She let herself slide into the now-familiar experience of joining with a sarite''s essence. It didn''t take her long to realize her problem; she wasn''t skilled enough to handle all three shards at once. It was the lightning shard that was the problem. She could handle three shards of the other two''s strength, but the lightning was strong enough that she could only hold one more shard alongside it.


    She chose to keep connected to the lightning shard, since it was stronger than the other two combined, but now she''d have to decide whether she wanted the shadow shard''s stealth, or the mork shard''s boosted senses.


    "You''ve more than earned them." Calenda kept walking into the forest, before deciding her spot. "Okay, this is good." She began her dance, tapping the ground in a few places as she spread her influence in a balanced way. Elruin watched in fascination, listening to the discordant magic of someone who operated by touch instead of sound. A whining howl signaled the earth to open before them, into a wide but shallow pit. "Dump the warped corpses here. I''ll go bury the others."


    Elruin, however, had other plans. Clackybones didn''t need her for this, save perhaps the instruction to not kill the tree rats. She walked toward one of the dead bandits; a normal one, because she didn''t want to be twisted into whatever those former people were. She began to sing in earnest, as she had during the battle.


    Her power reached into the body, forced it to some semblance of wakefulness; it would speak to her, as Clackybones had when she learned of what killed him. "Why did you attack Cali?" The question was spoken in no language she knew, no language spoken by any living being. It was the language of the dead and the dead alone.


    What answered back was not word, but concept unfiltered by the limitations of a living form. Hate. Traitor. Stranger. For a moment, Elruin was confused; how could one hate someone who they never met that much. She dug deeper still, until concept became images, experiences, the memories of a child screaming as a city burned. The buildings of the memory shuddered around here, cracked, split as the very Earth beneath her feet rose up as a weapon in this battle between titans.


    Overwhelmed by emotions and memories not her own, Elruin lost connection to the dead spirit. She collapsed to the ground, with the last memories of the experience burned into her mind. A young woman with the same red hair as Calenda, and the word ''sorvel'', which had no meaning to her.


    It takes her a moment to realize that Cali knelt beside her, and was holding her shoulders. "Ell? What happened? Are you okay?"

 Chapter 14

    Suggested Listening</a>


    Elruin looked up at Cali, but her mind remained locked on the city being destroyed. "I''m fine." She was rattled by the brush of foreign emotions, but didn''t feel hurt. "It''s my... magic. It''s all so new, and I''ve never used so much before."


    Calenda smiled at the girl. "I imagine the last few days have been quite the experience for you." She helped pull Elruin to her feet. "Stay strong just a little longer, and it will all be over. Then you can take a long, well-deserved rest."


    Cali returned to her project, dropping every corpse into a shallow grave by use of magic, then she went to the pit where the three corrupted corpses were, in order to slide the earth back over them. "You''re needed here for a second!" Cali shouted at a pair of the men, returning for their second trip of hauling the bandits'' equipment.


    The brothers were a rare set of identical twins, with the same scruffy light-brown features. Neither looked like they knew what to say or how to act with Calenda as their boss; letting the priestess give commands through their boss''s son was one thing, but taking direct orders was uncomfortable for them. They kept their eyes on the ground, or looking for the nearest distraction to get them out of the awkward situation they found themselves in. No woman, other than their mother, had ever given them direct commands before.


    "When the Archmage comes, she''ll want to know exactly where the bodies are buried," Cali said. She kept the statements as neutral as possible; while she was accustomed to command, and viewed these social taboos as more annoying than useful, she had learned to work with a whole lot worse than these boys. "Can you memorize the trees around this spot?"


    The pair glanced at one another, then managed to mumble "Yes, priestess."


    "The Empire thanks you." Calenda chose to make it as impersonal as possible, positioning herself as little more than an extension of the crown. It made the traditional type less uncomfortable. "Now, our task is done here. Please, give our thanks to the Lady and Lord for their hospitality, I''m sure they understand we have no time to waste on polite goodbyes."


    The young men nodded and mumbled, but still kept their eyes down. Even if they had disagreed with her, they wouldn''t have dared voice that opinion.


    "Now, the tricky part will be helping you keep up, Ell," Cali spoke more to herself than Elruin. "That lightning sarite will help, but-"


    "Mister Clackybones can take me!" Elruin jumped at another opportunity to prove her skeletal steed was the perfect pet. A few hummed notes alerted the horror that its mistress had need of it.


    Calenda ran a list of concerns through her head, but it was better than her plan to leave the child behind to wait for the Inquisitor. "If you''re absolutely certain you''ll be safe."


    The horse knelt down on both fore and hind knee joints, then waited as Elruin climbed up to sit on its back, with her feet locked into its ribs. She gave a gentle pat to its shoulder bone. "He''s a healthy, obedient, animal."


    Calenda could find no part of Elruin''s statement she agreed with. It wasn''t a ''he'', it wasn''t ''an animal'', it certainly wasn''t healthy, and obedient remained to be seen. "Duty above all," she muttered. "I''ll take the lead, you stay behind and if you see me stop, lead it into the woods to hide. Wouldn''t want to startle anyone, or give them the idea that I''m fleeing."


    Contrary to what most thought, horses were a poor choice for getting between towns quickly.  Even on flat terrain which favored the horse more than it did the man, human resilience would keep the body moving long after a horse had fallen to fatigue, injury, or a burst heart. The humid late-spring air would only speed the process along.


    None of that was a concern for this thing which had no heart and felt no fatigue. Weighing less than half it did when it was an animal, with limbs that could never tire, it leapt along the path at a pace no natural creature could match for more than a minute. The morks which Elruin encountered the first day had spoken truth about the distance of the trip, a three day trek along perilous roads for a person, a night''s journey for them, or two hours for a little girl and her unliving steed.


    Calenda had never been so grateful to see the walls of civilization as she was in that moment. She slowed to a stop, which Elruin took as her instruction hide in the forest along the path. Cali appreciated this in part because it meant the girl could follow instructions, but mostly because her lungs were on fire, and she didn''t want to give the little necromancer the impression that her newly acquired abomination was, or that it could have outpaced her if they had more than a few minutes longer on the road.If you discover this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation.


    Cali stayed in a tree branch, catching her breath until Elruin poked her head out from the trees. "I made Mister Clackybones bury himself, so he doesn''t scare anyone."


    It was better by far than taking the monster closer to town, where the guard would come out in force to destroy it and the girl controlling it. Calenda''s influence would go far enough to keep them from executing Elruin on the spot, but they would arrest her, and the experience might sour the girl on both the empire and the academies. Discretion was the better choice by far.


    The girl stopped to get her first look at the city. The front wall was more than twice the height of the walls of her farm. It was even taller than the barns, which had to that point been the biggest buildings Elruin had seen in her life, and she could see many buildings that stood well above the wall behind it. Just the front wall of it could have wrapped around the entire farm, and she couldn''t imagine any mud slide which would cause part of it to collapse.


    "I can''t believe Engewal is so big."


    "This is Arila," Cali corrected the girl with a smile. "My hometown, and seat of our Barony. Engewal is more than ten times this size, seat of both the Duchy and Kingdom of Acheria." In the back of her mind she wondered how Elruin was walking so easily. Trained knights in saddles, on horses with some flesh for padding, would have been in pain after that ride, yet this girl showed no sign of discomfort.


    "Really?" If she was impressed before, now Elruin couldn''t begin to imagine how impressive the capital might be. "But didn''t you say?" She stopped, since she knew better than accuse an elder of lying.


    "I bit of a fib, to keep bad people from knowing where we were headed." Cali began walking into the field cleared around the city. There were no trees, rocks, or hills allowed within two miles of the city. No place for bandits, monsters, or enemy troops to move without being seen, as was only wise and proper. Besides, if there had been any trees, they''d have been carved up by the woodcutters. "I don''t think anyone we talked to was untrustworthy, but you never know who might be listening in with magic. Besides, Arila has everything I promised to send back to help at the farm."


    "Oh, okay," Elruin agreed as she followed behind. The idea of lying to one person in order to trick someone else sounded like one of the most clever tricks the little girl had ever heard of, which brought up a question. "Who were the bad men, why''d they want to hurt you?"


    "I don''t know, that''s why we need an Inquisitor," Cali said. "If anyone can discover the truth, it''s one of them."


    "Oh," Elruin thought back to the flashes of memories from the dead man. "What''s your family like?"


    "Just your typical career military family," she said. "I''d say not all that different from yours, but, I''ve met your family. The last four generations of my family served the crown, one way or another, and all are lesser nobles. Grandfather was a famous hero in his time, Grandmother a priestess of Ifaril. I''m an odd one out, one of two water mages in the family, the first since Grandmother to go into the priesthood, and I didn''t even go into the priesthood they would have preferred. But they can''t say I haven''t done my part to serve the crown."


    Soon, they reached the point of the gates, which were large and made of metal with holes that people could see through, instead of the solid wood like the farms used. It seemed dangerous to her, letting bad people look in, but on the other side of the gate were people in metal armor, with pointy sticks. Up on the walls were people with bows and crossbows. It seemed like such a sensible idea, to have people have the chore of standing on the wall to kill monsters. She wondered why none of the farms had anything like that.


    "Calenda, you were expected back last night! What happened?" A woman a little older than Cali met her at the gate. She shared Cali''s bright orange hair, but was taller, broader, and encased in metal armor instead of Cali''s lighter leather. A gesture from the woman, and the metal barricade began to slide up into the ceiling. Elruin found this, too, to be a smart design that she couldn''t understand why none of the farms possessed.


    Cali was the one to take the submissive pose, now. Though it wasn''t as pronounced as with most of the people who the priestess had dealt with, she kept her head tilted down a little, and did not attempt to make eye contact. "It is a long story. Make that two long stories. We have to put a team together. An outskirt farm needs a midwife, and there were events that will require an Archmage and Inquisitor near the same farm. Both situations are urgent, and it seems most cost effective to have them travel together. I dare not say more until we are in a nullification zone."


    The woman gestured to one of the female soldiers, who said nothing before walking out of the entryway, off to the side of the wall. "Does it have to do with your new shadow?" She gave Elruin a cold and humorless smile for a couple seconds, before returning to a flat stern expression.


    "Elruin is part of a third long story, but not a pressing one." Cali turned toward Elruin. "I''ve got to go for a while. It''s part of my job to make sure the Midwife gets to your aunt and uncle''s farm in time, okay?"


    Elruin nodded back. "I know, you have to do chores before you can play."


    Cali smirked more than smiled. "Guess I shouldn''t be surprised. I can have someone take you to my house, get you a warm meal and some clean clothes. Or if you like you can wait in the training field. This is prime time to watch the battle mages practice, maybe you''ll pick up a trick or two of your own."

 Chasing Beauty

    Especially noteworthy suggested listening.</a>


    Maris'' eyes snapped open the moment the door to the barn did. Laor stuck his head in. "The Inquisitor''s here."


    "Already?!" She stood, and could see the people behind her elder brother. "Why didn''t you give me more time?" she hissed, but his head refused to explode as she willed it to. She had no time to make herself presentable, so she threw together her best-practiced enchantments to make herself more presentable.


    A subtle magic rushed through her body, along and just beneath her skin to smooth away the wrinkles, even out and lighten the sun darkened marks of farm living, as well as her freckles. Unlike her dark-haired pale cousin, she had freckles to hide away. Also unlike her cousin, her magic had limits. In just seconds she had winded herself with her spell.


    "Please, you''ll find I''ve kept watch of the prisoner all night," she said to the man who came in first. Her head down, her hands held together in front of her lap as was proper position. What she had not expected was for him to be so young and attractive, with eyes and hair that bordered on silver in coloration. Two other men, in heavy but utilitarian armor that hid much of their faces, flanked either side of him.


    The man took a moment to look at the prisoner, then his nose wrinkled in an expression of disgust. "And this is how Priestess Calenda left this man?"


    "With exception to the chicken-wounds, my lord." Maris flinched a little at an imagined reprimand to come. "My apologies, the farm is in disarray after the storm, and chickens are mean when they''re hungry."


    "I''m less concerned with the condition of his body, and more that of his mind," he said. "I was under the impression that we needed a mind reader because his injuries made him a physical invalid, not that his brain was damaged."


    Glad she could pass the blame off on someone else, Maris nodded. "I''m afraid nobody on this farm is educated on this sort of injury, or how to inflict it." All true, and provably so. "The priestess said it was Elruin''s death magic that did it."


    "The young necromancer." He took a seat on the hay next to the man''s head. "I suppose I should be glad he survived at all, but I''m afraid it will be quite the challenge, extracting anything of value from what''s left of his memories."


    "I''m certain you will succeed, my lord."


    "Then we shall see if time agrees with your faith." The man closed his eyes, and placed his hands on the temples of the half-conscious prisoner. Maris noted how serene he appeared, and she decided she liked it.


    Several minutes passed in silence before the Inquisitor spoke. "Tell me, what is your impression of this necromancer? Elruin, you called her?"


    Maris froze, as the butterflies in her stomach took the time to decide if they should be angry that this man, attractive though he was, taking the liberty to ask her personal questions as if they were close friends, or be elated that he wanted to be friendly with her. Instead she opted for jealousy that when he asked a question, it was about her gifted younger cousin.


    His eyes opened a moment later, and locked on hers until she looked down. "I upset you." He closed his eyes again. "My sincere apologies. I was not raised in this land, and am still getting accustomed to its social norms."


    "You need not apologize!" Now she felt bad that an Inquisitor of all people had to apologize to her. "I wasn''t bothered, just surprised." She hazarded a look at her older brother, who was watching this interaction. Under normal circumstances, he or Father would be the one talking to the Inquisitor, but Maris had been the one to do everything in her power to make certain she got the opportunity to meet with these people from a city she might go her entire life without seeing. Now she willed him to continue staying out of it. She might never get another chance such as this one in her lifetime.


    "It is true, I needn''t, but I do so regardless," he said. "The question is more than idle curiosity. She''s become the topic of much gossip in the few hours between her arrival and our dispatch. Is she a good person? I''m under the impression that she''s received no formal training, and relies on nothing but natural ability?"


    It was an Inquisitor''s right to ask such questions, or at least Maris believed it was. "I only met Cousin Elruin a few times; the men don''t like to bring us girls on the road, even if it''s just between farms. Even as a small child, she was always creepy, and a loner. Not dangerous or mean, other than this weird fascination with dead animals, but strange. At times she''d attach to someone, whom she''d follow around like a puppy, but mostly she just watched their behavior, like people were some sort of strange animal she''d never seen before."


    The Inquisitor nodded, his eyes still closed as he worked whatever magic he was working on his captive.


    Maris looked over at her brother again; still watching, but still not interfering. "I can''t imagine where she''d find someone to train her magic. I''m certain Aunt Othsa and Uncle Kalis wouldn''t hire a tutor. They don''t like magic, or not the high power stuff. They view career mages as either dreamers who can''t produce anything of real value, and hired killers for the crown." Her parents felt the same way, as she learned time and time again. "Unless you''re a healer, at least." Everyone loved healers, to Maris'' knowledge.


    "A common attitude, I fear," he agreed. He paused for a moment. "For your lack of training, you have a remarkable talent."


    "My lord? I''m not-" Her denial was cut off by him opening one eye to look at her. "It was foolish of me to try illusions before an Inquisitor. I practice every day, but only someone like Elruin stands a chance against you, my lord." She released the magic, and with it the pretense that she might have been beautiful, rather than some boring farm girl pretending to be a woman.


    He smiled. "Better, but you are mistaken on both assumptions."


    She blinked. "I don''t understand, my lord."


    "Please, call me Arden. I''m a lord only because high society would never tolerate a commoner with my rank."


    "Father says a title earned by hard work means a thousand times more than one granted by birth."


    "There are those who would have you beheaded for speaking those words," Arden said. "Fortunately, they''re not the ones who write the laws. But perhaps we should return to the topic of your magic. It would have deceived most Inquisitors."


    She felt herself start to blush which, now that she lacked the protective disguise of her magic, made her blush all the harder. "Surely, I am not so powerful."


    "There''s more to magic than power," he said. "Brute force has its role, especially in war, but subtlety can accomplish great things in its own right. What I''m doing right now, for example. No raw power short of a god could do what I''m doing here, but with subtlety I can accomplish greatness. And if anything, your reliance on skill rather than power made it easier to hide your work from most Inquisitors, who would detect more blatant manipulation with ease."If you discover this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation.


    "You say most, but not you?"


    "I am, in some ways, like Elruin," Arden said. He allowed a sad smile, but still remained focused. "My power was mine from birth, a rare ability that scholars call Absolute Clarity. I cannot be deceived, by anyone or anything, save perhaps the gods. Most Truthsayers are limited, often they have to concentrate on their subject to catch lies, subtle lies can sneak past, as can many illusions. I have something quite a bit more than that. No illusion or deception escapes my notice, no matter how subtle. By talking to someone, I learn their motives, goals, even the lies that they tell to themselves are obvious to me."


    Maris sank down, hoping the hay would swallow her so that she might hide with the insects where she belonged. "Then I''ve made a terrible first impression." In saying it, she felt liberated. "But since you already know, I want to say that you are the prettiest man I have ever seen."


    Laor gasped from his place behind the guards, and Maris turned to stare him down. Sooner or later, the conversation would be over and she would be in a great deal of trouble, but until then she was safe. Nobody on this farm would dare stop an Inquisitor''s conversation.


    "A better impression than you realize," Arden said, drawing her attention back to him. "Everyone puts on acts, but most will add layer after layer of deception when challenged. Your first instinct is the opposite, to proclaim your truth with defiant pride. It is a rare trait, and quite beautiful. Beauty is truth, truth beauty."


    "Does that mean..." she couldn''t build up the courage to ask him if this was him offering himself as a suitor.


    "Sorry, but I cannot," he said. "I''m afraid the situation known as ''political reality'' won''t allow it. Unique or strong bloodlines see... ugly... competition from the higher nobility seeking to control them."


    Maris swallowed, her dreams uplifted and dashed in under a minute. "If I said I understood, I''d be a liar."


    "But that was not the goal you set for yourself today," he said. "Before I walked in, you had no idea who I''d be. I imagine you thought I''d be some old, grizzled fossil whose last smile happened some time before your parents were born, or perhaps worse things."


    She nodded, it was true that the title of Inquisitor brought to mind nothing but unpleasant things. Until today, she had thought it synonymous with torturer, not a nice young man who complimented her and treated her with respect.


    "You wanted to see if you were worthy of the dreams you set for yourself, and none of those dreams had me in them. What is the true dream you set for yourself? What are you, what have you always been?"


    She looked at her brother, and now Mother had joined him. She didn''t have the bravery to confront an Inquisitor, either. Maris took strength from the fact that she was strong. "I am an artist."


    She cast her magic in the open this time, not to lie by changing her features to be beautiful, but to proclaim the truth and accentuate and highlight herself in ways that embraced what little magic she knew. She covered her eyes much the way as she had seen Elruin and the priestess do, but with the blue of the sky she would gaze upon whenever she got the chance. A similar color spread across her skin, then in an act decided on the spot she used her magic to darken her freckles instead of hide them. Now they were like black stars on a day sky, instead of white on a night sky. It felt right to her, somehow.


    Even if Mother was going to beat her bloody after the Inquisitor left.


    Arden stood, smiling. He looked at his guards. "Take the prisoner. Lythas will be able to get quite a bit from him."


    They obeyed without hesitation, stepping moving where they had to to get to their captive.


    Maris stared like a deer in headlights at them. "You''re done with him already?" She''d thought she had more time, not that any amount of time could have been enough to satisfy her.


    Still smiling, Arden looked down at her. "I was finished within seconds of touching his head. Funny thing about an emptied room? Anything which remains behind is easy to spot."


    "Then all of this was about me?" It seemed obvious, in retrospect. "Why?"


    "I wanted to know the truth, and once I knew, I wanted you to see it, too. How would you like to be employed by my estate?"


    "I... but... what?" Too much had happened too quickly for the young farmer''s daughter, and it had caught up to her.


    "For now, my Forgemaster needs a new apprentice, then later I may have to teach you the art of Forbidden Wine."


    "I... I''m not suited for making weapons." More to the point, she wasn''t interested in being a weapon maker. "And I don''t want to."


    "You''d be surprised how effective illusion enchantments can be in combat," Arden said. "But that''s hardly the goal here. In order to train a Forgemaster, they must develop a lot of skill in melding enchantment magic into metal. It has a tendency to ruin the metal, make it worthless as a weapon or armor, and mark it with residual magic that is difficult to cleanse and makes other enchantments nigh impossible to get right. Even using cheap base metals, it''s expensive, and there''s only so much demand for nullification zones. And there''s no trick to reduce the cost in sarite dust."


    "Which is where I come in, somehow?"


    "Yes, with jewelry," he said. "It''s best to start with illusions of youth and health like you used before, or the alien beauty you just created. If that is all you ever do, you can make yourself a wealthy woman, and something tells me that you''ll pursue more interesting and exotic art as you hone your skills. I won''t tell you where your art will lead, that is for you to decide. Tell me, how does that sound to you?"


    Like everything I have ever dreamed of and more. "What of this Forbidden Wine you mentioned?"


    He chuckled. "Strange history, that. At some point, illusion mages realized you could give one fruit the flavor of another using magic. I imagined it was used as pranks for a while, until someone realized you could do it by putting the flavor of otherwise deadly berries into safe fruit like apples. I suspect the first attempts to ferment them occurred the same day."


    Maris was stunned to silence. She''d used illusion magic on food, sometimes, in order to overcome the monotony of having so few options, but the idea of having the time and luxury to create illusion-laced alcohol for pleasure and novelty was beyond any experience in her life.


    "And that is just the surface of the ocean," he finished. "It''s up to you."


    She''d all but made up her mind, but she had one more question. "If I say no?"


    "Nothing, I won''t be upset," he said. "You can change your mind whenever you like, and I will send an escort to bring you safely to my estate. Though other than the exorcist who will come here in a month to check on the threat of undead taint, I can''t promise any means to contact me."


    "May I have time to get some things?"


    "Of course," another instant answer. "I''ll need to confer with colleagues before we leave, to compare notes. And, if you can''t be ready by then, I''ll send an escort in, say, three days, or a week?"


    "No, I''ll only need a few minutes." Maris stepped for the door, then turned and held her hands in show of gratitude. "Thank you so much!" She stopped again only because her mother stood in front of her. "My apologies, Mother, I must do this. Please don''t stop me."


    "Is it because of the Inquisitor?"


    She almost answered no on reflex. Truth is beauty, and from now on I will create nothing but beauty in this world. "Some, yes. But he''s not the reason that matters."


    Leyli pulled her daughter into a hug. The hasty illusions flickered at the disruption of touch. "Then I love you, and if you don''t bring me one of those youth amulets when you visit, I will disown you."


    "Thanks, Mother." Maris rushed off to gather her supplies.


    Meanwhile, Arden met up with the exorcist as she watched the girl running for the house. She frowned, but only for a moment. "So, another one?"


    "Yes," he said. "She''s nowhere near as strong as her cousin, but as wild talent goes, she''s impressive. More skill than half of the noble-scions who pay their way into the academies, though lacking in raw power. Still, two in the same generation in the same family and region. It''s quite the coincidence."


    "That is not what I meant, and you know it," the exorcist said.


    "I know," Arden agreed. "But it''s something we may want to investigate, perhaps this area caries a stronger bloodline than we believed."


    "Or perhaps you are too inquisitive for your own good."


    "Well, it is in my very nature, after all. Nothing offends me quite like a mystery. Speaking of, I sensed no undead taint in the region, perhaps you can shed light on that? I admit my skills are better at the deliberately hidden rather than just the difficult to find, but it seems odd."


    She shook her head. "There is no taint to find, I''m certain of it. The area is covered in necromantic residue, and it all but drips with corruption from the sarite Scout Calenda reported, but not a single flicker of undead taint."


    "Speaking of mysteries, please tell me you got something for this trip other than a farmgirl."


    "They call themselves the Ghosts of Sorvel. This one is a follower, but his accomplices were there. At least a dozen other members and countless sympathizers, and his mind was too shattered to give me the names of any of them."


    "Oh, the Queen will not be happy to hear about this."


    "I''d suggest telling her it''s better to know than to remain ignorant, but I already tried that once."

 Chapter 15

    Elruin decided she could wait for Cali at the barracks. "I''d like to watch the mages." She''d never seen or heard of anyone waiting in a home for the owner to arrive, so it seemed weird to her.


    She didn''t know what she expected, the only ''training'' she had ever witnessed was her brothers play fighting with sticks during those rare occasions when the weather was good and the chores were done early. She thought that maybe there''d be a bunch of people like Cali, all with their own songs playing together to make a beautiful harmony.


    What she found was an outdoor stone floor made of hexagonal tiles, each just large enough that a person could stand comfortably inside one. Most were white, except the ones that the other mages were standing on, where the colors changed to a myriads of blue, green, red, brown and yellows. A couple were near a corner, blasting a wall with fire magic, while nearer were two mages who seemed to be doing what Cali did to her body, but through their weapons and armor.


    It was fascinating to witness, though their songs were weak and muted, like listening to people speak on the other side of a wall. She stepped out onto the tiles, to get a closer look at the fighters; something in their magic looked like it was a trick she could do. But with every step on the field, it felt like walking in mud that was in her mind rather than on her feet. She didn''t like it at all.


    Nearby, a handful of the people training felt the need to comment on the newest arrival. "Looks like a street urchin got past the guards."


    "Did she climb in through the sewers?"


    "Forget the guards, look at her tiles." Several others murmured their surprise as well.


    "At her age? That can''t be her, it must be some magical equipment."


    Elruin looked down at her feet, where the stone she stood had a medium gray, while the tiles surrounding were light gray. Small wisps of black smoke wafted away from the stone, then fell back down in a way reminding her of morning fog on the crops. She took a step back, and the black mist moved as if an invisible wind was pushing it toward her.


    "She''d still have to be pretty strong, if she can carry necromantic gear of that power without it killing her."


    The practicing warriors walked past the gossipers in order to approach her. Their personal tiles stayed a deep orange, with lighter orange extending out to the tiles around him, and then just enough extra to color the tiles past those. When they got closer, the man stayed back while the woman came closer. As they separated, their colors did to, until the man''s tiles were a soft red color that was only a few shades darker than pink, while the woman had a deep yellow which bordered on brown.


    When her color panels met Elruin''s, they pushed against one another, instead of blending. Yellow fought black like a sunrise, and much like a sunrise, yellow won the battle. Now, only the tile Elruin stood on, and two behind her, remained dark.


    She knelt down in front of her, putting the two of them at about the same height. "Perhaps you should share where you came from, lest someone do something so impolite as call the guard to drag you out into the streets."Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.


    Elruin kept her eyes down, in part to watch the tiles, and in part for politeness. "Cali- uh, Priestess Calenda, said I could come here to watch the mages train. She has to do her chores, then she''s going to show me the city and find me a new dress."


    The woman glanced back at her partner for a moment. "Lady Calenda is a wonderful representative of the Crown, and a credit to her line."


    "You know her?" Even to Elruin, it seemed obvious they were important. The gossipers so willing to say mean things about her were silent now.


    "Why, I''ve known her since we were children. We''re practically family," the woman said. "I suppose this calls for proper introductions. I am Lady Juna na Enge." The woman, Juna, tilted her head. "Lady Calenda is betrothed to my brother, Garit ne Enge." She gestured to the man standing behind her, who gave his own head nod. "Knowing Lady Calenda, she rushed in to rescue you from some scary monster attack, and so you''ll be staying with her until your retainers can bring you safely home. I hope you have nothing but kind things to say to your liege about the Kingdom of Acheria and the hospitality of Arila despite what I''m certain was a traumatic experience."


    "My name is Elruin." It was the polite thing to do, introducing herself in return. The lack of a titular name was noted by everyone listening. "Lady Calenda said I could go to an academy."


    "Ah, a foreign student," Juna adjusted to the new information in an eyeblink, as if she hadn''t made a wrong assumption at all. "That proves your master is wise to send you here. You''ll find no better kingdom in the world to study the arts. Which academy are you attending?"


    "I don''t know."


    For a moment, Juna looked flustered. It didn''t last long. "Well, I suppose your master would handle those details since you are so young. What''s her name? Is she here with you?"


    "I don''t have a master," Elruin kept her eyes down. "Lady Calenda called me a wild talent, then took me away from my family''s farm because they tried to feed me to morks. Then we went to my cousin''s farm, but there were bad men who wanted to kill babies so we killed them. One exploded. Then we came here to get help for the babies and find out why the bad men wanted to hurt them."


    Now the pair did stop to look at one another. This was quite the story they''d need to ask Calenda about in the future, but for now they had to deal with an untrained twelve year farm girl who had more raw power than half of the royal families.


    "Well, now I am more glad than ever to have met you," Juna said.


    "Really?" Elruin smiled, hopeful to have found a new friend, especially one who could make others stop saying mean things about her. "I''m glad to meet you, too."


    "Well then, since this is your first time, I shall endeavor to make it memorable." She stood up, then stepped back some, and the tiles between her and her brother began to shift back to their shared orange state. "Interested in the tiles?"


    "Why do your colors merge together with him, but pushes away mine?"


    "Ah, that''s resonance in action," Juna said. "You''ll find that most magical energies, whether natural or coming from a mage, tend to make it more difficult for mages of different elements to cast their spells. That''s why fire mages like us avoid the ocean. But when two mages work together, they come to know and trust one another until their auras are in resonance. This reduces the magical resistance and makes them stronger just by standing near those they''re resonant with."


    "You''ll even find ways to combine your magic to generate spells that neither of you can cast alone, with elemental properties and raw power that exceeds all but your wildest dreams. With practice and trust, you can find power that only gods could cast without assistance."


    "Oh." Elruin wasn''t sure about their claims, but the song she heard when the two of them allowed their power to sync up was more complex than anything she could have imagined. It was beautiful yet threatening, complex yet clean, and she had no doubt that it made them stronger by far. "Your song is beautiful."


    "And Revealed, too?" Juna hopped in place. "This is going to be a treat. Now, let''s get to work on the fun stuff."

 Chapter 16

    Suggested Listening</a>


    "I suppose in order to teach you anything, we''ll need to see what you can do first," Juna said. "So, what do you consider your best skill so far?"


    If she had been a more suspicious person, she might have considered this whole show was an attempt to learn her abilities, but Elruin had precious little experience with deception, and none with nobility. "I can zap things. But I shouldn''t use that except on bad people because Lady Calenda says it''s dangerous."


    Juna laughed. "I''d take that as a challenge, but I''m afraid there are rules here and it wouldn''t be proper to ignore them. Bad for morale, you see. Maybe some day, you can visit our private training grounds." While she gestured toward the wall. "Go ahead, take the time to hit it with everything you''ve got. Don''t worry, you can''t hurt it. If you were that strong, the panels you''re standing on would be broken by now."


    "Oh, okay." She wasn''t sure what ''morale'' was, but she understood rules and that these two were authority figures. She wanted to show her best, so she took the time to extend her hand as if reaching for an invisible object while humming notes to herself. She wanted to make a good impression on her new friends, so she concentrated on getting as much power out as possible.


    The lance of black light traveled no more than a few yards before evaporating into smoke. She looked at her hand. "It should have been stronger."


    "The tiles don''t just show colors, they absorb magic. It''s kind of like running in water- the harder you push against it, the harder it pushes back, which gives weaker mages a chance to train with stronger ones, and both can get some benefit. The stronger you are, the more resistance you face, so you must work harder, which means you get stronger faster." Juna brushed some of her soft green hair away from her face, then she pitched her voice so the observers could hear. "You''ll find some people complaining that it gives men an unfair advantage, since it takes away our magical advantage, but not their physical one. I say that if they trained harder, maybe it wouldn''t take six of them to make me break a sweat."


    A few onlookers decided now was the time to pretend they weren''t listening in on the conversation. Some, perhaps, agreed that their superior was right and eavesdropping wouldn''t help them improve their skills.


    "Don''t let any of that worry you," Juna said once she was satisfied with her chastisement of the crowd. "I think you did an excellent job. But I''m no blaster, so we should ask my wonderful brother for his expert opinion on the matter." She turned her head to look at him, and in the process guided Elruin to look as well.


    "Can you please?" Elruin asked, once again doing her best to remain polite and submissive.


    "How could I refuse such a polite request from a friend of Lady Calenda?" Garit smiled, as he stepped closer to Elruin, then knelt beside her. "First, you should work on form. A spread finger pose is good for wide area spells, which you might learn some day, but for now you need to think of your fingers as directing the magic. Point at the target with each of them. It will let you hit harder with the same power. Won''t make much difference against weak magic resistance, but it''s great for piercing the defenses of tougher foes."


    "Why, beloved brother," Juna gasped with a mock scandalized tone. "Are you teaching this precious child how to hurt me?"


    "Of course, my sweet sister," Garit answered back in a tone just as sarcastic. "As often as you remark that nobody in the kingdom can give you a good fight anymore, I thought this would be my gift to you."


    "That sounds like a wonderful project!" Juna laughed. "Go ahead, Elruin, let''s see what you can do now."


    Elruin did as instructed, holding her fingers together instead of spread out, and was rewarded by her bolt traveling perhaps another couple feet before being eaten by the tiles. It was no stronger than before, but the more concentrated energy lasted longer in the strange field. She would have to take Garit''s word for its effectiveness in combat, but it seemed sensible.


    "I did it!" Nobody had ever encouraged her to explore her magic before, and it was so much fun. For a moment, she forgot protocol. "What else should I do?" She caught herself, turning her eyes down. "Please, if you wish, I would be grateful to learn more."


    "You need not ask," Garit said. "You also need to learn to throw yourself into a spell." As he spoke, he began to extend his own arm. "You''re holding yourself back, most mages do, and most of the time you should. Lady Calenda was right that you should never zap anyone, unless they''re bad people who need to die. Now, let''s talk about the opposite, like what you should do with a really bad man who belongs dead."


    "Until now, you''ve only been thinking of your blast as a weapon in your hand, now I want you to think of it as a weapon of your whole arm." He placed a gentle touch on her wrist and elbow, encouraging her to straighten out her arm pointing at the wall. "And when you fire, don''t think of the wall as your target. Think of firing through whatever it is that needs to go away. Don''t be gentle, don''t hold back, it''s in your way, it shouldn''t exist, and you have to destroy it. When you''re ready, end it."


    Fire through it, it belongs dead. Elruin drew on her power again, concentrating the energy through her limb while Garit whispered his mantra. Black lightning danced along her shoulder, down to her wrist. Now she felt ready. The concentrated black magic surged through her arm and took her breath with it when it left her fingertips toward the wall. Though much of it was consumed, enough power remained to hit the wall, leaving behind a black spatter on the otherwise white barrier.


    The stain of black on the wall, and streak of gray on the panels, began to fade to their default white as what remained of the arm of her dress crumbled away like dry leaves. Elruin giggled, thinking about the bad morks and worse men in the forests. She didn''t have to be afraid of them anymore. One zap is all it would take to make any bad person go away.


    Then she fell on Garit''s shoulder.


    "Oof!" Despite his crouched position, he managed to keep balance. "Surprisingly heavy for someone her size," he said while positioning her so his sister could take her, for propriety''s sake.


    "Farm living," Juna said. "Early up, early down, lots of exercise, healthy food, and fresh air, no time to sit around on your haunches getting fat. They''re all built like soldiers out there, even the little girls."


    Elruin looked up at her. "Did I do good?"


    "You reminded all our recruits why we don''t do live-fire training at this location," Juna said. "So, I''d say you did fine. But perhaps you should take a break from blasting for a while. There are other arts, you know."


    "Sister, are you jealous that I''m getting all the attention from our new friend?"


    "Not at all," she said. "I''m simply concerned that if all she learns is one style, she won''t be well prepared for situations where that strategy doesn''t work. It''s best to be well-rounded, with solutions to every scenario."


    "I''d like that." The argument sounded sensible to the little necromancer, who struggled to stand on shaky legs. "Thank you."


    "First, let''s talk about breathing," she said. "You should take long, slow breaths. Deep in, deep out. Yes, like that. You''d be amazed how many people forget that magic is a physical art, as much as a mental one. Personal health matters for more than taking a hit. Especially for Negation magic, which has a reputation for harming its users."


    Elruin nodded, while concentrating on breathing the way she was told.This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.


    "I''ll show you some defensive tricks," she said. "It looks like you stand there and take hits, instead of trying to roll with the blows. The ability to turn a direct hit into a graze could save your life some day. True, it would be better if you were magically toughened, but good armor can help as well."


    "I''m tough," Elruin said. After seeing how easy it was for her dolly to kill Father, and Clackybones to kill the bad men, she knew she had some magic of that nature. "Cali- Lady Calenda said I should have lost my foot when a mork bit me."


    "Is that so?" She beamed a triumphant smile at her brother. "Let''s test how tough you are, shall we?" She slid her hand to Elruin''s forearm. "I''m going to squeeze here, and I want you to tell me when it starts to hurt, and we''ll stop right away. Don''t try to tough it out, I''m a lot stronger than you are and I don''t want to break your arm."


    "It''s true," Garit said. "Not a contest you can win. She once punched a man''s helmet so hard that he was decapitated by his own chin strap, and the severed head slammed into another man and caved his chest plate in. Ever since, she''s been trying to get a triple-kill from a single punch."


    "Okay." Elruin stayed silent as the pressure began to build, then it became uncomfortable, then it started to hurt. "Now."


    Juna relaxed her grip. "About soft copper, I''d say. You''re no dedicated earth mage, but you''re unquestionably earth aspect, which means you have access to time magic. That is much more interesting than blasting."


    Elruin hadn''t so much as heard of that element before. "What can it do?"


    "Artificially age things, slow a target''s perception of time, generate stasis effects. I''ve heard rumors of summoning people from the past. The most famous spell is Accelerate, which can make someone move at inhuman speed for short bursts, or heal wounds in seconds that should take years. Problem is, Accelerate devastates the body. It doesn''t make you age a year every time it''s used like some rumors say, but it''s like running for hours in the hot sun. It can make your heart explode."


    "I don''t think I like that spell."


    "I couldn''t help you learn it, anyway," Juna said. "I''m on the creation side of earth, I can''t do any destruction magic. But I can teach you how to use your elemental armor better. I''m magesteel grade; if a mork tried to bite me, it''d break its teeth on my skin."


    "I''d like that."


    "Then let''s get to work," she took a combat stance. "You try to block me. Every time I''m about to hit you, try to push some of your power to your skin."


    One quick jab later, and Elruin was holding her mouth. "Ow!"


    "This is going to take a while." A quick flash of healing light which somehow wasn''t absorbed by the panels mended Elruin''s busted lip. "But at least you''re not crying, that makes you better than half the new recruits."


    The hour that followed was a series of painful lessons in the gap between Elruin and Juna''s ability. Strength, speed, knowledge, and the ease at which the older woman could change her magic from defensive to offensive were fascinating, frustrating, and often painful. By the time Cali came out onto the field, Elruin was eager for that bath and change of clothes that had been promised to her.


    "Looks like we''ll have to stop for now," Juna said when she spotted Cali. "Lady Calenda, we heard you''ve had an exciting trip. We''re bursting with curiosity over the details. Dinner at the manor, perhaps? Young Elruin is more than welcome to join us."


    Cali smiled, but it was tired and unenthused. "Perhaps tomorrow would be better. I''ve got the Inquisitor, now I need to go by the church, make sure we get a good midwife ready for the journey, then... I''m afraid I''ll make a terrible guest tonight."


    "I can imagine no such thing from you," Garit said. "But we won''t press, our curiosity is of less priority than your wellbeing or that of Miss Elruin."


    Calenda nodded. "If no new emergency happens in the next few hours, then I''m sure I''ll have time tomorrow."


    "That would be lovely," Garit said. "But please, allow us to make your life easier tonight."


    Cali hesitated, but had little choice but to respond. "I wouldn''t want to impose."


    "No imposition at all," Garit said with a dismissive wave of his hand. "And it wouldn''t require anyone going out of their way. Rig owes me a favor, and I can think of no better way for him to repay me than to provide a new outfit for your young charge."


    There was no good way out of the setup, and Calenda knew it. "Sounds like Rig will be going out of his way."


    "Nonsense," Juna said. "Rig has always been generously compensated for his work, this time before knowing what work he would do. I know how you feel about accepting gifts, but this is hardly the same. This is us doing our best to help this charming young mage. She is, after all, a guest in our city, and it''s simply unacceptable for us to have a reputation as poor hosts. In fact, I should make an offer of my own. I noticed Elruin is a Virtuoso, and my old music teacher could use a new student."


    "Still holding a grudge after all these years, dear sister?"


    "Why no! Never. Not at all. Maybe a little." Juna moved from one thought to the next without a moment of hesitation. "But I would never suggest such a thing if I didn''t think it was the best course of action. Please, consider the offer, not for your sake, but for us and for her."


    "Fine, I''ll consider it," Cali said. "Please accept my apologies, but I really must hurry. Lives are on the line."


    "Of course, don''t let us stop you," Juna said.


    Elruin turned to face the pair, clasped her hands together and bowed. "Thank you for playing with me."


    "It was our pleasure. We''ll be happy to play some more, any time we''re not busy with our chores." Juna watched Calenda leave with Elruin, then smiled at her twin. "Your taste in women never ceases to amuse me, brother."


    Elruin stared at the buildings as they walked. Everything was so impressive, so new. Never before had she walked a road made entirely of stone, nor had she seen horses used for a purpose other than work, nor had she seen so many people in one place or dresses of such bright and fanciful colors. It was like she''d walked into a storybook of some faraway land.


    "Your boyfriend was nice," she said to Cali in the hopes that she could get her talking again.


    "My b-?" She stumbled over her words. "He wishes he was my boyfriend."


    This confused Elruin. "He said you were betrothed."


    "Yeah, that''s what he thinks," Cali growled. "But I''m not interested in marriage, and if I was, not one where I''m cucked by my sister in law."


    "Cucked?" She had no idea what the word meant, but having met Juna, she guessed it had something to do with being beat up. "Are they bad people?"


    "Uh, sorry, that''s a bad word you should never repeat it," Cali said. "It''s a vicious rumor, not true. If it was, he wouldn''t be pursuing me as hard as he is. Garit is a good man, for the most part, and both his family and mine love the idea of us getting married. Except some of my sisters who''d rather take my place. Garit isn''t interested in them, believe me, I''ve tried."


    Elruin looked back at the barracks. "Why don''t you want to marry him?" She was still processing the concept that marriage was a thing you could choose for yourself. All she knew was that at some point Mother and Father would declare that one of her older brothers and sisters were married to someone, there''d be a party- sometimes at their farm, somewhere at the farm of the other family- and then they were married and either a sister moved away, or a new sister moved in. Later, babies happened. She saw no reason to think any deeper on the subject until now.


    "I don''t want to get married to anyone," Cali said. "I like my freedom, to go where I want and run the wilds. I joined the priesthood specifically in order to get outside the system, and now Garit wants to drag me back in."


    "Is that why you don''t want to take their gifts?" Elruin saw no difference in getting clothes from Cali compared to getting them from Garit''s friend.


    Calenda sighed again. "No, that''s something else. Garit and Juna are the sort of people who want everyone to be grateful to them, want everyone to owe them and to know they owe them. They trade favors like currency. Come a few months, and they''ll ask something in return. Nothing special, not something difficult, maybe something you''d want to do anyway. Then you''re even, but now you''ve got it in your head to ask for another favor. And sooner or later, you will, because something will go wrong. Maybe they''ll have you repay that one, maybe they''ll sit on it, but sooner or later you''ll find you owe them seven or eight favors, and now if they ask for something you owe them too much to say no."


    All of this confused Elruin, but she continued to listen.


    "They don''t do anything bad with this power over others," Cali continued. "In fact, if it wasn''t so unbelievably manipulative, it could be called heroic. One time, they saved a girl from slavery. It was a mess, unjust but unquestionably legal. Merchant''s guild against citizens with the Guard caught in the middle. Almost led to riots, then they stepped in and fixed everything with the words ''we''re calling in a favor''. End result, a slaver lost coin but can''t complain, the business guilds settled down since none of their own were forced to do anything by the nobility, some business loses out on a slave, and a pretty but otherwise unremarkable young woman working at the library sings the praises of the kind lords who saved her to everyone who will listen."


    "They were liked before, but now everyone loves them. Which is good, I mean, their mother is our Countess, and nobody in the city doubts Garit gets the throne while Juna becomes the High General. Some people hope their mother dies sooner rather than later, they so look forward to their heroic nobles taking direct leadership. I can''t deny they''re good leaders, but I despise the games. I want to leave others alone, and they leave me alone. Except the ones who hurt other people, I make them my business."


    Elruin still hadn''t puzzled out the whole mess, but she could tell Cali wasn''t sure how she felt, either. "So they wouldn''t make me do bad stuff?"


    "You? Not at all," Cali admitted. "They''ll encourage your education, call some favors to make certain you get the best tutors the kingdom, maybe the empire, can provide. A talent like yours will be cultivated and pushed. Then, in five or so years when you''re considering what career you want to pursue, they''ll step in and have a polite conversation. No matter what you want to do, I''m sure they''ll have five major lords desperate to recruit you, or perhaps they''ll convince you to remain working here in Arila. A handful of small favors cultivated into one big one. But, I guess, it''s up to you."

 Chapter 17

    Suggested Listening</a>


    All this talk of guilds, riots, and planning for after she finished getting training was too complicated for Elruin, and she had a solution for games she didn''t understand: don''t play. "The city seems almost as scary as the wilderness."


    She smiled, a genuine one at that. "There is a reason I run the wilds at every opportunity. There, the threats are straightforward, with clear goals and outcomes. Worst thing a monster will do is kill you."


    "I don''t think I''ll take their help," Elruin said after a moment. She looked at Calenda, seeking approval from the older mage for her choice. Elruin didn''t have many friends at the best of times, and now she was down to two, one of which was buried in the woods outside the city. "Would their gifts have helped a lot? Will learning real music help me? We could still go see Rig and a music tutor without them, right?"


    "That''s a lot to unpack," Cali said. "Some think training in a classical art will help mages focus their skills, but I''ve seen wild talents with no formal education that were quite comparable to their classically trained counterparts. Maybe they''d have been even stronger with the right training, maybe not. But as my father likes to say, the only tools you can''t use are tools you don''t have, and all Revealed mages have a natural talent for learning arts which suit their magic. Once an academy takes you, I''m certain they''ll have you with a music tutor within a week. Not one as illustrious or as likely to give her best to your education, but still a quality tutor."


    "As to visiting Rig? I wouldn''t bother," Cali dismissed the idea out of hand. "He''s the high end specialist, you don''t get to walk into his place unless you''ve been recommended by a previous client, or drag a man''s weight in gold to his doorstep."


    "Truth told, their offer opens all sorts of doors for you that I can''t see any other way to open. Doors that are more valuable now than they''ll be at any point in the future for you." She slowed her walk for a moment, then fished the extra pair of sarite from her clothes. "Although, now that I think about it, there might be a way. It involves joining their game, but as players rather than pieces."


    "Does it put us in danger?" Elruin may have been convinced to reject the offer, but not because she didn''t want the benefits.


    "No, but it comes at a cost." Cali walked into one of the side-streets, still holding the pair of magic jewels made from crystalized life force. "These sarite are comparable to what Rig uses in his low quality works, with perfect properties. But I recommend saving them for a straight trade, with any luck we can find a death sarite. They''re rare, but there aren''t a lot of people compatible with them, and they''re expensive to refine."


    "The trickier part is, well, I can adopt you?" Calenda fielded the possibility as a question.


    Elruin looked at her. "What''s an adoption?"


    "Oh, surely you''ve had parents with children die, and then another adult takes charge of those children? We''d do that, then the law will consider me your mother for these sorts of things."


    "You can do that?" She always thought children were handed off to a relative, which would make Carob and Kasa her new parents if Mother died. Cali seemed like a better choice, since a choice was possible.


    "It will be considered improper, but legal. Don''t worry about my rep, I''m already the city maverick. They will pay for mages with your potential, and with my family name you''ve gone from technical to actual nobility. The money, the name, and the prestige you could gain from being accepted at your age, will be enough to get what the twins are offering."


    "But it does mean you have no choice but to play by the academy''s rules for years to come, and it''ll still cost favors, but to people with less finesse than the twins. Plus, well, the whole nobility marrying into nobility, but that''s as certain as the sunrise, anyway. With your power you''ll have suitors to spare when the time comes." She slipped the shards back into her clothes, then began to walk again. "No need to decide now, we''ll have a few days before we can get you to an evaluator. You''ll pass, hands down, but bureaucracy demands we go through the system."


    They continued their walk while Elruin considered her options until they started through an area that was full of lush grass and large trees. "Why do you leave this spot barren?"


    Cali looked back at her. "Barren?"


    "Yeah, the grass is healthy, and the soil looks strong, but it hasn''t even been hallowed." Elruin ran down her list of complaints one after another. "Is this supposed to be a hay farm? It''s too early in the season for the first harvest, and it''s too late for it to be this short, and it''s the wrong type of grass. There aren''t any fences, so it can''t be for cows. Does nobody here know how to farm?"


    Cali laughed at the girl''s assumption, but she had to admit she knew little or nothing of the assertions the girl had about working the land. "No, it''s not a farm, it''s a park."


    "What''s a park do?"


    "It doesn''t do anything, it''s just here so people can come look at the pretty grass and trees. They love nature, as long as it''s a fake, safe nature that''s not hiding vicious monsters. Cultivating the land never crosses most of their minds."


    "That makes no sense." Elruin had never had much love for nature. She didn''t hate it, but it never rated high enough in her attention to merit an opinion, it simply was a thing which had always been there, and she expected always would be there. "How do you feed all these people, without farms?"


    Calenda looked forward and up, unable to explain to the little girl that often times they didn''t feed them, and more people in the cities died from starvation and the elements than any other cause. Nobles, soldiers, anyone else with magic potential, would be fine, but those of weak bloodlines faced a reality more cruel than any wilderness. The worst of it happening during the rainy and cold seasons, when access to the farms and their produce became difficult. "You''re right, it doesn''t make much sense."


    They stopped in front of a large building of white stone which became the new record-holder for Elruin''s list of tallest buildings she''d ever seen. "Who lives here?"


    "According to the priests: Ecross, Ifaril, Nalet, Lenor, and Enge," Cali said. "This is the church, and I must attend some duties and find a midwife suitable for the trip to your cousin''s farm."This novel is published on a different platform. Support the original author by finding the official source.


    "To help the babies!" Now Elruin had something positive to think about, instead of the empty field sitting in front of the church.


    "Right," Cali said. "This shouldn''t take long, just stick with me."


    Moments after they entered, a priestess clad in orange and brown, her pink hair tied in a series of elaborate loops which reminded Elruin of a flower, approached them. "Sister Calenda, I hope the sun greets you well." She gave a look at Elruin. "I''m afraid we''re low on space for the needy right now."


    "Sister Erena, the sun chose to greet me with interesting times, today," Cali answered back. "This is Elruin, she''ll be staying with me for now. More likely than not, an academy will be looking after her in a week or so. But there is need for a midwife at one of the outskirt farms."


    "I see." Erena gave the girl a longer look, wondering if the girl was indeed academy material, or if Calenda had finally spent too long in the woods. "It will be... difficult to find an escort in this season."


    "How''s an Inquisitor, an Exorcist, and an Archmage sound? I talked to the Guard before I came here, they are ready to do their duty."


    "An Exorcist? I see you were not exaggerating about interesting times," Erena said. Exorcists were Church domain, but they were also considered a military resource, to seek out and destroy undead taint wherever discovered. There weren''t many situations where Church and Military were in full accord, but the threat of undeath was known to all. "I hope this does not imply a death cult."


    "I suspect the events to be unrelated to one another," Cali said. "It appears to have been spontaneous taint, brought on by the lives lost in the storm, a woman lost one of her unborn triplets when a tree fell on her house. However, the Inquisitor and Exorcist will be better suited than I to judge the situation. The Guard has agreed that taking the Midwife along as well would not be an undue hardship, considering other circumstances."


    "Then I shall make the arrangements, immediately." Erena was suspicious about the situation; it seemed like a convoluted chain of events, and Calenda was not an easy woman to trust. Still, it was true an injury causing a miscarriage could bring on taint, and lost fetuses or children often caused the worst outbreaks, so she had little choice but to follow through. If time proved Calenda a liar, it would be the Inquisitor''s business to deal with. "Will you be staying long?"


    "I cannot, Sister." Calenda chose to phrase it in a manner that couldn''t be called into question. "I must show Elruin to my home, and see to it that she is properly cared for. The wilderness was not kind to her."


    "The wilderness is kind to no one," Erena agreed. "I hope we shall see you, soon."


    Calenda smirked at the obvious lie. "If duty permits."


    She left, taking Elruin through the park again, then down a side path that brought them back toward the wall. A small but well made house sat in the shadow of the wall, and it was there that they approached. "Welcome to my home. It''s not much to look at, but it''s all I need."


    Suggested Listening</a>


    A creature poked its head out from a perch on the roof. It looked somewhat human, but also like the occasional praying mantis her brothers tried to scare her sisters with when they felt like being mean. They gave up on scaring Elruin that way, when it became clear the bugs were more scared of her than she was of them.


    It hopped off the roof, then glided down on wings of gossamer in front of them. If not for the metallic-green skin, and hair that looked like it was made of moss, the creature might have been mistaken for a six or seven year old child. "Hey, Lyra," Cali reached out and gave the moss-mat a rub.


    "Did you adopt her, too?" It was the obvious explanation for why there was a weird bug-child on the roof of Cali''s house.


    "More like she adopted my maid. It''s how we met. I''ll tell you the story some day," Calenda said. "This is what they call a dryad. Don''t let the shape fool you, she''s not a person, in fact she''s more plant than animal. Some dryads are intelligent, but this one is around the level of a smart dog, with the personality of a cat, and the power of a dragon. She''s been here for centuries. Luckily, she doesn''t mind people, I''m not sure how many of us would die trying to kill her. In theory, she belongs to the church. In truth, she picks a new ''owner'' whenever the old one dies."


    Elruin took a hesitant, but friendly step closer. "Hello, Lyra. I''m Elruin." She reached out, thinking that petting moss hair sounded like fun.


    The bug-plant-pet hissed at Elruin, her bottom jaw snapping open to reveal her mouth was a set of insectoid mandibles with finger-like appendages tipped with inch long fangs that dripped a green ichor.


    Elruin jumped back, while Calenda put a hand on Lyra to push her back. After a moment, Lyra turned and flitted back up to the roof. She turned, gave one more hiss, then vanished behind the ridge.


    "Sorry, Ell," Cali looked up at the roof. "I guess Lyra doesn''t like your magic."


    "It''s okay," Elruin said. She was a little disappointed she couldn''t play with the dryad, but she''d grown accustomed to animals running away. "Mister Clackybones still loves me!"


    "We''ll save that conversation for tomorrow," Cali muttered. "For now, let''s introduce you to Rena. You''ll like her."


    The inside of the house was also comfortable, about the size of the farmhouse Elruin grew up in, but without the conditions of being forced to shelter between ten to twenty people at a time for generations. Plants lined the walls, and the whole place smelled like clean grass and wildflowers.


    "It''s pretty!" Elruin gasped, touching one of the vines dangling from the ceiling. "Did you do this?"


    "Well, I am a botanical mage," Calenda said. "But this is Lyra''s. Fae are natural fonts of life energy, this comes from sheddings of her hair. It''s edible, grows fast, and doesn''t require light or water. Doesn''t taste bad, either. I hope that if I can create a version that breeds true without Lyra''s presence, we might be able to feed many more people with far less work, which can save countless lives."


    "Lady Calenda?" An older woman brushed away some of the hanging plants. In some ways, she reminded Elruin of Mother, with her wisps of gray hair blended into the faded blonde that still hadn''t lost all its vibrancy. The difference was that this woman walked with strength and youth despite her advancing years. "Oh, my, who''s your guest?"


    "This is Miss Elruin," Cali answered. "Ell, meet Miss Rena. In theory, she''s my housekeeper, but it''s more like it''s her house and I just sleep here once or twice a week when I miss quality home cooking."


    "Nice to meet you, Elruin," Rena gave a maternal smile to the girl. She ignored the damaged dress. "Will you be staying for dinner?"


    "Yes, please, ma''am."


    "Oh, aren''t you a polite one! I should have you teach my granddaughters a thing or two."


    "Thank you, ma''am, I would be happy to help!" Elruin thought it was so much nicer to be praised for doing good than scolded for doing bad.


    "I''ll cook something extra special for tonight." Miss Rena kept a gentle smile the whole time. "I''ll dice some of the apples up."


    "Sounds perfect," Cali said. No matter what Rena put together, she was confident it would be delicious. "Come, Ell, I''ll show you the bath, then pick out a new dress for you."


    "Okay!" She faced Rena again. "Thank you for your time." Then she chased after Cali who, to her surprise, led Elruin into the cellar instead of outside. She was even more surprised to learn it wasn''t a cellar, but like an extra house underground, with rooms and everything. "Wow!"


    "It''s nothing special," Cali said. "But I suppose it''s better than what you''re used to. Here''s the bath room, and our heating stone. Just set the water here for a time, then you can give yourself a hot bath."


    The bath was the most luxurious thing Elruin had ever experienced, though she found the meal a little odd. There were lots of vegetables and the soft, tasty vine-stuff that she now knew belonged to Lyra. However, she found not a shred of meat in the entire dish. She kept silent, however, since she knew it would be impolite to mention it to her hosts. It didn''t seem like Cali or Rena hogged all the meat for themselves, since their plates looked the same as hers.


    "Tomorrow, I''ll have to take Elruin shopping for some more clothing," Cali said. "Put out the message to the academies. Oh, and how could I forget, our future overlords invited me to take Elruin to dinner with him, so expect you''ll be alone with Lyra as per usual."


    "Say what you will about Lord Garit, one can find no fault in his determination." Rena gave a tired smile.


    "Writ in the stars."


    "Can we go to the library, tomorrow?" Elruin asked when she sensed the lull.


    "I suppose we should have time," Cali said. "Anything you want to read about in particular?"

 Geopolitical Landscape of Engeval

    <u>Geography and Neighbors:</u>


    Engeval (the Valley of Enge) is a large region of temperate rain forest (roughly the size of France) formed between the Sea of Letar and a mountain chain known as The Enge. A particular portion of the range contains a series of semi-active volcanoes which serves as a wall to the vast desert wasteland to the southwest of Engeval. The Ancestral god Enge draws power from these volcanoes, making it a strong Volcano (or Forge) Aspect god.


    To the northeast, the Sea of Lenal remains mostly unexplored, due to ceaseless monster attacks that prevent vessels from leaving the shallow waters near the shore. Some rare, powerful, ocean-going vessels come in from the Lenal Islands, seeking to trade luxurious spices and foodstuffs. As the two powerhouses of the region, there is some rivalry between Engeval and the Islanders, but war is prevented because any force of troops large enough to serve as an invasion force would draw every monster in a hundred miles.


    To the southeast, the Basin Jungles are a vast stretch of wilderness, marked mainly by goblins and other reptilian sapients who despise all mammals with a religious fervor, blaming them for the woes of the world. To them, being born human is a crime worthy of torture and death. Their lack of organization, metal tools, and having to deal with the same monster attacks as everyone else, prevents them from being a true threat to the empire.


    Within the swamps are some Silmid and Ferin enclaves, who provide a trade partner of valuable and exotic forms of sarite, and are eager to purchase well regarded Engeval weapons and armor.


    To the northwest, the nations of Senol Plains. Dry compared to the wet forests of Engeval, and filled with much larger beasts than can easily roam Engeval''s wet, windy, and elevated terrain, these cities are few, far between, and forced to devote almost the whole of their resources just to driving back monsters. They are eager to purchase food and armor, while offering numerous exotic trained beasts and sarite.


    There is no official point where the Senol Plains of the North become the Senol Deserts of the South, but the lands grow more dry until it becomes difficult to find water and the monsters increase in power until they are too strong for any wall to deny. The most ancient maps and texts speak of a once-vast series of kingdoms which lined the region, numbering in the hundreds, which fell one after another to the wilderness. Now only ruins remain of these civilizations, and the promise of vast wealth for any who could survive long enough to loot the long-forgotten cities.


    In the Enge Mountains proper are a number of Dwarven holds, some in better condition than others. Dwarves are interested in the wealth of surface foods while happy to trade enchanted weapons and various metals. However, their alliance with Silmid makes them self-sustaining, and they hold little need for human goods. Engeval does make a steady profit taking Silmid silks and Dwarven gems and trading them for Lenel spices.


    <u>Political Structure:</u>


    Six kingdoms make up the Empire, with Enge Itself sitting as Emperor, while the six regents and three high priests form a Regent''s Council, to determine the course of the Empire in all matters which Enge chooses not to involve itself. In almost 500 years, Enge has only issued four Imperial Decrees, making the Council the de facto ruling body of the Empire.


    Some political historians note that Engeval is not an empire, as the so-called kingdoms within can not be considered true kingdoms. They share a single ruling lineage, some control over one another''s governing system, a language, a religion, and no notable cultural difference. They are in truth, a series of duchies, with Enge serving as King In Absentia, and the only reason it''s called an empire is because the nobility''s egos won''t accept anything less than to have their own kingdoms.A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.


    It isn''t a crime to spread such an opinion within the empire, but it won''t make friends amongst the social elites.


    While Engeval calls itself an absolute monarchy, only Enge has the right to issue absolute decrees, and all other nobles are beholden to a series of High, Middle, and Least nobles which make up the complex chain of political alliances within the Empire, as well as Common Rights that makes clear note of what powers do and do not reside with the servants of the empire.


    In addition to the nobility, there is the church, which is supposed to protect the common people from the predation of the powerful, and the numerous guilds which represent the economic interests of the city''s businessmen and landholders. The military represents a fourth, officially neutral, organization that swears its fealty to Enge and the rule of law.


    It is difficult to tell one organization from another at times, as there are no laws preventing nobles from serving as priests or working as merchants, and almost anyone of high rank within the military is nobility.


    In addition, any citizen can become least nobility simply by becoming the owner of a piece of land, whether by taking control over wild territory (as Reclaimers often do), or by purchasing or being gifted land by a landowner.


    Most positions of nobility are determined by heredity, with the family elder deciding who will inherit the property upon the death of the parents, and if no heir is clear, then a vote will be had by the children who stand to inherit. Inheriting nobles are considered responsible for the wellbeing of their family, as their parents were before them.


    The position of Regency, however, is determined by vote. Often, the Regent will nominate a successor, but in the end the new Regent will be determined by a vote of all eligible nobles for the position, as well as the adult sons and daughters of the former king and queen, who by law may not inherit.


    One a new regent has been nominated, the Council then holds a vote to decide if the nominee is acceptable- often by asking the opinions of local religious and business leaders. The region''s former regent''s wishes will be taken into account, and considered an official post mortem vote, if an official document presenting the regent''s wishes has been made available.


    In some extreme cases, Exorcists may be employed to ask the opinion of the dead regent.


    Engewal, as largest city within the Empire, serves as the unofficial capital of the empire, though it possesses no more official power than any of the other five nations. The official location of the capital is the Five Peaks, the site of a volcanic caldera that the Cult of Enge teaches to be the spot where the twins who first established the nation were conceived. Every so often, a hopeful woman (and her guards) will take a pilgrimage to the spot, to beg the god to sire her children. Any woman so blessed immediately becomes the High Priestess of Enge, but most die during the journey, and of the rest only two have received child from the god.


    <u>Legal Rights and Privileges</u>


    All citizens possess the right to a public trial by Truthsayer, and a punishment meted out by a judge and jury within the confines of the law. Though it is more common for criminals, knowing the Truthsayer will find them guilty, will choose to accept a punishment by judge alone.


    Criminals can not have "undue harm" inflicted upon them by an officer. What constitutes undue harm depends on what the criminal is guilty of. People who feel wronged by officers are allowed to leverage an accusation against the officer, which will be verified by Truthsayers.


    Filing false charges against someone is a major crime. Also an easy one to catch, because Truthsayers.


    Criminals have some room to "purchase forgiveness", and will often pay the victims to forgive the crime. Making such an offer is considered legal and proper, it is ultimately the victim who decides whether to accept. "Crimes against Enge''s people" (usually acts which impact a large number of people, or which seek to defraud the state, or lying to officers) offer no such indulgences.


    Slavery exists in two forms- one known as "debt slavery", where a person may be forced into servitude to recoup expenses. Debt slaves have some limited rights, such as not being forced to perform sexual services or dangerous labor. With time, they can earn their freedom. The other, known as "moral slavery", is a punishment for criminals who have, in the eyes of the law, "forfeited their human rights, by virtue of inhuman behavior". Considered less than animals, their owners have the right to commit any act, up to and including the murder of the slave.


    Public assembly is allowed, but limited, as is religious freedom and the ownership of property. The people are allowed to make their voices heard, and have enough influence to sway the political body, with nobles and merchants who consider it useful to at least be perceived to be on the side of the common people.


    Some rare number of Silmid also inhabit Engeval, and are provided legal protections, but are not considered proper citizens of the empire. They are appreciated for labor in enclosed spaces, as their small size and natural climbing abilities give them freedom of movement in places humans cannot go.

 Chapter 18

    Elruin slept on a bed made of living plants, layers of moss stacked atop vines in a web that would make a spider dizzy. It was by far the most comfortable bed she had ever experienced in her life. She awoke to the smell of cooked food, and so rushed to get ready; Mother and Father became cross when the children weren''t at the table in time; she and her siblings missed out on more meals that way.


    "Early riser, that''s good," Cali said when the girl peeked in. "Eat up, we have a long day ahead and I don''t know if we''ll have time for lunch."


    "Where''s Miss Rena, and Lyra?" Nothing more than polite chatter while she got her plate ready.


    "At church," Cali said. "Rena has always been a devout believer, spends an hour at the church praying every day, and at least one more volunteering. That''s part of why Lyra chose her."


    "What are the other reasons?" Perhaps if Elruin knew, she could convince Lyra to play with her.


    "The priests will tell you ''purity''," Calenda said, though her tone was dismissive. "But, they''ll never be able to explain exactly what purity means. They say ''if you have to ask, you''ll never understand'', then act like that''s wisdom instead of deception. All we know for certain is she always picks religiously devout women, though she doesn''t seem to favor any particular religion, and only those who have never killed any living animal, except maybe some plants and bugs. If you ask me, that''s filter enough."


    Elruin began to eat while Cali talked, enjoying another dish made entirely of vegetables. Perhaps that was another part of making Lyra happy, since Cali seemed happy enough to share in the mutton at Aunt Leyli''s farm.


    "Speaking of purity, we have to talk about your pet," Cali said. Elruin considered it quite rude of her to talk while she was eating, but there wasn''t much she could do to object under the circumstances. "I kept it quiet, but you have to destroy it. Or, better still, we get another Exorcist and let her destroy it, in front of several members of the Guard."


    "But why? Mister Clackybones saved us."


    "No, you saved us," Cali emphasized. "That thing is an abomination with no mind and no soul. Controlling one is a crime, as is choosing to allow one to exist when you have the power to destroy it. The fact that it was naturally spawned, and you used it to save lives, is the only reason you can walk away from this without being executed, or worse." ''Worse'' was an understatement for the ages. Elruin was young, and had a ridiculously potent bloodline. There was the possibility that she would be locked in an antimagic cage and used as breeding stock. She would be nowhere near the first to suffer that fate.


    "But why?" Elruin looked Calenda in the eyes, breaking social protocol in the process. "Like you said, I control Mister Clackybones. He can''t hurt me, or anyone unless I say so."


    "You control the shell," Calenda said. "But not the force that created it in the first place. The walking corpses are nothing but a symptom, the disease itself infects the spiritual layer of the world, where souls reside, and where magic power is drawn from. If not destroyed, it will spread and consume everything. And that includes those necromancers who think that, somehow, they''ll be the first exception to the rule. You can''t control the taint, nobody can."


    "Do you know that for certain?" Elruin asked. "Maybe you just don''t know how?"


    Cali sighed. "You''re lucky you''re cute, because people have been killed over lesser heresies." She took a deep breath. "Ell, there are five Greater Gods and three Ancestral gods of Death that I know of. Some don''t just allow, but encourage murder, torture, human sacrifice, and acts of evil that would make you cry to hear spoken. Even they demand the annihilation of all undead taint. Don''t be the fool who rushes in where even Gods fear to tread."


    Elruin had nothing she could say against that argument, save that she still wanted to keep Mister Clackybones. "But he saved us."


    "The exorcist and inquisitor will hear about what happened at that farm, and that includes you taking that thing. Then they''ll return, and they''ll want to know what happened, and I''ll have no choice but to tell the truth. I can bend it, a little, and not mention how much you argued against destroying the monster. As a wild talent, maybe you don''t know how to destroy it. Do you?"This narrative has been purloined without the author''s approval. Report any appearances on Amazon.


    Elruin hesitated for a moment; she knew the song, suspected she knew how to break the song, but she couldn''t be certain. "I don''t know, I''ve never tried."


    Cali took a slow breath. "Good. That''s good. The situation was stable, and it was better to wait until we had an expert available, on the off chance that you make things worse trying to fix them. I''m no necromancer, I don''t know how to cleanse taint or what might go wrong in the process. They can''t fault me for caution outside an emergency. But the team has no doubt already left, and will probably return by tonight. If that monster isn''t destroyed by then, you will be, and I''ll be lucky if I''m not as well."


    "Oh." Elruin looked down. "But."


    "Look, it will take time to get another Exorcist ready. There''s only a few of them in the city, and one''s out on business. We can go to the library, find what you want to know while we wait. I''m sure you''ll understand when you have a chance to think about it."


    Elruin disagreed, but she still didn''t see much choice. Nothing short of taking Mister Clackybones and running away would save him, and that would upset Cali and everyone else.


    During the walk to the library, Elruin tried to find another subject of conversation: clothing. Her new dress was nice, but it wasn''t hers, and she didn''t want to be a burden and destroy even more outfits that weren''t hers. "Cali, is there a way to keep my clothes from being destroyed?"


    Cali looked at her. "Outside expensive mage-tempered material like Rig uses? Don''t use magic in clothes you want to keep. Or at least don''t use strong magic, you can get away with the gentle stuff."


    "So it''s not just me?"


    "No, it''s not just you, it''s everyone," Cali said. "Some elements are better than others, but it happens to all of us one way or another. Sometimes, I wish I was a fire mage, at least having your clothes burn off looks intimidating. Mine just grow mold and rot away. But when did you ever lose clothes to your magic?"


    Elruin thought back, and every outfit destroyed so far had been thanks to mud, being shot by Father, wild animal attacks, and a bad man exploding. "I destroyed the arm of my dress when playing with Lady Juna and Lord Garit. He showed me a new trick, and it burned the sleeve. I almost fell over, after."


    "Ah, then don''t use that spell," Calenda responded. "The twins take training as seriously as everything else they do. If you don''t push yourself to those levels, you shouldn''t have any problems. But I''ll look into some low quality mage-tempered cloth for training. They''ll demand you have something at any academy, anyway. Speaking of, maybe that''s a way to save time. I can contact an academy Exorcist while you study at the library."


    Then we kill Mister Clackybones. "Okay."


    The library itself was larger than the barn that held the cows at the farm, made of stone like most of the city. "Is everything stone here?" she asked.


    "It''s to be expected, when earth mages are the most common type in the city. Also, some of the oldest architecture comes from buildings abandoned by the dwarves before humans reclaimed the land from the wilderness."


    Calenda led them to a woman working behind a table, next to another table with a man who would help the male guests. "Hello, I was hoping you could help me."


    "With pleasure," the woman said. Then she noticed Calenda''s clothing. "To what do we owe the honor of being visited by a priestess?"


    "I''m in the process of getting this girl ready for an Academy Evaluation," Calenda said as she put a hand on Elruin''s shoulder. "It may take some time, and she wishes to study in the meantime. Please help her as you can, until I return."


    "I''ll do everything in my power, Priestess."  The librarian came to a handful of conclusions in quick succession. A girl so young with Academy potential came from a line of power, and had wealth to back it. Perhaps it was unusual for noble scion to wear such modest clothes, but that simply meant her family didn''t want her to stand out.


    "Then I am relieved. Elruin, be a good girl for the nice lady."


    Elruin stood in polite subservience to the woman. "Hello, I am Elruin. Please, I''d like to read more about the history and, umm, politics of the city."


    "My name is Mipa," the librarian said as she continued her evaluation. Her dark hair and eyes, and pale features, suggested a exotic origin, which made her a foreign guest. As such, it wasn''t too bizarre that a child of her age would want to get started on learning the local upper class customs. She was no doubt being groomed to a position of great power, perhaps a foreign diplomat to Engeval. "That is quite the topic. Let us start with the founding of our largest city, Engewal, and work from there."


    While a mere peasant like her had no hope of receiving a position of real power, there were any number of lesser positions required by nobles that would be a step up from her current lot in life.


    Whatever misconceptions the librarian had, Calenda made no effort to correct them. No untrue or even misleading statement had been made. It was not her fault the idea a child of twelve had more ability than most second-year academy students was too unbelievable to cross anyone''s mind.


    Calenda shook her head as she left, and asked herself again why she was doing so much to help this girl.


    Some part of her hoped she wasn''t like Garit and Juna, gaining favor with someone of obvious power, in order to leverage it later. Necromancers were rare to begin with, only a handful stronger than Elruin, and none younger than twice her age. If the girl could be convinced to abandon her empathy for the undead, she''d be a power to behold.

 Chapter 19

    Suggested Listening</a>


    The time spent with Mipa in the library gave Elruin some understanding of the world she''d found herself in, with its bizarre world known as ''politics''. She had no idea why people wasted such effort on these sorts of things, but all the books seemed to view this as normal, and she''d seen so many other great ideas from the city that she guessed this one was just too clever for her to understand.


    Although Cali agreed with her when she said that having a park instead of a farm was a silly idea, so perhaps the city people were wrong about this as well. It seemed to her that her first plan was the best: it was safer not to get involved. The problem was, it seemed like everything in the city had politics, including the academies to which Cali thought Elruin should go.


    By the time Cali returned, Elruin felt she understood the basics- nobles made all the decisions, like Father on the farm, but without friends and allies that were strong, nobody would do what the nobles say. Much like the workers on the farm, you had to be nice or they''d leave and the work would never get done. Unless they were bad workers, then nobody wanted them to come back.


    But Father was a bad man who shot her with a crossbow, so bad people could pretend to be nice people in order to make others help them. Cali seemed to think Lady Juna and Lord Garit were that sort of bad person who pretended to be a good person. So she would have to be friendly to them, but pay attention in case they try to hurt her in the future. The city-people were already going to kill Mister Clackybones, so it was clear to her they weren''t nice.


    By the time Calenda returned, the sun was high in the sky. "I trust you didn''t cause any trouble."


    Elruin looked up from the map she was studying, an old one of the area before the Empire of Engewal existed. "Yes, I''ve been good." She turned to Mipa, and clasped her hands together. "Thank you, ma''am, for your trouble."


    "There was no trouble," Mipa replied. "I believe you are the most polite and quiet guest the library has ever had." Too polite, for Mipa''s taste. Watching the girl read and study in absolute silence was akin to watching a wax doll that would turn pages. No changes of expression, no shifting to get comfortable, she hardly so much as blinked. At times Mipa began to wonder if the child was breathing. It wasn''t until the girl had left that she allowed herself the luxury of shuddering; if that''s what foreign nobles expected of their children, she''d stay right here in Arila.


    "Does that mean" we''re going to kill Mister Clackybones "you''ve found an exorcist?"


    "Close enough," Cali said. "She''s a scourge. Exorcists are necromancers trained as healers, while scourges are battle-mages. I''m told exorcists have special training to remove taint from people without killing them in the process, which is a difficult process that only a rare few have affinities for, but any trained necromancer can cleanse taint from dead material."


    Like Mister Clackybones. "I understand."


    The trip was more small talk than anything, as Elruin asked Calenda questions about politics, and got some insight into the most important guilds and organizations within the city. Not many of them seemed like something Elruin would be involved in, since she knew nothing of trade routes, sea travel, or weapon crafting. She was surprised to learn there was a farmer''s guild, then disappointed to learn it was about selling food made on the farms rather than doing any farming. She decided the Dragonslayers sounded important, however.


    "They''re more known for suicidal insanity than political acumen," Cali said of them. "Some get rich, most get dead. Better to be a military Dragonslayer than joining the guild. Pay''s worse, but you get support, intel, and kept to missions that are safer or crucial, rather than chasing every monster in Engeval until you find the one that determines your fate. But, well, a lot of stupid young men and women, mostly noble scions whose families are not wealthy enough to grant them a landed title. Sometimes I think the only reason the Empire tolerates them is because it kills off dangerous youth."


    "Dangerous?"


    "Strong bloodlines, quality weapons, teen stupidity, and desperation. Scary combination. Better to let them rush into the wilds than to sit around scheming violent revolution. And I suppose some of them do kill off an actual dragon once in a while, which helps everyone."


    At the gate, Cali left Elruin in order to go into the side area, then returned minutes later with two women in Guard armor. "This is Elruin, the wild necromancer you''ve heard so much about." Cali gestured to the girl. "Ell, meet Jess and Lefara. They shall be our escort and witnesses."


    "I am pleased to meet you."


    "As we are you," Jess responded. "Scout Calenda says that you captured an undead horse?"If you encounter this story on Amazon, note that it''s taken without permission from the author. Report it.


    "Yes, Guard." Elruin nodded, it helped to keep her head down so she could hide her emotions. She couldn''t let them see her feelings. "It was at the farm. It helped stop the bad men." She also couldn''t help but speak in poor Mister Clackybones'' defense, even if she knew nobody but her would care.


    The guards looked at Calenda, seeking some cue from her. She intoned the same explanation she''d used dozens of times in the last few hours. "I don''t think the taint spread to any of them, but Exorcist Rayles was sent to the incident site along with Inquisitor Arden. I trust their judgment better than my own. I had Elruin bring the monster with us, because I wasn''t certain how much control she could exert over a distance, nor do I know if she can cleanse taint. It was contained, better to wait for someone we knew could destroy it safely."


    "It was a sound, if perhaps overly cautious, decision," another voice said from the entrance to the gateway. An older woman dressed in a formal black combat uniform of leather stood there.  "As Scout Calenda describes it, I doubt any harm would have come from destroying the creature. Still, no reason to take unnecessary risks." She approached Elruin first. "I am Scourge Nerys na Renor." Like Elruin, she had black hair, making her the only other person she''d ever met with that hair color.


    Elruin nodded and kept her hands together. "I am Elruin."


    "I am told you''re a wild talent," the scourge made conversation while they opened the gate. Her stern face and reserved body language were oddly comforting to Elruin, though it made the guards uncomfortable. Calenda had dealt with enough necromancers over the years to know this was what to expect of them. Earth mages were stubborn, fire mages aggressive, and necromancers underwent rigor mortis while their hearts still beat. "And that you wish to join an academy?"


    "Yes, Scourge," she addressed by title. "Are you going to take me to your school?"


    "No." The stern looking older woman answered. "I am here to ensure the taint is destroyed, and to evaluate your potential. It is not that I distrust Scout Calenda''s judgment, but no academy will accept a mage so young without the highest recommendations."


    "Lady Juna and Lord Garit say I''m really good for my age." Elruin imagined their recommendations qualified.


    "Is that so?"


    Calenda considered how to respond. "Generals Juna and Garit expressed some interest in her education." It was the most neutral way to describe the encounter.


    "Lord Garit taught me how to zap a wall, and Lady Juna hit me." Elruin considered that statement, then decided it needed elaboration. "Lots of times."


    "General Juna has a rather hands on approach to training her soldiers," Cali added. "And I have been considering adopting Elruin, which may play a role in how we approach her future education."


    "Yes, Lady Juna''s practice sessions are renowned throughout the academies. Especially the Order of Respite." Scourge Nerys responded. "Unorthodox, yet effective. If they were to recommend you, or you were to join a noble house, then your acceptance into an academy is all but guaranteed. How about we do some small tests while we walk? I''m told you''re a Virtuoso?"


    "Yes, Scourge." Elruin started to hum her notes, bringing up small samples of her magic. The guards with Calenda slowed their pace, just to avoid being too close to the necromancer and her unnatural music, while Calenda and Nerys remained unaffected by the music.


    As Elruin was put through her paces, Nerys explained the academies, and what they would expect from the girl. It was a lot to consider, but it would help Elruin learn her abilities, compete with all the other mages in the world, and find a future career.


    Suggested Listening</a>


    When they reached the edge of the forest, the moment which Elruin had been trying to will away the whole day came. She closed her eyes and sang to Mister Clackybones, who picked himself up out of the dirt to the startled dismay of a fox which was exploring the disturbed earth for whatever had been buried there.


    He walked toward Elruin, unaware of the fate which waited for him, and stared with empty eyes at the five witnesses. Two of whom held their spears at the ready, as if such weapons would cause much harm to him.


    "Impressive control," Nerys muttered with more concern for Elruin''s technique than the subject of her power.


    Elruin''s chest burned with the desire to scream and cry. Some part of her wanted to make Clackybones fight back, but she couldn''t imagine the more experienced necromancer would have any difficulty doing what she was doing. "I... may I do it?" The idea of surrendering control and allowing the scourge to harm her poor horsey was unacceptable to her.


    "Very well." Oblivious to the reason why, Nerys had no cause to object. "It is a minor taint, and I am here to watch for mistakes."


    Elruin resumed her song to the matrix of energies that was Mister Clackybones. To her sight, there was little which was different between his life, and the human beings around her. True, it was a different source, and she could point to no single part of it that made him ''alive'', but such was true for the people as well. They, like he, existed as a tangled network of concept and energy held together by forces she could not explain.


    He was not alive, but he was a being just like them in every place which mattered. He looked at her, unable to recognize that he was about to be betrayed by a second master in as many days.


    Two final notes, and it all came undone, the only mercy Elruin could offer her faithful steed who had done nothing wrong in either life. The bone collapsed on the trail, devoid of animating essence.


    "It was sloppy technique," Scourge Nethys noted. "Using raw power to make up for lack of finesse. But still better than half the second-year students'' first attempts. For someone of your age and lack of formal training, one could not imagine better results. Guards, the taint has been removed. Please gather the remains to be burned while I triple-check the area. I doubt anything was missed, but there is no such thing as too thorough when it comes to the undead."


    Elruin ignored the woman. This was praise she didn''t want to hear. She walked over to Cali and gave her a hug. "Thank you for the best days ever." Even if your city-people made me kill my horsey.


    An arm went around her back. "As I walk."


    A thought occurred to her. "Can I get a doll? A toy horse?"


    "I''ll see what we can do."

 Chapter 20

    Suggested Listening (still)</a>


    Elruin remained close to Cali while the scourge and guards made certain that there was nothing left of Mister Clackybones. There wasn''t, Elruin made certain of that, and she hated them for it. She hoped all of this would be worth it. "Did... did I make a good impression on Scourge Nerys?"


    "I think so," Cali said. "She wouldn''t have been discussing which academy you wanted to go to if you weren''t talented. This is the first time I met her, and necromancers are hard to read at the best of times. Speaking of, the College, huh? I hadn''t taken you for the scholarly type."


    "I used to borrow Kasa''s books to read when I was done with chores since nobody wanted to play with me," Elruin said. "Some of them were hard, I''m not as smart as Kasa."


    Cali knelt down in front of Elruin, keeping her hands on the younger girl''s shoulders. "Kasa was not smarter than you." Elruin nodded, since this seemed important to Cali. "When you get older, you''ll learn that there''s a difference between education and intelligence. There are many, many things out there smarter than Kasa which don''t read a lot. Such as pond slime."


    Elruin smiled; Kasa hated it when people didn''t think she was smart. "I''m going to learn all about how magic works, then I''ll be smarter and more educated."


    "Well, if there''s anything necromancers are known for, it''s spending countless hours sitting still in dark rooms."


    Miracle of miracles Elruin managed to go the rest of the rather uneventful day without destroying yet another article of clothing, so with a quick cleaning spell from Cali, she was ready when time came to visit Lady Juna and Lord Garit''s mansion. Once again, Elruin was impressed by the size of the building, though it didn''t compare to the ostentatiousness of the church. The wall around the building reminded her a little of her farm, complete with the gentle hum of magical static from the defensive sarite fixtures.


    Suggested Listening</a>


    Four guards, two of each sex, waited at the main gate. When Elruin and Calenda began walking down the path to the gate, they followed a well-choreographed routine that involved the men stepping back and the women stepping forward to have them greet the guests.


    "Scout Calenda," one of the women acknowledged them as they approached. "We were told to expect your arrival, please allow me to escort you."


    "Your assistance is appreciated," Cali answered. In truth, she''d walked these halls so often she could probably show the guards places they never knew existed, like the secret passage in one of the wine cellars where... well, no point dwelling on those memories. Social protocol, however, demanded they all play their roles. While the three walked into the building, another female guard exited the building to replace her. Everyone had a role to play in this dance known as noble society. Cali hated every second of it.


    The inside of the building was as well designed to impress as the outside, with walls of solid white stone the likes of which Elruin had never seen before. The crackle of fire-magic kept the building lit and heated, and made for a fascinating song in Elruin''s ears. The whole building sang of fire magic, with an earth magic undertone. It was as if the twins were with her, already.


    The dining room they were led to was designed to impress, the sort that might be used to house visiting kings, not that Elruin knew anything about kings other than that they were in charge of all the nobles beneath them. Like most of the rooms she''d seen, it seemed too large for its purpose, with a table that was well made, but looked small compared to the floor it stood on.


    "Greetings, Lady Calenda and Miss Elruin," Lady Juna was standing and ready when they arrived. "I apologize for my brother. He wished to be here to greet you as well, but the matters of running the city do not always care for our wishes. Shall we eat first while we wait? I promise Garit would prefer it that way."


    "You know him best," Cali said. Were it other nobles, she might suspect some sort of political trap being set, a power play against the other, but the idea of them harming one other was insane. "Dining while we await Lord Garit''s arrival would save time. These are busy days for all of us."


    Most people would never know themselves half as well as these two knew each other. When the pair plotted, they plotted as one against their rivals. Thus the salacious rumors. While they no doubt had ulterior motives in this invitation, it was going to be the sort that would involve the pair of them trying to lure Calenda and Elruin further into their camp. Power plays would only serve to harm that goal; the real trap would be honeyed words, gifts, and promises of alliances.


    The meal was excellent, dozens of foods to choose from most of which Elruin had never seen before. She ate enough that her stomach started to hurt from being over-full, and nobody tried to hog the meat for themselves since there was more than enough for everyone.


    Garit arrived not long before the meal was over, but said nothing as he took a seat next to his sister and claimed the remaining leg from some animal Elruin suspected was a bird. Since everyone else was almost done, he opted for that small snack, then Juna indicated to the all-female staff to clear the plates. Only then did social graces allow them conversation.


    "I''m sure my sister has apologized for me, but I express my regret and frustration nonetheless," Garit chose to start. "The aftermath of your encounter at the farm has had some... far reaching consequences..."


    Oh, here it is, Cali thought. While she puzzled out a careful way to navigate the metaphorical trap, Elruin cut straight to the heart of the matter.


    "Did I do something wrong?" Elruin asked. She came to the same conclusion Cali did, but didn''t consider that it was part of a ploy rather than just her getting in trouble.


    "No, not at all," Lady Juna said. "In fact, you did better than anyone could have expected from one so young. The exorcist said there was no sign of taint left on the farm; the only evidence of undeath was witness testimony. Even many skilled necromancers couldn''t accomplish that thorough a cleansing. Their one complaint was a lack of suspects to interrogate, but that''s hardly your fault. Besides, we got enough information to act upon."


    Calenda allowed herself to breathe again; not for the first time, she wondered if she was too paranoid for her own good, and that her history with the twins was coloring her judgment unfairly. "Then it wasn''t all lost when I let one suicide himself?"


    "Well, it didn''t make the job any easier, Scout." Lady Juna said.


    "My apologies, General."


    "Don''t be too harsh on Lady Calenda, sister. They''re operating in small cells, so that no one group can identify any others, and scrying has only served to prove they have experienced espionage mages working for them. That team was nothing but the lowest rung of their organization, and if we took all of them alive, I doubt we''d know more than we now do."This story has been taken without authorization. Report any sightings.


    "You''re right, brother, I''m letting stress get the better of me. Sorry, Calenda," for the first time since they were children, Juna addressed her without title. "You weren''t the only one they went after. They timed a simultaneous strike on Scouts across the empire. Including you, twelve escaped. Five others are missing, and one is known to be dead."


    Now Calenda''s suspicions went back into overdrive, wondering if the whole display was an attempt to make her amenable to her possible future husband, then hating herself for worrying about that instead of the lives that were lost. "Scouts are the ears of the Empire," Cali tilted her head down, to respect the dead. "They tried to deafen us before launching future attacks."


    "At the very least, most cities will hesitate before risking the Scouts and Guard on the roads," Lord Garit said. "Cut the farms from the cities, and they can act with impunity. And since it was such a widespread move, with so many possible advantages, we can''t begin to guess their next move."


    "Do we know anything about their motives?" Suspicion of the twins notwithstanding, Calenda was a loyal soldier who had no intention of not joining this battle.


    "They believe they can spark a revolution," Lady Juna said. "Or at least, that''s what their rank and file believe. Their leadership''s smart enough to realize that''s impossible, so the true goals can be anything from simple banditry to a higher noble hoping to humiliate rivals as a play for one of the thrones. They call themselves the Ghosts of Sorvel."


    "Merat!" Calenda didn''t so much as look apologetic for the outburst.


    Elruin recalled the images from the dead man. "What''s a Sorvel?"


    "Sorvel was a city," Cali said. "Before I joined the Guard, before you were born. Some insane cult decided that the walls were an evil plot to control the common people and make them dependent on the nobility. Someone in Sorvel, somehow, deactivated the Sarite barrier. It was a massacre. I never comprehended why they did it. They could have walked out the front gate and died in the wilderness, if they wanted. Instead they killed tens of thousands."


    "Utter ignorance," Juna added. "It got popular amongst scholars, who pointed to old maps and stories that proved people once lived without walls, without fear of monsters."


    "Myths," Cali said. "Fiction dreamt up by men who died a thousand years ago."


    "Not necessarily myth," Lord Garit said. "There''s strong evidence monsters have become more powerful, or at least more common, in the last couple centuries. If that trend dates back thousands of years, then perhaps it''s true that there was a time our ancestors lived without the walls."


    "Whatever the truth in centuries past, it''s clear to anyone sane that we need the walls today," Juna continued. "But the cult believed that they could prove they weren''t necessary, and thus would discredit the nobility. They proved the opposite, on many levels."


    "Sarite shields aren''t just about preventing monsters from breaking in, they also prevent human energy from leaking out," Cali explained. "A scholar can explain it better, but it''s obvious to any mage with magical senses that humans generate a unique sort of energy. A city of that size, with the bubble popped, was a beacon that called to every monster in the empire and beyond."


    "They got the shield restored." Garit''s turn, now. "But it was too late. Within minutes, the first dragon arrived. Less than an hour later, other beasts broke down part of the wall. Another hour, and half the population was dead, while the strongest of the nobility did their best to organize a fighting retreat. Hundreds fought, died, so that thousands had time to escape. We all lost people that day. Friends, family, loved ones."


    "May they never be forgotten." Calenda spoke the prayer, the others echoed it. Even Elruin, who lived in a small farm that knew nothing of politics, knew the prayer for dead family.


    "But, they were," Cali muttered. "Others still believe in that insane idea, claim that Sorvel was sabotaged, and the nobility called in the monsters as a plot to destroy their fictional paradise. It''s illegal to speak such opinions today, but there are sympathizers across the Empire. It looks like these Ghosts of Sorvel are an extension of that insanity."


    "Oh." This was all far too complex for Elruin to wrap her head around. She knew what it was like outside the walls, and while strong people like Cali were safe enough, she couldn''t imagine how any member of her family could have survived even a single Mork, let alone the pack that targeted her. "What should we do?"


    "That''s sweet of you to offer," Lady Juna said. "But nothing you need worry about. We''re the adults, trained warriors and the nobility which exists to defend the people against the wilderness. We''ll fight the Ghosts. You complete your education, so that in a few years you''ll be strong enough to fight alongside us."


    "Alongside, my sister says," Garit chuckled. "With your talent, it would be better to put her on a separate battlefield. Power like hers gets a specialized team built around it, an entire unit with her name. We''d only meet when the fighting was over to see who got the high score."


    Elruin didn''t blush often, but with her pale skin it showed as clear as sun. "You think so?"


    "Of course we do," Juna said. "Why else would we take such an interest in your education? Speaking of which, we heard you talked with the Academies, which school gets the honor of training our favorite future dragonslayer?"


    "The College of High Thaumaturgy," Elruin answered. She thought she saw a flicker of disapproval from the twins. "It, umm, I want to learn about how magic works, then I can use it better." She left out the part about wanting to find a way to have dollies without taint, so people wouldn''t want to break them anymore. "And maybe I can make new really smart friends."


    "I suppose that is where I''d recommend you go, if those are your goals," Garit said.


    "You''re certain you don''t want to train with The Order of Enge? Or even the Naval Academy?" Juna asked. "The College is good for producing scholars, but with your power you could be an irreplaceable warmage."


    "She still might, dear sister." Lord Garit put his hand on Juna''s elbow. "It would mean working harder, and making an... exception... for her at the barracks training hall, but it would not be so difficult to see to it that she gets proper training with combat magic."


    "At the cost of her studies," Cali amended.


    "I''m certain the headmaster won''t mind too much," Lady Juna slipped into the role of supporting her brother''s plan like it was a glove. "After all, a mage so young cannot be expected to keep up with advanced magic theory regardless of natural talent. Once, perhaps twice a week of high power training won''t hold her back any notable amount."


    "Speaking of our help," Garit added. "I talked to Rig, he said you never visited his shop."


    Elruin put her hands over her chest. "Thank you, but it didn''t feel right to take gifts." Cali''s warning made sense, however; after all, the two were trying to sway her choice of schools even though she hadn''t accepted presents from them. How much worse would it be if she had? "I want to do it on my own."


    "Well, you are in part an earth mage," Lady Juna said with a smile. "Would you believe us earth mages have quite the reputation for being stubborn?"


    Elruin didn''t know that, but to her knowledge Lady Juna had never lied to her. Besides, Cali said nothing to contradict her. "Yes."


    Having gained the answer she expected, Juna continued. "I suppose that leaves an unanswered question. What do you think your third aspect is?"


    "Third?" Up until yesterday, Elruin didn''t know she had two Aspects, or indeed what an aspect was. "Are you sure I have one?"


    "Of course you do."


    "It''s possible, my sister, that you''re letting your other aspect cloud your judgment some," Garit said. "Not all mages have two aspects, let alone three."


    "Ah, but all the strongest do." Juna kept her focus on Elruin while answering her brother. "You''re so obviously a necromancer it hurts, so we can rule out true earth aspect. I bet you''re an ice magic."


    "But I don''t know how to make ice?" As far as magic went, she was always willing to hear ideas.


    "Well, it does do making ice, but that''s one of the less popular spells. I like to call it Hypothermia magic. Ice mages are famous for slowly sapping the mental and physical strength of an enemy, even stealing their life energy to fuel their own magic."


    "And you''re so convinced she''s not Blight or Miasma?" Garit asked.


    "Blight?" Now Juna took the time to act shocked for her brother. "How could you imagine this sweet, quiet girl would be a Hate Mage? But it''s true, the ability to drive people insane with rage or create flame powered by the victim''s own magic is amazing. Do you have magic like that?"


    "I don''t think so." Though as she thought about it, perhaps she could use a person''s own energy as fuel. It wasn''t something she could do now, however. "What''s miasma do?"


    "Well, it has some illusion tricks, but mostly it''s good for poisons," Lord Garit said. "Coughing, hallucinations, asphyxiation, and death. Worst part is, they''re hard to identify and counter, so by the time you know one''s there, men are dying around you."


    "I don''t think I can do that, either." All those magics sounded powerful, and scary. All her magic was scary, but that magic sounded extra scary.


    "Don''t worry about it," Cali said. "I didn''t figure out I had water magic until I was years older than you. And even if all you have is time and negation, that''s more than most people ever get."


    That made Elruin feel better. "Thank you."

 Chapter 21

    Now that she knew the stakes, with these Ghosts of Sorvel trying to hurt people, Elruin decided maybe she should accept some help from the twins in spite of Cali''s warnings to the contrary. "Lady Juna? I think maybe I should see your music teacher, if that''s not too much of a bother, please?" She wanted to work on her magic, and she had a magic violin she knew nothing about. It seemed like the best idea.


    "No bother at all," Juna smiled her best smile and pretended not to notice Calenda clenching her fists. "I''ll let her know, and you can have your first session in a few days. I warn you, though, she is a demanding teacher. Best I can name at her craft, but she expects nothing less than your best in return."


    "I thought that''s what you hated about her, dear sister?"


    "No, not at all." Lady Juna turned her attention to her brother for just one moment. "What I hated is that she refused to understand that for all my talents, music simply is not one of them. But a Virtuoso like little Elruin should be an ideal match."


    As the conversation was coming to a close, Elruin clasped her hands together. "Thank you again for your hospitality and help."


    "Think nothing of it," Lady Juna said. "We all want the safety of our city and loved ones. One day, you''ll contribute to both, and we''d be failures in our duty if we didn''t do everything in our power to prepare you for that day."


    Suggested Listening</a>


    Night in the city was beautiful and active. The stone paths of the city began to glow, creating a soft light that illuminated the entire city, or at least the parts anyone looked like they wanted to go. People went about their business on the streets, either socializing or working as if it was still the day. Through her lifesight, she spotted couple hiding behind a smaller wall, doing... the thing adults did that she thought was only meant to be done in bed. Only animals did it outside, to her knowledge.


    Elruin had never considered that people would want to be out at night. Through her life, the sun was what guided her life, and the lives of her family. Be up at sunrise, to start your outdoor chores. Come in when the sun was high to eat, go to bed when the sun began to drop behind the wall. Being outside at night always meant something was wrong on the farm. Which brought her to the problem at hand, that everyone was talking, but not Cali.


    Elruin kept her head down. "Are you mad at me? I know I said I wouldn''t take Lady Juna''s offer, but I want to be able to help."


    "A little." Cali chose to look up, instead. "More than a little. I''m being stupid, trying to force my choices on you, earth mages are stubborn and water mages want to carve their own path, and I''m worse than most about both. It''s your choice, and in the short run it''s the smart choice, but I think it''s an unwise one in the long run."


    "I''ll be careful," Elruin said.


    "I hope that''s enough." They spent the rest of the walk home in silence.


    The next two days were a flurry of activity, with Elruin getting a crash course in what her curriculum would look like, though there wasn''t much by way of control she could exert on the process. The administration of The College insisted that she spend her days learning basic magic, so that she would possess what they considered minimum skills to participate with the rest of the school once classes started again.


    Other stuff, such as the purchase of supplies, became more complex. Clothes were more expensive than Elruin ever realized, and now she could appreciate why she never owned an outfit that wasn''t handed down to her by her relatives. "Does it matter what I wear?"


    "It shouldn''t, but it does," Calenda said. "Oh, does it ever. Especially to the types that associate with the academies. Just be glad they''re giving you the uniforms for free, not everyone gets that luxury."


    "Oh," it all looked so expensive, but she didn''t want to look bad to other people, either. "How will we afford anything good?"


    "Well, there''s always the sarite," Cali said. "I still say you''re better off trading it for better suited shards, but there''s always the coin market, it''s just not as ideal."


    "I want to keep them." She didn''t know if or when they might be helpful, but they seemed more important than clothes.


    "Well, they''re yours to do do with as you please," Cali said. "But I''d trade them out at earliest opportunity, if I were you. Especially since I can''t afford to buy you any expensive equipment, and it will be years before you can do it yourself."


    Now that they were talking about it, Elruin recalled the offer Cali made the other day. "You could adopt me like you said before?"


    "I... suppose that would solve the problem." When Calenda made that offer, she''d meant it more as speculation and an amateurish attempt at outplaying the twins at their own game. Now, with the young necromancer considering the idea in earnest, and it having failed at its intended purpose before it began, she was reminded of the other reason she didn''t play these games; she was terrible at them. She wasn''t about to tell Elruin about any of that, in part because of the same stupid pride that drove her to offer in the first place. "Not enough to afford the best, but enough to keep you taken care of."


    "That sounds good." Now Elruin began to wonder how it worked. "Does that mean I call you Mother, now?"


    This is why Time Mages can''t go back in time. Everyone with that power has already gone back and murdered their past selves. "I''d prefer you keep calling me Cali, if you could. If you must tell someone our relationship, say I''m your Elder Sister."


    Elruin''s emotions couldn''t be more opposite of Calenda''s. She hugged the older mage and new adoptive sibling. "Thank you, you''re the best Elder Sister ever! You saved me from the woods and got me nice clothes and a school! How can I ever repay you?"


    Cali hesitated, then returned the hug with one arm around Elruin''s lower back. "As I walk." Forget past-me. I''d find my Father, then I''d never have been born in the first place. Thinking about the complexities of time travel made for a viable short-term distraction. "Besides, half of that is me doing my job, and you did save my life, so I don''t think you owe me anything."


    Elruin squeezed harder, to which Cali just sighed and put her other hand on the girl''s head.


    Two more days of chaos was all it took for Elruin to take her first step inside her new dorm room at the school. She had her own room, without a roommate, thanks to being so much younger than all of the other students. To Elruin, the concept of having enough bedrooms that they could afford to have just two children to a room, let alone one, defied her imagination. It would have to remain imagination, too, since the walls were insulated to block her lifesight as well as everything else she knew.Support creative writers by reading their stories on Royal Road, not stolen versions.


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    "Good luck at school," Cali said. Now she gave Elruin a hug. "Do your best, study hard, and I''ll be sure to visit any time I''m back in town and can spare the time."


    "I promise," Elruin said. "Be careful while beating up the bad men." While it was possible for Elruin to stay at Cali''s place, she didn''t want to annoy Lyra any more than she had to, and as Cali said, it felt more like Rena''s home than Cali''s. So Elruin decided to stay at the school, where perhaps there was something other than cooked leaves for dinner.


    Elruin''s first week was pure disappointment, as she spent most of her days learning about simple magical structures that she never realized were unusual or special, like structuring the concept of the spell in her mind, then Revealing the spell, then casting it. It seemed that her tutor expected her to follow through a slow, boring process that took minutes while she talked, instead of the heartbeat and two notes that Elruin required.


    Time and time again, she found herself encountering this problem, as teachers demanded she do a slow, annoying approach instead of her own, instinctive approach. It felt to her like they were trying to teach her how to take her first steps, even though she knew how to walk fine.


    She felt like she learned more at the food hall, which they called a cafeteria. There, she could watch the other students show off the spells they learned in class, or talk about all the teachers she might meet while being trained at the school, or play at the same games that Cali talked about Lady Juna and Lord Garit playing. Compared to them, these students were mere children, but Elruin could still learn from them.


    If most of them didn''t avoid Elruin. Not too different from her family back home, none were mean to her, but all had their subtle ways of not including her in their conversations other than as a hanger-on. It didn''t take long before she concluded she wasn''t welcome.


    It was only then than one of the girls sat next to her. She was tall, and the first thing to come to Elruin''s mind was that she was very brown. With large eyes, long straight hair, and the darkest tan which Elruin had ever seen. "Greetings. My name is Lemia."


    "Greetings, I am Elruin." She took the traditional submissive posture. "May I ask why you wish to speak to me?"


    "You can treat me as an equal," Lemia said. "In fact, if you ask the people around here, I bet they''d say I should be subordinate to you."


    Elruin couldn''t figure out what she meant. "Why? Are you a slave?"


    "No, nothing like that. I''m what they call aspectless, when they''re being polite." Lemia waited until it became clear Elruin didn''t know what that meant. "You know how everyone has an aspect? You''re negation, most of the people around here are fire or earth, some even have two or three elements? Well, I have no aspect at all, yet can still use magic."


    "I''ve never heard of that before."


    "And I''ve never heard of a child who''s more powerful than half the teachers before," Lemia said. "Not that the teachers here are all that strong, this school puts most of its emphasis on knowledge, not ability. Nobody here knows what to do with either of us, and I saw you at the library trying to make up for the teachers'' failure. So I figure we can help each other out. I''ll show you some of the tricks the faculty won''t get around to showing you until a week before it''s time to go on break. And maybe if I watch you, I can learn more about how to concentrate so much strength into one point."


    Elruin hoped, if nothing else, that this would help her get real practice with her magic. She couldn''t imagine Lemia would learn much from her in exchange, not compared to some of the mages Elruin had seen. If Lemia wanted to learn about concentrated power, she should go to the church and watch Lyra. "What magic can you do, if you don''t have an aspect?"


    Lemia shrugged, then twirled her fingers. A song gathered from nowhere, while she gathered fragments and wisps of energy that wafted through the hall, into a singular cohesive form within the cup of water she brought with her. There wasn''t much in terms of real power there, but she''d never seen a song quite like before, with contradictory notes somehow holding in harmony.


    "One of the quirks of my lack of bloodline," she said. "Because I don''t have an aspect, it means I''m compatible with all of them. I can apply fundamental magic to manipulate any other type, at least a little. More resistant to magical attacks, too, and I can use any sarite, if I''m strong enough to handle it. It''s not enough to make up for a lack of an element, most of the time, but I''m training to be an alchemist."


    "Is that what you''re doing, now?"


    "Kinda. It''s more like temporary enchanting," Lemia said. "The real stuff requires reagents, and once finished can last for years. This lasts until I stop concentrating on it. There, it''s done. Go ahead and charge it with your energy. Fundamental power, if you please. I''m nowhere near strong enough to purify your necromantic element in real time."


    Fundamental magic was most of what the teachers had been showing her, so she dipped into her power and allowed some to be released, absorbed by the water Lemia played with. Moments later the water began to glow.


    "This would take an archmage decades of training to pull off, and then only one with the perfect set of elemental bloodlines. But for me it''s easy." Lemia held up the cup, then drank the contents. Life energy surged through her, obvious to Elruin''s sight. "A healing spell, powered by a necromancer." She shuddered as the magic continued to wash through her. "Maybe a little too strong, but nobody''s going to complain that a potion works better than expected. I''ll never be a combat mage, but as an alchemist, nobody can match my versatility."


    "Does that mean you can make healing sarite for me?" Elruin asked. She did still have those crystals that Cali thought everybody wanted.


    "I don''t have that sort of skill," Lemia said. "Maybe some day, years from now, but I''m still a student like you."


    The rest of the month went fast, with Elruin working hard to advance her skills with Lemia, while tolerating the instructors until they got around showing her how to use magic more to her talents. What combat training she did was limited to her own time, which she only did once to take a break and rest from all the studying. She knew, even though she was studying as a scholar, that she would need to be ready for the next time the bad men tried to attack her.


    Perhaps that''s why she focused on learning fire magic, once she found she had that option. All the frustration of teachers who ignored her insistence that she could, should, do more. While Cali and others fought bad men, she felt like she was stagnating. She poured all that anger and resentment out in one day she found to be alone in a secluded part of the park.


    She would never forget how she overwhelmed the poor squirrel''s mind, causing the poor animal to go insane and murder its mate and babies in their nest, before it tore out its own throat with its claws. True, she long lost count of all the rats she''d killed with her magic on the farm, but at least their deaths were clean and painless, not the blood-soaked massacre she inflicted. For that reason, she went back to studying so that she could control her magic better.


    She even got training by real musicians to use her violin, which turned out to be more useful than she ever imagined. As she trained her art, she learned to use it to extend her spells across the area, joining her Revealed music with true music, deadly when combined with the new magic she was learning. If she ever fought morks again, she was confident the outcome would be horrific for them.


    By the end of her short half of a semester, she was beginning to feel like a real mage who knew what she was doing, rather than a child who chased others around hoping they could tell her what to do.


    That is when Calenda came to visit her for the first time since she left. She looked fine on the surface, but Elruin had improved her lifesight in the months since she last saw her, and it was obvious that the woman was injured, beyond what healing magic could easily mend. More than that was the marks that Elruin could only comprehend thanks to the training in fundamental magic that came from using so much magic that it was almost fatal. Past that, a song echoed through her body, with notes that were unlike any Elruin had ever heard before.


    She almost didn''t recognize her savior. "Cali?"


    "Hey, Ell." Cali tried to force a smile. "I''m sorry to drop in like this, but I need you to come with me, to outside the walls. Please? I can''t explain why."

 Chapter 22

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    "Cali? You look hurt." Elruin was no healer, but even she knew Cali should not be walking around right now. "Perhaps you should rest."


    "I''m f-" she stopped. "I can''t even... I''m not fine, but I''ll live. Nothing a few days of bedrest won''t fix, which will have to wait until after you come with me."


    "I''ll go get Lemia, she can help heal you." Despite there being any number of other healers, most of which were older, more powerful, and better suited for the task, Elruin''s mind went to Lemia and the opportunity to heal Cali through her own resources rather than going to any of the healers which served the city, and thus were obligated to aid Calenda.


    "Won''t help," Cali said. "My problem right now is that I''ve had too much magic. That and a broken hand, but after I''ve recovered from mana poisoning. If they haven''t taught you about that by now, we''re finding a new school."


    "I learned about essence decay," Elruin said. It was one of the big problems for mages, that magic had a habit of causing matter to break down. Living things were the most resistant to the problem, but if pushed too hard, even people would fall apart. Sarite was the exception, which was why it was used as the binding agent for all long-term magical constructs. "We should get you to bed."


    Cali took a pained breath. "Yes, we should, but we can''t. Not yet."


    "Why is this so important?" Elruin was worried before, now she was becoming suspicious.


    "I can''t tell you," Cali said. "Can we please hurry? I promise you''ll get your answers, but you''ll have to trust me until then."


    Whatever was going on in Cali, the magic inside her hummed a soft, insistent, almost angry resonance. It was by far the most subtle magic Elruin had seen in this school built around studying the nature of magic. "I do trust you, but I don''t trust that magic in you."


    "You can see-" Once again, Cali stopped mid sentence. "Entek! This is now a great deal more complicated than it was a minute ago. I cannot explain what is going on, but you''re in no danger. No immediate danger, at this rate everyone''s in danger. That''s part of why I need you to come with me."


    "Are you being controlled by someone?" The more she looked, the more obvious it became that she was dealing with magic of that nature. What confused her was how it looked like nothing she''d ever seen before. It was fueling itself off of Cali''s own mind, as if the girl had created the spell herself, which should have been impossible.Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.


    "If I was, it''d be a terribly designed spell if I could say I was under control," Cali answered. "But I never could have gotten through the gates to the city under such a spell without setting off all the alarms, and I know of no other way to get into the city without either siege weapons or the power of a god. I assure you, I have neither."


    Elruin wasn''t certain, but what Cali was saying did make some sense; mind control was a well known and studied form of magic, and the gates were armed with every scanning magic she knew of. "How did you get through, with that spell on you? It doesn''t make sense."


    "A spell that I''d be forced to deny exists," Cali said. "But, hypothetically speaking, the gates don''t check for certain types of truth magic. They can''t, since they''re using truth magic at the gates to cut through the possibility of illusion magic."


    Elruin blinked, then began to think back to all her training over the months, and all her independent research as well. "If you use a truth spell on someone while extracting a promise, then the effect of the spell doubles as a Geas. The problem is, the target has to know about the magic and voluntarily make the promise, without any coercion or threat. And it wouldn''t prevent you from telling me about it. A truth spell that powerful wouldn''t let you lie about anything, unless you were forced to lie as part of the spell, which would either break the spell, or..."


    "Break the target of the spell?" The humming of magic grew louder still.


    "Who would be stupid enough to use the spell that way?" It sounded like a creative form of torture rather than an actual infiltration strategy.


    "Someone much more clever than smart," Cali said. "Now can we please go before I physically drag you through the gates? Which, given my current situation, probably ends with me dying before we get out of this hallway."


    Elruin hesitated for another moment. "Do I have time to get my equipment?"


    "Would I be able to get you to leave without it?"


    "No." She was pretty sure that if there was a threat, she''d need the violin. She could, if nothing else, use it and her new spells to call back to the city for help in an emergency. Or in the worst case scenario, send warning of an incoming attack.


    "Then please hurry." Cali leaned against the wall. The song calmed, but not by much. It seemed that if it was given what it wanted, it wouldn''t stress Cali as much.


    Elruin went for her room, then contemplated her options as she undressed and put on her street clothes, complete with Sarite wrappings. The violin and bow would be the most important parts of any decision she made, given their ability to improve all her magic. Fighting Cali would kill her, of that Elruin was certain.


    There were side routes built into all of the dorms, so that students could escape in case of an emergency. Or so the story went. As near as Elruin could tell, their true purpose was so the students could sneak into each others'' rooms at night to play without the faculty admitting they knew it was happening. She was pretty sure running would result in the same fate as fighting Cali, with the magic taxing her body until it killed her. Elruin had to admit it was a twisted, but effective, way to use a hostage.


    The last option was to go outside with Cali, and kill whatever it was that would dare hurt her Elder Sister.

 Chapter 23

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    The girl smelled of fresh flowers after a spring rain, the salt of human sweat, and the subtle metallic tint of fresh blood. None of that interested him, though there may have been a time when her athletic movements aroused other interests even if he appreciated a full figure than her athletic one.


    She dipped under an enemy attack, lunged forward, and struck the poor victim in his groin. The first hit was stopped by the defensive magic, the sick-sweet stench of creation energy wafted over the battlefield from the popping of a magical barrier. The followup blow was hard enough to dent metal and break bones. That, too, might have excited him in a long-forgotten age. He always had a thing for competent women, back when such pursuits were enjoyable. He still liked the dangerous ones, though not quite for the same reasons.


    Behind her, a bolt of energy which reaked of ozone and tears shot forward, and shattered the scents. It was a powerful spell, too, one which would have hurt him, perhaps even destroyed him, had he been close.


    Nobody, on either side of the battle, were harmed. Their magical defenses, including the ones which kept some invisible and others blanketed in magical shield.


    He and the athletic redhead both knew the next step of the battle plan. She through herself to the ground, and with the scent of oleander in the air, she buried herself alive using her earth magic. Lightning washed over the battlefield, replacing the scent of magic with the sour smells of burning flesh and vegetation.


    A count of twelve heartbeats later, and the self-interred girl leapt from her buried position, with all the smells of flower and tree that came with her defensive magic active around her. One of their victims still stood, so she busted his knee backwards, then set about making certain none of their wounded foes would be able to recover.


    "Clear!" She shouted to the others. Her two allies left their protective bubble of invisibility, the scent of adrenaline, illusion and lightning strong on them. They began another set of woven spells, a water-mage to hide their physical signs and a lightning mage to set up the defensive illusions to hide their position on the magical level. Soon, they and their new captives were hidden from him.


    None of that interested him, though such a well-choreographed battle plan was beautiful, and the torture that came next was sure to entertain. The subtle, comforting scent of grave soil which he could smell on the girl for that short period of time when all the defensive magic was down, that interested him, and that was the only reason he followed this girl around the wilderness.


    The snap of bones breaking like twigs, joined by the screams of souls kept on the living side of the great divide by maliciousness alone, echoed through the wilderness.


    Well, maybe not the only reason, he thought as he settled down to enjoy the pungent aroma of a human dismantled piece by piece. He''d been waiting this long, he could wait a little longer.


    His opportunity came some two weeks later, when they bit off more than they could chew. Their opening strategy was sound enough, but this group had warriors with them, rather than the usual rabble.


    Red''s opening surprise charge failed when she passed through the target. Dirt and rock exploded beneath her the moment she connected against the ground. Illusionists made great traps if you needed subtlety, volcanists made great traps if you needed to dish out damage, but working together you had a trap that was the perfect combination of subtle and destructive.


    Now, the limbs the girl broke were those of the tree that slowed her momentum.


    Disruptive magic washed through the area, revealing two lower tier soldiers alongside the two true mages. The illusionist began her work, to bring their defenses back up before it was too late. A pair of ice knives shot out, one striking each mage. The volcanist, being an earth mage, was made of tougher stuff than most. He remained standing as he got his own defensive magic back up, while the illusionist fell, unable to move her arms to clutch the hole that entered her throat and exited through her spine.


    She was alive, and would remain alive for some small period of time, wondering why none of her allies tried to heal her injuries or save her life.


    The volcanist retaliated with a wave of cleansing flame that took the redhead team''s illusionist out, but the water mage stayed standing behind a shell of ice. As matchups went, she had an advantage; water mages weren''t that deadly, but they had more better defense and endurance than fire mages. As bolt after bolt of flame hammered her frozen shield, she remained calm and ready to act on the first opportunity. If it had been a duel, he felt confident she would have won.


    Unfortunately for her, it wasn''t a duel. While the volcanist made it impossible for her to move from her position and exploit the agility advantages of a water mage, the soldiers moved to flank her. She evaded both crossbow bolts, while maintaining her ice barrier. She was trapped, but even this wasn''t an untenable situation. The volcanist couldn''t get past her defenses, she was fast enough to dodge any crossbow, and the soldiers couldn''t get close without risking death by friendly fire.


    Sooner or later, the fire mage would tire, and then this ice mage would act. Whether to escape or to retaliate, he wasn''t certain and never got the chance to discover.


    The air exploded in a dance of crackling lightning and pain. Nasty trick, using crossbow bolts to help target lightning magic that normally has difficulty hitting with any accuracy. Scratch approved. The woman dropped, motionless. Like the illusionist whose life she took, she would remain there blinded and paralyzed until death''s loving caress found her in a minute or so.


    A pity, too, in his opinion. That one had a rack worth preserving.


    In the time she bought, the redhead forced her damaged body to move. She rolled off the branch she was on, trusted her magic to absorb the force of the fall, then began to crawl away. Healing magic only went so far, especially combat healing which relied on raw power instead of taking the time for a gentle, thorough, healing process. Most humans would have given up, accepted capture, or perhaps drove their magic into overdrive in one final act of suicidal defiance.


    This one still believed she could escape, return home, and warn her allies of the threat represented here. She was a fool, but a loyal fool, and he would exploit that while saving her life. If the one who smelled so beautiful could synchronize with her, that was all he needed to know.


    The volcanist felt her move, or at least felt her hit the ground. He wasn''t quite able to separate the brimstone and rage that was the volcanist''s magic, save to decide that he could have beaten the redhead''s entire team, if they were fool enough to stand and fight rather than run. His lack of healing or mobility meant he lacked versatility, but on the measure of power, defense, and skill, he stood far above them all.


    The redhead was too wounded to run, barely strong enough to walk. The best she could do was draw up a protective dome of earth and roots, just in time for another blast of flame to overtake her position.


    The volcanist changed his strategy some, generating a steady but low energy stream of fire magic at one point of the earthen wall. With everyone else dead and one trapped target remaining, the plan was either to force her out as a captive, or cook her alive in her cocoon.


    He respected the strategy, would have applauded it if it didn''t hurt his plans.


    No time left to lose. He dipped into the earth, wove through the aromas of magic, and popped up inside the bubble with the girl whose life he would save in the name of his own mission. "Hey, red, is it hot in here, or is it just you?"


    "Y- what are you?" She couldn''t see him in the cave darkness of her self-made prison, but she could feel him.


    "Feel free to call me Old Scratch. Or just Scratch for short." He allowed some small amount of power to bleed past his iron grip, to give her a whiff of what he truly was. The volcanist wouldn''t notice such a minor flicker of taint, not through his pyroclastic energies and the redheads botanical ones. "I''m here to offer you a deal with the devil."


    "You''re undead? But..."


    "But you can''t feel the taint unless I allow it." He''d had many a conversation like this one over the centuries. "Yes, it is possible to hide taint. Not easy, but I can do it. And the reason you''ve never heard about it is because those few of us who know how have a habit of not sharing the one secret that allows beings like us to hide from your exorcists. But you won''t be sharing that secret."


    She grunted, forced to put even more effort into her shield. Her sweat converted to as she did her best to slow the heating of her prison. Minutes, perhaps, until the heat grew to the point of fatal for her. Normal people would have already started to fall unconscious. "What do you want, then? To laugh at me as I cook alive?"


    "Tempting, but I''m more interested in the necromancer whose delicious perfume is all over you. You two must be very close."


    "What are you-" she hesitated. "I never did anything like that with her!"


    "I smell her magic on you." It was so fun watching them get flustered, and now he knew the necromancer was a woman. "You''ve synchronized, to some extent, which means you trust one another with your lives. As a favor to a living abomination by an unliving one, I''m willing to save your life because it will make her happy."


    "Smell magic?" Now the redhead was confused. "Are you claiming to have an olfactory Revelation? That''s absurd, nobody has that."


    "Well, as far as I know, no human does," Scratch said. "But guess who is not a mammal and has no opposable thumbs? This guy."


    "I''m going to possess you, now." The longer they delayed, the harder it got. "You could fight me off, but if you do you''ll waste what precious strength you have left. If you cooperate and accept my terms, you''ll get to live through this battle."A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.


    "By allying with the undead!" Cali grit her teeth, preparing to fight the intruder.


    "You can feel me, can''t you?" Scratch moved closer. "The aura of truth that binds me, that is me? I am a creature of order, I cannot lie to you. Reject my terms, die alone. Accept them, and you have my oath that I''ll do everything in my power to get you home alive and in condition well enough to report the situation and recover with time. Starting with possessing your body for a short period of time. It''s necessary for the negotiation."


    He felt her resolve flicker at the promise. "One condition: should I allow the possession, you must swear to me to deliver a warning to Acheria''s leaders even if I die here. Lord Claron is working with the Ghosts of Sorvel. I don''t care how you do it, so long as the message is delivered quickly and in a method they''ll take seriously. Deliver it as many times as you must until it''s believed by someone with the power to do something about it."


    "Worked with Djinn before, have you? For the record, you getting home to spread the warning counts as fulfilling my duty." The scent of binding magic washed through the air, strong enough that the volcanist must have felt it. It was unlikely he''d guess what it was about, however. It was a silent affirmation of the conditions of the contract. "You have my oath, the warning will be delivered."


    The redhead''s mind yielded, allowing him access with permission. Possession of someone with power was almost impossible without consent, the clash of their resonance with his own would drive him out, or leave them both paralyzed in psychic battle. A voluntary joining circumvented those restrictions, but even so he couldn''t delve deep.


    "Now, I have three conditions, Calenda." Her voice spoke, at Scratch''s command. "First, you must swear never to speak of this oathbond, or my abilities, or my existence, to anyone who does not already know of them. Nor may you make any attempt to record such things by any means. My secrets die with you, it''s only a question of now or at some as-yet-unknown future moment."


    "Deal," Calenda answered, with control over her own voice.


    "Second, you give me your eternal soul."


    "What? Never! Not even if that was possible, no!"


    "Entek. Well, worth a shot, would have made the rest of this so much easier. How about if I just take possession of your underwear on the trip back to town?"


    "You can''t be serious."


    "Wouldn''t have felt right if I didn''t try. Okay, scratch that offer." He used her to chuckle at his own stupid pun. "What I really want is to know all about your lovely necromancer girlfriend."


    "She''s twelve!"


    Perfect. The shutters on the windows of Calenda''s mind opened, granting access to the thoughts and memories she had of the girl. "Elruin? Pretty name." He didn''t have long, and he''d lose all the memories in Calenda''s mind except the ones spoken out loud. Once he lost access to the meatspace brain, he''d lose its knowledge as if it all been a dream. "I don''t envy you for a second, Sis."


    Cali''s body flinched, in spite of Scratch''s control. She did not like being called ''Sis''. "Can we please hurry up before I change my mind?"


    She wouldn''t, she couldn''t, she had too much to live for, but Scratch had found what he needed to find. "You have fulfilled my second condition. The third condition is that you must, at earliest possible opportunity, bring Elruin to meet me."


    Fear washed through the shared body. "No!"


    "Then you die here, Sis, and I''ll find another way to talk to her. Some day, some how. I don''t know when, but I have her whole lifetime to figure out how. The difference is that it will take longer, and you won''t be there to protect her. I promise I have no intention of harming her, I don''t think I could if I wanted to. I wish only to speak with her, one abomination to another."


    "She''s not an abomination! She''s a sweet child! Weird, true, but sweet."


    "Keep believing that, Sis, it''s adorable." Scratch retorted with Calenda''s voice. "But we''re at the point where this conversation must end. The only thing keeping you conscious right now is me. Accept, and you get a chance to deliver all those messages you want to deliver, to all the people who need them. Reject, and die alone to inconvenience me slightly. You have no time left to decide."


    "I..." Cali closed her eyes. There wasn''t enough water in her body to let her cry. "You have your deal."


    Magic washed over the both of them, reinforcing a bond much more complex than the last one. Now Old Scratch could and would act with all his power. First, he used his power to crack the back of the bubble, on the opposite side of the stream of flame. With what little strength Calenda''s brutalized body possessed, Scratch pulled her out of the hole and allowed her to collapse.


    "We have her!" One of the soldiers shouted. "She''s unconscious!"


    "Hold!" The volcanist who Scratch now knew was Lord Claron shouted his command to the men. "Don''t go near her, it may be a trap."


    Scratch had to admit, it was the smart command. Still, Calenda''s body was a ruin, with no strength physical or magical to call upon even if Scratch was willing to inflict more harm on her body. Claron was far too strong for him to possess. He had a different plan, however.


    Claron walked a long way around the mound, his hand trained on her general position the whole time. "A pity." His younger brother would be inconsolable for a time, but in the end it was for the best.


    "Sir!" Scratch shouted from one of the guard''s bodies. The poor man was a nobody, who had been conscripted from a gang of small time thieves rather than volunteered. "Please forgive me, but I must ask a question."


    Lord Claron didn''t so much as look at him, his eyes trained on where Calenda would soon be visible. "Speak quickly."


    "Shouldn''t we capture her, torture her for information?"


    "No." Lord Claron had no interest in that plan, nor explaining himself to a subordinate. There was little the Scout could tell him that he could not learn from her superiors through official means, and every second the woman remained alive was a second in which something could go wrong.


    "Then another question," Scratch said. He didn''t wait for a response before swinging his hooked sickle as hard as he could at Claron while stepping between him and Calenda. The mage was so focused on his prey that he didn''t think to pay close attention to one of his own men, so it caught him off guard when the point of the weapon sank deep into his eye socket.


    "Does this look sharp to you!" A stream of magical flame struck his gut, burned away half of the poor man''s intestines, but the pain was for the meat-puppet to feel, while Scratch remained untouched. It was part of why he avoided dipping into the memories of people, so he wouldn''t have to feel bad about their inevitable deaths.


    Scratch twisted the weapon, eliciting the cracks of bone popping and the squishy, wet sounds of a human brain being torn apart by good old fashioned steel. Scratch fell atop Claron, forcing his temporary body''s weight to land upon the sickle, anything to get that extra half-inch of penetration before this body gave out.


    Then a flash of sarite-infused magic caused Claron''s body to vanish. Scratch dropped out of this one''s body, two lives taken before he snaked around to take control of the last living witness other than Calenda. Time was not on his side, today.


    Claron was a man of wealth, and had some sort of emergency escape spell prepared, which meant his corpse just landed somewhere he had no hope of finding before some servant got the man to a powerful healer. The damage was deep, however, so it would take a week before the man was alive and conscious again.


    He stopped for a moment, stripping everyone of their sarite save for Calenda. He supposed he''d better not desecrate the bodies of the woman''s allies, lest that upset the Elruin by proxy, but from Calenda''s memories he knew she had no respect for the bodies of her enemies. At least the ambushers were kind enough to bring horses with them, which made hauling one unconscious woman and two dead ones so much easier.


    Three days later, he got his first look at the child with his own eyes. She marched out of the gates, the scent of graveyard soil and funeral pyres, overwhelming in her magnificence and seeking revenge in the name of a friend she believed was wronged.


    He would be terrified if he still had flesh and blood vulnerable to her magic. He was, admittedly, a little nervous anyway. With time, with training, that girl could send even one such as him screaming into the pit. For now, however, she lacked that capacity. He intended to ensure that when the day came that she could end him, she would not want to.


    It took them some time to reach the edge of the open field around the castle, where Calenda was compelled by oathbond to bring the child who might one day be a goddess. "Well met, young Elruin," he lifted himself out of the ground. Without a possessed body, he was little more than a shapeless black smoke about half the height of an adult man, in a vaguely humanoid shape. "Most who know of me call me Old Scratch. Or sometimes the Black Imp. I prefer Scratch."


    "A dolly? Why can''t I hear you?" The girl was stunned only for a moment, before anger returned. "Stop hurting Cali!"


    "As you desire." The goal, after all, was to make peaceful contact. "Lady Calenda, you have fulfilled your agreement, and save for the oath of secrecy, you are released from your service."


    The magic fell apart, and with it the pain Calenda had felt. Pain she wouldn''t have had to experience if she''d been more cooperative. The woman slumped to the ground, taking her first moments of true rest since she woke up on the trip to Arila.


    "How are you hiding from me? How did you enforce a truth spell made under coercion?" Both good questions. "I thought such things were impossible."


    "You''ll find as you grow older, there is no such thing as impossible," Scratch said. "It''s just a question of time, will, and ability. I have a surplus of all three. As far as my Oathbond? Well, I don''t know of a way to force it on someone against their will via coercion or trickery, but I did nothing but offer a service to someone who needed my help, in exchange for a payment now rendered. And now, as is custom of my long-dead people, I offer gifts to a future friend."


    Scratch led the way, pretending to walk on his short legs. "My first gift, the treasure I claim by Right of the Kill. You''ll like the robes. They may be designed for an illusionist, but they should suit you until you find something better. Might want to clean off the blood, though. Second, a handful bloodstones. I can''t use them, even indirectly." Bloodstone was Scratch''s preferred name for sarite; he liked to cut through the lies humans told themselves about the power they harvested.


    "Second, the gift of knowledge." Always his favorite hook, the promise of secrets not yet known, and Elruin was such a studious young mage, she wouldn''t be able to resist forbidden knowledge. "Within certain limitations, like risking my own existence by explaining how I can hide myself from you, I''ll tell you anything you want to know that I can. Also, my existence must remain secret. Which is why I can''t go into the cities, I''m sure you understand."


    It made sense to Elruin. Scratch was a powerful undead, or at least a sneaky one, so being around lots of people and their magic might mean getting caught.


    "And third, the gift of revenge." While talking, he had led them to the chained victim he''d been possessing the last few days. His body was decaying thanks to the constant exposure to necromantic energies, but he should be able to survive another day or two. "I can either provide all the information Scout Calenda wants from this sack of meat, or I can use him to get the three of us into one of the Ghosts of Sorvel camps. If we hurry, we can get there and have time to infiltrate before they finish reviving Claron. It would be quite the coup."


    Cali forced herself to sit. "Which means we go now. If I return to the city, and report what I know, there''s no way I''ll be able to leave again until I recover."


    "Maybe we should go back to Arila," Elruin said. Cali was in bad shape, and Elruin didn''t know if she was prepared for a stealth operation. She wasn''t opposed to the idea, but it seemed like it could hurt Cali.


    "It will be difficult enough to explain how I collected this information without explaining I have an undead monster doing the work," Cali said. "If I don''t report Lord Claron, and we die, then it''s possible he''ll never be caught. And then there''s the rest of my scouts. Lanine and Crela were friends of mine, I''d like to see them buried respectfully."


    "Then I''ll just tell you where to find it. They''re hiding in a farmstead, I''m sure a strong team can lead a direct assault that would get the job done." Scratch didn''t have a single concern to spare for the so-called Ghosts, to him they were but sacrificial lambs to be set before Elruin. "The meat suit''s not going to last long, but I personally have all the time in the world to help where I can."


    Elruin was inclined to agree. The necromantic damage to the bad man had gone too far to be reversed by anything she could do. It was impressive enough that he was still breathing. Now that she knew to look, she could even see some tint of taint seeping into the dead man''s bones. Were he to be puppeted much longer, there was a chance his skeleton would animate and rip out his heart.


    "Which brings me to my offer, that of my undying service." Scratch believed he had set the stage just right. "But not as a gift, as three is the traditional offer. Instead, I must ask for a song as payment. If you sing for me, I shall aid you for the rest of your life." If not, well, he''d figure something out. She''d have to be utterly insane to reject such a generous offer, regardless.

 Chapter 24

    Suggested Listening</a>


    Elruin took some time to think about the offer, but in the end that was a secondary concern. "Apologize for hurting Cali."


    The inky black spirit drifted in place for a moment. "First, I''d like to go on record as saying I did nothing to hurt her, save what was necessary to get her away from the people trying to kill her."


    "Which you used to trap her with a compulsion spell that hurt her."


    "She had a choice," he countered. "I didn''t think an introduction was all that much to ask for saving her life, and ensuring she couldn''t turn around and have me destroyed afterwards. And don''t say ''gratitude'', your species doesn''t know the concept, not when it comes to abominations like us. Or did you forget Mister Clackybones?"


    Elruin''s argument hit a wall, just like that. Even Cali had insisted on destroying her beloved horsey, after it had helped save her life. "No, I would never..."


    She couldn''t imagine it would be much different for this ghost, who was so much stronger and smarter than any undead she''d met before. How much knowledge would be lost with him if he was killed a second time?


    "Ell? What is he saying?" Cali asked. She remained sitting, but without the truth spell going out of its way to force her to act, she was recovering rather than getting worse. Still needed days, perhaps weeks, of rest to come back from her injuries.


    It was then that Elruin realized the ghost wasn''t speaking the same language as them. It was the same language of the dead that she''d heard before, but from a fluent speaker. "He''s not going to apologize." Elruin wasn''t about to explain the reason behind that refusal, nor why she stopped arguing for it.


    "Can''t say I''m surprised," she said. "You''re planning to accept its help, aren''t you?"


    "I haven''t decided." Elruin hesitated, but decided Cali deserved better. "If I do, I''m sorry. I know you don''t like them."


    "That''s one way to put it." Cali struggled, forced herself into a standing position by leaning against one of the many trees. "The abominations are hate and cruelty given tangible form. They cannot be saved, they know nothing of love, kindness, or mercy. If you would grant succor, end the twisted corruption which denies them peace at the end of life''s trials."


    "Which holy text did you pull that one out of, Sis?" Scratch spoke so Calenda could understand.


    "It''s in the Books of the Great Cycle," Calenda answered. "Book Five, to be precise. Are you going to tell me it''s wrong, now? Because if you are, I''d like to hear you swear on it. The point is, you can''t be trusted."


    This brought up a number of good points to Elruin. "How do I know I can trust you?"


    "You can''t." Scratch showed no sign of shame, apology, or even defiance. It was a statement, nothing more or less than that. "Everything your big sister quoted is true, to my knowledge. I cheated nature itself, told both life and death to go shove their heads up their own asses and asphyxiate. What you can trust is my self-interest. I''ve defied death for centuries thanks to necromancers like you, and I intend to do so until I see no reason to continue. Chances are you''ll be long gone by then."


    "This has something to do with the song you want her to sing?" Cali asked.


    "Resonance. You have a way to, umm, hide yourself." Elruin didn''t know if there was a word to describe the concept she was putting together. "You''re planning to synchronize with me, then use the fact that I''m alive to trick death into thinking you''re still alive?"


    "You have learned something in that school," Scratch said. "I was expecting to spend an hour explaining this to you."


    "I have a friend who talks lots about how to play with resonance." Elruin was certain Lemia would love talking to Scratch, if not for the ''undead abomination'' concerns. "We''ve done a lot of experimenting. Will there be any side effects? Will it harm me or give you some sort of power over me, in any way?"


    Scratch drifted up to about Cali''s height. "The effects of synchronizing will be weaker, since it''s artificial, so don''t expect much of the usual benefits." He spoke the language of the dead, denying her information that might lead to guessing more of his nature and weaknesses. "In theory, synchronizing with the undead makes it impossible to use creation magic, but since I only know how to synchronize with necromancers, it''s never been a concern."


    Elruin no expert on synchronization, artificial or otherwise. Such a magic sounded fascinating, and difficult, so she wasn''t surprised it was limited in scope. In the end, it just made magic easier with one another, and harder to hurt each other. What effect synchronizing with the undead might have on casting life magic, she could only guess at, but since she couldn''t use life magic, it was irrelevant.


    "One final condition." Cali would have to live with never getting that apology from Scratch. "You swear never to hurt my friends and allies."


    "I can''t make that agreement." No hesitation in his answer, but he spoke so Cali could understand. "My priorities are my wellbeing, then yours. If one of your friends jeopardizes either of us, I will do everything in my power to end the threat. I can promise to do my best to do no more harm than necessary, then you can decide if we should do worse." For his next sentences, he switched back to their secret tongue. "You should be more careful when giving absolute orders with forces that have no ability to consider nuance. Like your dollies, for example. Someone might get hurt."


    It was true, people had died over her lack of foresight. "Acceptable. No more harm than necessary to stop them from hurting us. Talk to them first, if possible. They''re not friends if they want to hurt me."


    "You have your deal for as long as I am in your service, I make no promises for after the contract''s inevitable conclusion. Is that everything? I''d like to hear your song before you die of old age."


    Suggested Listening</a>


    So Elruin sang. First, she sang to herself, drawing her power out and blanketing the area, then she sang Cali''s essence to protect from the necromantic energy of her power, or more to keep the energy from going near her in the first place. She sang around the horses, tied to trees, so that they didn''t struggle overmuch when they stepped to the next stage. She sang to the slow taint of undeath seeping through the captive prisoner, to prevent him from dying before he was interrogated.


    Then, with the stage set, she sang to Scratch. The spirit was by far the densest, most complex ball of necromantic force she had ever witnessed. In terms of raw power, he wasn''t much stronger than she was, weaker than Cali by a notable amount, but he was by far the strongest undead she had witnessed.If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. Please report it.


    Then he sang back, twisting her notes into his own. She adapted, adopted, and changed the notes again. The interplay took some time, as they first established, then negotiated, the nature of their shared song. Unlike Mister Clackybones, who had no choice but to allow her access to the totality of his being, Scratch was aware of his nature, and yielded but a small portion of himself in the song.


    He sang of the last month, of watching the risks Calenda took in the wilderness to protect the empire she swore herself to. He sang of the merciless violence of those on both sides of the conflict. He sang of gore, and glory, and it was as if Elruin was there watching as it happened.


    She sang back, of the farm she''d been born on, and the first of the dead who protected her. She sang of her cousins'' farm, and the babies she helped save from the bad men. She sang of Mister Clackybones, which she was forced to destroy for Cali''s sake.


    The spell Scratch showed her was complicated, but it wasn''t complex. Each part had a clean, understandable function. Elruin was convinced that any Revealed mage could follow the general process and get similar results, by sharing their feelings through their magic. Perhaps it didn''t require magic at all, an emotional conversation might suffice, were it meaningful enough. Magic did accelerate the process, however.


    In the end, they sang together to the energy they released, and called it back to themselves. In minutes, there was no trace left of their magic that Elruin could detect. This trick, too, seemed like something Elruin could do herself, though it was far more difficult than the synchronizing magic.


    "Ell? Are you okay?" Cali remained against the tree, but reached out to her.


    "Yeah, I''m not hurt." She reached up, touched her cheek, to realize she''d been crying. "It''s an emotional spell." What caught her off guard was that Cali was so concerned for her, despite the damage the young woman was in, herself.


    "Felt like it," Cali said. "Reminded me of the first time I saw ballet after having my Revelation."


    "I''ve never seen a ballet before. Maybe we can go after you get better?"


    "Okay, enough feelings!" Scratch cut in. "You ladies can do that on the other side of the wall where I won''t be going. How about we see what this reject of life feels? Get nice and deep in his psyche, learn all his darkest secrets." He climbed into the man tied to the tree, by sliding into his mouth feet first. He didn''t have to do it that way, but he liked the visuals.


    "When I was a kid, I loved eating my own boogers." Scratch now had the man''s voice. "I never stopped."


    "Ugh," Cali muttered. "He''s right, though. We''re racing a clock, let''s get what we can out of the dead man."


    For the next half hour, Calenda interviewed the mind-enslaved victim, while Elruin had little to do but watch him run down the list of secrets great and small without sign of hesitation or fear while the taint spread from point to point through his body. His extremities died first, then it infected his blood which spread the sickness to his heart, lungs and brain. Soon, every time he breathed, a wisp of taint escaped his mouth.


    Elruin began the process of cleansing as they went, to extend the victim''s life and prevent the poison from reaching Cali. Now that she was watching taint in action, she could understand why it was so feared. If left unchecked, it was a threat to all life in the world. Calenda was right about how dangerous it was, but Elruin knew it could be controlled. Scratch controlled it, as could she if given time to learn.


    Her ability to cleanse taint did nothing but slow the man''s death, however, and soon the mouth stopped moving. Scratch climbed back out through the drooling orifice. "Hope that''s enough, ''cause he ain''t up for talkin''."


    "Better than I''ve gotten from anyone else," Cali admitted. She grunted as she forced herself to stand again. "In part because torture and Truthsaying can do only so much, and in part because this guy was close to Lord Claron, so he''s witnessed information few people possess. Going to be interesting, explaining how I got all this info, or survived an assault by Claron, of all people."


    "Is he strong?" Elruin read a little bit about the half-sibling to Lady Juna and Lord Garit, but his personal power wasn''t mentioned, just his political position. Still, she kept humming her notes, to the dead man and the taint left behind. Cali couldn''t use her magic, Scratch didn''t care, and she was going to get a new dolly that nobody would know to take away from her.


    "One of the top ten in the empire," Calenda said. "Maybe the top five, hard to say at that level. Luck and surprise are the only reasons I''m here right now."


    "Don''t matter how strong you are, anyone can die if caught off guard." Free of a body, Scratch took to the air again. "And he''ll be soft for a while. Dying takes a lot out of you, coming back is worse. If we assume it was Claron in the first place."


    "True, could have been another powerful fire mage, and some more illusions." Cali lumbered over to one of the horses. "Do you know for certain it was him?"


    "Don''t think there were any illusions," Scratch said. "But that''s not my expertise. Get me in sight of the real one, and I''ll be able to tell you for certain."


    "Good, I can use that. Ugh." She began the slow, painful process of climbing onto the saddle despite her injuries. "I''ll emphasize that I can''t trust what I saw. Any part may have been illusion magic, and I was unconscious for half the fight. All I know to be fact is my team was murdered, there was at least one illusionist, someone who appeared to be Lord Claron was there, and something spared my life. Perhaps it was all a setup to make Claron look guilty of treason?"


    "I''d say I wasn''t involved, but you wouldn''t believe me."


    "No, I believe you, you''re too untrustworthy to be a spy." Cali gasped for breath now that she was on her mount. "And I believe it was him. But no investigator, including myself, would trust my testimony under these circumstances." She began to guide her horse toward the gates, leading the three others and the bodies they carried along.


    "Will Lord Claron get away, then?" Elruin gathered her treasures in order to follow behind. Soon, her new dolly would move, freed from its bonds and obedient to Scratch until she could come visit them again. Scratch would take good care of the dolly, and keep it out of trouble.


    "Either Claron''s guilty, or someone''s trying to smear his name, either way it''s information that will be taken straight to the queen." Calenda stopped talking for some time, in order to catch her breath. They were almost to the gates before she could breathe again. "She''ll have him interviewed. He''s taken into custody, or proven innocent, by the end of the day."


    The gate opened before the pair made it to the alcove, and several guards rushed out. "Scout Calenda? What happened?"


    "Long story. Alert the generals, all of them." Calenda lay forward on her horse, closing her eyes. "Ell? The seamstress southeast of the park has something for you to pick up."


    Elruin was lost in the flurry of soldiers, healers, and others taking care of the situation. The bodies and horses were taken somewhere, though Elruin would have to wait to learn from Cali where, but nobody thought to confiscate her new magical robe. With promises that Cali would be taken care of, and that there was nothing she could do to help for now, she began the long walk back to the College.


    She did take the time to stop by the seamstress'' store that Cali mentioned. It was nothing special, a business being run in someone''s home. Elruin tapped on the door, as was custom.


    A young boy, younger than Elruin, opened the door. He put his head down, then turned around and yelled. "Grandmother, you have a customer."


    "Come in!" A woman''s voice shouted from inside.


    The boy stepped aside, careful not to look directly at Elruin''s face. It wasn''t a necessary social custom, so Elruin assumed he was shy.


    The woman Elruin assumed was owner of the shop sat in the living area, near a collection of fabrics and torn clothes. She was perhaps the oldest woman Elruin had ever seen, with deep wrinkles and hair that bordered on white, with enough gray to show this wasn''t the hair color she was born with. "My, that is quite the garment. I''m afraid I don''t work with magic clothes, nor bloodstains."


    "No, sorry ma''am," Elruin now took the submissive posture. "I''m Elruin. Lady Calenda sent me to pick something up."


    "Ah, Priestess Calenda did make a special request, and mentioned you." The woman remained sitting, but the little boy ran into a side room. "I was expecting her to pick it up herself."


    "She''s indisposed." Elruin wasn''t sure how much she should tell this woman or anyone else about the events of the day. "Her chores are demanding." Nobody could call that statement a lie, though it told nothing of value.


    "I suppose they are, if she sent you to get your own gift."


    The boy came back, carrying a large stuffed animal in the shape of a horse. He set it on its feet, where it collapsed.


    Elruin picked the soft, pliable stuffed animal up. "It''s perfect!" She hugged the stuffed toy, then began to cry all over again. "I''m going to call you Mister Squishybones!"

 Chapter 25

    Suggested Listening</a>


    Elruin returned to her school carrying a blood stained robe, a stuffed animal, and a pocket full of sarite. It was a small wonder nobody stopped her until she got to the campus gates.


    The female guard approached her first. "Miss, where did you get that?"


    Elruin held up her new prized toy. "This is Mister Squishybones. My elder sister had him made for me."


    "I was referring to the robe. Where did you get it? And why is it covered in blood stains ?"


    Elruin pulled her horsey back, since it was clear the guard wasn''t nice and didn''t like her new favorite gift. "It belonged to a bad lady. She''s dead. Now it''s mine."


    "Entek," the guard whispered under her breath. "Where is the dead ''bad lady''?" As she spoke, she made a gesture behind her back. The male guard responded by generating a pair of quick light bolts at the sky, one orange and another yellow which soon turned pink.


    "She''s in the wilderness," Elruin said. "Lady Calenda''s friend killed her." Meanwhile, Elruin watched the sparkling magic traveling into the sky. It was more complex than the spells her brother used, and was designed so the light could only be seen from certain angles below.


    "Wait here for a minute, there are people who need to talk to you."


    "But I need to put my stuff in my room," Elruin said. "And talk to Lemia."


    "I''m sure it can wait for later," the guard said. "This is important."


    Soon, Elruin was surrounded by a dozen officers, and had no idea what was going on. "Is something wrong?"


    "We need you to come with us," the woman who now appeared to be in charge said. "Your cooperation, or lack thereof, will be noted." She put her hand on the saber she had at her hip.


    "Yes, ma''am," Elruin knew she was in trouble, even if she didn''t know why. She also knew that she couldn''t fight her way out, not with this many trained officers nearby. "Please, tell me what I did?"


    Now that she was under control, the officer preferred not to give the girl a reason to resist. "We''ll explain once we get to the station. Don''t worry, I''m sure it is all a big misunderstanding." No reason to frighten the child too much, and she''d long had experience lying to suspects.


    Soon, they reached the station. The moment Elruin stepped through the entrance of the building, she felt her strength sapped. She was at once rendered weak, slow, and half-blinded. Now she struggled, out of panic and confusion, but it was for naught.


    The soldiers had experience with blanket antimagic, and were adults with combat training, while Elruin without her magic was strong for her age, but was still a twelve year old child. With a woman holding both of her shoulders, the stuff she carried was taken, then she was pushed into one of the interrogation rooms where she spent what felt like all day alone in the room before the door opened.


    Another woman walked in, and now Elruin was glad to know she hadn''t been left to die in here. "Can I leave, now?"


    "Leave?" The woman''s voice reminded her of Cali''s, right before she started to torture someone. "You''re a criminal, why would you think we''d let you leave?"


    "But I didn''t do anything bad!" She almost began to cry, fearing they might have found Scratch or her dolly while she was in here.


    "Let us suppose you told the truth about how you came into possession of blood soaked magical clothing," the woman showed no sign of caring about Elruin''s argument or fears. "The looting of a corpse is a crime. Theft, if you''re lucky. Murder if you''re found to have anything to do with the prior owner''s death, or accepted it from someone you knew was responsible for the prior owner''s death."


    "I..." Elruin did know that Cali and her friends killed the woman.


    "However, you are young," the woman continued. "Not so young that you can''t be punished by the law, but young enough that we''re more interested in who you were involved with that would use you as an accomplice. I know you claimed Scout Calenda provided them to you, but I''ve known her for years. It''s difficult for me to believe she would be involved in such an act. Adopted daughter or no, if she wanted to commit a crime, she wouldn''t be so sloppy. Who really gave the clothes to you?"


    "But it was." Elruin lied, but there were no Truthsayers thanks to the antimagic that still suppressed her abilities. She couldn''t tell the truth about Old Scratch, not without putting him at risk and facing whatever horrible punishment Cali refused to talk about that might happen to her for working with the undead.


    The woman''s face was neutral, but her years of experience interrogating prisoners gave her the certainty that Elruin was hiding something. The first thing an innocent person did when arrested was ask for a Truthsayer to prove their innocence. It was no longer a question of if, but how, the eventual confession would go. "I have sent a messenger to find her, we''ll see what she has to say about this."


    She was torn about the assertion that Calenda was involved. On one hand, she knew the woman was good at what she did, and losing her meant losing an important asset for the entire empire. On the other hand, the Scouts played too fast and loose with the law for her preference, and busting even a minor noble served to remind the rest that none of them were above Enge''s law. On the balance, it didn''t matter. So long as the truth would be uncovered, and justice was brought upon the perpetrators, she would be satisfied.


    They waited in silence, a child losing hope that she''d ever be free again, and an interrogator watching the progression of the breakdown that would see everything revealed. To her, it was far more satisfying than relying on torture, though torture was admittedly faster.


    Both their heads snapped toward the door when it was opened by a younger guard. "My apologies, Sergeant, General Juna is here, it seems there''s been a misunderstanding."Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author.


    Suggested Listening</a>


    Juna stepped through the door, even as the Sergeant stood to meet her. Elruin felt the smallest flicker of her magic return, as Juna''s power was enough to tip the balance and overcome the antimagic which held her own back. So little that Elruin was certain that this room could hold Juna''s power if there weren''t others in here as well.


    "General, Sir?" Outranked and confused, she wasn''t certain what question she should ask. "What is this about?"


    "A series of blunders," Lady Juna said. She looked at the guard who led her into the room. "Some of this is sensitive information."


    "Understood, Sir." the guard backed out, closing the door as she left.


    Lady Juna waited a few seconds. "To start, Scout Calenda returned from a mission earlier today, wounded. She came with several articles of equipment, four horses, and the bodies of Scout Lanine and Scout Crela."


    "They will be remembered." Meanwhile, she was cursing a storm in her mind. Two Scouts lost was a tragedy, both on a personal level and for all of Engeval.


    "We are trying to keep things quiet, for now," Lady Juna said. "We''re still not entirely certain what happened out there. It will take some time for Scout Calenda to recover, and some part of it is because because illusion and mind magics were used. Which is where Lady Elruin was caught up in the mess."


    "Right." This was a situation the sergeant was more comfortable with. "She claims Scout Calenda gave her the robes that she got from a dead woman."


    "We have every reason to believe the robes did come from one of the Ghosts of Sorvel who were killed by the scout force," Juna said. "And the girl did help bring the evidence inside the city. Where she got the impression she could keep it, I do not yet know. Perhaps, in her altered mental state, Scout Calenda gave unclear instructions?"


    Pure speculation mixed with half-truths, but truth mattered less to Juna than perception.


    "In any case, the killing was just, as was the taking of the robes for investigative purposes. How they wound up in Lady Elruin''s possession is muddled, but as I understand it she took them almost straight to her dorm, with no attempt to hide their origins. I imagine if it were a crime rather than a misunderstanding, she would have been more evasive."


    "It does explain some oddities," the sergeant admitted. "You''re saying she walked through the gates carrying the robes?"


    "That I can confirm," Juna said. "I believe the soldiers, in their concern over Scout Calenda''s condition, failed to pay proper attention to her adoptive daughter. I consider that a failure on my part to instill proper discipline and situational awareness. This will not happen a second time. But surely the child has suffered enough for my mistakes, wouldn''t you agree?"


    "Of course, Sir, we won''t keep her any longer."


    "See to it she gets her possessions back, save for the robes. Those come with us, as part of an investigation that cost two good women their lives."


    By the time Elruin''s stuff was returned and she was allowed to leave, she expected everyone else to be gone. Instead, Lady Juna stood waiting for her not far from the station. She bowed her head as expected. "Thank you."


    "You get into the most fascinating predicaments," Lady Juna said. "Taking the robes is one thing, I can see why you''d want to keep them, but you should have covered your tracks better. Or at all."


    "You''re not mad at me?"


    "Why would I be mad? It gives me an opportunity to get some fresh air and have a conversation with a friend I haven''t seen for some time." Juna began to walk, leading Elruin along on a path that would take her to her dorms.


    Something made Elruin suspect she''d have been better off back in the police station with the sergeant. "Sorry, I''ve been studying hard. I want to be able to help Lady Calenda and you."


    "You''re putting too much on your shoulders," Lady Juna said. "You''re a child, you should take the time to act like one before it''s too late. Trust us adults to handle problems while you learn the way of the world without getting involved in dangerous situations. Your naivety will only get you in trouble, like today."


    Elruin felt smaller with every word, so she just kept quiet and walked.


    "Like today. I''m aware that Scouts and Guards sometimes take... let''s call them ''trophies''... from those they have to kill." Lady Juna kept looking ahead. "It''s not entirely illegal. There is a process of claiming items for an investigation, then once the investigation''s over, we must get rid of the articles somehow. Most is sold or donated, but an officer might request something interesting. Taking something and walking away with it, however? That is a crime."


    "Sorry," Elruin kept looking down. "Does that mean I can have it back after you''re done with it, please?"


    "Not now, no," Lady Juna said. "You''ve been seen by a number of people with the outfit, and the blood which was on it. If we give it back to you, people will start to ask questions, which leads to answers we''d prefer not to give. See, some people want the practice of trophy-taking ended in its entirety, so it''s best to not call attention to it."


    "Oh." Elruin wasn''t studying law, she''d have to take Juna''s word. "What about sarite?" The police gave her shards back to her when she was let go, which seemed strange to her then. Not that she said anything.


    "Still a crime, but impossible to enforce," Juna said. "We can''t prove if a stone was taken from a bandit or straight from some slain beast. Wasting Truthsayer time on every shard in the city would be impossibly expensive."


    Elruin nodded along. Practice with weakened sarite shards at her school had made it clear that sarite''s natural magic made it difficult to influence with other magic, like scrying.


    "Besides, we want sarite in human hands," Juna continued. "Burying sarite has a nasty habit of, well, back when I was not much older than you, I had to fight a fox that launched acid from its posterior. Don''t laugh, people died. Some careless soul died with a powerful shard, which the animal swallowed. I still have that shard, it''s one of my best."


    That was good to know, though she still had to deal with the shards in her pocket. Her school was now in sight, a sign that perhaps the conversation would be over soon. "Thank you, again."


    "You''ll find a way to pay me back, some day," Juna said. "But while we''re on the subject of sharing knowledge, I admit there is one thing I haven''t been able to discern. Why did Scout Calenda go to you, first?"


    Elruin''s stomach clenched. "Pardon?"


    "She entered the gates, told the Guard nothing, traveled here, found you, and took you back into the wilderness with her for the better part of an hour. Then returned, with the bodies of her team members, horses, and other assorted materials. Why?"


    "I..." Now Elruin knew she was in trouble, since she couldn''t shake Lady Juna off so easily. "Maybe it has to do with the mind spell?"


    "Do tell," Juna commanded.


    "I got a look at the spell as it was working," Elruin admitted. "It was really complicated, and I''m not a mind mage." Juna remained silent, while Elruin remembered what Kasa said about Truthsaying being a common spell for the magically skilled. Juna was perhaps the most skilled mage she had ever met. "I think she was trying to trick the spell. I mean, I know she was, she told me little bits the whole way, but I think that''s why she didn''t tell the guards. She couldn''t, the spell wouldn''t let her."


    "But she could tell you?"


    "As you said, I''m young, maybe the spell meant she couldn''t tell an adult?"


    "Seems like too obvious a loophole."


    It did sound obvious. "She said something about being more clever than smart," Elruin offered. "Or maybe the spell was about not telling. She didn''t tell me. She asked me to come outside the walls with her, which I did because she saved me and I trust her. If she asked a guard to come with, she''d want to know why, which Cali couldn''t say."


    "And once you saw the bodies and stuff, you''d be the one who brought it in for everyone to see, not her," Juna concluded. "Still, seems too obvious. But go ahead and keep your secrets for now, since you value them so highly. And try not to be such a shut-in in the future, I''ve come to enjoy our chats.


    "Yes, ma''am."


    Juna turned and went the path that would take her to her own mansion eventually, leaving Elruin behind with her heart hammering in her chest. She would need to be more careful from now on.

 The Dark Lord (dun dun dun)

    Suggested Listening</a>


    Somewhere, deep in the wilderness, lay a temple of finest marble. Crafted by gods, shaped to be the seat of power to a world-empire, it stood abandoned for centuries, with but automatons to maintain the art, beauty, and mystic mechanisms that could grant one the power to walk from one end of the world to the other with but a handful of gestures.


    Long had it stood, a testament to men who would rule man, nature, and the laws of reality. Longer had it remained in ruin, its makers long since dead and its inhabitants reduced to shadow and mythos.


    A tall, slender woman of ashen skin and wings of smoke walked through this forgotten fane to the wildest dreams of Man. Nearby, the beasts lurked, but they had learned not to approach the being of power which masqueraded as a thing of flesh. The bodies between the portal which brought her to this place, and the throne she approached, were her own shrine to the wisdom of caution.


    A flick of wings took her atop the marble platform once called the Pillar of Creation. She thought little of those ancient mortals, but today was a day of nostalgia for those they left behind. "Oh, Lord of Darkness," her voice oozed with sarcasm. "I bring you news."


    "Ugh, must you call me that every time? It wasn''t funny the first time, it hasn''t become funny in the centuries since." He shifted, stretching sinuous wings and muscle that had not moved in years.


    "My apologies, would you prefer to be called the Son of the Blighted? Or perhaps He Who Casts Darkness on Darkness?"


    A burst of black lightning shot from his fingertips, missing her by inches. Several deep crevasses were added to the cracked marble floor. They began pulling themselves back together, the shattered stone stitching itself back together one fleck of dust at a time. One day, the magic would deplete itself, and the pillar would crumble as had the dreams of its creators.


    "I told you never to speak those names!"


    "Why, My Lord, I am certain you have not." She appreciated the damage to the stone, dead purity wounded yet struggling to survive. Her opposite in all conceivable ways. "The mortals invented them between my last visit and today."


    "Oh?" He settled back down on his throne of ebony, set atop the pillar of Ivory. "My mistake. There are so wearingly many, I cannot be expected to keep track of them all."


    "You should be more careful, My Lord," she taunted. "Any closer, and you''d be forced to do these tasks for yourself."


    "Here to beg for your death yet again?" He shifted, waking slowly. "I thought you grew tired of this game you play."


    She had, long ago, but it had not yet become the ''game'' her master pretended. She swallowed, then called on all her strength for the final act of accusation and hate. "Freedom does not appear possible, which leaves me one refuge."


    "As I told your predecessors, if you can find one more competent than yourself, I shall grant you freedom or death, whichever you desire."Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.


    "I fear you ask the impossible, My Lord." No pride, no anger, she had not the resolve left for more than resignation.


    "I fear the same, and yet I do not stop." He clenched his fingers, crushing the obsidian throne upon which he sat. Its own magic set about repairing the damage inflicted, silent and without judgment. At one time, there was finery on this throne, of deep red and gold, with lush cushions such that even a mortal would not be uncomfortable seated here. They had rotted to dust centuries ago. "I suppose that trait, we have in common."


    "Yes, My Lord." Her wings wafted around her, knowing what would come next.


    Now that he was approaching true wakefulness, he wanted only to get the remaining tasks completed so he could return to his long slumber. "Now, what is the true reason you come to me?"


    "Scratch has found himself a new host."


    "Is that so?" He huffed, what passed for a chuckle. "For a dead man, he has been quite active. This makes one from him per century for how long, now?"


    "Four, if we measure by years rather than turnovers of calendar," she said. "A less cynical person might believe he''s trying to kill you."


    "He does have a habit of finding the most fascinating toys, doesn''t he?" In spite of himself, he found he was growing excited, or at least amused. "I believe the last one was a eunuch, and the one before was the arctic mermaid?"


    The most recent to have inflicted pain upon her in battle. If she had been but a little stronger, she might have been released from this abominable farce. "This one appears to be a little girl of twelve years."


    Another soft chuckle, this one almost genuine, escaped his lips. "I''ve forgotten the last child we''ve had. When the decade is up, I''ll be ready."


    "My Lord, I don''t believe we''ll need wait that long. This one is ready for cultivation, now."


    "So young?" He grinned, and acid dripped down from a jaw that might have been handsome centuries prior. "Then we set the stage for what promises to be an unusual Deathbringer."


    "I have prepared the Bean Sidhe in anticipation of your orders. Initial scouting suggests the region has few external threats, but is on the cusp of rebellion. I also located three artifact caches in the region that might play well in our plans."


    "Then fan the flames of revolution throughout..." he hesitated. "Where are they?"


    "The Empire of Engeval," she answered. "The Temple knows it as Ciron''s Citadel."


    "Right, the god of the centaurs," her dark lord muttered. At his mental command, the ancient machinery returned to life for a short time, to force open a portal network built by the Goddess of the Void, then harnessed by her descendants. They were long gone, but he would put their work to use destroying all which they had brought to the world. "Such vibrant creatures, perhaps..."


    "I''m sorry, My Lord," she cut him off. "They were unable to adapt to the changes and went extinct almost four hundred years ago."


    "Go!" He shouted, as he swung his fist backward into his throne. The stone exploded with enough power that shards of obsidian sank into the marble pillar.


    For the first time in aeons, she felt fear in the face of the being that she had just tried to goad into killing her. She fled through the opened gateway and found herself standing in the air above a stable, but still-hot caldera.


    "Ciron, awaken." She demanded of the volcanic deity. "The Goddess Kalla demands it."


    A shift of energies, a preparation of defenses and retaliation. With a wave of Kalla''s hand, ice coated the interior of the volcano. It was a minor display of power, for either of them. The speed and ease at which she performed that feat marked her as stronger than the being below her. The chaos unleashed by her magic would be felt for years, but chaos served Kalla''s purpose.


    "Awaken or I slay you where you sleep and drive what remains of your sheltered children into the true wilderness."


    Shockwaves rumbled across the land, startling civilian and priest alike as Ciron responded to the threat of the interloper with what passed for acquiescence. He would obey her, so long as she left his people alone.


    "Impossible," she said. "But with your cooperation we can limit the casualties to, perhaps, only a million or so."


    More rumbles, more echoes of power, and the stink of priests begging guidance began wafting in on the aether winds. Now that their god served her, it was time to begin her true work.

 Chapter 26

    Suggested Listening</a>


    Elruin retreated to her dorm, climbed into bed, and hugged Mister Squishybones. She came close to death today, and from now on she would need to be extra careful not to upset anyone. The wrong question might reveal Old Scratch, or her new dolly, and then guards would kill her. More than just her, since Cali was involved as well.


    If she got in trouble again, for anything, Lady Juna might not save her.


    After a therapeutic cuddle-session with her new toy, she felt better. It was too late to do much tonight, thanks to helping Cali, meeting Scratch, and learning a hard lesson about how people don''t like seeing lots of blood. Her nerves, however, would not allow her to sleep so she went to her desk and began to write.


    The desk lamp was a minor magic device that sapped small amounts of the user''s magic in order to power itself. According to the instructors, it was meant to train them by maintaining a small, steady, and constant stream of energy. Elruin didn''t feel it was difficult at all, and she learned more about balance from carrying buckets of water at the farm.


    She took out her basic calligraphy book and set to work writing letters to apologize to people. Using the ink instead of pencils, since she wanted it to look professional, she went through the process of writing an apology letter to the guards, and a thank-you letter to Lady Juna. A yawn signaled that she''d have to finish Cali''s letter later, and then go through the process of figuring out which guard she was supposed to deliver the apology to.


    In the morning, she went straight to find Lemia, to share the treasures of yesterday with the one person in the school willing to spend more time around her than required of them. She was in her usual corner of the alchemy section, toying with the ambient energies of the other students and their experiments, stitching together new magic from the tattered remnants of others.


    "Ell!" She said in a voice half between a whisper and a shout. "Are you okay? I heard you were arrested!"


    "I was." Elruin didn''t notice that some of the other students were listening in. "It was a misunderstanding. But that doesn''t matter, I have to show you something neat in my room." She couldn''t think of anywhere else in the school to display her new spell.


    Lemia looked around, but decided there wasn''t much point in avoiding going with Elruin. If she had a reputation to worry about, it was tarnished enough by her own peculiarities that it was more useful to side with the child necromancer everything knew would have dragonslayer potential one day. Besides, she wanted to hear the rest of this story about her arrest. "Give me a moment."


    Soon, the two of them were back in Elruin''s room, where Lemia felt comfortable with asking questions. "What was the misunderstanding that got you arrested?"


    Elruin decided there was no secret. "I took a magic robe, but it was evidence in a crime. I didn''t know."


    Not knowing wouldn''t have saved most people from criminal punishment, this Lemia knew. If Elruin hadn''t been connected with some of the nobility, she would have faced an ugly reality. "Where did you get it from?"


    "I''m not allowed to say."


    "Very well," Lemia dropped the conversation, since pressing the girl could cost months of slowly built trust. "So what did you want to show me?"


    Elruin held out her new sarite shards. Five crystals, each no larger than a human finger bone. "I don''t know what they do yet. Can you help?"


    Five of them at one time screamed to Lemia that they must have come from the same place as the robe. "Where did you find these?"


    "I''m not allowed to say."


    Thought as much. Lemia held the crystals. She sorted them from worst to best, then held up the remarkably bad one. "I think someone drained it, almost destroyed it. No need to breathe, short range flight. Now all it can do is help you hold your breath. Best used with a mortar and pestle."Unauthorized use: this story is on Amazon without permission from the author. Report any sightings.


    Elruin did not like the idea of destroying a treasure, even one that was more valuable as raw materials for a potion. "Can you fix it?"


    Lemia chuckled. "If I had that sort of power, I wouldn''t be here. I''d be the Queen''s Alchemist. Or maybe I''d be the queen."


    "Oh." Elruin didn''t hide her disappointment well. "I understand."


    Lemia went to the mind shard next. "Oh, I don''t suppose I can have this one? You can''t use it anyway."


    "What''s it do?" Elruin asked. She knew neither she nor Cali could use mind magic. One because it was creation, the other because it was air, but she was still curious its properties.


    "Minor boosts to alertness and memory," she said. "The real power is that it grants mental recovery, about half as fast as you get from sleep. Not bad for a combat mage, amazing for a college student who fears she''s going to die of exhaustion during her applied alchemy exam."


    Elruin wanted to help Lemia with her studies, but also didn''t want to give up her treasures. She also didn''t want to upset Lemia, her only friend other than Cali. "You can borrow it, if you like."


    Lemia set the crystal aside. "Ell, did you get these from outside the wall?"


    "I''m not allowed to say."


    Which Lemia took to mean yes. "Can you say if you''ll be able to go out to find more?"


    "I don''t think they''ll let me go outside, anymore," Elruin said. She wasn''t fond of the idea of going out in the first place, with all the monsters and Ghosts of Sorvel in the forest doing bad things like killing Cali''s friends. She also wanted to go out, to make the bad people stop being bad. They''d be so much nicer as dollies.


    "Oh, getting outside is easy," Lemia said.


    "Really?" Elruin asked. "What about the wall?"


    "Built to keep people out, same with the sarite shielding." Lemia had put some thought into the subject. "They can''t make the barrier too hard, or it''ll block out air and burn up its energy in minutes, so weak magic can sneak through where raw power would fail. There are even spots you can go to have luncheons while looking out at the landscape. It''s easy to sneak out."


    "How do you get back inside?"


    "I haven''t puzzled that part out. Any suggestions? You know the gate and guards better than I do."


    "I don''t know, Lady Calenda was always with me. They treat her special, because she''s a scout."


    "Well, if you think of a way, please tell me," Lemia said. "I want to see what it''s like out there, with all the creatures and adventure. But only if I can come back inside, with my warm bed and fresh food. Sleeping on the ground sounds awful."


    "I can... show you?" Elruin offered.


    "How?" Lemia leaned forward.


    "I found a spell that lets people synchronize," she said. "It''s really neat, and lets you show memories."


    "And you can do this? With anyone? No special requirements or side effects?"


    "I think only Revealed mages can do it, and they have to both use their Revelation together. Other than that, the magic relies on fundamental principles to do most of the work. We can do it right now, if you want." Elruin caught on to Lemia''s hesitation after a moment. "You don''t want to?"


    "It''s just, I never thought I could synchronize with anyone due to my nature." Lemia looked away, a light pink creeping to her cheeks. "And everything I''ve read on the subject makes it sound... intimate..."


    "Is this one of those city people things, like sharing a bed?" Elruin still didn''t understand why Lemia thought it was weird that she shared a bed with some of her sisters. They seemed to believe only small children and married people slept together. Which wasn''t half as bad as when she said she bathed with them, too.


    "I guess it is," Lemia admitted. "It''s just weird, that''s all. But, well, I''d hate myself if I turned down a chance to learn magic I''ve never heard of before. How did you learn about it? Let me guess, you''re not allowed to say."


    Elruin considered lying, but the spell she was about to cast didn''t do well with lies. "No, I can''t."


    "I''ll start, and when you''re ready you can alter the music, change it to your liking."


    Suggested Listening</a>


    Elruin began her song, a soft and gentle affair, similar but different than with Scratch. She sang of things that better fit what she knew of Lemia, focusing on experiences and her time outside the walls, the sinister affair of nightfall, of cold ground, and of the mockery of the morks.


    Lemia caught on quick, and began to adjust notes with gestures, grabbing them from the air and moving them to a new place as if designing sheet music. Her mathematical Revelation was an unusual one, but it was simple to pair math with music. She drew calculations of frustration, confusion, as siblings surpassed her due to her lack of potential.


    Elruin joined in singing about the betrayal her family inflicted on her, though she took care to hide the nature of why they exiled her to die.


    Lemia wrote of anger, of a desire for revenge which she had never acted upon but sat deep within her.


    Elruin touched on the cruelty of the Ghosts of Sorvel, acknowledged her own desire to seek revenge, but she focused on the morks who offered her the opportunity for revenge, which she rejected. She sang of saving them from Cali, who wanted them arrested and sold into slavery.


    Lemia backed away from the anger, crafted a formula of success by being stronger, smarter, and better than those who''ve wronged them.


    The crafted song tapered off, and now it was Lemia who had tears in her eyes. "I don''t want to sneak into the wilderness anymore."


    Elruin went to the bed and picked up Mister Squishybones, which she handed to Lemia. "Here you go."


    Lemia smiled, laughed, then hugged the stuffed animal.

 Chapter 27

    Suggested Listening</a>


    Lemia spent just long enough holding Mister Squishybones to start to feel uncomfortable with her younger friend standing there. She handed the surprisingly well-made stuffed toy back to Ell, then asked the first question that came to mind. "What happens, now?"


    "I don''t know," Elruin said. "Other than boosting magic, what does it do?"


    "A lot of things," Lemia said. "But the literature is vague on the specifics. It seems to take everything into account, from the aspects to Revelation, to the strength of the participants and their shared resonance. The obvious part is that I should be more resistant to your magic, which is good since you sort of, well, there''s a reason that people avoid you."


    "But I thought this shard was supposed to hide that." Elruin held up the shadow sarite that had been her near-constant companion.


    "Can I see that?" Lemia took the crystal from Elruin. "Entek!" She handed it back. "I knew you were strong, but I thought you were at our teachers'' level. You make most of the nobility look weak."


    "But Lady Juna and Lord Garit are stronger."


    Lemia held her breath for a moment, at mention of the future Duke and High General. "I guess it''s no surprise they''d be interested in you. I bet they saw right through that crystal." She knelt down in front of her young, terrifying, friend. "They''re scions of some of the strongest blood in the empire, and they''ve been training their skills since before you were born, probably before I was born."


    "Oh," Elruin stopped to consider the gap between them and almost everyone she''d seen thus far. "And they have a perfect resonance with one another, I bet that makes them stronger."


    Lemia felt uncomfortable, considering some of the rumors about the twins. "I guess when you train together for two decades, you learn to work well together."


    "Will we be able to do that, some day?"


    Lemia doubted it, given that her field didn''t see much opportunity for combat practice, and Elruin didn''t seem suited for alchemy. Although now she saw the logic behind the girl learning here; she had power to spare, what she lacked was knowledge. "Maybe some day, but for now I think all we do make it easier for the other to use magic."


    "I don''t feel any difference." Elruin hadn''t noticed at all. She hadn''t noticed much from Scratch, either.


    "I can. It almost doubles the power I can call on." Lemia wasn''t fond of being reminded of the humbling gap between them. "I think you can, too, but it''s minor compared to your natural strength. I''m no more than a leaf in your tree."


    That made sense, now that Lemia said it. "Thank you for helping. Do you think this will help you use magic better?" Elruin handed off one of her old sarite, the one that bolstered air magic.


    Lemia held it for a moment. "Hmm, ah, I think I know what you''re trying, but it won''t work. This shard boosts the strength of the magic itself, which won''t help me much. Maybe I could get some use from seeing in the dark, but I''m not strong enough to use it and this recovery shard. Thank you for the offer, though."


    "As I walk." Elruin looked over at her table. "Can we play later? I need to do my chores."


    "Come by the lab whenever you want to see me, because I''m going to live there until the quarter has finished." As great a relief as the extra hours she could devote to her work, was not having to put up with her roommate''s constant attempts to find some alone time with her boyfriend of the week. Being stuck in a room with some lesser noble''s spoiled daughter was annoying enough without the strangers who ranged from rude to creepy.This story has been unlawfully obtained without the author''s consent. Report any appearances on Amazon.


    Perhaps she''d ask about rooming with Elruin. She was confident nobody would object. The administrators never liked having a student alone to a room, and now that they had some shared resonance, the constant unnerving aura wasn''t so bad. She felt confident the girl wouldn''t turn their room into a makeshift brothel, which was more than she could say for most of the students here.


    Something for her to worry about later, now that she was going to be so much more productive. She felt a moment of guilt, cheating this way, only to remind herself that everyone in the school cheated. It was the nature of the beast that everyone cheated, except those lacking the wherewithal to acquire some magic which helped them cheat.


    Meanwhile, Elruin remained ignorant of her friend''s thoughts as she returned to writing her apology letters. She read them twice over, then decided they were all complete so she went to deliver them.


    First, the police station was closest, so she went there. The new sarite was fun, letting her move with amazing bursts of speed. She almost giggled when she ran across the park as a blur of black hair and light clothes. This new shard may not have the ability to zap people with lightning or guide her aim, but the speed was amazing. She walked faster with the shard than she could run without it.


    She slowed when she got close to the station, since they seemed like the sort who''d be upset by using magic around them. She approached one of the lady guards. "Hello? Can you help me?"


    "Are you lost?" In this part of the city, with a child who didn''t appear to be abused or hungry, it was the best guess.


    "No, I wanted to give a letter to the sergeant," Elruin said. She held the letter out for the woman. "I''m Lady Elruin. I caused trouble yesterday, and wanted to apologize to everyone."


    The woman nodded; she''d heard about that situation, and all the speculation the secrets surrounding it. How could she not, when General Juna herself was involved? "You are a very polite young lady," she said while accepting the letter. "I promise I''ll deliver this straight to the sergeant."


    "Thank you, ma''am," Elruin clasped her hands and bowed, before heading off to her next stop. The mansion Lady Juna and Lord Garit lived in wasn''t close, but it was along the path that would take her to Cali''s home. Juna wasn''t home, so she was forced to leave that letter for later delivery as well. She hoped it wouldn''t annoy them that she couldn''t deliver it in person.


    Last, not least, she stopped by Cali''s home. Lyra wasn''t around, which meant Rena must be gone as well, so Elruin let herself in. She found the older girl laying in her living plant bed. "Are you better?"


    Cali gave a weak smile. "More dead than alive, I think." Elruin felt weird about Cali not running her mouth. "But I''ll get better soon. It''s Crela I''m worried about, they''re reviving her now, but the process is... it might be better to stay dead. Then I tell her that Lanine was beyond saving before someone else does."


    Elruin nodded; she hadn''t considered they might try to resurrect the dead scouts. "What can I do to help?"


    Cali remained still, but her smile faded. "I don''t think they want your sort of help, Ell."


    "I meant how can I help you?" She looked around. "Do you need me to do chores? A hug? Anything?"


    Cali opened her mouth, then closed it. "I was about to say you wouldn''t understand, but that''s not fair. You''ve lost loved ones, too."


    Elruin sat down next to Cali''s bed, unsure of what to say.


    "So have I." Cali stared up at the ceiling. "It never gets easier, but I''ve learned to compartmentalize. This is different, this is losing a member of my team." She choked the last word out. "It should have been me. I was the front-liner, the one who went face to face with the enemy. They stayed back, relied on me to take the blows so they wouldn''t have to, and I failed."


    She huffed, would have punched the wall if she could get her arms to move for more than useless flailing. All she could do now, physically or mentally, seemed to be useless flailing. "I couldn''t save them. I couldn''t even save myself. You''re the reason I''m alive."


    "But Scratch-"


    "Wanted you!" Cali failed to sit up. "He saved me, to meet you. Now you''re helping that thing, and it''s my fault. I should have told him to crawl back into the pit, accepted my fate. It would have been better for everyone."


    Elruin leaned forward, to lay her head next to Cali and put her arm around the older girl. "Then I never would have gotten Mister Squishybones."


    Cali remained still a full minute, then nudged her arm around Elruin. "Is that what you''re calling it?"


    "Uh-huh. He gives the best hugs. I''ll bring him next time, then you''ll feel better."


    Cali smiled despite herself. "Promise he won''t start moving around on his own."


    Elruin thought about what it would take to animate a stuffed animal, but she''d destroy it if she tried. "I promise."

 Chapter 28

    Suggested Listening</a>


    Elruin devoted much of the rest of her week''s free time to studying the nature of resonance, though she didn''t take long to come to the conclusion that nobody understood more than the basics of this field. Which might explain why Scratch was the only one who knew an artificial method, when it was such a simple ability. Or perhaps it was because his version was much weaker than natural synchronization.


    In the end, both literature and her own experience agreed that the best way to improve resonance with a location was to spend a great deal of time tending to that area with one''s magic. Alone, if possible, otherwise the jumbled mess of other human essences would cleanse away the effort in hours, or minutes in a city this size. And the best way to improve synchronization was to practice magic with the person you wanted to share resonance with, and more difficult or stressful situations sped the process. Perhaps that was why half the books equated strong resonance with romantic entanglement.


    She had no interest in that outcome, but she wanted as many safe, happy friends as possible, so she found Lemia in the lab with a plan in mind. "Can we practice potion-making?"


    Lemia looked up from her notes. "Ell? Is it morning, already?"


    "Almost noon," she said. "I thought we could practice together with potions."


    Lemia stretched. "Ooh." Elruin''s eyesight identified the problem right away: the shard may counter the mind''s need for sleep, but it did nothing to help physical recovery. "A potion sound like a wonderful idea."


    Lemia went through the usual process of drawing energy from the environment to fill her cup with enhanced water. As she drank the concoction, Elruin studied the magic rushing through her body and mending all the damage that her days of tireless work had done to the flesh and bone. "Seven above! I think that''s the best healing potion I''ve ever made!"


    Elruin kept watching the whole thing. "You''re getting stronger."


    "More like you''re making me stronger," Lemia countered. "Don''t worry, I''m fine with it. I''m not so proud that I can''t accept charity."


    Charity. "That''s a great idea." Resonance magic worked better in real situations than it did just practicing rituals in the school, else everyone here would have synergized with everyone else in the building. "We should go heal people, for charity."


    Lemia smirked at the girl. "They wouldn''t let you within shouting distance of the Respite houses. But, if you don''t mind getting a little unorthodox, I can get us somewhere the healers don''t often tread."


    "I''ll go get my stuff." Elruin went to find her training outfit, since it and her school uniforms were her only clothes that could withstand her magic for long, then met up with Lemia at the entrance to the school.


    Lemia handed her a cheap flax cloak. "Here, when we get out of the noble district, wear this and keep your head down."


    They traveled for some time, as the buildings grew more numerous and less grand, until they reached a point where instead of buildings at all, there were shacks made from scraps stolen from older projects. Elruin looked around as best she could, while obeying Lemia''s instructions to continue looking down. She didn''t want to get in trouble, but trouble had its way of finding her.


    "What do we have here?" A man, older than her, and quite rude to approach. "The uppity whore returns."


    "We''re just passing through." Lemia mumbled. "C''mon, Ruk, old time''s sake?"


    "Without saying hello to your old friends," he said. "Guess you''re worn out anyway. Decided you''d rather sell someone else? Little young for my tastes, but-"


    "Don''t touch her!" Lemia moved, a little too late, as someone grabbed Elruin''s arms from behind.


    Reflex, and remembrance of the other bad men who tried to hurt her, caused Elruin to act. What sounded for a moment like a scream of fear evolved into a song of cold, cruel certainty. Black lightning burned away her cheap cloak, then much of the bad man''s fingers. His voice joined her song, screams of fear and pain as he flopped on the ground.


    "Merat!" The man who''d troubled Lemia took two steps back. "Enge Protect!"


    "I told you." Lemia sighed, then pulled her cloak down. "Iwantedto get through without causing any trouble, Rukan. In, out, nothing more. But now you went and laid hands on Lady Elruin. We all know what happens to men who touch a noble''s child."


    The one who Elruin zapped managed to bring himself to his feet, despite both his arms having been numbed to paralysis. He''d recover, but without a good healer he''d lose a few fingers.


    "You brought a noble''s brathere?" Rukan hissed. "Are you insane?"


    Lemia looked him in the eyes. "Lady Elruin can defend herself, in case you hadn''t noticed. Now be a good little lapdog, run back to Lerulan, and tell him I am heading to the shelter. Any trouble, any at all, and there are only two outcomes. Either she does that-" Lemia pointed at the man stumbling away. "-to all of his men. Or you hurt her, and her family comes looking. No matter how it goes down, he loses."


    "Entek." Rukan backed away. "You better never come back here alone, whore!" He ran into the direction of one of the larger cluster of shacks, ducked through a tight passageway, then zigzagged along in a way that reminded Elruin of the rodents she once hunted.


    "Sorry I ruined your gift. Am I in trouble?" Elruin kept her eyes down.


    "Gift? That old burlap trash?" Lemia smiled. "You''ve done nothing wrong. It was my fault for thinking we could get through without being noticed. I''m not welcome in this neighborhood, if it wasn''t obvious."


    "Why?" Elruin could sympathize, given what happened with her siblings. "Why do they call you bad things?"


    "Not everyone is lucky enough to have rich parents, or incredible power." Lemia gathered herself, stood tall instead of hiding away like she was before. "I was born here, to a mother who died from drugs a few years ago, and a father that I probably passed a thousand times on the street without recognizing. All I had was a strange quirk, and ambition. But without an education, it was useless, and without money I couldn''t get that education. Ruk was a former... friend... who I allowed to believe was something more. You were never in any real danger, they just wanted to scare us away."Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on Royal Road.


    "They weren''t bad men?" Elruin looked back, still able to spot the damaged flickering lifeforce of the man who grabbed her.


    "No, they''re terrible men," Lemia said. "They''re men who''d poison innocent children for a sliver of copper. They hate me because I was one of the ones who got away. I made something better of myself, and that makes them afraid and angry."


    "I don''t understand."


    "They''re afraid, because they don''t want others to see me. They think that if I come back successful, then others will realize they, too, can be successful. Then all of their power and control evaporates. They''re angry because I''m a reminder of their own inadequacy. If I, a former prostitute, can make it and they can''t, what does that say about them?"


    "Like Kasa," Elruin said. Then realized she never told Lemia about her. "She''s my sister, she hates when anyone is smarter or better than her. She tried to feed me to morks."


    "Three above, four below," Lemia muttered. "I always thought it was the cities that made people act like this, but even Lerulan wouldn''t murder children. Sell them poison, yes, but not butcher them. You''re far more merciful than I''d have been in that situation."


    Suggested Listening</a>


    "Lady Cali didn''t understand, either," Elruin said. "She said I was a sai- what''s that?" Elruin looked forward to the marble pillar which stood out on a literal and metaphorical level, but radiated magic like she''d never seen before. It was some blend of all creation-aspect magics, but also a great deal of fundamental patterns as well. Around the pillar sat many temporary shelters, as they did everywhere else.


    "This is the shelter. All the happiest memories of my childhood happened here," she said. "I''ve dug through every historical record I could find, but none of them mention who made it or when. I''m convinced it''s older than the empire itself."


    As they walked deeper into the field of magic, Elruin observed the dense, intricate patterns. Around them, children poked their heads out of their shelters to observe. None showed any sign of fear. "It reminds me of Lyra. Not the same aspects or abilities, but her level of skill and power. I think I could spend years studying it and not understand everything."


    "So, there still exists magic beyond you," Lemia said with a smile. "I have studied it for years, and all I have are guesses. I think at one time it was a prison, meant to show criminals the path of peaceful reform. For us, it''s a shelter from criminals. In here, no one can attempt an act of violence. Eventhinkingabout inflicting harm is impossible. Sadists who hurt others for fun fall to their knees and weep. Doesn''t play nice with intoxication or sex, either."


    Out of curiosity, Elruin attempted to consider using her magic, targeting a bad person to harm. The closest she could get was knowing that her magic could be used to kill, but having trouble imagining how it could do so. It was a disorienting experience, so she gave up in seconds. "I think it would be a good prison."


    "I think so, too," she said. "But who knows how ancient civilizations thought? Maybe this was a public bathhouse?" Now they were near the center of the pillar, where Lemia knelt in front of an older woman.


    "Little Mia, what brings you back here?" The woman might have guessed Elruin needed shelter, but the girl was in quality clothing, and had the look of someone who had nothing to fear of the world.


    "Grandmother." The woman wasn''t her real grandmother, but here she was everyone''s grandmother. "I''m here to provide healing, for a time." Lemia set a her cup and tools in font of her, at the woman''s feet.


    "She''s with the church?"


    "No, ma''am," Elruin said with perfect politeness. "But my Elder Sister is Priestess Calenda."


    "We''re here to do alchemical healing," Lemia added. "We''re somewhat limited in what we can do, but when I lived here we needed all the help we could get. Even minor healing will make the task of caregivers much easier. All we need is a place to set up, and water to enchant."


    "We had an outbreak of Seizing Sickness. Can you help?"


    Lemia didn''t know how their magic would work on the disease. "Can''t promise more than the symptoms, but we''ll try."


    "Then lives may yet be saved. Lemia, you know where the sick houses are. Children, spread the word that a minor healer is here, we''ll focus on treating the young. Don''t get anyone''s hopes too high."


    Elruin followed Lemia along until they reached the small shacks that were smaller than many of the sheds they had back on the farm. The essence of death was here, but the pillar''s magic somehow prevented the lingering death from blossoming into taint, no matter how rich the metaphorical soil was for it. Even the ground was dry, ashen, and struggling to support life.


    "What is this place?"


    "Sick houses," Lemia said. "When we fear an illness is too dangerous, we erect a little shelter. We pray, the illness runs its course, then we burn the shelter. There is only a question of if it''s a celebration pyre or a funeral pyre. All diseases I''ve ever read about will die in the fire."


    "I see." Perhaps this was where Kasa got the idea that burning the undead would work. Now that she got a look at this place, she was more certain than ever that taint could not be cleansed by physical means. She contemplated explaining the not-taint building here, since these were Lemia''s friends. "You should move the sickhouses, never keep them in the same spot more than a few weeks. It creates dangerous death magic."


    A makeshift table was carried in by four adult women, set down so Lemia could begin charging temporary potions using buckets of rainwater. Lemia started working on the first wave of potions as she talked to Elruin. "You''re certain? I don''t feel anything."


    "I''ll show you." Elruin began to sing, drawing upon the vast well of necromantic energy in the region. Water bubbled over the edges of the buckets, unable to contain even a brief exposure to the available energy.


    Lemia looked wide-eyed at the area. "How... how has no exorcist seen this before?"


    "I don''t know, perhaps they don''t know how to look under the shelter magic?" It was sitting like a plug atop the death energy. "You didn''t notice it, and you were here with it for years. It''s not dangerous, and I can control it."


    "Then looks like we''ve got plenty of power to work with." Lemia grinned, as she started to twist the available energies, with Elruin''s help in refining and controlling that power for safe consumption. In pure state, the water in those buckets could kill a man in seconds, and have the body walking again in under a minute.


    Soon, a young boy was brought to them, sickly, sweating, and having trouble moving while minor tremors wracked his weakened muscles. Elruin could see the poison inside him, disrupting what Elruin might some day learn was called the nervous system.


    The man who brought the boy held a mouthful of the magic-charged water for the boy. It was enough to cleanse the poison, though it did not dislodge the cause. The woman next to him spoke for them. "Is he better, now?"


    "No, the cause is still there," Elruin said. The disease itself, however, did not seem all that resilient. More than that, it was different than the human essence, and its ability to resisting the life energy of the healing potion made it all the more visible to her lifesight. Combined with her new experience with resonances, she was confident she could target the disease, while only causing minor damage to the boy.


    "I think I can cure him," she said. Unless the illness had a special surprise, it was weaker than any rat she''d ever killed. "It will hurt."


    The woman looked at her husband, then back to Elruin. "It can''t be worse than the pain of the disease."


    A soft, targeted burst of death energy caused the child to gasp in pain, forced his father to hold him down as he struggled against the soft waves of death energy that burned his body, but scoured the illness. In time, he stopped, gasping for breath.


    "He''ll need another dose of the healing potion," Elruin said. Here, she was the expert, and she had a well of power the likes of which she had never imagined before. Soon the boy, carried by his father, was moved in favor of the next victim of this terrible disease.

 Chapter 29

    Suggested Listening</a>


    It was nightfall before the pair finished. Lemia had to take another dose of potion for herself, just to help get home, and even Elruin found herself more exhausted than she''d been at any point since arriving in Arila.


    Lemia laughed as they walked through her former neighborhood. "I can''t believe it!" Before she''d walked proud out of defiance, now she felt real pride. "No healer has ever been able to do more than twenty or thirty disease cases without burning themselves out. We did over a hundred, and dozens of broken bones, it''s incredible!"


    "We can do it again," Elruin said. It had been a long process, the worst being those suffering from partial starvation. Healing magic was good for many, many things, but it had limits. Everyone knew it was impossible to cure aging, the best that could be hoped for is to alleviate suffering, but starvation and dehydration were also difficult. The seemingly endless pool of death energy helped a great deal.


    There were other ways to deal with hunger. "Maybe we can teach them to make farms?" Elruin didn''t think they could get chickens and cows here, but there was nothing stopping them from buying viable beans, and wheat was just grass, it could grow anywhere.


    "I know where you''re going with this, it''s been tried before, it never works." Lemia kept glancing to the sides. The people stared at them, now, not in suspicion but in wonder. Elruin would get all the credit, even though Lemia''s ability did the hard part. She didn''t care, their approval wasn''t important to her. Or so she told herself.


    "I want to help them."


    "They have to help themselves," Lemia countered. "Let''s say your plan works, we get a farm going. Let''s say nobody attacks the farm, its volunteer, or their families." With Elruin''s reputation and power, it was possible they wouldn''t dare. "Where do we put the farm? Is there enough space to feed everyone? What of their houses that have to move to make room for cropland?"


    Elruin had no answer to those questions.


    "Best scenario, we create a new middle-class, employed laborers, who take land and drive off those who were unable or unwilling to work. They form a new camp somewhere else, or get driven into the wilderness to die. Worst scenario, some noble''s brat claims the land and the farm. Your connections would probably shield from that, so you become the Lady in charge of the region, and then one day you die, your kids fight over the land, and it becomes politics as usual. Even your power can''t stop that."


    "We can teach them to work," Elruin suggested. "Maybe hire some teachers."


    "Some, maybe, but what work do you give to people with no magical potential?" Lemia asked. "Without magical bloodlines, they''re not even worth making slaves from. And before you ask, yes, certain nobles have tried the obvious solution. It appealed to nobody except a certain type of nobleman. You won''t find those books in the city libraries, I promise that."


    Elruin wasn''t quite certain what the ''obvious'' solution was, but if others did, then what hope did she have of fixing the world when they couldn''t? Maybe she could use her dollies to run farms to feed people, but everyone seemed to think that was a terrible idea. The more she studied the subject, the more she agreed that controlling taint was harder than it looked. She''d need to talk to Scratch about how he accomplished it, some day.


    A day that would have to wait, as she returned to school and had to wait several days for any free time to be available, which she chose to spend with Cali.


    Suggested Listening</a>


    Lyra was on the roof again, when Elruin arrived that afternoon. The dryad hopped down from her perch, then sniffed Elruin. She looked at the squishy horse toy, then gave it a gentle pet while ignoring Elruin.


    "His name is Mister Squishybones."


    Leya looked at her for a moment, then back to the horse, then jumped back onto the roof. A step in the right direction, considering what she could do if Elruin annoyed her. With the dryad neutral to her presence, Elruin entered the house to find that Cali was up and walking.


    "I heard you had a busy week," Cali said. "When did you pick up a healing spell?"


    "It was Lemia who did most of the work. She''s one of my classmates, who wants to be an alchemist. All I did was provide power." Elruin looked down. "Did I do something wrong, again?"


    "Wrong? No, not at all." Cali stopped to lean against a wall and breathe. "Some of the movers and shakers of the city are nervous about you, but they get nervous any time a mud hero shows up."


    "What''s a mud hero?" This was the first time she''d heard the term.


    "Anyone with high magical potential who doesn''t come from one of the ruling families," Cali said. "Especially the ones who go around helping people without official sanction. They hate it when anyone looks better than them. Right about now is when they''d be making their power plays to win your favor and increase their own influence, or attempting to discredit you, or some combination of both."


    "Nobody''s been bothering me," Elruin said.If you spot this narrative on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.


    "Because you were snapped up early," she said. "Any move on you now could be seen as an attack on me, my family, and the College. And your stunt last week made all of us look good, so they''ll be keeping an eye out for you. Plus, Lady Juna''s staked her interest in you. You''re not untouchable, but if you remain a stable quantity, the worst you have to worry about are nobles watching you for a means to ingratiate themselves with our future leaders. And all the betrothal offers."


    Which would explain why Lady Juna showed up so soon after she got arrested. "Betrothal offers? You mean marriage? What do I do?"


    "Sort of." Cali moved over to one of the large, soft, mostly-moss chairs for a seat. "You do nothing, right now. Since you''re so young, the protocol is that families of boys around your age shall approach me to arrange play-dates for you. They figure even if possible marriage never occurs, at least it means networking and contacts for their brat once you''re older and taking apprenticeships and leadership roles."


    "Then I get married?"


    "If you want, but I''m not forcing the issue," Cali said. "My parents and siblings want me to, but I told them to go visit the farmsteads and find their own wild talents to auction off if it''s that important. And I told the suitors that for now I want you pursuing your education, then we''ll worry about suitors. Smarter that way, if you can keep your value going up over time. How would you like to marry a prince? Do they still tell those fairy tales about poor girls marrying princes these days?"


    "Sometimes," Elruin said. "My sisters all wanted to marry princes. I never thought about it."


    "Well, if you keep up like you have been, you might have to think about it. Or maybe one of the Heir Potentials, or one of their children at any rate. It will be years before we have to worry about any of that, but what do you think?"


    Elruin considered it for a moment. "I came over to see how you were doing? Are you feeling better?"


    "I know, and I don''t know." Cali admitted. "They''ve finished bringing Crela back, I''ll be there tonight when she''s ready to wake up, and I''ve been doing everything I can think of to not think about it. How do I tell her? What do I tell her? No, I don''t expect you to have any answers, I just wish I had some."


    "Here," Elruin set Mister Squishybones in Cali''s lap. "Take him with you, he can give Crela a hug."


    Cali snorted. "Wouldn''t that be a sight to behold." She put an arm around the toy nonetheless. "Thanks, I''m sure Crela will get a laugh out of it, if nothing else."


    Elruin had to leave not long after, to let Cali go to her friend. Elruin returned to campus to do more study and work. She would have to wait another week to get Mister Squishybones back, but she knew Cali needed him more than she did right now. So after getting her prized toy back, and making sure Cali was feeling better, Elruin took the time to go out by herself.


    She was known, now, with people looking at her wherever she went. Healers were common, healers that could handle as many people as she had that week were not, and ones as young as her were unheard of. She had no understanding of what a celebrity was, but for now she was a celebrity in town, if a minor one. For now, however, she wanted to walk the wall looking for a vulnerability, some means to sneak back inside if she had Lemia help her sneak out.


    Options were minimal, at best. Even in the poor side of town, the wall was designed to withstand assaults from mages, dragons, and armies alike. Even if she found a vulnerability in the wall, there was the half-mile of open prairie between the wall and the forests which she didn''t know how she could sneak across. Perhaps at night, perhaps with her magic and sarite, she might get close. She had little hope...


    Suggested Listening</a>


    She spotted the threat moments before the guards atop the tower. Streaks of white flame, pure creation magic slammed into the magical shields that protected the city from the skies. The energy was warped, forced into a new form by the power of a song not unlike Lyra and the shelter. The shield, the city, changed in response to the magic.


    The sky turned orange, then a face formed in the sky. He was a grim man who looked much like Lord Garit, with the same eyes and green hair, though he had a beard. One of his eyes was missing, replaced by a burnt-orange orb which glowed with power, highlighting the fresh scar from the wound which took that eye. At first glance, it appeared to be a one-way projection and nothing more, though the power needed to do so at this scale defied her comprehension.


    "I am King Claron ne Enge, leader of the Liberation Army. To the citizens, the captives, of Arila, I bid you lay down your arms and hide in your home. We are your protectors, and will not harm those of you who do not harm us."


    People muttered in the street, uncertain of what to make of the situation but also unconcerned. To them, the wall was inviolable, and the madman with his declarations was little more than amusing street theater. Elruin knew better- whatever he was, he had access to a scale of magic which could destroy the wall, if he so desired. Worse, the warped bubble was blinding people to the outside world, and all the bodies approaching the city from outside. A thousand soldiers, maybe more, would be at the wall soon.


    She began to run, with the full strength of her new speed-boosting air shard.


    "To my kin, the so-called nobility, the jailers of Arila, I demand your unconditional surrender. Your ill-gotten gains shall be confiscated in the name of the people, and you will be allowed to live amongst those you look down upon. You don''t want to resist. You know me, you know what I will do to you."


    Elruin kept running, back to safety, back to friends. She didn''t know from which direction the attack would come, but she knew there was no time to spare.


    "To the priests of Arila, know that I am blessed by our Emperor God Enge, Himself." The projection enlarged on Claron''s face, specifically the object in his eye socket. "This great artifact is a representation of Enge''s own will and power. The unworthy would be struck down by touching it, yet I stand stronger than ever before. All who resist are traitors to the church and to the crown."


    It had been a long time since Elruin ran so hard it hurt, but she hurt and yet she kept running. There wasn''t time, there wasn''t-


    The earth rumbled, as Claron displayed a similar level of power as the projection. Small mountains rose up around the city, dozens of long ramps which allowed the enemy''s army to march right to the shield, and step inside. Those guards on the walls found themselves outnumbered and overwhelmed by an army that appeared out of nowhere through the barrier.


    Enemies started dropping into the city, using magic to launch themselves off of the walls and into combat range of the patrolling officers. Those who dropped their weapons, who showed no resistance, were spared by the Ghosts of Sorvel as they took position in the main streets of the city. It was clear that the ghosts would win with the advantage of surprise on their side, along with the power which Claron held and the larger, bulkier creatures which moved up the ramps he''d made. Soon, there would be monsters in the city.


    The city, or some part of it, fought back, dying and killing in the streets against these outsiders who came to take their homes. Elruin estimated she was a match for any two, maybe three of these fighters at a time on either side.


    She was out of time, and far from safety.

 Chapter 30

    Suggested Listening</a>


    Elruin weaved her way forward, toward the main gates. Cali''s house wasn''t far from the barracks, the two places she was most likely to be. Nearby, one of the soldiers was dealing with two opponents. They didn''t see Elruin approach from behind, nor did they expect the black bursts of energy that pierced their skulls from behind.


    She had to admit their armor was impressive, though. If she hadn''t had surprise on her side, they might have still been standing. Wherever they got this equipment from, it was superior to what the city guards wore. She resolved to ask Juna what the policy was on taking equipment off enemy soldiers, instead of bandits. Or not-quite-dead soldiers, as was the case with the two brain damaged men on the ground before her.


    She didn''t have time to take anything now, so she kept running toward where she hoped to find Cali.


    As she ran, she took the opportunity to make pot-shots against any of these invaders that wasn''t paying attention. Some fell, others remained standing, she didn''t waste the time to see what happened to them next nor was she prepared when a fist came out of nowhere.


    She didn''t realize what had happened until she was laying in the dirt, with a dagger wedged into her stomach. Her first thought was how disappointed Cali would be that she ruined yet another outfit. She saw another dagger coming for her, so she brought her hands up, and was rewarded with a knife now sticking into her arm. Better there than the face it would have hit if her reflexes had been slower.


    With little choice, she sang, and blanketed the area in darkness. In the inky blackness, she was safe, though she knew she was drawing attention.


    Agony in her guts, she shifted just enough to avoid a third dagger. She''d seen a fighting style like this before, with Calenda, though this guy didn''t seem to have any way to track her in the darkness she created.


    He was, however, invisible to her lifesight.


    In the darkness, she scooted back until she was hiding in the nook under a porch, where at least she was sheltered from flying knives. Hemmed in, she could do little more than wait until someone who could or didn''t need to see through her darkness would come. Given what she''d done to several of their men, she doubted she wanted to know what they''d do to her for revenge.


    A thump and the splintering of wood signaled a third knife had been launched. She didn''t havetimeto waste.


    She gripped the weakened air sarite in one hand, and the knife in her stomach. Clenching her eyes, she began to drink of what little remained of the shard''s life-giving strength, then yanked the dagger out of her stomach as hard as she could. She cried out in pain and directed the healing magic as best she could to stop the bleeding.


    Wounded, exhausted, but unlikely to die in the next few minutes, she watched two life signatures approach the shell of darkness she''d crafted. A burst of flame streamed through, dispelling much of the unnatural shadow before it struck the building she hid beneath. They were going toburnher out. She''d have to run, while wounded and being pursued, or she''d stay here and die in the fire.


    She glanced around, and chose the most bizarre of third options. Singing the song of anger and rage that she developed using squirrels, on yet another squirrel. The animal was agitated and terrified by the conflict going on around them, so she played on those emotions by reducing the fear and increasing the hate in the rodents tiny mind.


    "Merat!" It pounced out of its tree upon the woman soldier. Enraged by magic, the little rodent proved its nut-eating teeth were for more than just show by biting deep into her eye-socket.


    When her partner turned to help, Elruin fired another death bolt at his back. Not enough to kill this one, but it slowed him down long enough for the squirrel to escape his grasp.


    Another crack-pop of wood, another knife. This one, however, hummed with magic.


    Elruin scrabbled away, right before the dagger exploded into thousands of tiny fragments of metal. They pelted her back, no single one deadly, but only because they hit her back instead of her eyes. Worse, the shattered wood that was formerly the stairs to the porch had been reduced to tattered remnants of that couldn''t slow down further attacks and would burn fast once the flame reached it.


    She changed tracks, just some, and sang to her other mind-altering magic, amplifying the power of the shell of darkness she created. It spread outward while she poured everything she had into it. Those with weak minds screamed, retreated. She scrambled from her smoldering hiding place with the hope that the knife-thrower was amongst them.


    The squirrel, driven to preternatural hatred toward all things bipedal, ignored the effect and went for the other victim in easy reach. He, too, screamed when the animal reached his face. He grabbed the animal by the tail, tried to swing it away, only for it to bite his finger and use the momentum to wind up on his back. It ran back around, and up into the protective helmet. More screaming, as another eye was claimed by the demon-rodent.


    She felt a flicker of energy, then sensed a figure appear. Alive, but exhausted to the point of near-death by abuse of magic. She wasn''t in much better shape, metal needles wedged in her back, leaving her back wet with blood while the pain in her stomach was not going to go away soon. Perhaps she should have broken the weak shard down for a permanent healing potion, it would have made her life so much easier.


    A surprising burst of speed and power came from the wounded man, who caught her, gripping both her arm and her throat. She tried to kick away, but even wounded, it was still the strength of an adult man against that of a child.


    His song was full of destructive energy, necromantic energy at that. She felt it wrap around her, try to invade her body and rip away her living energy. It licked at her skin, but failed to find purchase save to attempt to steal power from her sarite.


    He realized his mistake one second too late, as Elruin tapped into her magic and gave himeverythinghe asked for and more. Life and death were entwined forces of reality, more alike than different. Nothing could live without death, nothing could die without life, and the use of a vampiric attack on someone who radiated death energy was suicide.


    His mouth opened, a silent scream followed moments later by his lips cracking and falling apart like cheap concrete. Dessicated tissue crumpled away like old mud, leaving behind nothing but a skeleton crumbled into mess of dust, a number of thin knives, armor Elruin couldn''t hope to wear, and one shimmering black crystal.


    In spite of her injuries, Elruin grabbed the newborn sarite shard, the first she''d ever seen come from a human. It was a cold, gluttonous thing that would not stop trying to steal her life energies, but it might prove useful. She kept it in a pouch away from her other sarite, just in case.


    As the darkness trailed after the wounded necromancer, a blood-soaked squirrel squinted in the restored light. It reached into the helmet of its own victim, and pulled out the remaining eye. It, too, had been hardened by the power of pain and necromancy, and it was delicious. It went to gather the remains of the other eye for later, as squirrels were known to do.If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation.


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    In another part of the city, the enemy converged on the green, preparing a united front against their defenders. Dozens of men and women, numerous mages, and two dozen of the gigantic coyote-like beasts known as morks.


    "Men!" The leader of this group shouted to his side, while his female partner stood, arms crossed, the social nicety to their female soldiers that his orders were also her orders. "Form up and create a line around the temple. Do not attack unless attacked, as the Great King Claron has offered amnesty to the priesthood who does not resist." It was an egotistical fiction, the belief that this cluster of rabble stood a chance against an accomplished priesthood. Their goal, instead, was to prevent civilians from retreating to the sanctuary of the church, lure the defenders out, and give justification to future retaliation against the church.


    An old woman walked tall and without fear toward them. "Excuse me, child, you''re in my way." She addressed him in the crudest way possible that couldn''t be called obscene.


    It was a provocation, and one he had to answer or lose face before all his men.


    The morks saw the trap for what it was, though they could not guess the particulars. "Dangerous." "No fear." "Smells of ambush." "Illusion?" "Impossible." Not known for bravery, they began to back away from the rest of the team.


    "Cowards!" The commander faced the woman, sword drawn. "Leave now, hag, or taste steel."


    "After twelve children, all of whom thought to make their poor beloved mother gratitude meals, I''m sure I''ve tasted far worse." She stepped closer. "You should take better care of your blade. When was the last time you oiled hunk of rust? And my dear Urst would have a word to say about your poor form." She knew nothing about sword quality or combat forms, she never had, but she did know how to insult a man to violence.


    "Silence!" He brought his sword up in a wide arc, a showy attack rather than an efficient one, so all his men could see the blade when it stopped with a hollow thud against a childlike face.


    Rena smiled at the poor, foolish man. "That was the worst mistake you could have made."


    Lyra was not sapient, but she recognized when someone tried to harm her human. A casual swipe of her hand sent the sword, and limb which held it, sailing off toward the wall. The metal of his armor was gossamer to her talons.


    He screamed, and one of the mages in the crowd made the mistake of launching a burst of lightning at the ancient dryad. Electricity still dancing through her eyes, Lyra hissed at the offending mage, and came to the conclusion that these annoying strangers were unwelcome in her lair. Her hiss expanded outward, became a call to all living things in the city. She was their queen, they were loyal servants.


    She smelled the scent of the necromancer who was friends with her human on some unusual beasts, and determined they would be left unharmed by her commands. Otherwise, all strangers were to be driven from her territory.


    Clouds of insects moved to intercept everyone that smelled of those in front of Lyra, biting and stinging as they could. Most would die in moments, scoured even by weak magic, but in many cases they were the distraction the defenders needed to retaliate. The wind turned arrows back upon those who fired them, pebbles moved beneath their feet, and the horses and war dogs turned upon their masters. Dozens fell, not knowing why nature itself had risen against them.


    Those who stood before her suffered a much crueler fate, when her power rushed through the greenery beneath their feat. Each blade of grass now straighter, stronger, and sharper than any blade of steel. They fell screaming, their feet pierced whether they wore leather or steel shoes. Hands and legs shredded when they, too, met the deadly grass.


    Wounded, maimed, and crippled they were reduced to laying in grass that showed no mercy by allowing them to survive. They would not die, but they would never be able to care for themselves again in their lives. The poison added by the dryad would render healing magic useless upon them forever.


    Those that remained standing annoyed the sadistic bug-plant-monster. With a whisper to the wind, and a sweep of her hand, dozens of leaves shook loose from a nearby elm. Each shot forward with the speed and accuracy of an arrow, slicing their way through armor, flesh, and bone. Those who were standing joined their crippled comrades in the dirt.


    Lyra stood amidst the pile of bleeding, dying bodies while watching the morks flee for the walls with tails literally between their legs. The beasts were just that, beasts, mere creatures of the wild who knew their place in the hierarchy of the natural world. She was the apex predator, they were intruders in her den, and what led them to this place was less important to them than their lives. She would allow them to live, so the stink of their fear would dissuade other beasts from intruding upon her domain.


    Besides, a more powerful beast by far approached. Lyra kicked up a storm of flower pollen, leaves, and bugs to defend her in a cloud of choking death, then turned her head to face the coming threat.


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    Claron struck like a comet through the cloud, flaming armor burning away anything that came close to him. His sword struck out, blocked by Lyra''s forearm, while the land beneath their feet cracked with the force of the impact. For those few close enough to view the clash, it must have looked absurd to witness a small child holding back the full power swing of an adult man in heavy armor.


    To those who comprehended a fraction of Lyra''s power, it was terrifying. The ground had shifted tosupportthe dryad, because she could not stand against the blow without assistance.


    She rushed forward, lashing out with claws while being fended off by Claron''s shield. He was on the defensive, but he was a forge mage, a powerful defense was his comfort zone. The shared shockwave of their collision, and the earth magic both called upon to serve them sent ripples across the physical and magical battlefield.


    Pops and snaps signified that the city would cave before either of them did, as a segment of the wall collapsed into a pile of rubble. The sarite shield flickered, weakened but still functional. Both Lyra and Claron decided they could not afford to continue using such attacks; there were beasts in the wilds which matched them in in power, which would come if they drew this out too long.


    Claron swung, Lyra leapt out of the way, and the earth exploded beneath their feet. Claron stumbled back, blinded in the plume of dust and rock.


    Lyra did not need her eyes to fight. She could hear him, she could feel him, and she could smell him. She rushed in, taking enough time to move into a flanking position. Claron howled in pain when her talon slid through his side, rupturing his kidney and leaving her venom inside.


    Then her skin erupted into flame, the man''s blood converted into magma powered by expended and lose life essence. The flame spread, grew, and Lyra made the decision that any wild animal in a trap would make: she severed the burning limb from her body.


    The two spun to face one another again. Claron bleeding down his back, while Lyra had her arm amputated at the elbow. As initial exchanges went, Claron suffered the worse for it, but neither was in a strong position.


    Claron glanced around at the gathering forces- allies and enemies alike. He liked to think of himself as a smart man, and one who knew when he was about to make a mistake. He felt he could win against this unholy beast, but doing so would leave him exhausted and vulnerable even to the mere mortals who waited for their chance to strike. Retreat, too, would ruin morale and leave that dryad to continue her rampage through his people. They were the deciding pieces of the battlefield, they would determine the war''s outcome.


    He drew upon the depths of his reserves, and the spell he hated more than any other.Sacrificial Flame.His blood erupted into energy, his wounds translated into enhanced magical strength, and the power ripped through his body. He would survive the spell, if exhausted. He was confident the dryad would as well, though he would be happy if proven wrong. The spectators would retreat to a further distance or die.


    He expended his most powerful ability to claim just one life, but it was the one that mattered. Lyra now stood near the other side of the battlefield, her flesh charred by the power of Sacrificial Flame, but it was charcoaled remains of a skull in her hand which had been his goal.


    Lyra held what little remained of her former human. To her, the battle was over, and she''d lost. Still missing a limb, she walked away from the battlefield to find her new human.


    To the men and women who witnessed this event, the battle had only just begun. A stream of lightning in the shape of a woman bolted across the molted soil that had once been a park. Her blade struck Claron''s, and he shook in place as all the energy rushed through him to discharge into the ground. "Ugh!" He gasped, but managed to parry the next blow with his shield. "A fine hello, Sister."


    "Traitor!" Juna kicked out, slamming his shield, but it was her knocked back by the force of the blow.


    "Traitor? I am the Chosen of Emperor Enge!" Still bleeding, Claron readied his defense. "To defy me is to defy your god!"


    "Let''s test that theory, shall we?" Lord Garit walked onto the crunching glass of the battlefield. "A gamble. The Lords of Arila against a wounded so-called chosen one. If we lose, we acknowledge Enge has chosen you. If we win, you die a dog''s death."


    Claron grinned at his sibling''s offer. "I admit, I''d be disappointed if this went any other way."

 Chapter 31

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    The earth shook beneath Elruin''s feet, while the elemental magics screamed in her ears. She stumbled at the pain which overwhelmed that of her back, stomach, and arm. Such power went beyond imagination and into insanity. For a moment, she lost control of her magic and her muscles, collapsing to her knees.


    The local infrastructure wasn''t doing much better than the necromancer. As she struggled to her feet, a nearby building collapsed at the foundation. Six glowing auras that were human beings flicked out of existence in a heartbeat, a dozen wounded, and another dozen trapped in what they had hoped was their sanctuary.


    Elruin forced herself to walk, drew upon the power of the fresh dead to restore her magic enough to bring her defenses back up.


    Moments later, her shadows were cut away by the sweep of a guisarme and searing hot air. "Die, de-" The woman, clad in heavy armor of gemstone blue, hesitated for a second upon seeing Elruin without the benefit of concealing shadows. "You''re a child!"


    "Please, let me go," Elruin pleaded. "I need to find Cali."


    "No." Her hands tightened on the blade. "Child or not, you''ve killed too many of us, already."


    Elruin sang to her magic, calling up the shadows to protect her, met with the same fate as the last. This woman''s magic was air and fire, normally mages of that sort were fragile, which might explain her heavy armor.


    Elruin took a step back, then fired off a bolt of energy, and another.


    The first, she sidestepped, the other she cut with her weapon.


    She''s testing my abilities. Elruin recognized the careful tactic; she was being distracted and slowed, contained, while the battle raged around them. "I don''t want to fight you."


    "I''d ask you to surrender to my custody, promise you fair treatment as a prisoner, but we both know that''s not possible." The armored woman''s weary voice was a whisper, but one Elruin could hear as if it was next to her. "You''ve killed too many, too identifiably. Emerit wasn''t much older than you. Do you even care about the people who died?"


    At this distance, Elruin didn''t know if she could hit the woman, and didn''t want to waste power on missing time and time again. "We didn''t ask you to attack our home." She started walking toward the front of the city, where Cali would be found. If her enemy got closer, then they would fight.


    "No, but you serve those who attacked ours." A healthy adult woman required no effort to chase a wounded child, as unhappy as the prospect of executing her was. "You''re too wounded to run, too exhausted to fight. Lay down your arms and I promise a quick, painless death." She fought down the bitterness. "It''s more mercy than you''ve shown your victims."


    Elruin tapped into her sarite, for the dust storm it could generate. Dirt and debris kicked up, hiding her with something tangible, rather than the ephemeral darkness that was her natural ability.


    The woman did nothing but step closer, her weapon pointed at Elruin. Then she whirled, bringing her weapon up where it made the sharp clang of metal striking metal.


    Elruin guessed it was an arrow or crossbow bolt, but what was more important was that it put her off her guard, so Elruin fired a pulse of energy at the now distracted enemy. It struck home, some of it even got through her armor, but this was a health and trained mage of no insignificant power, much stronger than her enemies thus far.


    "Oof." She twirled back on the necromancer. "I''d accuse you of dishonor, but I am about to murder a child. That you deserve it for your actions notwithstanding."


    She moved with shocking speed, for someone in heavy armor. Elruin had thought the metal-clad warriors would be slow, but not this one. Another bolt of death energy was sidestepped, and only slowed the woman''s advance.


    The swing from the guisarme should have been a decapitating strike, but instead Elruin was treated to the foul smell of sweaty unwashed canine underbelly, and the cackling howl of an enraged beast.


    A quick snap, and the weapon broke in two. The mork bolted forward, slamming into the woman and getting a grip on her helmet with his teeth. A burst of flame seared the beast''s mouth, burned away its tongue.


    Elruin felt the additional energies of the mork, that of undeath and the sonnet of synchronized power that bolstered her magic in this churning sea of magical chaos. She drew both her hands together, and expended what was left of her strength into the chest of the woman who had almost ended her life. Struggling ceased, and both the woman and Elruin dropped.


    "Just a little longer," Scratch said. His mork body bled profusely, and its mouth was so mangled that Elruin could understand his words only through the power of Requiem. The mork rested next to Elruin. "There is still life in your body, use it to climb up."


    Elruin had to pull on his fur to drag herself to her feet, then struggle her way up on the beast''s back. Once his passenger had her grip, Scratch began walking away from the barracks. "Wait. Cali..."


    "Lost cause, kid," Scratch said. "My oath was me first, you second, everyone else distant third if ever. She''ll have to find her own way. We need out of the city while there''s a chance. Even that''s pushing our luck."


    The sky flickered, the sky replaced by the warped dome of a human face. Lord Garit, his formerly handsome now face bloodied and wounded, was visible to the city from above. "People of Arila, I am Lord Garit. On my mother''s behalf, I order you to lay down your arms."


    "Merat! Coward!" Scratch didn''t care so much about the cowardice, only that it was inconvenient for him and his half-formed plans to escape with the child necromancer that anchored him to sanity.


    "The shelter," Elruin mumbled. Gripping the coarse, wiry fur of the mork was the most effort she could exert at the moment. "It''s got nonviolence magic. They can''t hurt us, not there."If you encounter this story on Amazon, note that it''s taken without permission from the author. Report it.


    "Why don''t you ask me to walk into a hell made of flaming dung? At least then I can laugh at everyone else trapped with me." Complaint vocalized, the mork began a swift retreat to the poor side of town, a trail of blood behind it.


    Lord Garit continued his surrender speech. "The battle has been lost. I beseech you, do not add to the tragedy by continuing a hopeless resistance."


    Only a handful of people had the power to keep up with a mork at full run, and those had exhausted themselves fighting other, more immediate, threats. Or were still dealing with the holdouts who refused to surrender. A wounded mork was something to be dealt with later.


    Half-aware, Elruin watched the heart of the mork dying a slow death to injury and the creep of taint through its bones. It accelerated faster in the mork than it had in the man from before. She would have to consider what caused this when she wasn''t so tired.


    "Enge''s Guard, I have given my Oathbond, as has Lady Juna and Duchess Erta, that there will be peace. Our new ruler, King Claron, has given his Oathbond that the prisoners of war will be treated well, and peacefully released."


    Soon, they were at the shelter, screams of fear and confusion elicited by those of the poor district who were thus far spared much of the violence. Perhaps the only upside of having no wealth, no power, and no strategic value: there was no need for the invaders to subjugate them.


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    The mork stopped right upon passing through the barricade, then backed away and collapsed on the less restrictive side. "Go, I''m fine here." The worst case, where Scratch was concerned, was the death of a body he cared nothing for. He''d long ago lost count of how many bodies he''d destroyed over the centuries.


    Elruin slid down the beast''s back, miserable about the need to walk, but happy to get away from the stench of unwashed coyote-monster.


    Above them, the face changed, to that of Claron. He held up his hand, showing the magical ink of the official seal of Arila. To those educated on the subject, they knew it should include the magical signature of a voluntary Oathbond. Some closer to the action might also note the lack of blemish and scar on his body, save that of the eye socket and the artifact that it held.


    "I have sworn to protect the citizens of Arila. My citizens. Know that you are all under my protection, and my oath to do what is best for all of you. Those who have fought have done so honorably. Surrender, accept your peacebonds, and you will not be punished for your resistance to this moment. Continue to resist, and know the fate of all murderers and traitors."


    A handful of the shelter residents approached her, once it became clear the half-dead mork would be staying behind on the dirt path. Some eyed it, considering that it was more food than most of them had ever seen at one time, then decided that they weren''t that hungry.


    Carried by two girls a little older than her, Elruin was brought near the central pillar.


    Grandmother gasped when she saw the girl. "We don''t have a healer, but we''ll do what we can."


    They laid Elruin face-down on a table, then went through a long, slow process of pulling shards of metal from her back. "I don''t know how you survived those wounds. Erra, get the salve. If we can hold out long enough, maybe a healer will get to us." Grandmother hated herself for lying, but she did so for the sake of all the children here, including the one who might bleed to death on a table.


    Erra arrived soon, carrying a brackish tarlike substance made mostly of pine sap.


    "I know, this stuff feels disgusting, but it will help you," Erra said. Using a wood spoon, she began the slow, careful process of coating the child''s back to seal all the wounds she suffered in her battles. "Relax, you''re safe now."


    "Thank you." Elruin mumbled, but it wasn''t her she was worried about. She wondered where Cali was, if she was alright, and hoped that Lemia would forgive her for going to save her other friend instead.


    Shouting interrupted Elruin''s treatment, which had just moved to her stomach.


    A man, Lord Claron, marched into the field of peace, straight for the girl. In person, he seemed both more and less than he had been in the sky-illusion. He was tall, muscular, and reminded Elruin all too much of Father in spite of having almost the opposite hair and beard color. "You are Elruin. You will come with me."


    Elruin looked him in the eye, defiant; he was the man who kept her from Cali and hurt so many. "Merat ne."


    "That was not a request, child." In here, he could not directly threaten, but he was imposing and powerful. "Emperor Enge himself demands you to be taken before his holy presence and sacrificed."


    "But why?" Elruin gasped with everyone else. Did Enge know about Scratch, or Clackybones? She knew others thought the undead were bad, but she didn''t think she''d done anything so wrong that a god would seek her death. "You have an Oathbond to serve all citizens of Arila."


    "Because that is what Enge demands," Claron stated. "I did not ask for particulars. I would throw down my life if it means his happiness, as would all true citizens of the empire. Enge''s will is Arila, and all who live here. Show your devotion to your lord, come willingly, and accept your fate with the joy that all should feel in the name of serving their god."


    "I don''t believe you!" Elruin began to tap into the power of the shelter, or the power trapped beneath it. She couldn''t use it as a weapon, but she could make herself look intimidating.


    "Then I see now why Enge demands your death," Claron drew his sword. "You are a traitor and a heretic before our god." His Oathbond pulsed, displeased with him violating his promise to serve the interests of Arila, but it settled itself in moments. Claron was a holy warrior, doing as Enge instructed, and he believed that serving his god was serving Arila, its citizens, and all other cities and good people of the empire.


    That settled, he made a handful of mental calculations as he considered his next move. Severing the magic which forced peace upon this place would be difficult, but not impossible with the powers his god granted him. Taking the child would require little effort after, even if she wasn''t wounded.


    The roiling necromantic power that would be unleashed in breaking the pillar, however, would kill hundreds before it could be plugged. More likely than not, the girl he was meant to take alive would not survive. He could not risk her death, but he could take her measure without provoking the peace of their shelter.


    She was tough, an earth mage and a decent one at that. "All those who hide here, know that you may make your choice. In five minutes my archers will pelt this shelter with arrows, flee from this place or die."


    This Elruin would survive, so long as he specified to use only wooden practice arrows. Everyone else would have to flee from the pillar.


    "Enge would never kill a child!" Erra stepped in front of the young necromancer, shaking in rage with tears running down her face. "You don''t serve our lord! You serve a fake, an impostor, a monster that murders children!"


    The young woman punched Claron, an act that was possible only because she knew she had no ability to harm him. She could hit him until her hands were nothing but bloodied stumps, and it would not cause a bruise on his skin, let alone when he was in his armor.


    "Then you die as-"


    In that moment, Lyra appeared from nowhere, standing next to Erra. Devout, brave, willing to die for what she believed was right, and who had lived a life of helping others. The dryad found her new person, and woe to any who would threaten her.


    Claron hesitated, reassessed his calculations. To order his men to fire upon Lyra''s pet would be to order a suicide attack. Only he possessed the strength to fight that killing machine. With him wounded, and the magic of the tower, he knew he would lose the rematch.


    "Very well." He stepped back, then projected his voice to the crowd. "Know that this is the traitor''s prison! Those who leave now are free to go, those who remain commit the greatest of all sins! Treason against our God and Emperor! All who provide succor, aid that treason. Those that remain, can stay here until they starve!"


    Claron walked away, while his men remained behind setting up barricades. It may have been the first time in history that a siege began after the city was taken, but this was the will of their king, and they would obey for the sake of the future they dreamed of.

 Chapter 32

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    Watching Claron leave, Elruin considered the situation for a moment. Stepping forward, an act which hurt less than it had in the moments before Lyra arrived, Elruin shouted at the retreating conquerer. "Wait!" It still hurt to shout, or to breathe at all, but it was easier. "The people here have nowhere else to go! You''ll give them a place to stay, food and shelter. Or..."


    She didn''t have much leverage, save that he wanted her alive. "Or I''ll kill myself. Then what will you do?" For unknown reasons that theologians and preachers loved to speculate upon, suicides could not be revived by any known means of resurrection magic.


    "A bluff that I''m tempted to call." Claron stopped, but did not turn to face her. He also used some sort of projection magic to carry his voice far further than a normal voice could carry, let alone the voice of a prepubescent child. "No good person in the city need fear me, nor starvation, nor the elements. I have already set my men to taking control of some of the more opulent homes belonging to the unworthy nobles. Hundreds could live in those mansions, no need for a shanty town and begging for scraps from their former enslavers!"


    This was a man who had spent his life as a statesman, he had confidence, charisma, and a message these starving masses wanted to hear. Elruin was losing the crowd, though she didn''t recognize it and couldn''t have stopped him if she tried.


    Claron spread his arms, as if to hug those gathered. "All are equal before Enge, our Emperor, and our Ancestor. Those who hoard wealth and food do so by stealing from his blessed people, and by his blessings, I shall bring their tyranny to an end!"


    "You said you were going to fire on them!" Elruin shouted, her little-girl voice small and weak against his.


    "I said I was going to fire on you." Claron showed no emotion save passion. "You, who Enge demands be sacrificed. You, a heretic! I offered everyone else a warning, time to get clear so that you could not hide behind them. I suppose I should commend you for allowing your hostages to go free, but would you have done so if you didn''t need them? Now that you have that monster as a shield, the rest are little more than extra mouths to feed."


    "Of course I would let them go anyway!" Elruin shouted. This was getting far enough out of her control that now she could recognize it, and so she did as any child would do and attempted to deflect the conversation elsewhere. "You''re afraid of Lyra!"


    "I''m afraid of what happens if it goes out of control, again." Claron spoke to the crowd, rather than the defiant young necromancer. "When we clashed, it was for mere seconds, and it brought down a portion of the wall. I doubt the city could survive the violence necessary to kill that thing."


    The people gasped and murmured at the idea that Claron was strong enough to fight Lyra. Few had direct knowledge of the dryad''s power, but the Ecrosian priests regarded her as a being of holy power too great for any mortal to challenge. To say nothing of the idea that a segment of the wall was destroyed by accident alone.


    There would be skeptics who believed he was lying, some might even voice those doubts, but they would find hundreds of witnesses to the battle. This would discredit the doubters, call into question the wisdom of the priests, the claims of Lyra''s greatness, and much of their accepted worldview. The answer to this otherwise impossible paradox would soon occur to some priest: Claron was a god. A lesser god, perhaps, but still a being which towered over mortals.


    "Blessed by Enge though I am," Claron said, well aware of the sparks of speculation which would soon become a wildfire. He would have his own spymasters spread the desirable message, if it did not emerge on its own. "Even I cannot protect everyone if the walls go down."


    His position solidified despite, perhaps somewhat because of, those who resisted, it was time to leave. Staying longer would accomplish nothing, and may even risk making him look ineffectual. Using a defiant child as an opportunity for an impromptu speech was quite a different thing than actually arguing with a child.


    He walked away, shouting orders to the men and women under his command as he went. Gods need not concern themselves with the sexes of those they address, for much the same reason humans didn''t show such deference to animals. Those leaving the shelter, save the necromancer, would be free to go unharmed. Meanwhile, food and medical supplies confiscated from the city''s own nobility would be provided in full view of those hiding behind their magical barrier. He could not attack them directly, so he would sap their morale.


    Many within the bounds of the shelter retreated from an area that was the safest place within the city, but a remarkable number stayed behind. Children without parents to protect them, women who feared Claron''s men would take the traditional rewards of a conquering army, men who had nowhere else to go. All had their reasons, and even the insistence of Elruin and Erra was not enough to dissuade them.


    Soon, they were forced to address their situation. Food would last a week, maybe two at this rate, and water was unreliable at best. The one saving grace, such as it was, is that they now had plenty of space to work with and an almost limitless supply of necromantic energy to call upon. Not that Elruin knew how that would be useful in this situation.


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    "Grandmother, what shall we do?"


    The camp''s unofficial leader looked at the young woman. "I should ask you that, dear. You''re in charge, now."


    Erra blinked, starred at the woman. "But this is your camp."


    The old woman smiled. "Lyra has chosen you, dear." She reached toward the dryad, who approached and allowed herself to be scratched on the back of the head. This act seemed enough to reinvigorate the woman. "Guide her hand as Rena failed to do."This book is hosted on another platform. Read the official version and support the author''s work.


    "Hey!" Elruin cut in. "Rena was a nice lady!"


    "Rena was a fine woman, a loving soul who never said a bad word about anyone," Grandmother said to the little necromancer. "But she lacked the ambition to live up to her predecessors. I''m old enough to remember some of Lyra''s past minders. They were vigorous, vibrant women of boundless imagination and hope for the future. We need a woman like them, today."


    "But." Erra looked at the dryad, which was content to sit and accept her hair being pet. "I don''t want that sort of power."


    Grandmother chuckled. "Child, if you wanted Lyra''s power, she would never have chosen you. The dryad has never taken a handler who wanted power. The church likes to keep that a secret. No small number of women start ''discovering faith'' when a handler grows old. Some, perhaps, are even genuine in their belief that they can do great good with Lyra''s help, but the act of wanting that power places it outside their reach forever. I imagine they wouldn''t donate so much time and money if they knew that little secret."


    "You have to," Elruin said. "We need Lyra''s help."


    "Now more than ever," Grandmother agreed. "But it must be Erra''s decision."


    The two dozen people of two hundred who remained had gathered around to listen to the story, or just to see what the excitement was about. Erra looked out at them: some friends, some family, some strangers, but all had chosen to stay in this prison knowing the risk. "We''ll start with what we need most," she said. "We have supplies, but without being able to bring in more timber for warmth we only have so long."


    "I can help!" Elruin said. Fundamental magic wasn''t great on the offense, but it could generate basic heat. Besides, she still had a sarite shard which could create lightning.


    Erra nodded. "Medicine won''t be needed as long as Lyra''s around. Our problems are going to be food and water, which we will run low on, especially if Claron orders his mages to prevent it from raining on our shelter." Erra knelt down behind the little dryad, who was content kneeling in front of Grandmother. "Lyra, if you can understand me, can you give us food and water?"


    The dryad''s eyes had never closed, for she had no eyelids, but her head did snap up as she considered the emotions of her new human. She flitted into the sky moments later, while everyone in and out of the forming barricade watched. The soldiers reading their spears and bows, as if such weapons were more than mere cobwebs to be brushed aside.


    She flew like a dragonfly around the central pillar, then moved to the far side of the pillar from the bubble of concentrated death energies.


    The soil rumble beneath their feet, as the song of magic rose in Elruin''s ears. Lyra didn''t sing, she didn''t need to Reveal, she used magic the way humans used their heartbeats. Strings of moss that formed Lyra''s hair fell and were caught in a whirlwind until they spiraled all the way to the ground. Then they erupted into life, vines climbing their way up into the sky on invisible trellises.


    The pillars of life spread, found one another, wove themselves together, and created a single wall, a broad and squat hollow tree. Long, narrow branches like those of a willow rolled down, curtains of greenery which pulsed with life energy. Lyra, deciding her work was finished, flew into the jungle of soft branches to take a well-earned nap. Her human could have the rest of the tree, but the boughs belonged to her.


    Within, Elruin could see that there was a living floorplan, hexagonal rooms like those of a bee hive. "There''s room inside for everyone," she said. "And I bet those vines are edible, just like they were at Cali''s place."


    She didn''t know it, but the trunk would serve as excellent insulation, enough that they would rarely need to rely on her power to warm the building. Nor could she know that Lyra also mirrored the techniques of termite colonies to cycle dirty air out and fresh air in. It was a triumph of magical engineering built off the triumphs of natural engineering, a perfect home for her human.


    Erra reminded herself to breathe, and fought down panic. To control power on such a scale was something she imagined belonged only to gods, yet here she stood with such a being at her command. She knew now why Lyra chose people who did not want her power; the ones who did could use her to reshape the world.


    Unable to stop her voice from shaking, she gave orders. "Everyone, help one another move indoors. The elders get the rooms nearest the entrance, children near the back. Healthy adults on the second level, unless you need to stay with a child or elder. And with Lyra here, I think all adults will be healthy soon."


    As they went to work, a large gray canine with a burnt mouth limped toward the entrance. "You make all the most interesting friends."


    Erra stared at the beast, her spell of awe broken in the face of the mangled predator. "Is this... yours?" Mork weren''t known for their brilliance, but they were intelligent enough to speak, so she didn''t want to be rude.


    "Nah, it''s mine," a ghostly black face came up through the eye of the beast. "I''m with her, though. Name''s Scratch, ''till I get bored with it. Figure if we''re gonna be here a while, I''d better get acquainted with the landlady. While her bodyguard is taking a break."


    "I''m not a lady." In one day, Erra had gone from an unimportant woman who was single because she wasn''t important enough to marry, to one of the most powerful people in the empire, with all sorts of supernatural beings showing interest in her. "What are you?"


    "You are, now," Scratch said. "As for what I am? Well, that''s a difficult philosophical and thaumaturgical question. What I ain''t is a philosopher or thaumaturge, that I can say for certain. Suffice it to say I''m a distant relative of your pet. About as distant as a snake is to a dragon. I''m the snake, if that wasn''t obvious by me skulking about in this husk while she''s bending nature over like a whore."


    "Scratch is..." Elruin was about to say he was nice, but she knew better. "He''s helped me lots. I''m sure he wants to help you, too."


    "Like what, exactly?"


    "First, to clear matters up, I work for Elruin, not you," Scratch said. "But since you were kind enough not to truss her up and hand her over like a fresh goose, I''m willing to help with one thing I know she can''t do. I can get messages to and from the outside."


    "You can?"


    "Within reason," Scratch added. "I can''t use magic to find people, so you need to be clear where I''m going and who I''m talking to. And while I can sneak past these guards, don''t expect me to be getting through the wall, or antimagic prisons. Normal people, normal messages. And I need one promise from you."


    "You like being mysterious, don''t you?" Erra asked. "I''m not giving promises without knowing what they are ahead of time."


    "Figured, but had to try," Scratch said. "Just convince your dryad to ignore me, is all. I''ve met beings like her before, they can get territorial, and trust me when I say I don''t stand a ghost of a chance against her. I''ll stay over on the opposite side of the camp, you come visit me if you need anything, and we''ll pool our resources to fix our problems once and for all. Deal?"


    It wasn''t lost on Elruin that the opposite side of the camp was where they kept the sick houses, and thus the pooled death energies.


    Erra, too, recognized where Scratch would be staying, which she considered fine since it was the least desirable part of the camp. Perhaps Lyra could fix it with time, but for now it dry, good-for-nothing soil. "Don''t pull anything that hurts us, and you have a deal."


    "Deal, but remember, I''m here with Elruin. Betray her and we''ll have problems."


    Erra looked at the dark-haired girl who had done nothing wrong save earn the ire of a violent nobleman with delusions of grandeur. "Don''t worry, I won''t let anyone hurt her here." With Lyra around, Erra could enforce such a promise. "But I can think of a handful of ways to use your abilities. Starting with Priestess Lissa."

 Chapter 33

    Suggested Listening</a>


    "Aight, so here''s the deal," Scratch said from his perch in the dead mork''s eye. It had been dead from day one, else he couldn''t have marched it into the nonviolence zone without losing control. Another of his many, many secrets. "Lissa says they ain''t gonna do a thing to help."


    "What? Why!" Erra stepped forward, almost put her hands on the monster, then stepped back. She didn''t know it was dead, nor what might provoke it to wake up in spite of Scratch''s control. "Lissa was always a friend to us."


    "Yeah, you don''t hear what''s going on in the streets." Scratch leaned back, as if sitting in a hot tub, instead of a dead monster''s eye socket. "Half the city''s convinced Claron''s a god, some are saying he''s a Scion of Enge."


    "That''s absurd!" Erra shouted. "He can''t be! How do the Truthsayers not see it? How is he not cast out for heresy?"


    "Near as I can tell, he never claimed to be a god or scion. Whenever anyone brings it up in his presence, he says he''s nothing more than a servant of Enge. Which doesn''t refute the godhood theory, but doesn''t support it either. Entek na Arila. Which they eat up like the colon leeches they are. Besides, who''s going to cast him out? You are the only person in the city with the power to scratch him."


    Erra looked away in shame. "I can''t. I''m... I''m not a warrior. I don''t know how to use Lyra in battle."


    "You don''t need to," Scratch said. "She can rip his head off on her own, then we can take turns shitting down the neck-hole. Well, you can, I''m somewhat limited in that department."


    Elruin reached her hand over to touch Erra''s arm. "It''s okay, you don''t have to fight. It''s better if you don''t."


    Erra looked back, a doubting but hopeful look in her watery eyes. "How do you know?"


    "I felt them fight, before." Elruin''s voice dropped to a whisper as she remembered how their collision drove her to the ground in pain. "I don''t know who''s stronger, but Claron wasn''t lying about the city being destroyed if they fight again. Everyone else will die."


    "We better listen to her," Scratch said. Everything had gone as he''d planned. "She''s Revealed, makes her the expert on gaging magic power. Besides, she knows a lot more about the sarite shields than I do. She''s helped fix them before." He propped his little necromancer up without a single lie, or anyone realizing that was his goal all along.


    Erra looked at the necromancer in a new light. With Lyra around, it was sometimes easy to forget there was a host of beings between normal people like herself, and godlike powers like Lyra and Claron. "You know how to fix the walls?"


    "A little," Elruin said. "I helped on the farm where I grew up. Before they tried to feed me to morks."


    "That is messed up." Erra gave a small, self-deprecating chuckle. "Look at me, moping about as if I have problems. Overnight I went from a slum girl wondering where my next meal was coming from, to controlling more power than most queens. People would, have, killed to be in my position."


    She stood. "I''m going to take stock of my so-called kingdom. I guess that makes the two of you my Archmage and spymaster, officially."


    "I can help with farming, too!" Elruin offered.


    "I guess it wouldn''t hurt to have some variety to our diet," Erra said. "But unless you know a way to carry seeds in for us, there''s nothing to farm here. Maybe Grandmother can help us with some wild herbs, but I''m afraid that''s all we have for now."


    "I''d love to help, but I''m notably lacking in bodies that can cross the barricades." Scratch left out the part that if he tried to carry seeds, they''d be killed in minutes. "But as your spymaster, let my first advice be the following: never hire advisors who are more loyal to each other than they are to you. Elruin''s one thing, but more regents have died that way than I care to name."


    "How many of them had Lyra?"


    "None that I know of, but plenty had something just as good. Claron reminds me a lot of one that I knew personally. To make the story short, she learned the hard way that when people lick your boots, they''re looking up your skirt for a place to shove the knife."


    Erra considered that pearl of wisdom coated in Scratch''s usual coarseness. It didn''t strike her as too different from some of the drama that happened in the camp, especially where romantic entanglements were concerned. "That is something to consider. Thank you."


    "As I float," he answered back. He watched Erra walk away, then chuckled. "When you do things right, nobody can be sure if you''ve done anything at all."


    "I don''t get it."


    "I''ll explain when you''re older," Scratch said. "But while we''re here, got a message through to Lemia. She''s got a way to get us back and forth, but there''s one small problem. She can use it once, one way, some sort of teleportation trick that''ll get plugged right away. She can get you out, or get some supplies in, whatever you need. Up to you if you want to waste it by telling Erra and getting those seeds, but I say we keep it for an emergency. Eating tree grass never killed anyone, I assume."If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation.


    "What''s happening at the school? Is Lemia safe?"


    "Yeah, she says she''s keeping her head down and her eyes open. Smart girl, keep her around, never trust her. Seems like her classmates are terrified, and some have committed suicide. Also, one of the teachers was arrested, official charge was hoarding wealth, but Lemia thinks they''re looking for some big secret or something. She has no idea what."


    Suggested Listening</a>


    "I think I can answer that question." Light and magic warped, shimmered, then unwarped. Calenda stood there in civilian clothes, appearing tired but in one piece. "He''s hoping our city contains a clue to how the sarite shields in Engewal were designed. Even with his power, he can''t break the capital''s defenses without a long, protracted, bloody siege."


    "Cali!" Elruin jumped up, to give the older girl a hug. Her lifesight revealed numerous injuries old and fresh in her elder sister. "Where have you been? Are you okay? What happened? I tried to save you! I''m sorry!" She started to cry.


    "Back away! She''s an enemy agent!" Elruin stepped back due to Scratch''s warning. She tried to bring up her magic to defend herself, but the power of the peace field prevented it.


    "Are you really Cali?" Elruin didn''t think her lifesight could be fooled that way. Hiding from her notice was different from creating an illusion that could make someone else look like her.


    "I knew it wouldn''t take long for you to figure it out." Cali slid her sleeve up, to reveal an intricate magical ink pattern on her arm. "To make my own long story short, this is a slave bond. I''d give you three guesses, but you should only need two."


    "I''m going with ''not Claron''," Scratch said. "This doesn''t come across as his style. And I bet you don''t want to hear congratulations on your marriage."


    "Lord Garit?" Elruin took the time to study the markings as they spoke. She had little experience with mind magic, but it was a very complex script. One which she would like to study, to apply to her dollies some day. For now, she was distracted by the sense of betrayal she felt toward the twins.


    "I''m sorry!" She rushed back to Cali, to hold her and comfort her as best she could. "I tried to save you! I tried so hard, but there were so many and I was tired and!"


    Cali stroked the back of her head, hesitant but gentle. "I know. I know you tried. Everything will be alright, I promise."


    Elruin clutched Cali harder. "I''m going to find him and make him cry forever!" She wasn''t sure how, she knew she didn''t have the strength to do so, and even if she did the nonviolence aura made it impossible to imagine how she might accomplish her goal.


    "Don''t be too harsh on him," she said. "He did it, in part, to save my life. We both want Lord Claron gone, and so long as we''re both alive, we have a chance to make that day come. He hasn''t forced me to do anything I didn''t want, except the vows themselves."


    "Which brings us to why you''re here, right, Sis?"


    "I''m under orders to do everything in my power to get Ell to leave the shelter, so she can be sacrificed to Enge." Calenda forced a smirk. "If that sounds familiar, it''s because they based the whole thing off the last time this happened to me."


    Elruin squeezed even harder "I''m so sorry."


    "It''s not your fault," she said. "I think I would have stumbled into something like this sooner or later anyway. Garit''s wanted me since we were children, and I... may have taken advantage of that fact once or twice. This was his chance, and he took it, but if it wasn''t now it would have happened some day. Let us focus on taking advantage of this disaster. Based on the last time this happened, the best way to convince you to leave is to be completely honest with you."


    "That is the most ridiculous loophole," Scratch muttered. "It can''t be real."


    "The spell''s a sloppy expansion made under imperfect conditions stacked on another sloppy spell made under imperfect conditions. The fact that it functions at all and hasn''t driven me insane is a mystery. Or maybe this is normal when it comes to mind control magic. I''ve sometimes wondered why nobody ever built an army of enslaved soldiers."


    "Not saying I trust you, but let''s start with the obvious question. How much of that Chosen of Enge propaganda does Claron believe? I''d like to know if he''s a dangerous fanatic or a dangerous liar. Can''t deal with one the way you deal with the other."


    "I don''t know," Cali admitted. "From what I understand, he was never all that devout, but that was before he died and received that artifact. Whatever happened then is the key to all of this. I can tell you that his artifact is the real deal, however, a true Treasure of Enge, with all the power and prestige it implies. Anyone Enge deems unworthy will die upon touching it."


    "So he''s got Enge''s left testicle to replace his eye?" Scratch scoffed. "Ain''t the first to glimpse beyond, then come back crazy. Or get hold of powerful artifacts to the same result. A double-whammy could break even a strong mind."


    "What I can''t explain, is that Enge usually operates through the priests, or the obsidian pillars. He''s never sent messengers before. He wrote notes. The smart decision might be to escape, then march to the Throne ourselves. We can ask Enge directly if he wants Elruin sacrificed."


    "Which, if he does, puts us right there where you can push her into the volcano, huh?"


    Calenda sighed. "It would fulfill the slavebond, true. Or it will be revealed that Enge never wanted Elruin sacrificed, and thus break the slavebond. Either way, I''m free."


    "Which I''m sure Claron is waiting for. If we get past him, we all die on the march up a mountain of monsters," Scratch countered. "Myself excluded, maybe. It''s a terrible, terrible idea. Even if we do make it to Enge, if the volcano wants toasted necromancer for dinner, he can climb into his own hole and die! The gods may have power and knowledge to spare, but there''s nothing special about them. They have conflicts and wars of their own, they fear death, more than one has even pulled themselves back from death as I have. If a god wants to kill Elruin, let him come do it himself."


    Elruin stared at Scratch for a moment. This was the first she''d ever heard of a god becoming undead, or for that matter dying. It was something she''d need to consider in the future.


    "And violence isn''t possible, so I can''t try to drag Ell out." Hands trembling, Cali pushed Elruin back. "I''ll leave now, recover, and come back in a few days. Maybe I can think of a way to convince you to come out by then."


    As her two friends argued, Elruin was busy studying the runes. She had a way to save Cali, but she wasn''t certain Cali would want it since it meant she would have to die. Even then, the means Elruin would need to use to bring her back would horrify her adoptive sister, savior, and best friend.

 Chapter 34

    Suggested Listening</a>


    "You can stay here," Elruin offered. She hoped it wasn''t rude to do so, since Erra and Grandmother were charge of the camp.


    "I''m not saying it''s a bad idea, but." Cali tried to still her shaking hands. "Will that help? Honestly, will that make it more likely to fulfill this bond?"


    Elruin couldn''t answer, since she felt sure the answer was no. Scratch stepped in for her. "Speakin'' as someone who''s used cowardice to live a long, full life, so to speak, I can''t say what you stayin'' would do. I can tell you that the current plan is to stay here on our potentially nonexistent asses until we have a plan. Right now it looks like the plan is to wait for the would-be king to die of old age."


    "Won''t work." Cali steadied herself. "I guess it won''t hurt to stay for a while, if it improves the odds. But I''m trying to convince myself leaving improves the odds because I don''t want to Ell as someone''s sacrifice."


    "I want you to stay!" Elruin insisted. She hadn''t yet decided how to fix what happened to Cali, but her staying would make it better.


    "Leaving means the odds are at zero and stay at zero," Scratch said. "Stick around, and there''s a slim chance the odds become something other than zero. Oh, hey, looks like it''s time for me to vanish. I''ll have Elruin sing me the details later." Scratch dropped into the soil, not moments before the buzz of wings began.


    Lyra landed nearby, then began to sniff the air. She snarled, as much as her insectoid mouth-parts would allow, looking for the infuriating thing which somehow evaded her at every turn. Then she took notice of Cali.


    "I missed you, Lyra." Calenda stepped forward, then hugged the little dryad as hard as she could. The dryad hugged her back, but without such force. "I know, I miss her, too."


    The dryad began the soft humming that she used to indicate contentment, and hugged back. Soon they settled into a pattern of Cali giving scratches in various locations while Lyra moved about to indicate the spots she wanted the most attention at that moment.


    "Priestess Calenda!" Erra had followed Lyra out. Still uncertain of her own position within the church hierarchy, she held her hands together and bowed. "Please tell me, how are you here? Why? I''m sorry, I-"


    "Enough of that," Cali said. "Only the high priests outrank you now. Besides, I''m not even a priestess anymore. They disavowed me out when Claron declared me a traitor and had me imprisoned."


    "They can''t do that!" Lyra''s head and wings sprang up in response to Erra''s anger. Was it the skulking presence? She hoped it was the skulking presence. "No, Lyra, there''s no danger." The disappointed dryad curled back up to Cali.


    "I was also discharged from the guard, and it remains to be seen if anything of my noble titles survive. It''s the guard that stings most, I think. I suppose I have Garit to thank for stopping the torture and execution. The marriage stunt may have been self-serving on his part, but I admit he did save my life, at considerable risk to his own safety and perhaps survival."


    Erra said nothing. She knew the unfairness of life, and that everyone had a different view of what unfairness was, but she''d given up on any hope to marry anyone, let alone a future duke. She made peace with a life of celibacy, since the best a poor and less than attractive woman like her could hope for was a lover who didn''t abandon her the moment she got pregnant.


    Elruin, too, had no thoughts to offer. She was too young for marriage to be a consideration, and now she was more concerned with the bad man who wanted to kill her in the name of Enge.


    "The church is in chaos." Cali dropped the subject, unwilling to commiserate any further. "Everything''s in chaos, but especially the church. Normally the solution would be simple: the high priests hold the moot, then act accordingly. They''ve tried twice that I know about, but Enge hasn''t responded, and they don''t know what to do. I think that''s why he''s so desperate to have you sacrificed. If Enge acknowledges him to the priests, then they will kneel without hesitation. The entire empire becomes his with a single edict."If you spot this story on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.


    "And until an edict comes, they won''t stand against him," Erra concluded.


    "More like can''t." Cali scratched Lyra harder; she couldn''t hurt the dryad if she tried, and it was nice to relieve a little stress. "Carrying one of Enge''s artifacts should be proof enough of right to rule, but Claron is giving orders that specifically violate scripture, but he''s doing so in ways that provide charity to the poor, so there''s confusion in the ranks. More to the point, he''s too powerful to oppose. Only Lyra can challenge him, and he''s working on changing that."


    "Is that possible?" Elruin asked.


    "I don''t know that it''s impossible," Cali said. "And he needs it for more than just fighting Lyra. He''s already taken Milet and Lesel, and is preparing to move to other cities in the near future. Right now, he seems to want to find some special way to attack Engewal, either by taking control of the Palici, or with a weapon that can threaten them in combat and end the war in a single battle. If that fails, he''s going to take all of Engeval except the capital city, and starve it out."


    "And if Claron can force Engewal''s surrender, he''ll have command over the church, and therefor command of the Palici." Elruin knew Palici were the guarding spirits of Engewal, much as Lyra was here in Arila. Unlike Lyra, they had no human handlers, and remained asleep much of the time. Whether the twins were stronger than Lyra was unknown, but it appeared Claron wasn''t taking any chances.


    "The worst part is, Engewal doesn''t know there''s a threat," Calenda added. "Not to this scale, at least. The rainy season''s over, but it will be another month before the crops are ready for transport. If those trade caravans never reach Engewal, they will face shortages by the end of the year. It may take two, perhaps three years for Engewal to run low on supplies, but they will run low. People will die."


    "And they can''t send their armies out to reclaim farms, because Claron will know and attack them himself." There were a handful of the strongest dragonslayers who might be able to stop Claron, but they couldn''t be everywhere at once. "Luring him into an ambush might work."


    "Which requires someone getting out of here and warning the remaining free cities." Cali squeezed down on the purring Lyra, who enjoyed her vigorous massage. "And making it through the wilderness while Claron''s forces hunt them down. The one saving grace would be that they can''t send more than a few at a time without the risk of drawing powerful monsters. But none of that matters, since we can''t even escape-."


    Lyra roused herself from her comfy spot under Cali''s ministrations, then walked several feet away. Earth rumbled and cracked, then a hole fell away, leaving a pit behind.


    "I... think it goes outside," Erra said. "It''s difficult for me to figure out her mood at times."


    "Well, that''s inconvenient." Cali brushed some of Lyra''s moss off her clothes. "Now Claron will know that you have a way to escape the city. He''ll have the exit path found, and blocked off."


    Lyra looked back, regarding the girls for a moment before stomping her foot next to the hole. Distant echoes could be heard through the pit she''d made. She then flitted away, back to her nest in the trees.


    "I... think there are now dozens of exit-holes around the city in every direction. I hope they don''t last long, or we''ll have monsters sneaking under the walls in no time."


    "Then I''m going with you," Cali declared.


    "Sorry, Sis, I see where that goes." Scratch stuck his head out of the ground beneath Elruin''s feet. "We go down that pit, then seconds after we climb out the other side, we have an unconscious necromancer being dragged right back to the wall. Claron pisses himself in joy, and I''m back to looking for a new partner. Entek ne."


    Erra stepped toward the ghost. "Priestess Calenda would never!"


    "That''s my cue to leave." Scratch dropped beneath the earth followed not long after by Lyra landing near Elruin.


    Erra began to rub the dryad''s back. "Lyra, it''s fine, nobody''s in danger. I promise, I''ll call you if I need help."


    "I''m afraid I made you a liar, twice," Cali said. She drew her sleeve back to reveal the magical ink. "Elruin is in danger, because of me. I''m magically bound to deliver Elruin to Claron''s clutches, using any method I can think of. Prioritizing the plans I think are most likely first."


    "And telling her that''s the plan is your best idea? No offense, but that sounds crazy."


    "Well, I can''t force her to leave thanks to this peace magic, so the easiest plan can''t work. And nothing''s forcing me to think very hard about my plan. Besides, being honest opened a way out of the city, and now all I have to do is convince Elruin to leave with me. If that fails, then I will go warn. So if it''s crazy, but it works, then it''s not crazy, is it?"


    "Well, then I can have Lyra take you prisoner." Erra stood tall, while the dryad approached. "Don''t worry, nobody will hurt you, and we''ll keep you comfortable, but you won''t be able to do anything to harm Elruin."


    "I''d rather you didn''t," Cali said. "But I''d be forced to say that by the spell, regardless of its truth."

 Chapter 35

    Suggested Listening</a>


    "I guess we don''t have much choice, then." Lyra was moving before Erra spoke. "Don''t worry, I promise you''ll be well cared for and kept safe."


    "Would it sound insane if I said I was hoping you''d do this all along?" Cali walked toward Lyra, knowing full well that any attempt to resist the dryad would be futile and unpleasant. Instead, a scratch behind where the ear would be if she had any, and taking a moment to speak to Elruin. "Hey, Ell, promise you''ll come visit when you get the chance? I think I''ll go insane if I''m cooped up too long. It''s not a mind control thing, I hope, I''ve never done well in captivity. Which is why I joined the Scouts in the first place."


    "I promise," Elruin said. She ran over to give Cali a hug before she left. "Even though you''re being forced to try to kill me, you''re still my favorite elder sister ever."


    "I think that says more about your family than it does me," Cali said. "Trust me when I say mine''s not much better. I bet they''re glad Claron showed up, gave them the excuse to disavow me. I bet some of them wrote those speeches years ago."


    "That''s horrid!" Erra put her hand up to cover her mouth. "How could they do that?"


    "It''s tough, at the top," Cali said. "Always looking above you to find your opportunity to claim more power. Always looking below, to spot those who want to take your place. Surrounded on all sides by people who''d throw you to the wolves- uh, sorry, Ell."


    Elruin hugged Cali tighter, while Lyra stood watching. "I''d never do that to you! When this is over, I''m going to hunt all of them down and make them sorry."


    Calenda chuckled. "Oh, they''re sorry enough as is. Both of us were part of their house, and after all the praise they gave you after that healing stunt, well, let''s just say they''ve been humiliated, and some lost their holdings to Claron''s new plans for the city. Meanwhile, I''ve got Duchess Consort as a title, which is better than most of them can hope for. So, don''t be too hard on them, same as how I let your family walk away."


    "Fine. But I still get to hate them."


    "I''d be disappointed if you didn''t." Calenda extracted herself from Elruin''s hold. "Now, you figure out what you''re going to do while I''m no longer in spying distance, then come tell me something full of half truths and complete lies. Have Scratch make them up. Or better yet, tell me the truth while convincing me it''s a lie. That way when I find a way to escape, I won''t be able to reveal anything important."


    "I promise everything I tell you will be true." It was fascinating, watching how the tangled mess of a mind control spell was responding to the idea of being intentionally lied to. "Especially the lies." The energy flashed, fluctuated, and drew upon Cali''s mind to right itself. It could be broken, if one was to bombard it with enough nonsensical contradictions. She felt confident Cali wouldn''t survive, however, and Elruin already knew she could break the spell by overloading it via direct magic, if she didn''t mind killing Cali.


    "That''s the spirit." Cali put her hand on Lyra''s shoulder. "Come on, Lyra, let''s go see what sort of prison you dream up for me. Then I''m going to cuddle with you until this headache quits."


    Once she was gone, Scratch poked his head out of the soil again. "Alright, what did we learn?"


    "That nobles are horrid and I can understand where Claron''s coming from," Erra muttered.


    "Don''t buy into that steaming pile of twice-regurgitated pig vomit, Priestess." The last thing Scratch wanted was to give Claron more supporters, let alone the one holding Lyra''s leash. "Your entire species is full of violent, insane, selfish, stubborn monsters. Some rich, others poor, all terrible. You''re also creative, adaptable, kind, loving, people who refuse to surrender to the inevitable. It''s why you''re still standing when so many others have been wiped out by monsters and war. Which is better than my people can claim. But enough about ancient history, let''s talk about what we need to do now."


    "We need to get help," Elruin stated. Solving problems here was no different than solving problems at school: break it down into simple, easy to accomplish steps, then put those steps together. "With the tunnels open, we can find people to run to Engewal, get warnings out to the remaining free cities."


    "Sorry, that ain''t happenin''," Scratch said. "Our choices are we go, or nobody goes. Can''t take Lyra, or everyone who stays dies. Can''t take these people, or the monsters will rip the group apart. Can''t get anyone else into the quarantine zone, ''cept maybe one with Lemia''s teleport. Can''t go straight to Engewal, either, I''m sure Claron and his men are prepared for that. Lifesight and someone like me to go scouting is the best hope we''ve got."Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings.


    "And if we don''t go, then we''ll be waiting until Claron is strong enough to get through the nonviolence magic and kill Lyra." Elruin didn''t want to go back into the wilderness, but the idea wasn''t as bad as it would have been before. She was stronger than before, and far more knowledgeable of magic.


    "Such is the nature of mortal life," Scratch said. "Tic tic tic, every tic a little closer to the final moment. The question is not if or when the end comes, but whether you''ll accomplish anything of value while waiting."


    Erra considered that bit of bleak wisdom. "How are you so good at finding the most depressing ways to say the most uplifting sentiments?"


    "Years of practice, Priestess, long years of pr- woah, wha-"


    Suggested Listening</a>


    Four long, slender limbs emerged from the earth, each with hands that might be mistaken for human if they weren''t the size of a man''s torso, emerged from the soil, followed by the face of a misshapen boar. Another four set of limbs, each with another set of hands, followed moments after.


    It may not have been the first to begin screaming, but it was loudest by far. A soul-rending, magical howl that dropped more than a handful of the men at the border to their knees, while those within the field retreated to the safety of the tree.


    It lashed out, grasping for the three nearest the hole. For Scratch, it was a futile attack, and Elruin evaded in part from her speed enhancing sarite of choice. It was Erra who was captured in the grip of the monster, which then lifted her with greater ease than it should have been able to. Its jaws opened, an extra three sets of tusks revealed themselves from within its mouth, while yellow bile dripped from its mouth.


    "Let her go!" Elruin shouted, while blasting the creature with repeated bolts of energy.


    The beast recoiled backward, striking outward at the little girl who inflicted such unexpected pain. It thought that nothing could hurt it, not in the strange magic that allowed it to grasp prey without risk, then drag them somewhere else to consume. Dirt and sod kicked up. The stone bounced off her magic-hardened skin, but the dirt still blocked her vision. Not her lifesight, however, so she kept blasting while it kept retreating.


    It stumbled back for the safety of the tunnel, away from these bizarre tiny monsters, but its strength gave out. Shallow painful gasps of breath became ever more pitiful until they ceased, the monster halfway into the passage that represented its survival.


    Lyra caught Erra as she fell from the monster''s grip, then set her down and flew back to Cali.


    "I, but," Erra stared at Elruin, rather than the monster. "How did you kill that thing?"


    "It wasn''t that strong," Elruin said. In truth, it was a great deal stronger than the mork she''d had to fight. If she thought about it, the monster was stronger than anything other than those people who stopped her from saving Cali.


    "I didn''t mean that part." Erra dropped to her knees, unable to stand after her brush with death. Some people were equipped to deal with adrenaline, but Erra wasn''t one of them. "How did you get past the peace field."


    "I saw it attack you, but the magic of the field didn''t stop it, so that means it wasn''t really a living thing. That means it''s okay for me to hurt it. I was surprised that they were vulnerable to Negation magic, but they seem to emulate life magic to move. It''s advanced stuff, I wish I had time to study it more."


    "I don''t th-"


    Scratch put his nonexistent hand over Erra''s lips. "Hush."


    "But-"


    "We just discovered a loophole so dumb that I doubt anyone has ever thought to defend against it. Admittedly, not only do I know no way to exploit that loophole, I can''t so much as try to think of one, but I''m going to state that in this case, ignorance is bliss. Specifically, her ignorance and our bliss." Scratch guessed the peace aura would not take well to Elruin realizing she killed something while inside it, even if he didn''t know what it might do.


    Elruin, meanwhile, was approaching the slain thing. Whatever it was looked flesh and blood, complete with the flicker-hum of fresh born sarite. It felt strong- not quite as strong as the necromantic sarite she still kept hidden, but strong nonetheless.


    She took her stiletto and pierced through the creature''s eye, maintaining her death aura the entire time. Flesh crackled and burned away, blood dried to dust, and she got through without ruining what little clothing she managed to put together while trapped here. She extracted the stone, which thrummed against her energies. This shard would go well with her collection.


    "Maybe you should go tell Lemia we''re leaving the city. I''d like my training clothes." Elruin didn''t want to ruin her expensive outfit, but if there were more monsters, she needed clothes that wouldn''t melt when she used too much magic. "I have to stay here and guard against more of these constructs, in case they hurt someone who can''t fight back. Then you''ll need to close this passage down. Oh, and if you''ve got some spare flasks for water, I''d like to ask for some."


    "Sounds like a plan," Scratch agreed. "And, hey, think if we find another of those things down there, that I can take it for a ride?"


    Elruin gave Scratch an odd look "You can control constructs?"


    "Uh, sure, let''s say that for the purposes of this conversation, I can control these constructs, but not while inside this bubble. I can''t guarantee it''ll work on others." Scratch dipped down into the soil, so as to avoid ruining a good thing by running his mouth. He couldn''t remember the last time he found a necromancer with Elruin''s potential, and now he was set on the most perilous part of the journey.


    How he influenced her over the next few months would shape the future of this empire and beyond.

 Chapter 36

    Suggested Listening</a>


    Two more hand-monsters crawled up the tunnel while Elruin guarded, but both retreated the moment they realized Elruin could zap them. She was a little annoyed that she couldn''t destroy them as well, knowing that soon she would be traveling these tunnels seeking a passage to the outside. Besides, this was the first earth sarite she''d ever discovered, and she wanted more in case the others were better.


    Meanwhile, she worked on storing as much necromantic energy from the plug as she could within the water she was given. It wouldn''t last long, perhaps three days, before the energies broke down and collapsed. Until then, it was a strong source of spare energy to convert into magic.


    Scratch returned, not long after the second construct had been driven off. "Turns out, Lemia''s been busy." He emerged from the ground, not far from the dead monster. It twitched, reacting to his animating taint. "Oh, hey, you''ve been busy, too."


    "We need all the help we can get." Elruin sang her message, in order to keep the undeath creeping through their bones suppressed as it was in Scratch. She lacked the ghost''s skill with the process, but so long as an exorcist didn''t come near the bodies, she could hide their taint. It required a great deal of concentration, however, and would be useless once they were on the move.


    "I suppose I should be offended that you''re using pieces of me to build your own private army," Scratch said. "You seem to have it under control for now, but don''t get too ambitious, or you''ll lose your grip on them. It''s an embarrassing way to lose a partner."


    It was true, the biggest danger of controlling the undead that Elruin could see was if she tried to control too many and lost her grip upon them. Scratch was loyal for his own reasons, but his nonsapient ''children'' were nothing more than killing machines held on a tight leash. All on the same leash, at that. She was nearing her limits, and one slip meant they would all run wild. "I promise I''ll be careful. You can control of the hand dolly when we''re in the tunnels, so I don''t have to."


    "Heh, I remember being told I was all hand back when I had a pulse. She wasn''t being this literal." Scratch sank into the comfortable new corpse, getting a feel for its no longer living form. He''d be here for a few minutes. "Now that that''s covered, I''m gonna need you to sing. To be specific, your college girlfriend needs you to sing, to establish resonance. She''ll handle the teleportation half."


    "I understand." Elruin began to sing, bracing herself for the power drain that would be caused by Lemia tapping into her power for this spell that she expected to be expensive. All scholars agreed that teleportation spells were rare, expensive, and difficult. Near the barricade, half a mile away,


    Moments later a swell of magical song began near Elruin, an echo of her own as well as Lemia''s motion-driven Revelation. Elruin sang to it, seeking to amplify the magic until the pattern completed itself.


    Unlike with the hand-monster''s magical cry, her own song had a limited range that would not reach the end of edge of the barricade. Perhaps some of them had magically enhanced senses which could extend their view to the center of the safety area, but identifying a complex, delicate, and specific spell from this distance was the sort of power attributed to gods, not mortals.


    Suggested Listening</a>


    Black energy danced across the ground, then dissipated, leaving behind a wooden crate with a woman sitting on it. "Lemia?"


    Lemia coughed, curled up, and fell off the box. "I think I''m gonna be sick." She gagged, but held back the worst of it. "No wonder nobody uses that thing."


    "What are you doing here?" Elruin knelt down next to Lemia, examining her with her lifesight. The damage was minor, but also universal, extending to every part of her body. Painful, but nothing a few minutes around Lyra wouldn''t fix.


    "Getting out of this place before it burns to the ground." Lemia gave up and remained sitting.


    "Is it that bad?" Elruin looked at Scratch, wondering if he''d left an important detail out of his reports.


    "What she means is before they burn her to the ground." Scratch remained seated inside the monster, in case Elruin lost control.


    "Not yet," Lemia admitted. "But I can see the writing on the walls. A couple old friends have vanished, along with a dozen more acquaintances. All the first ones to jump into Claron''s loving embrace, move into the mansions, or otherwise take advantage of this new situation."


    "In short, you''re afraid of your classmates going after you."


    "I''m not popular, never was," Lemia said. "Poor girl with a reputation. How long it''ll be before someone decides I''m the next who needs to vanish? A month, two if I''m lucky?"The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.


    "Or you''re a spy, and we''re all dead the moment we step out of the protection field," Scratch muttered. "You lied to me, said you''d teleport equipment.


    "If I was helping Claron, I''d have just told him something like you is out there." Lemia had given herself enough time to recover, so she stood while holding Elruin''s shoulders. "Ell, do you have any idea how dangerous working with the undead is?"


    "But-" Elruin''s eyes widened. "How did you know?"


    "She didn''t, until this moment," Scratch said. "I''m gonna guess you sampled my magic, found the Negation magic, then dug deeper to discover there''s nothing else. Thought I was a necromantic construct, maybe, then realized that is exactly what I am, in the most literal sense. Women like you are far too clever for their own good."


    Lemia took the backhanded compliment for what it was worth. "There were a few other hints, like how careful you were to scrub your tracks. No construct could do that. What I want to know is how you knew I was sampling you. I''m the only person to have a technique like that."


    "You''re not as unique as you imagine, Infiltrator," Scratch answered. "Once upon a time entire schools were dedicated to training people like you. Some of them reshaped the world, for better and worse. But those are longer stories than I have time to tell today. Make you a deal, come with us and I''ll tell you all I know about the lost techniques of your predecessors."


    "Over a long period of time while calling me a spy?"


    "That''s the offer," Scratch said. "A slow trickle of secret knowledge that will prove more valuable than anything Claron could bribe you with."


    "You''re bribing me to not do something I was not planning to do in the first place? I''m going to hold you to that deal, Sucker."


    Scratch laughed. "Oh, you are going to be the most precious little morsel I''ve had in generations. I''ll never trust you, but nobody sane would trust those who''d make deals with the undead."


    "And I say the same of those who''d make deals with the living," Lemia shot back. "Adorable necromancer children notwithstanding, of course. Speaking of, I brought this with." She reached into the crate.


    "Mister Squishybones!" Elruin grabbed the stuffed toy the moment it was removed from the collection of supplies. She''d missed the horse doll during her her imprisonment here. "Thank you so much!"


    "I''ve got your violin, too," she said. "And dried food, backpacks, waterskins, some dyes that we can use to change our hair and skin colors, some changes of clothing, a tent, some blankets, and even a sarite that''s made for purifying water. I rescued it from the potion bin a few months back."


    "By ''rescued'' she means ''stole''," Scratch said. "That''s a compliment, in case you were wondering."


    Lemia put a hand over her chest. "How dare you besmirch my honor, you toad! I would never steal this cheap junk." Then she pulled a well made arming sword from the bottom of the crate. Its magesteel blade and gold trim spoke of opulence over function. "This, I stole. Had my eye on it from the first day I met the Dean of Admissions. Suffice it to say I consider this fair compensation on a debt he owes me, a sentiment he''ll disagree with after he wakes up. I know a little about how to wield a sword, and this is the best I''ve ever got my hands on."


    "Color me impressed." Scratch opted to skip all the obvious comments, on the basis that they were too easy. "What''s it do?"


    "Stabs people." Lemia smirked at the ghost. "It''s got minor illusions designed to make the user look better, but truth is it''s just an expensive decoration made to sit on a wall. And did I mention it''s expensive? Even if the fence cheats me, I''ll be able to buy a utilitarian sword that''s way better with cash to spare for some decent armor."


    Elruin was happy to watch her friends get along so well. "Please, get everything ready, I need to talk to Cali before we go."


    "I guess trying to carry this crate around would be a pain," Lemia admitted. "I''ll make sure the backpacks are ready when you get back, but we''ll have to work together to carry the tent."


    Scratch bid the freakish limbs of the corpse he hid in to move. "I got that covered."


    Lemia opted to skip all the obvious comments, on the basis that they were too easy.


    Some half an hour later, Lemia and Scratch were packed up, when she noticed something at the other side of the pillar. "That''s when Kite realized it was a dog the whole- hey, is that Elruin? Who''s she with, and what''s she doing with a bucket of whatever that stuff is?"


    "Eh?" Scratch looked the direction Lemia pointed out. "Oh! Merat na! Stop them!"


    "What?"


    "No time! Run! Explain later!"


    Suggested Listening</a>


    Elruin, along with Cali and Lyra, were almost at the barricade on the other side of the camp, far beyond the distance Lemia could cross in time to make a difference. Erra stood further back, watching with concern as the trio carried out their plan.


    Elruin began to sing as her group approached the wall, darkness roiling from her magic to blanket the area. Lyra sniffed at the inky magic, swatted it away from her, but didn''t retaliate beyond that. The swelling necromantic magics were cast outward, meant for distraction and confusion instead of causing harm. Harm Elruin could not attempt within the field.


    They reached the very edge, with Lyra taking position in front of them, as if daring the guards to attack. They did not, for they were given specific instructions not to antagonize the dryad.


    On the edge of the field, Elruin set her bucket of magically charged water on the ground, then cupped Cali''s trembling hands in her own. "You can change your mind, if you want."


    "I know." Calenda smiled to hide her fear. "You said it won''t hurt?"


    "Neither of us will feel a thing," Elruin said.


    "Then I can''t ask for anything better." Cali leaned over, picked the bucket up and lifted it over her head, then took the final step outside the magical defense against violence.


    "I choose death on my feet!" She screamed at the crowd as she slammed the full bucket into the crowd. A black storm of raw, unfocused, death magic ballooned from their position, then was guided outward like a wave by Elruin''s magic. A song interrupted for a moment when Elruin caught her collapsing body.


    The full passage was ''To die on your feet is better than to live on your knees.'', and it was perhaps Calenda''s favorite line of any holy text. The reason she emphasized her devotion of Ecross above all other gods. As last words went, they were good ones. At least they were better than the cries of confusion and terror of the twelve she took with her.

 Chapter 37

    "Stop! Stop right now!" A voice cut through the song, the voice of an angry, hateful creature wounded by life and poisoned by death. The song continued in spite of the insistence.


    Suggested Listening</a>


    The young redhead stood combat ready, facing down her much older and larger opponent. An opponent who was unconcerned while she was soaked in the sweat of her exertion. She ducked under a kick, stepped far enough back to avoid the other, and even managed to block a punch. She was not prepared when the punch turned to a grip on her forearm.


    She hit the ground before her brain realized her elbow was dislocated. She grit her teeth, knowing full well that screaming would be met with worse scorn and more violence, but the tears welled up in her eyes nonetheless. The pain relented with a burst of soothing, healing energy.


    "Again!" Her mother shouted at her.


    With fatigue cleared by magic, she forced herself to stand, but the mental exhaustion was getting to her. She only blocked a single punch, before the next came under her guard and caught her in the solar plexus. She dropped, gasping and unable to breathe.


    She heard her mother walking away. "At this rate, you''ll never be good enough. Clean yourself up, we have a visit with Duchess Esmera this afternoon."


    The girl tried to shout at her mother, to scream that she''d surpassed her older siblings, and how unfair it was to expect a child to fight an adult. An argument that would be met with more scorn, asking her if she''d make the same complaints when facing a Chimera or Dragon. All she accomplished was gasping and crying on the cold ground.


    "You don''t understand! You''ll ruin everything!" The song marched on, ever changing, adapting to what was needed as it was needed.


    Suggested Listening</a>


    "I think the undead are powered by resentment," Elruin said.


    "Resentment?" She hated to admit it, but her knowledge of theology and thaumaturgy were both limited. Given the pettiness she saw between factions of scholars, priests, and nobles, the fact that they all greed without hesitation that the undead could not be allowed to persist was proof enough of the necessity of destroying them.


    "Or something like it," Elruin said. "Life is fueled by creation, by emotion. Death is fueled by negation, the loss of all emotion, death brings peace. Undeath is something between. Negation dimmed their emotions upon death, but couldn''t destroy them. They persist by stoking what passion they still have."


    "How does Scratch fit into that theory?" The ghost''s nature called much of her beliefs into question.


    "Scratch is the same, but he... resents his own resentment, if that makes sense." Elruin frowned, considering her explanation. Then she remembered one of Kasa''s books that she borrowed. "It''s like being in love, backwards."


    Cali smiled at the little girl sitting across from her. "What do you know about being in love? Whose legs do I have to threaten to break?"


    Elruin didn''t answer, because there was nothing to answer with. She didn''t know if she experienced love or resentment as others did. "It''s possible to love someone who''s terrible, and bad, and does awful things. But it''s still love, even if you hate it."


    Cali''s smile vanished. That girl cut too deep, sometimes, yet never realized it. "That''s what you think the undead are?"


    "A dark reflection of the living," Elruin said. "We hope for the future, they hate the past. We create, they consume. We seek safety for ourselves and others, they seek destruction of the same. We have love, they have resentment. Scratch knows that about himself, and hates it, that''s what gives him control of his nature."


    "I made an oath," a soft voice answered. The voice of merciful death. "I will fulfill it."


    Suggested Listening</a>


    "I don''t know what they''re talking about, you''re a great fighter." A quick tug on her arm brought Cali to her feet, face to face with the somewhat taller green haired girl. "You got a hit on me. Half my instructors can''t accomplish that anymore."


    "Maybe you should fight my mother," Cali muttered. She rubbed her knuckles, where she hit Juna''s chest and might have broken her own hand.


    "That third-tier socialite? Sure, and after I get done with her, maybe I''d fight something with a bit less fragile, like a sparrow''s egg." Juna stopped for a moment. "Sorry, I know she''s your mother, but you didn''t get your strength from her side of the bloodline."


    "I hit you, but I still haven''t touched her." She bit her tongue on arguing further. She wasn''t sure how to stand up to the older, stronger, more confident, more important, and more confident girl. Besides, it was nice hearing someone talk about her mother this way.


    "Because your''e fighting her on her terms, instead of making her fight you on yours. You''re a water mage. The whole strength of your aspect is overwhelming a target with unpredictable forceful attacks, which is why you do better fooling around with me than you do fighting seriously against her."


    Some part of her still suspected Juna was lying to make her feel better. "Easier said than done."


    "I''ll show you everything I know about getting kicked around by someone who can hit you three times before you know where the blows are coming from."


    The song remained, the memories changed.


    Cold, unforgiving metal held Calenda. She''d forgotten how uncomfortable metal could be, thanks to her natural toughness. "For the last time, I refuse to marry you! I don''t care what threats you try. I promise, my mother did worse than you would be able to stomach!" She hoped she was telling the truth, but knew she was lying.


    "I''m trying to save your life, Calenda!" Lord Garit''s face still bore the marks of bruises from his clash with Lord Claron. Three of his teeth, by Calenda''s count, were now missing. Once he got access to a healer that would all be undone, but for now he looked much less pretty than usual. "I know you have your problems with how Juna and I run... ran... the city, but I thought we were friends. I thought I''d earned some level of respect."Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.


    Calenda had to admit, she liked him a little better this way. Hurt, frustrated, angry, it reminded her of their childhood together. If he acted like that more often, maybe she''d find the idea of marrying him to be less intolerable. "I surrendered with everyone else, why am I singled out?"


    "That Oathbond you hid from us, that''s why." Garit said. "And because of your connection to Elruin."


    "Leave her out of this!" Cali strained against the metal, absurd as the thought was that she''d be a threat to Garit even with his current wounds.


    "I wish I could." Garit sounded sincere, but Calenda had seen him fake a lot of things before. "King Claron demands the girl be brought to him, to be sacrificed to Lord Enge at the mouth of the Holy Caldera. He intends to lead the ceremony himself."


    "But that''s insane! Enge doesn''t demand sacrifices! And if he did, it''d be through the church, not some lunatic!"


    "All I know is it''s impossible to learn what Enge desires. The prayers are being ignored. Everything is in chaos. But I''m here to help you, and to help her if at all possible."


    "Says the traitor."


    "Says the man willing to sacrifice everything, even his own dignity, to protect his people!" Garit paused for a moment, to collect himself. "No, I won''t let you bait me into another argument. I am no longer the child you remember. I was able to convince King Claron to let you live, if you marry me. The marriage oaths will be used to enhance and rework your current Oathbond. Then King Claron will use me to make you extract Elruin from her current position."


    "On one hand, torture and death, on the other hand betraying the only member of my family I like even if she is adopted, then serving as an incubator for your spawn? Seems like an easy decision to me. Go choke to death on Claron''s cock."


    "You think I want you so bad that I''d rape you? Sorry, Calenda, I''ve got more self respect than that. You have my oath that I will never touch you unless you ask me to. And then beg my forgiveness for these insults."


    Calenda hesitated for a moment. In her attempts to upset Garit, she let herself be blinded. "You have a different plan, don''t you?"


    "I need you to get Elruin out of the city," he said. "Preferably alive and not in King Claron''s hands. Pull that off, without anyone realizing it was my goal all along, and I''ll consider saving your life to be fair compensation."


    Cali''s eyes narrowed. "What''s your angle."


    "Same angle it''s always been: to protect my people." Garit shook his head. "You know this. You''ve always known it. For reasons nobody''s been able to explain, scrying magic has been disrupted throughout the kingdom, perhaps the entire empire. We thought it was something to do with the Ghosts of Sorvel, but now I''m not so certain. They''re as blind as we are."


    "Which means if Claron''s as obsessed with Elruin as he seems..." It galled her to admit it, but Garit was a smart man. If only he wasn''t such a cold, manipulative bastard.


    "He is, he''s not a good enough liar to fake it," Garit insisted. "But I won''t tell you any more of my plans, for obvious reasons."


    "Or," Cali added. "You''re saying all this to trick me into luring Elruin into an ambush."


    "I can''t prove otherwise, and wouldn''t if I could. You''ll just have to be better than my hypothetical ambush plot, won''t you?"


    The tone softened, pulled at another string of thought, another fragment of self.


    Suggested Listening</a>


    "You''re going to ask me to die, aren''t you?" Calenda stared up at the ceiling. "Then take it the next step beyond, into something I''ve spent my entire life hating."


    "It''s the one way I know to break away the chains around you." Elruin squeezed Mister Squishybones, reminding herself of all the kindness Cali had shown her over the last few months. A kindness which she would defy death itself in order to return. "To end your suffering, and return your freedom."


    "Sounds like something a priestess of Yeris would say." Something of a ''sister'' deity to Ecross, Calenda knew the basic tenants of the borderline suicide cult. "If you were offering me a way to die, it would even make sense. Instead you''re trying to bring me back as a broken half-person like Scratch. How is that better than slavery?"


    "It doesn''t need to be half," Elruin insisted. "I''ve been studying how the undead work. I was hoping I could convince people to let me keep my dollies. I know now that nobody will ever allow me to, but I can chain your mind to your body, as long as I do it before you die. Then, you''ll be in control of yourself when you come back. It''s just like how resurrection spells work, but without the healing magic."


    "If it was that easy, everyone would be doing it."


    "It won''t work on everyone," Elruin admitted. "It takes strong will, anger, resentment. In that, it''s no different than ''natural'' undead, but I can accelerate and amplify the process. And it does mean you''ll need to stick close to me, the way Scratch does. The taint can''t be cleansed for the same reason you can''t cleanse life from a body without killing it. But I''ll be able to suppress it. You''ll remain you for as long as I live, longer if we can find another necromancer to pass off responsibility to in the future."


    The twinge of compulsion pushed her forward. "And... will this improve the chances of convincing you to meet Enge directly?" She''d given up on the possibility of Elruin willingly sacrificing herself.


    "I refuse to answer that," Elruin said. "If you don''t know whether it will help or hurt, then you''re free to make your own choice, rather than being forced into it by the compulsion of the magic. And, once that compulsion is broken, I promise to exorcise you if you prefer death to undeath. As soon as we get outside of the peace aura, because I can''t hurt you here no matter what I try."


    "If you used the compulsion against me, I would have refused," Cali said. "But I will hold you to the oath of letting me die when I want. Or I''ll find a way to kill you, then myself."


    "Scratch can break my control whenever he wants," Elruin said. "You''ll be able to do the same."


    Suggested Listening</a>


    Resentment. Anger. Hatred of the past. These are the things which allow the dead to defy death. Focus on the hate. Focus on the song.


    "Defend yourself!" Her mother shouted.


    Calenda responded as normal, taking a stance and putting her arms up for the onslaught her mother would deliver. A kick, ducked under, another she ducked forward, putting herself closer to her mother''s reach.


    Mother jabbed, in a somewhat off position due to being too close to her opponent for proper use of reach and power. After dealing with Juna''s aggressive, powerful style, she could see why her friend had such disrespect for the older forge mage''s talents.


    Driven by knowing she landed fair hits on Juna, she pressed her position and sacrificed defense for offense. A single blow to the skull was nothing compared to the beating she received from fighting defensively, and it put her in range to punch forward into her mother''s stomach. Another punch, and a third. Flashes of energy screamed that she was inflicting real blows against a foe unprepared for such a self-destructive strategy.


    She felt the flow of magic clashing against magic, then her eyes widened. She now understood the sensation of magic flowing over her skin. More, she understood what those sensations meant.


    Mother drew together her power, a tornado of fire began forming to drive Cali''s assault back.


    High on the thrill of victory after years of struggle, Calenda kept pressing her advantage, drew her own magic together, and struck the epicenter of flowing magic, ripping it apart with her fingers.


    A ball of fire, pain, and screams erupted around them, burning away their skin and flesh. A week later, she would awaken to learn she was the only survivor of her overconfidence. True, her mother was brought back later at significant expense to the family, but it would mark the last time they ever spoke to one another.


    Calenda''s eyes snapped open, burning with tears she could no longer shed.


    "Cali!" Elruin held her, crying enough for the both of them. "I''m so sorry, I never knew!"


    Her new muscles moved well, perhaps better than her old. Her new skin could feel the warmth of Elruin''s touch, and she could still smell the sour scent that came from not having access to bathing water. It was less intense than it might have been for someone else, perhaps the girl''s age and death magic kept her aroma to a minimum. All her senses were different, better, and some part of her was eager to learn what that meant in the future.


    "That''s fine, Ell," she put her arm around the girl''s back. "I never told anyone." Later she would ask what this building was that they were in, and who the girl watching from the corner was, but for now it was nice to be alive again, or some twisted corruption of the concept. A small price to pay for her freedom.

 Chapter 38

    Suggested Listening</a>


    Calenda brushed her hand over the stained stone pillar, taking countless years of dust and dirt with her. Her sense of touch was sharper as well, or perhaps it was the same and the difference was a lack of distractions. Without the throb of a heartbeat in her ears, or the pressure of blood flowing through her veins, the whole world felt and sounded different. "What is this place?"


    "A better question is: how do we keep the things down here from eating all of you?" Scratch said. With his current eight-limbed monster body, he was having quite the time scaling the ceiling. It wasn''t quite the same mobility as not having a body to slow him down, but it was something. "Or, specifically, how do you keep them from eating Elruin?"


    "I can protect us, they don''t like fighting."


    "One of them, in a tight corridor, doesn''t like fighting." Scratch moved three of his borrowed hands to display to the girls. "These are the claws of a predator, the eyes of a predator, and the jaws of a predator. Out in the open, they''ll overwhelm you. Together, we might be able to fight three at a time, but there''s hundreds of these things in this place."


    "Here, these can help," Elruin opened her sack of sarite crystals. "Lemia, this one will help protect you." She handed her nature shard to the girl, who could benefit from its boosting of strength and endurance. "Cali, have this shard. It shouldn''t hurt you, since you''re not alive."


    "That''s sweet of you, Ell, but..." Elruin pressed the crystal into Calenda''s hands. "... I can use sarite?" She looked at the black crystal, oozing darkness and death between her fingers. "How can I use sarite? That''s supposed to be impossible for the undead."


    "You''re not like the dollies," Elruin said. "I used my magic to shield you from the damage caused by death, sort of how Scratch shields his energy from being detected. You should even retain use of your magic. The tricky part is going to be finding ways to keep you healthy, since you can no longer recover from injury or exhaustion. The vampire shard should help." It was as good a description of the shard''s power as anything she could imagine. "I tried to make sure you still liked hugs, too. You do, right?"


    Cali smiled at her strange little necromancer. "From you? Anytime. Scratch tries it, and I''m going straight to the nearest exorcist now that I''m no longer bound by his accursed oathbinding magic." The threat was empty, the sentiment was not.


    Lemia couldn''t help but take interest in the theory. "Then you can just, what, transform anyone you want? That can''t be right, if immortality was that easy everyone would have it."


    "No, it has to be someone like Cali, who could come back on her own." Elruin kept silent about the nature of person it required to defy death, knowing Cali probably didn''t want her to tell anyone those secrets. It did beg the question of what cruel history drove Scratch to remain. "Not everyone can do that. All I did was manipulate the process to stop it from driving her insane. And I have to stay connected to her, same as Scratch, to keep them protected in the long run."


    "And I''m betting it won''t last long past the death of the necromancer we''re bonded to," Cali finished. "Forbidden magic requiring a rare bloodline that at best adds another few decades to your life and turns everyone against you? Wouldn''t surprise me if some people use it, but it could never be common."


    "Maybe we can find someone to take over for me, some day." Elruin would have to ask Scratch how rare people like her were, because she was convinced most necromancers couldn''t do what she was doing. Life energy, including that which kept her alive, could not synchronize with death energy like her, same as air could not synchronize with earth, or fire with water. They should cancel, not merge, and the attempt should have killed her. "But first, I have another shard for you. It may not be as strong as your old shards, but it will help you see in the dark."


    Now that she knew she could, Cali accepted the shard and dipped into the familiar energies of earth magic. It was a good shard, too, with power to bolster her strength and it could have boosted her toughness, too, if her own defensive power wasn''t greater than the shard''s. Her new sense echoed out through the caverns, the buried maze that was once a thriving metropolis.


    "Scratch, I need you to go through that tunnel." Calenda still hadn''t decided what she thought of her new lease on un-life, but she was a Scout, regardless of what some pompous conquerer with delusions of godhood did to her title, and she had a mission. "You''ll find one of those hand monsters, it''s alone. Carry this," she carved a slab of flesh from the side of the mork. It was dead, it didn''t need tissue. "Try to look wounded, retreat back this way when it pursues you."


    "You know what these things are?" Lemia asked.


    "I''ve heard a few stories," Cali answered. "Nothing to suggest they were anywhere near this common, however. They''re solitary hunters, cannibals. It''ll go for Scratch, then we''ll set up an ambush. If we pick them off one at a time, we can kill a path to the outside. And if it destroys your body, you can jump to the next one."


    "First of all, Sis, I don''t work for you. I work for Elruin." Scratch took the time to peek out of his host body. "Second, and this is important, I have limits. Jumping bodies is hard, and all that necromantic residue left behind needs cleaning, which takes time we don''t have and power Elruin can''t afford to spend. Oh, right, and she''ll be singing out here with all these things that hunt by sense of hearing. Or do we abandon tainted flesh here, with monsters you just said are cannibals?"


    Calenda adapted to the new information in a metaphorical eyeblink. "Fine, plan remains the same but we''re less cavalier about it. I''ll hide here, beneath this overhang. You can stick the mork in that corner, it should blend in. We have no heartbeat, I don''t think they''ll take notice of us except as carrion. Ell, you and Lemia stay back, near where the path branches again. The two of you can hide behind Scratch, let the dead do the fighting while you do the magic."


    "I can see why Ell wanted to bring you with so bad," Lemia said. "Don''t worry, I''ll stay out of your way."


    The plan worked well, with the limping and ''wounded'' grabber-corpse moving through the tunnel path. Soon, the other approached, at first curious; the troupe could not know, but dragging meat near another''s nest was courtship behavior for this species. It never would have worked out, however, since Scratch''s host was in too sickly a condition to draw attraction from a mate. In addition, both of them were female.


    A rival near her nest was unacceptable. A wounded rival with food near her nest was an opportunity. The grabber gave chase the moment her new prey began to run, never stopping to question all the things wrong with this scenario. For all its power, it resembled a crocodile in intelligence and temperament.


    She was surprised when two live-foods stood in the tunnel. She had never seen such a bounty in one place before. She was confused when the rival stopped, twisting herself in the cavern to a combat position. She was startled the two dead-foods she smelled moved behind her. She was afraid and enraged when the larger dead-food bit her leg as if she was a food-thing.This story originates from a different website. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.


    She kicked out, gripped the dead-food by its throat as was instinct. The spine snapped, but the jaw remained clenched as strong as ever. She didn''t understand, for this had always stopped food from struggling before.


    The living food hummed, then it felt pain and numbness. The other live-food did the same. Then the rival attacked, instead of trying to claim a food and run away. Why did the rival help the food? This was her last thought before the final food jumped on her back, then she knew nothing but pain, fear, and darkness before the pain vanished, along with everything else.


    "That was-" Lemia shouted, before stopping herself. "Sorry, that was incredible!" She did her best shout while whispering. "I was terrified, but the way you handled yourselves, and it dropped so easy I can''t believe I was ever afraid..." She braced herself against the wall. "Sorry, dizzy spell. Too much excitement."


    "That and you were burning through mana fast," Cali said. "You need to pace yourself better."


    Lemia looked down. "Sorry."


    "Don''t be, you did just fine." Tear them down, then build them back up again. She''d had to do that for enough women over the years, though usually in training rather than the field. "But don''t expect it to go like this often. These are nothing more than animals. Tough animals, but animals. Intelligent monsters are the really scary ones. Hey, Scratch, I need to borrow your claws. Cut right here."


    "Back when I was alive, I would have found you absurdly attractive." Scratch used his talons to carve a gash in the dead monster. "I was a moron back then."


    Cali kept her attention on Lemia. "But, this is a learning experience for me, too." She shoved her hand into the guts of the monster, seeking out the crystalized magic within. "First time I''ve ever been in a fight where I could ignore all the friendly fire. It''s tough on the front line when you have to coordinate with your blasters to keep them from hitting you."


    Elruin dipped her fingers in the small bucket of necromantic water she had with her, to siphon off just a little energy. Her energy had to supply both her spells and Lemia''s imitation of her spells, so she made certain she was capped at all times.


    They worked their way deeper into the cavern, in order to escape from it somewhere far away from Arila, which sat above them. Three more monsters slain, three more sarite crystals acquired, but they seemed no closer to an escape.


    Suggested Listening</a>


    "Gah!" She looked around at the others, realizing that once again she made too loud a noise when in a tunnel full of monsters that hunted by sound. "Sorry. I just. Look." She pointed to the building which was near them "It''s a demon!" The creature was dead, mummified and broken in the street. It had the body of a horse to the neck, then that of a man above.


    Elruin, as all children, knew tales of these horse-demons who would come in the night to take children away to torture for all eternity. She was never too frightened by the stories, for she always had walls to hide behind. Now, the body just made her lonesome for Mister Clackybones.


    "It''s a long-dead corpse," Calenda responded. "And not one like me. This is also a good place to rest for the night. The whole building''s solid stone. Looks like it was a temple, back when these people used this city."


    Lemia watched the body as they entered the building, as if expecting it to jump up at any moment. Inside, she looked around at the art, numerous statues, all of them demons like the one outside. Several other mummified demon corpses lined the stone floors, some smaller as if they were women, and others smaller still which must have been children, dead in the arms of the adults.


    Above them were dark alcoves that might once have been windows to the sky once. Now they displayed only the rock and dirt between them and the surface.


    Calenda saw it, too. "Hmm, maybe we could use this as a way to the surface? If the steeple tower was anything near as grandiose this interior, it might extend all the way up. Scratch, think you can go up there, see how far to the surface?"


    "I''ll think about it in the morning," Scratch said. "Right now, we don''t want to be on the surface without our full strength, and our literal lifeline is at her limits."


    It was true, Elruin had exhausted much of her magic on the trek through these winding tunnels that were once streets. "I don''t think I can control both dollies while Scratch is searching. I need sleep."


    Lemia held her hand up, increasing the glow of magic she''d been using to see in this cave darkness. "Is that the Ring of Enge?" A large circular band with three smaller circles near the top was the symbol of Enge''s church, meant to represent the whole of the Engeval and the three volcanoes that made up his true heart.


    "Looks like it," Cali said. "It even uses the the same colors. A large band of white, made of marble. Two bands of gray granite, and a single band of red sandstone when depicted in a statue. Silver, steel, and a ruby when worn."


    "Why would demons have a temple to Enge? He drove them out, cast them into the sea." Lemia hesitated for a moment. "Or so the legends go."


    Elruin looked at the bodies, then hummed a tune to them. It was ancient, lost to time, but echoes of the past remained in these long-dead corpses. Flashes of fire, cries of agony in a language she did not know. Flesh caught fire, lungs boiled, eyes melted, and those that survived would be suffocated by a poison so powerful that even those protected by magic fell. Here, in this temple, some few survivors hid behind the magic of the priests and prayed for a salvation that did not come. A single tear, the first drop of moisture in this building for centuries, fell from her cheek.


    "They called him Ciron, before they all died."


    "They were known as centaurs, long before Engeval became an empire," Scratch said. "Once, they ruled all of the plains to the north, this valley, and all the way to the jungle."


    "So the demons I thought were myth turned out to be real monsters," Lemia moved to the corner of the room furthest from the corpses. "But that doesn''t explain why they worshiped the same god we do."


    "What else would they worship?" Scratch asked. "Centaurs found this valley before humans, but the being you call Enge has been here since before centaurs or humans ever existed on this world. They worshiped Ciron for the same reason you do."


    "But the same symbols? The same color? Did Enge give an order that he have that particular symbol?"


    "Not to my knowledge," Calenda answered. "We''ve never used any other symbol for Enge."


    "Fine, if you children need a bedtime story that bad." Scratch moved his gangly corpse near the center of the room. "A long, long time ago in a kingdom right beneath your feet, the centaurs ruled. They lived as... the word is ''nomads'', which means those who travel with their whole families, and don''t settle down in any one place in their life. It''s not something you see these days. Anyway, they settled this valley, trading with harpies and mer, who I believe are also extinct. They tried to build cities of their own, but you try working on ladders or weeding crops when your lower half is a horse. So they took slaves. Not your kind of slavery, real slavery."


    "Real slavery?" Calenda thought their version was bad enough, she could only imagine what Scratch was speaking of if it got worse.


    "Chattel slavery. The kind where the slaves aren''t considered people," Scratch said. "Centaurs kidnapped children, force them to serve as labor their whole lives, forced them to breed to create more slaves. Tortured and mutilated the old to scare the young into working harder. Used them to... satisfy their baser desires, so to speak. Whatever stories you may have heard about your demons, I promise the real thing was worse than your legends."


    "And then what happened?" Lemia asked.


    "Couldn''t say for certain." Scratch began walking his slave back to the entrance of the cathedral. "If I had to guess, they began losing numbers to the monsters, until they were weak enough that their former slaves could rise up and overthrow them. Then I imagine those people, your distant ancestors, began to erase all record of the centaurs. Gave credit for their buildings to the dwarves, or claimed it for themselves. Which is fair, they did most of the work."


    "Then came the question of the god the centaurs worshiped. A god they would have to worship as well, if they wanted to remain in this nice, safe, valley. Don''t ask me where they got the name ''Enge'' from. The rest, you can probably figure out on your own. Then they all died horribly ever after, but not before firing out enough crotch-spawn to create everyone you know, the end. Now go to bed."


    Elruin looked at the bodies, trying to imagine how the echoes she saw from her magic, and the dead mothers trying to shield their children, matched with Scratch''s claims of torture and treating other people as nothing but animals. She fell asleep unable to find an answer.

 Chapter 39

    Suggested Listening</a>


    Morning, such as it was in this cave, came with numerous aches for Elruin. She sat up, gave Mister Squishybones a hug for being such a good pillow, then set to work putting her bedroll back into the pack. She spotted Calenda, standing at the altar.


    "Oww," Lemia muttered, having woken up by Elruin moving. "I discovered the downside of a shard that lets you pull all-nighters without getting tired. Do it too long, and your body forgets how to sleep for real."


    "Will you be okay?" Elruin got to her feet, still holding her doll. Nearby, the zombified mork also began to stir. She wrinkled her nose at the smell. Soon Scratch''s doll would begin to rot as well.


    "I''m fine, nothing a warm bath won''t fix. Not that we''ll be getting one of those any time soon." Lemia began packing up her supplies as well.


    Elruin left Lemia to her work, and approached Cali. "Are you okay?"


    "Huh?" Cali looked away from the temple. "Is it morning, already? At least I had too much on my mind to get bored."


    "Maybe." Elruin didn''t know what time of day it was, considering they were underground. "But we''re awake, now. Are you feeling better?" She gave Cali a hug, noting the coolness of her skin. She was in better condition than the dollies, and Elruin would put lots of time and effort into making certain she remained that way. She didn''t want her big sister to become nothing more than a skeleton.


    "I''m fine, still getting used to." Cali used one hand to gesture across her whole body, the other to hold Elruin. "Everything. The good news is, I don''t think I''ll be asking you to exorcise me the moment we get to safety. The bad news is that means I''ll have to grow accustomed to never sleeping, and healing myself through parasitism."


    "The better news, Sis, is that you''ll have plenty of acceptable targets," Scratch said from his minion. "Now that our mistress is awake, we should get moving. Speaking of, you can hold my ride while I''m scouting the surface, right?"


    Elruin considered the strain, then decided she could maintain the monster. "I believe so." She sang to the corpse, unwrapping it from Scratch, so that now it belonged to her. "I''ve got it." She would have to consider whether it was smarter to keep Scratch as a ghost, or have him pilot dollies, in the future.


    "What are you doing?" Calenda said. It took Elruin a moment to realize she was talking to Lemia. "Are you looting corpses in a church?"


    Lemia was currently standing over one of the centaurs that Elruin guessed was once a woman, holding a long chain. "What? Not like they have any use for this stuff. Besides, have you seen the quality of this jewelry, and how different is to our designs? If I can get a decent outfit, I could claim I''m foreign royalty and people would believe it. Or if not royalty, then at least a traveling foreign merchant."


    "That''s not the problem!" Cali insisted. "This is a church of Enge, and his worshipers."


    "Yeah, well, go tell that to the inquisitors," Lemia said. She moved on to another ashen, mummified body. "We''ve got two abominations and a girl that apparently Enge Itself has demanded sacrificed. Looting church corpses is the least objectionable thing we''ve done since yesterday. Then there''s these slaver-demons. I''d be having a real crisis of faith right now if I cared about Enge or the church in the first place. As I see it, they and theirs have done nothing for me, so I owe them nothing."


    Elruin found herself agreeing with Lemia. "Sorry, Cali, but I don''t think Enge is on our side. And if he is, he''d want us to do whatever we could to succeed."


    "Just... fine," Cali muttered. "If you need me, I''ll be outside getting some fresh air." She stopped at the entrance to the church. "Leave the holy symbols behind. If not in the name of decency, then pragmatism. They look too much like ours, would attract the wrong sorts of attention."


    Elruin watched Cali go.


    "She''ll be fine," Lemia said. "What matters right now is survival, and she knows that."


    Elruin sighed, then began to sing, reaching out with her Voice of the Dead magic, she spoke to the echoes of what were once ghosts, or fragments of memories, or whatever it was that she was tapping into with her magic. "There''s a cellar that way, it''s where they kept donations."


    "Think they''ve got any wine? If it''s been down here the last thousand years or so, it''ll have to be the best booze on the planet." Regardless of answer, Lemia was happier with the idea of taking directly from the coffers, than poking her gloves around in the ashen remains of these mummies.


    Elruin let them to the side passage, then took point while allowing Lemia to generate light behind them. The passage was a sloped ramp, rather than stairs. A portion of that floor had a large, living tree root which stuck through it, then back into the ground. It felt magical, and familiar. "That explains why there are still corpses down here," she said more to herself than anything as she ducked under the root.


    "I don''t get it, what''s a root have to do with anything?"


    "It''s one of Lyra''s," she said. "When she created that giant tree, she had to take the material from somewhere. I''m sure there were pockets of caves down here before, but she''s the one who turned it into a labyrinth of tunnels."Unauthorized use of content: if you find this story on Amazon, report the violation.


    "If that''s the case, I''d hate to see what happens next rainy season," Lemia said. "The whole countryside will be nothing more than sinkholes."


    Elruin considered that possibility. "I don''t know, I think Lyra''s too smart for that."


    "Either way, we''ll be long gone by then." Lemia stopped, her eyes widening as she looked into the abandoned cellar. There were armfuls of coins that looked like they must have been stacked neat in the corner, but had fallen over in what must have been the same cataclysm that buried the city underground, and a tapestry that held shimmering threads of blue, green and gold.


    "Is that a map?" Elruin asked. The shape of the empire maps matched, even the rivers were in the same place.


    "If it is, it''s the most magnificent map I''ve ever seen." Lemia stepped closer to the wall hanging. "Magical cleaning, magical repair, still working after all these centuries. I think this is the swamp, and these are the plains, and that means these brown dots would be cities, and these are roads. They had so many, even the Senol desert is covered in cities."


    "They''re like stars in the sky," Elruin agreed. "We have to take it with us."


    "Yes, we do," Lemia agreed. "There''s more historical knowledge here than in half the library''s books combined. Look, if this is true, the Lenal Islands are bigger than Engeval, and there''s even an end to the supposedly endless Senol desert." She was already starting to take the tapestry off the wall. "Even if you didn''t have monsters and oceans in the way, it could take a year to walk from one end of this map to the other."


    Elruin started helping Lemia lower and roll up the map, which was the bulk of their work. Without extra bags, they couldn''t carry much more than some pocketfuls of gold coins, so they left behind the less valuable silver and billon. Without tools, it would be struggle enough to take the map up to the surface with them.


    They returned to the top floor, the rug-sized map carried between them.


    "We found a map of the whole world!" Elruin declared when she returned to the surface level. "We have to show it to the library."


    "It''s not the whole world," Lemia corrected. "But I wouldn''t be surprised to learn it''s at half of the world. I''m sure we can find a library somewhere to preserve it. Better than leaving it here to rot when the protective magic finally wears thin."


    "I guess that''s not too sacrilegious." Calenda uncrossed her arms. "If we can restore lost knowledge, I''m sure Enge will forgive us."


    Scratch, too, had returned from his adventure before them. "So, we can get through here. It''ll take a bit of work, and I''ll need to take my puppet back for a few to do the digging. Gonna have to abandon the mork, though. No way to get it out unless we wanna spend another day wandering around down here looking for a bigger hole."


    "Then we exorcise the mork and head up," Calenda said. "We''re operating on a time limit before there''s nowhere left to run from Claron. I, for one, don''t want to spend the rest of Ell''s life hiding in these tunnels. We will run out of food sooner rather than later."


    Elruin didn''t like the sound of that, either. "Alright, I''ll exorcise the mork. Will the hand monster fit through the tunnel?"


    "Yeah, these things are made for contorting their way through tight places." Scratch took his reclaimed puppet up into the church tower, and soon there was the sound of earth and stone collapsing to the floor, then down the stairs.


    Suggested Listening</a>


    Soon they, sans one now-regular-dead mork, were pushing things into the tunnel for Scratch to pull to the surface. At the end, they climbed up the cramped tunnel with Calenda taking up the rear.


    They were dirty, sweaty, and the sun was well into the sky before they found themselves on the surface. At least Elruin''s training outfit was still in one piece, requiring only a thorough scrubbing to be presentable again.


    "Now we need to determine where to go." Calenda used a combination of her sarite and natural magic to scale one of the trees. "We''re west of Arila, which means a direct march to Engewal takes us right back into Claron''s territory, so that''s out. So''s west, that takes us into the mountains the wrong way. We could go north, that takes us into Dwarven territory. There, we can hire messengers that won''t be traced back to us. Problem is, it means days of marching in open wilderness, without any farmsteads to take refuge. Or south, where I''m most familiar, but also the places Claron''s most likely to conquer next if he hasn''t already."


    "I''m guessing trying to go straight through to Engewal is a bad plan," Lemia said.


    "It''s... an option. The fastest option, but the one with the most risk. We''ll have to kill people, some bandits, some soldiers who may be doing nothing more than their jobs, if we take that path. Also, the chance of running face first into Claron or his elite forces."


    "Speaking of strong, did one of you do something to me?" Lemia looked at the rest of the group. "Climbing up that hole was more exercise than I''ve ever done in my life, but I don''t feel that tired."


    "Oh, that''s an interesting one," Scratch said. "Let me ask a question: what do you think happens to life energy, when a monster or powerful mage dies?"


    "Some of the energy becomes sarite, the rest dissipates into the environment, unless something stops it form doing so. Or so everything I''ve been taught claims, and all my magical training confirms. You''re going to have to come up with a lot of evidence to convince me otherwise." Lemia watched the ghost, daring him to throw yet another of her once-held truths in to question.


    "Don''t worry, Spook, that part''s all true." Scratch loved the smug satisfaction of messing with the woman. "But it''s more complex than that. Some of that energy doesn''t break down, it remains ''solid'' for a time. It can become the spark that creates undeath, but it can also seek out new living hosts. The closest animal, usually that means whatever killed it. Those monsters you helped kill had a decent amount of power that''s now yours."


    "Mine?" Lemia couldn''t deny that she felt far stronger than she had yesterday. "What about the rest of you?"


    "Well, I get nothing, consequence of what I am," Scratch said. "Elruin picked up some, too, but at her strength, she''d need to kill a couple dozen of those things to notice the difference. You''re weaker, so it''s more obvious. That''s why the wilderness grows ever more dangerous. Kill or be killed is all that nature knows, so as the beasts hunt each other, they gain strength, they breed, every cycle a little stronger than the last."


    Calenda asked the next question. "Wait, how come I''ve never heard about any of this before?"


    "Oh, I don''t know, why wouldn''t the rulers of the world want it known that all someone has to do to become powerful is slit their throats while they sleep? Why wouldn''t the churches want to broadcast the knowledge that you can become a god, just by murdering a city or two? If any of them realized the truth, they''d never breathe it to another living soul. Besides, there''s diminishing returns. After a certain point of power, you''d have to hunt things like Lyra and Claron to get any stronger. Doesn''t save you from the reaper in the end, anyway. Life of war, godly power, age takes you anyway."


    "That makes more sense than I care to admit. But it doesn''t change our immediate situation." Calenda looked to the east, in the general direction of Arila. "For now, we must find a way to warn Engewal and stop Claron."

 Chapter 40

    Suggested Listening</a>


    They took their time to redistribute their sarite, with Lemia trading out her lesser nature shard for a much more powerful nature element from one of the slain grabbers. She took a breath, adapting to the new senses and power granted. Minor scrapes and bruises vanished on her skin began to fade, as if days of healing passed in mere minutes. "I don''t think I need to sleep at all, with these shards," she said.


    While they were sorting through equipment, Elruin thought about the problems ahead. As much as she wanted a warm place to sleep, she didn''t want to put more people in danger like they were when at her cousins'' farm. "I think we go to the dwarves. It''s safer than taking my dollies near people, and you can keep watch in the night."


    "It''s probably the safest route," Cali agreed. "If not for us, then for the rest of the empire."


    The quartet set off, each taking advantage of their respective sensory magic while the grabber followed behind. It would have made an excellent scout with its speed and prowess, but now it was starting to look dead in addition to smelling it. Besides, even if it did encounter something, it wouldn''t be able to communicate this fact to Elruin. So instead it took the role of the rear guard.


    "Hey, we haven''t talked much," Lemia said as she approached Cali. "I wanted to say sorry about earlier. The whole crisis of faith thing, I mean. I get it, I was where you are once, years ago."


    "Since you have a pulse, I''m going to guess you''re talking about something else." Calenda kept her eyes forward, surveying the landscape with her magic.


    "I made a few, let''s say, career choices when I was younger." Lemia, too, kept her eyes forward. These were bitter memories she was dredging up. "The churches were less than thrilled by my decision. Ecross and Enge, worst of all. Didn''t stop the people who condemned me during the day to visit me during the night, coin in hand."


    "I see." It wasn''t quite the same, but the woman had been cast out of society, just as she had. "I misjudged you."


    "No, you probably got me figured out," Lemia said. "I''m not a good person. Not ''Scratch'' bad, but I prioritize what''s good for me, first. At the same time, I''m not so far gone that I can''t recognize love when I see it. That little girl back there adores you, and you love her, too. Enough to defy logic, self-interest, society, and Divine Law as we know it. I admit, I''m a little jealous."


    "That so?" Cali smirked to prevent her deeper emotions from showing. "Well, I''m sure if you ask, she''d give you ''the treatment'' and you can be just like me."


    "Not that jealous." Lemia dropped the other subject; she''d made the point she wanted to make. "Maybe in a few years when things start to sag, but for now I''m content with what I''ve got. But, I know my life''s not as safe as it once was. I think I''d rather cheat death Ell''s way than with resurrection magic. I''ve heard stories, none of them good."


    Cali thought back to Crela''s fainting spells, emotional outbursts, and inability to eat red meat without getting ill even weeks after recovery. "Some have it worse than others, but I don''t think anyone''s ever walked away hours after revival." Crela wasn''t even one of the worst examples; many turned around and killed themselves after being resurrected.


    "I''ll take your version, then," Lemia said. "But I wasn''t just here to make casual conversation. We need to talk about disguises, especially your scent."


    Cali gave an involuntary sniff, testing the air for anything that might come off her. "I don''t smell bad, do I?"


    "Better than I do, that''s the problem."


    "Ugh, I feel like a rookie." Given what they''d been doing the last couple days, Lemia and even Elruin were becoming a little unpleasant, while she smelled of dry dirt and the metallic scent of monster-blood spatters. It was a notable scent, but not a living scent.


    "So I was thinking, time for some cosmetic changes to go with everything else." Lemia extracted a metal box from her pack. "And I''ve got everything we need right here. There was a time when I imagined working cosmetics, but the poor couldn''t afford them and the rich didn''t want me."


    "What are you thinking?"


    "Well, first, your hair. That red screams ''noble blood''." Lemia brushed her fingers through Cali''s hair. "We can''t afford that attention. Then there''s your skin. You are too beautiful, better to have you look like someone who''s less beautiful and is trying to look prettier, than to have someone who''s got such natural beauty that she doesn''t need tricks to look better."


    "That''s an awful lot of attention paid to what I look like." Cali smirked. "Am I going to have to put up with propositions for you, now?"


    "Tried it, not my thing." Lemia pulled a vial of black ink from her pouch. "This should get you about the same shade of black as Elruin. Really sell that ''foreigner'' illusion, if we get the chance."


    Elruin''s hair color was exotic, that was certain. "Wouldn''t that stand out more?"


    "Thought of that, but her magic will cook this stuff away." Lemia began dragging her fingers through Cali''s hair, spreading the dye in long, uneven streaks. Magic took care of the rest, spreading the chemical from tip to follicle evenly. There was a time, just weeks ago, when this would have tired her. "But If Claron''s got his people looking for everyone with black hair, he''ll be burning a lot of manpower. It''s a popular and cheap dye for the less wealthy girl looking for a husband. See it all the time, even in girls as young as Elruin."


    Calenda tried not to think too hard about those implications. "And so you''re painting me in colors that will invite men to approach me?"


    "I don''t think dwarves find human women attractive." Lemia had met a few over the years, not one of which had shown any interest in the ''entertainment'' those in per profession offered. "Their courtship seems tied to scent, they''ve got a crazy sense of smell, I was never brave enough to ask the particulars. If we ever return to Arila, welcome to the poor side of town. Don''t worry, it won''t be nearly as bad for you as for the girls doing pink or purple."


    "Then we need to worry about scent all the more," Cali said.


    "I''ve got some lye and chamomile, to perfume and lighten your skin. This stuff burns like hell, but it lasts until your skin dies and gets replaced. It won''t trick people into thinking you smell normal, but."


    "It will explain why I don''t," Cali concluded. "Can''t say I like making people think I''m so desperate for attention that I have to paint myself, but it''s better than being hunted down and burned to ash for being an abomination against all that is holy."


    "That was my thought." Lemia dipped her finger in the lye, then another in the chamomile extract, then drew her fingers along Calenda''s neck, dipping down along her chest, then up behind her ears. She frowned at the soft patches of orange amidst the black, then pushed the inking spell a little harder to cover that remnant as well.


    Cali grit her teeth, fighting down the pain which arose from the chemicals spreading across her skin. "Are you sure you''re not hitting on me?" Humor, the last refuge of those who need anything else to think about.


    Lemia continued tracking Cali''s neck, then as much of her back as she could reach."No offense, but this has confirmed I definitely do not. Even if I wanted a woman to warm my bed I''d like her to have warmth. Touching you feels unpleasant, in ways that have nothing to do with your sex. You feel like you''re made of wax instead of flesh. I''ve got no way to hide that."


    "I need new armor and some gloves, anyway." Now that it wasn''t an option, Cali took a moment to regret how she''d avoided intimacy through her life. "Won''t have to worry about getting undressed often, without those pesky distractions, like sleep, and toilets, and monthly visitors."


    "Ugh, maybe I will take Ell up on the chance to convert."


    "Never mind, we got more immediate bloodshed to worry about." Cali stopped walking until Elruin caught up. While she hesitated, she felt outward with her botanical magic, tracing the damage done to the trees as men climbed them, and the sensation of those hiding in the underbrush. It wasn''t a perfect map, but it was a hard one to hide from. "This is what a real bandit ambush looks like. Ell, I count eight men and three horses, you?"This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it


    "Also eight men," she said after a moment. "Two in the trees, four together on the path, two hiding in the bushes."


    "That''s what an ambush looks like." In matters such as this, Cali was the expert. "Enough men up front to intimidate, nobody pretending to be a woman to lower anyone''s guard. Anyone who looks dangerous comes through, they''ll claim they''re just hunters looking for deer. Wouldn''t be surprised if they do hunt, while waiting for more valuable game."


    "Do we go around?" Lemia asked.


    "They''re weaker than us, and bad men that try to hurt innocent people," Elruin said. "We should tell them they have to stop."


    "As if that would work," Lemia muttered. She''d never met any bandits, or at least none that had told her what they were, but she knew some dangerous people and couldn''t imagine they would ever quit. A life of crime was far too lucrative, for those willing to take the risks.


    Cali smiled her first genuine smile since her death. "It''s so devious, I love it."


    "Huh?"


    "Scratch, take the monster, go around behind and get ready to scale the trees to take the archers. A good bow can get through Ell''s defenses, maybe mine. With everyone focused on us, you''ll be poised to strike before they realize there''s a threat. Lemia, you''ve got the camouflage, stay hidden, get close, and use Elruin''s death magic to snipe. Since we''re all immune to that sort of magic, it doesn''t matter if you hit us."


    "And what will you be doing?" Scratch sounded less than impressed.


    "Exactly what Elruin suggested. We walk straight to the center of the ambush and tell them not to be bad men."


    Suggested Listening</a>


    Soon, they were in position, with Scratch and his puppet near one tree, while Elruin and Calenda walked down the path until they found the men. These four did well to hide their lack of surprise or suspicion as the pair approached. "Who goes there?" One of them held a long skinning dagger that would work just fine as a weapon.


    "Just me and my sister," Cali said. She tried not to laugh at how absurd the situation was. "We are heading north, to dwarven lands." She kept her head down, pretending the necessary politeness for conversation between men and women. No questions, no requests, simple statements of fact in as few words as possible. Normally, she despised it.


    "The dwarves are many days travel from here." The man in charge took a cautious step forward, to avoid startling the women until the trap was closed. "I''m afraid I can''t imagine what would drive anyone to travel so far in such dangerous terrain, without the safety of a caravan."


    Cali walked forward as well, keeping the timid but clueless act for as long as possible. "Acheria is in danger. A terrible warlord conquered Arila, and killed hundreds. I fled with my sister, but his men are all over the countryside. I fear the dwarven lands are the only safe place remaining."


    She didn''t know whether stories of Arila''s conquest were becoming known yet, but the story would explain their dirty appearance and lack of protectors. Half of the risk these bandits sought to avoid was stumbling across some dragonslayers out looking for a fight rather than an easy victim. Thus this conversation, which would remain innocent until the moment they felt confident they were dealing with helpless targets. In this situation, their lack of armor and limited weapons helped push the illusion.


    "I''m afraid we''ve been hunting the woods for some time, so we hadn''t heard." Now was the time when the awkward barrier between sexes became annoying. He wanted to ask questions, but such was impossible without causing insult.


    "It was recent, just days ago," Cali said. Another meek step closer, Elruin right behind her playing the role of a proper child who did not interrupt while adults were speaking. "He''s taking all the nobles'' wealth and having them butchered or worse." She was glad her new body didn''t show emotion easily, or she might have cringed as she finished her line. "I feared for me and my sister''s purity."


    At least she could take comfort in the knowledge that Elruin was the only one who''d hear those words.


    "Dark news, indeed." Now that he was looking, the bandit could tell that beneath the dirt, the two girls were wearing expensive garments, though not opulent ones. They weren''t the best of prizes, but the clothes would fetch something and the older woman would at least serve to bolster morale. Besides, he did want to hear this news about an invading warlord. He motioned them inward, to the camp. "I''m sure you''re hungry, and have much more news to share. We can spare some of our venison if you tell us everything."


    A bit of breach from social protocol, the offer. The final test. A dragonslayer would have too much pride to accept at the cost of adhering to the demands even if it was only for information, but desperate, hungry refugees would be willing to suffer far worse humiliations for food and safety. "I wouldn''t want to impose on you."


    "Nonsense, a deer has far too much meat for us to eat before it goes bad. I must insist you keep up your strength, for your sister''s sake."


    So many lies rolled into one that Cali had trouble counting all of them, and another command. This one more blatant. "You''re right." She brought a hand up, to touch her stomach, then put both over her chest. "Thank you for your hospitality."


    "I''m glad you feel that way." He smiled the smile of a man getting everything he wanted from a woman. He stepped closer to Calenda, and pointed his knife at her chest. "Now, do everything I say and I promise you and your sister will walk away alive."


    Cali didn''t even need her magic to spot that lie. "First, my little sister wants to say something to you."


    "And what is that?"


    "You''re bad men." Elruin stood up tall, and looked the bandit in the eye. Her glare was wasn''t too intimidating, until her purple eyes turned solid black. "You tried to hurt my sister." She gestured at the bandit, using her death magic to make him sorry.


    He took a step back, even blocked the attack. As strong as he was, his arms were numbed rather than completely disabled.


    An arrow streaked from the trees, catching one of the other men in the torso a moment later. Scratch''s contribution to the war effort.


    Calenda acted next, by kicking up a cloud of mist around them. She felt the whistle of the other arrow, from the other archer, which she blocked with her hand, rather than taking the risk of dodging and it hitting Elruin. The arrow stuck, but didn''t manage to penetrate more than an inch before her hardened, dead flesh stopped it.


    Soon, a scream came from that tree, no doubt the result of Elruin''s "dollie".


    Elruin walked forward, able to see fine with her lifesight as she picked off a fleeing bandit, leaving Cali to deal with the leader. He might even have been a difficulty fight, if he wasn''t half-crippled by Elruin''s surprise attack. He was skilled, remarkably so, and even managed to drive her back with a series of wild, chaotic swings from his knife.


    I don''t know if I''d have been able to keep my arms working that well after taking Elruin''s attack. Still, speed and power were both on Cali''s side, and she had the benefit of ranged options. She gripped a rock, chucked it hard at the man''s head. He tried to block, suggesting some sort of combat magic, but his arms were too slow and his head rocked back.


    To her surprise, he still remained standing. He ducked away, covering his head with his arms in time for his armor to stop an arrow from the sky. Cali rushed in, punching low while dodging swings. He blocked her, then had to dodge an arrow from Scratch''s new host.


    This was the definition of frustration, but in a way it was exhilarating to face an opponent that could hold up under these circumstances. Pity, he could have made a fine Guard if he''d had any human decency. She got in close, and much to her surprise took a hard blow when he stepped in and kneed her in the stomach. At least two of her ribs had to have been broken, and the force sent her flying back.


    She landed on her feet, surprised for a moment before she remembered that she didn''t need to breathe, her heart didn''t beat, so as long as her torso was in one piece she would be able to function fine.


    A stream of necromantic energy shot past her, going wide. It never had a chance to hit him, and he didn''t try to evade. The second bolt came closer, forced him to step aside.


    Cali charged forward, got another couple jabs in before getting kicked back again. Worse, she was beginning to tire herself. Her body could withstand punishment that should be fatal, but it did so by drawing on her magical reserves. Didn''t Elruin estimate this guy was weaker than us?


    "Block this, you son o-" A cracking thud ended Scratch''s battlecry, as his puppet- body landed atop their mutual foe. He did block in time, for what little it mattered against a man slamming into him from a forty foot fall. The puppet had to have died on impact, but was still able to grip the leader, grappling him long enough for Elruin to get a second death-bolt on him, then a third.


    Cali joined, gripping the man''s legs in an attempt to hold him still while Elruin''s magic finished the job.


    Soon he stopped struggling, and Cali could hear his heart cease.


    "Well, that one took a beating," Scratch muttered.


    Cali bid the fog to clear, leaving them to look at the damage they''d inflicted.


    "Let me go!" One living prisoner, held in the grip of three monster-hands while the thing scaled down the tree. "Enge Protects! I''m sorry, please, let me go, I swear I''ll go straight! I have a family!"


    "No can do," Scratch climbed out of his dead host-body. "You know too much to be allowed to live. Which must be a novel experience for you. Your choices are quick and painless with her, or slow and horrible with me."


    "Me?" Cali looked at him. "Why me?"


    "Because you''re both feet and half that perfect ass in the grave," Scratch answered. "If you don''t get healed now, we''ll be carrying you the rest of the way to the dwarves."


    "You can''t!" Held the way he was, he could do nothing more than scream for help. "You''re monsters! Demons!"


    "That''s right," Scratch retorted. "We''re monsters. What''s your excuse?"


    Elruin walked up to them, her eyes focused on Cali''s injuries. "He''s right. I think I might be able to repair you, but it will take time and power."


    "Which we don''t have."


    "Please! I''ll do anything! We have money! I''ll show you where our stash is, where we keep all our- mmph!"


    Calenda''s hand had snapped out, latching on to the bandit''s mouth. She wasn''t much for having a crisis of conscience, and if she was, she wasn''t going to waste it on this waste of humanity who helped murder and possibly rape any number of people who deserved to exist. With a dip into her vampiric shard, she stole strength from his body like taking a deep breath.


    The sensation of her body mending itself, bone stitching back together, and lungs reinflating, was indescribable, but amongst the most decadent experiences of her life. "No need, Ell. Your strength is more important than a bandit''s life."

 Midara Elemental Polyhedron

    Picture a pyramid, then take an identical pyramid, turn it upside down, and stick them together. Or, for those geeks out there, just picture a D8.


    Four of the points are the "traditional" elements of Earth, Water, Fire and Air, let''s say they occupy the "ground level" of the pyramids. Now, imagine the top point of the pyramid is the elemental force of Creation, while the bottom point is the elemental force of Negation.


    For a total of six elements, what are known as the Prime Aspects. Is this starting to sound a little like Age of Wonders, yet? No surprise there.


    Now picture a line between each element and its neighbors. Each of those lines is one of the Border Aspects, sharing elements with its "parent" Aspects, but also possessing its own unique properties. There is a total of twelve Border Aspects, for 18 overall aspects.


    It also forms a total of 3 "rings", each with a total of 8 aspects within. I''ll be explaining the aspects using those rings, for what I hope is easier visualization.


    <u>FUNDAMENTAL</u>: Thaumaturge, Enchanter


    Fundamental isn''t considered an aspect, it''s the energy that all things have natural access to. A "neutral" magic, as it were. Fundamental magic covers building complex magical structures (including potions and magic items), detecting the flow of magical energy, and identifying the nature of spells and constructs that are being used. Thaumaturges also develop talents to tear down and destroy other enchantments, or reprogram them to suit other purposes. On the battlefield, thaumaturges are often deployed to "counterspell spam" enemy mages.


    Fundamental magic is exceedingly complicated compared to most mage styles, since it works with deeper forces rather than the more abundant and easily manipulated forces of Aspect magic. As such, few other than devoted scholars pursue the art.


    Career options: dispelling curses, inflicting curses, crafting potions, constructing magical devices, reshaping sarite shards, and teaching other mages to better harness their abilities.


    Master Fundamental mages are often called Archmages or Artificers.


    <u>ELEMENTAL RING</u>:


    The traditional four elements form the elemental ring, which share in common the nature of directly altering the physical materials of the universe. They do not create nor destroy, they merely manipulate or alter what is already there.


    The elemental ring goes as follows: Earth - Plant - Water - Mist - Air - Desert - Fire - Forge - Earth


    <u>EARTH</u>: (Geomancer, Terramancer)


    Earth mages work with rock, soil, and minerals. In terms of resilience, they are second to none, though they lack ranged offensive options. Most of their magic works slowly, reshaping the environment around them and establishing battlefield control.


    While considered too slow to be effective in direct combat, Terramancers have their place as walking siege weapons, Given time, they can devastate enemy defenses, bringing down even the toughest fortifications with their ability to manipulate the ground. In addition, they make excellent frontline warriors with their superhuman durability and strength magics.


    Career options: Construction, demolition, infrastructure planning, finding rare minerals, and maintenance.


    Opposite: Air


    <u>PLANT</u>: (Botanical Mage, Mud Mage, Shaman)


    Shamans mostly work with plantlife. Their main tricks revolve around reshaping the living environment to their needs, not unlike geomancers, but they can work their magic faster than any geomancer of equivalent skill. Some will also work with mud and quicksand, when the opportunity arises. In addition, plants have any number of useful properties, which shamans often have magic to identify and exploit.


    On the battlefield, they have most of the durability of a geomancer, but more maneuverability options and the ability to hamper the movement of their opponents, making them frustrating foes.


    Career Options: nonmagical poultices, pain relievers, and poisons, farming, floral arrangements.


    Opposite: Desert


    <u>WATER</u>: (Aquamancer)


    Aquamancers are infamous for their ability to change to circumstances and surprise their enemies. Adaptive, swift, and deceptively lethal, they excel at evading and confounding enemies before coming in for the kill against an exhausted and disoriented foe. They make effective assassins, but still are rather lacking in ranged offensive options. Unlike the geomancer and shaman, aquamancers can usually use their battlefield control magic. In non-combat situations, their adaptability lets them adjust to situations as needed, and most can summon or cleanse water so that it''s safe to drink, or breathe underwater.


    Some Aquamancers focus their power on the small scale, crafting some illusions and cosmetic alterations of bodies. Some rare water mages are talented shapeshifters.


    Career Options: summon rain, or reduce the power of floods, clean poisons, provide drinking water, plastic surgeon.


    Opposite: Fire


    <u>MIST</u>: (Atmokinetic, Illusionist)


    Sometimes called illusion or storm mages, they combine the confounding power of the water mage with the swift ever-mutable nature of air magic. Storm magic tends to have less forceful but wider scale magic than their water counterparts, and focus mainly on the deceptive and illusory options that their more offensively oriented counterparts lack the finesse to accomplish. Very little an Atmokinetic does has any permanency, but their range in both distance and versatility is not to be underestimated.


    Career Options: illusionists, entertainers, assassins, full army support


    Opposite: Forge


    <u>AIR</u>: (Aeromancer)


    Aeromancers are infamous for having the longest range, and least directly powerful, magic. Air mages tend to be fragile, relying on agility to keep themselves alive while they kick up windstorms to blind their foes and prevent ranged attacks. Particularly strong air mages can generate hurricane force winds, able to ruin an enemy force with their power. Many air mages can use their magic to hear from great distances or send magical messages on the breeze.Support the creativity of authors by visiting the original site for this novel and more.


    Career Options: Messenger, Spy, Scout


    Opposite: Earth


    <u>DESERT</u>:


    Also known as dust mages, sand mages, lightning mages, and dessication mages, the desert mage has many options to combine the speed and range of air magic with the destructive power of the fire mage. The desert mage is infamous for indiscriminate harm they can inflict not just upon their foes, but upon every living thing near that foe. Even lightning, one of their most focused abilities, has a bad habit of missing or hitting multiple targets that may not be what the mage intended. As such, they are often disparagingly referred to as "collateral damage" mages.


    Career Options: Climate control for libraries, killing people in horrific ways


    Opposite: Plant


    <u>FIRE MAGE</u>: (Pyromancer)


    Pyromancers are perhaps the most vulnerable of all mages. Lacking the durability of the Earth mage, the adaptability of the water mage, or the speed of the air mage, the pyromancer''s magic is almost completely offensive in nature. Their spells are fast, controllable, and have a solid range, giving the pyromancer freedom to focus on raw, destructive, potential. Their main vulnerabilities are their lack of defenses and sensory magic, making them exceedingly vulnerable to water mages. They can also use their magic to inspire passion and confidence, though those talents are more common amongst the neighboring ''blood'' and ''madness'' aspects.


    Career Options: If it burns, we can kill it... also great way to warm your house.


    Opposite:Water


    <u>FORGE MAGE:</u> (Volcanist)


    Often considered the ultimate war mages, a forge mage specializes in concentrating raw power and defensive ability into pinpoint accurate death. While possessing less resiliency than a pure earth mage, or the ranged offensive power of the fire mage, the volcanist has devastating front line combat ability, and often favors use of heavy weapons and armor to augment their combative style. Their lack of mobility tends to hinder them in combat, however.


    Career Options: Everything you want from a main battle tank


    Opposite: Mist


    <u>SPIRITUAL RING</u>:


    The spirit ring, sometimes known as the cycle of life and the metamorphic ring, are the Aspects which guide the nature of life and death. These aspects are about life, death, rebirth, and the fundamental truth that nothing remains forever.


    The elemental ring goes as follows: Creation - Peace - Water - Ice - Negation - Madness - Fire - Blood - Creation


    <u>CREATION</u>: (Manifester)


    Sometimes mistakenly called Life magic, Creation is a much more fundamental concept than life and death. It is the binding force that allows existence to exist, and maintains the dynamic nature of the universe. While all forms of magic manipulate or alter matter and energy in some way, Creation magic is the magic that brings things into being in the first place.


    Manifesters build from nothing, creating energy and even matter without any discernible source. Strong manifesters can create weapons, armor, forcefields, and even golems from pure magic, assembled into ever more complex forms. Many believe that creation-aspect gods can manifest spirits and even living things using their power, and that it was from this that all live originated. Creation mages also have a natural tendency to develop precognitive abilities, and are the only bloodline which can use Resurrection magic.


    Career Options: Even weak manifesters can find eager employers amongst other mages who benefit from having a natural font of magical energy nearby. Strong manifesters are necessary to power certain magical constructs without resorting to such tactics as human sacrifice.


    <u>PEACE</u>: (Healer, Peace Mage)


    Combining the infusion of power abilities of Creation with the metamorphic nature of water, healers represent peace, tranquility, and a soul at rest. They possess a strong sense of self, and while amongst the least effective warriors of any path of magic, they are amongst the most valuable to the soldiers who survive the battle. Their ability to cleanse mental wounds as well as physical make them indispensable. If forced into combat, they can often calm the enemy and convince them to lay down their arms.


    Opposite: Madness


    <u>WATER</u> (See above)


    <u>ICE</u>: (Frost mage, Hypothermia mage)


    Ice is the aspect of the slow but steady loss of strength, the entropy of running out of strength. Ice mages represent the spiritual decay brought on by age, and are known for using pneumonia, darkness, lethargy, weakness, and frostbite to bring down their enemies. Some ice mages also learn to exploit the defensive and offensive options available in the form of using actual ice, but the majority prefer to rely upon their more subtle powers.


    Career Options: Assassins, saboteurs, battlefield debuffs galore


    Opposite: Blood


    <u>NEGATION</u>: (Necromancer, Exorcist)


    As with Creation, Negation goes far deeper than mere death. It is also wrongly interpreted as destruction magic. All magic can be destructive, but destruction does not cause a thing to cease to exist, merely changes its state. When a forest burns, trees cease to be trees, but they still exist as ash and smoke. When water freezes or evaporates, it changes form, but it still fundamentally exists. Negation magic is the true end of existence, leaving nothing behind. They are the only source of true, complete, death.


    Necromancers deal with death and that which lingers after death. Much life pyromancers, necromancers have few if any defensive abilities, but they do tend to possess a natural talent for detecting energy. While all but helpless against Creation mages, a Negation mage has a natural advantage against all other forms of magic.


    Career Options: Killing monsters, killing people, killing infectious diseases, killing the dead, killing the undead, killing magic, killing basically everything else


    <u>MADNESS</u>: (Scourge, Hate Mage)


    The scourge strips the sense of peace and tranquility from their victims, leaving only anger and if pushed far enough, violent insanity. Their magic inspires paranoia, rage, antisocial behavior, and obsessive fervor. It can be used to inspire armies before battle, or to drive foes to slaughter their own comrades in fits of jealousy and resentment.


    Career Options: Not great as spies, per se, but damn can they mess with an opponent battle plan.


    Opposite: Peace


    <u>FIRE</u>: See Above


    <u>BLOOD</u>: (Sanguimancer, Passion Mage, "Love" Mage)


    Cousin of the hate mage, the passion mage inspires great bursts of confidence and focus. On the battlefield, they can drive soldiers to superhuman prowess, and off the battlefield, they are loved for their ability to liven any party. Some blood mages can also temporarily take control of another''s magic, but that technique is a closely guarded secret.


    Career Options: Anything booze can do, you can do better.


    Opposite: Ice


    <u>MATERIAL RING</u>:


    The material band is one of the physical properties and reality. Material forces tend not to be static, dealing with hard reality and absolute truths with no concern for those who live within their system.


    The elemental ring goes as follows: Creation - Mind - Air - Miama - Negation - Time - Earth - Nature - Creation.


    <u>CREATION</u>: See above


    <u>MIND</u>: (Inquisitor, Esper, Truth mage)


    Mind mages are ones who manipulate the thought process and knowledge of others. They do not possess illusions or mind clouding abilities, but most have little or no trouble seeing through the illusions of others. Many are prone to supernatural bursts of inspiration and knowledge that comes seemingly from nowhere, a trait inherited from their creation aspect neighbor. They are highly resistant to mind altering magics.


    Career Opportunities: Best Truthsayers, reading minds, being inhumanly intelligent


    Opposite: Time


    <u>AIR</u>: See Above


    <u>MIASMA</u>: (Poison mage, Miasma mage, Plague mage)


    Plague mages combine air''s natural blanketing features with Negation''s theft of life, making them terrifying on the battlefield for much the same reasons as desert mages. Their brand of offense is poison of the air, slowly killing all within every time they take a breath. Asphyxiation, hallucinations, and stealth magic define this bloodline.


    Career Path: Nothing friendly, I assure you.


    Opposite: Nature


    <u>NEGATION</u>: See Above


    <u>TIME</u>: (Chronomancer)


    Also known as ''erosion magic'', time mages play with perhaps the most self-destructive of all magical forces, the inexorable power of time to grind all things to dust. In time, mountains fall to sand and even the gods face their demise.


    Time mages couple the patient resilience of Earth with the cold inevitability of Negation. Time mages can pull information from the past, inflict fragility upon objects, animals, and people, and strip away strength and knowledge with their magic. More than any other Negation related path, Time excels at inflicting damage upon nonliving targets.


    For those willing to take risks and sacrifice everything for the cause, time mages can accelerate someone, allowing them to get minutes of activity or years of healing done in mere seconds, at the expense of exhaustion and possibly death by heart attack.


    Career Options: Remarkable talent for forgeries, investigating lost secrets, making sure secrets stay lost, and frustrating mind mages


    Opposite: Mind (Time makes fools of us all, you know)


    <u>EARTH</u>: See Above


    <u>NATURE</u>: (Ecomancer)


    Nature magic mostly deals with the animals of the wild and the power of the physical body. Strength, stability, and the laws of kill or be killed define this path of improvement of life by constant warfare. Nature mages sometimes control animals, but most prefer to take the traits of animals upon themselves, granting themselves the power of beasts rather than lowering themselves to enslaving others.


    Nature mages also have some access to healing magic, though they''re much better at healing themselves than others.


    Career Options: backup healer, deadly warrior, friend of animals


    Opposite: Miasma

 Chapter 41

    Suggested Listening</a>


    Elruin sang to the dead, spoke to them, forced them to speak back. Flashes of knowledge, families left behind. Calenda''s prey spoke the truth, he had a young wife Lemia''s age along with with twins that were just learning to walk. He had also not been lying about the ''stash'', though he left out the series of traps and the small army which guarded it.


    "We''ll have to fight lots of people to get their treasure," she said. She left out the family; Cali would be sad if she knew. "They''re all bad men, with prisoners."


    Calenda hesitated for a moment, then pulled a small sarite crystal off the dead man. "Too much risk, too much time wasted on a small handful when the entire empire is at stake. We''ll come back later to deal with this group."


    "They''ll move their camp by then," Lemia said. "These guys didn''t last this long by being sloppy."


    "I know, but there''ll be some clues left behind." Calenda pulled a coin pouch off the body next.


    "I believe that is where we come in." "Oh, yes, we would help so much."


    "Morks!" Cali jumped back from the body, and took a combat stance. "Everyone, stand back to back. Elruin, blanket the area!"


    "No need." "We''re not here to fight." "Not you." "We watched." "You smell of blood. "And death." "And power." "You would slaughter us to the last." "Our pups would starve." "We make you an offer." "Then leave in peace."


    "Watched?" Cali glanced around through the forest, but saw nothing. "They have a wind mage, scrying from outside our range." Scrying magic may have been disrupted in the region, but it hadn''t been eliminated. Close range and targeting a known location was the simplest scrying spell.


    "Smart and powerful." "Yes, we are wise to avoid fighting." "You would be wise to accept our offer." "We track your prey for you." "Leave trail for you." "We cannot slay them." "You can." "Take their treasures." "We need them not." "Leave their bodies." "You need them not." "You get your gold." "We get our feast."


    "On one hand, I love the idea of creating more carnage." Scratch began climbing into the bandit leader, whose entire essence had been hollowed out by the constant barrage of death magic to the point that even if someone wanted to revive him, it would have been impossible. "On the other hand, morks will turn on us the moment they think they can kill us."


    "Alas, our reputation precedes us." "It is true, most of our kind cannot be trusted." "Tis our lot in life." "But we are not fools." "To fight you costs everything." "To aid you costs nothing." "To aid us costs nothing." "Or do you plan to drag all their corpses home with you?"


    "As ghoulish as the offer is, it''s a good trade," Cali admitted.


    Scratch''s new body sat up. "We might be planning to take one or two of the corpses."


    "We see." "But surely not all of them." "To drive them from the forest is still a boon." "They steal our prey." "No respect for our homes." "They would hunt us if they could." "Take what you need." "Leave us the rest."


    "They''re bad men. They hurt innocent people," Elruin said. "I know Claron''s more important, but I want to stop them, too."


    "If you want." Cali put her hand on Elruin''s shoulder. "I can''t promise we''ll return soon, but we accept your offer."


    "I knew you were wise." "Ours was a good bargain" "You win." "We win." "They lose." "We shall claw the trees." "Point you toward them." "The marks shall last all season." "But do not tarry too long." "We cannot know what the future holds."


    "Is that a good idea?" Lemia had never encountered morks before, and had little to go on other than rumor. They were not flattering rumors. "Can they be trusted?"


    "No further than I can throw them," Cali said. "But I can throw one pretty far if I have to. They''re cowards who think with their stomachs, and we''re much too dangerous for them to risk for two edible women. Even if we don''t leave a trail of bodies behind for them, this is a win-win since the bandit presence has to be driving away their usual prey. I''ve made worse bargains with worse people, before."


    "You flatter me." Scratch held out his hand, offering two shimmering crystals to Cali. "Here, I can''t use them."


    "Thanks. Start stripping the bodies, especially the sarite. The weapons and armor aren''t worth the effort to carry. And keep the conversation to a minimum for a minute, I need to hide us." Cali took the time to focus on some of her more difficult spells, but soon the trees began to shimmer and sing as her magic infused them. "Whew, that took a lot more out of me than I''m accustomed to."


    The song was more than metaphor or Elruin''s Requiem. Every leaf in the forest shook, brushed against the others, cumulating with the others in a cacophony that made it hard for them to hear one another, and extended into the ether to disrupt magic.


    "Not the most subtle spell, but we won''t have to worry about spying morks now." Calenda took a moment to steady herself, took a deep breath out of habit rather than utility. She was now adapting to the downside of no longer experiencing exhaustion; she could no longer rely upon her body to tell her when she was reaching her limits. Objectively, if she tried to go this long without food, water, or sleep, then took a beating like she''d taken in this fight, she might have died from exhaustion. Being an abomination made her more resilient, but it didn''t make her unstoppable.


    She squeezed her fingers around the crystals, sampling them one after another. "Oh, these shards are nice." One water, the other plant, both ideal for wilderness survival and combat. "I''m keeping the one that grants combat skills and hides my magic from detection. It''s best on a front-liner like me, anyway. Hmm. Lemia, you should have this one. I think it''ll help with your alchemy, and it will also help us avoid monsters."You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.


    "Uh, sure," Lemia accepted the shard. "Oh, I see what you mean. While we''re here, there''s a thunder-bloom by that tree. How do I know that? I''ve never seen thunder-bloom that hadn''t been ground into powder already."


    "Botanical magic''s funny like that, you''ll get used to it," Cali said. "Ell, do you think that hand-monster can pull a cart? The bandits have one hidden up ahead."


    "Yes." She didn''t see why not. A quick bark of music that was only possible thanks to her resonance with Calenda and the monster responded to her orders. She could imagine that other mages with this type of spell could stop her from giving orders to her dollies. Nearby, the dessicated corpse started to climb to its feet as well.


    "I think, maybe, the essence drain magic leaves a little of your essence behind." Elruin stared at the newly minted walking corpse. With concentration, she looked deep within it, seeking out the seed of undeath that she''d awoken when she sang. "We need to be careful about how you use that magic."


    Cali looked at the results of her actions. She hated to imagine what might have happened if the morks ate a tainted corpse. The things were bad enough when they were alive. "Nevermind the monster, I have a better idea."


    She found the cart, and the two beasts which pulled it. She wrinkled her nose. "Ugh, mules." A mean thought that they couldn''t possibly smell any worse dead crossed her mind. Focusing all her remaining power into upper body strength, she grabbed both animals by their throats and began the parasitic theft of their life force. Being animals, they didn''t replenish her magical reserves much, but they had what it took to mend her back to physical peak.


    It would be enough for now, and in the worst case scenario they were collecting a fair amount of sarite she could use to recover magic. She looked in the back of the cart, finding a great deal of raw animal meat, some fresh hides, and some cooked and salted meat in a barrel.


    "Well, that''ll make the damn coyotes happy." She began to slide the raw flesh out of the cart, in part because it''d slow them down, and in part because she knew how nasty this would get over the next few days of travel.


    Elruin came to help as well, scouring the blood from the back of the cart and forcing the mules to climb to their feet. "I can''t control any more dollies," she told Cali as they worked. "Not unless I drop control of others, or stop shielding you."


    Entek na. "That''s fine, we should limit the number anyway." Life, such as it was, could only get worse for her if she had to continue leaving a string of corpses behind for Elruin to clean up after.


    Suggested Listening</a>


    For all her bravado in the church earlier, Lemia hesitated to pick at the bodies for sarite, or to empty their pouches. The weapons were easier, if only because they were nearby rather than


    "Don''t tell me you suddenly got squeamish around corpses, Spook. You were diggin'' through those centaurs like a fatty who smelled bacon." The former leader of the bandits, now Scratch''s new host, smirked at her, then returned to dragging two bodies to the nearby pile. "And I saw you pawing the un-scout earlier. She ain''t into you. More''s the pity."


    "Hey, I can handle long-dead demons, and Calenda is..." Lemia shuddered as Elruin''s new ''dolly'', the man Calenda had stripped of life, walked by. Chunks of skin and flesh sloughed off like caked mud and dried leaves. "I''m having the world''s longest hot bath when this is over. Three weeks, minimum."


    "Sounds nice," Scratch said. "Been forever since I took possession of a bath."


    Lemia almost complained that Scratch never stopped, but that would have encouraged him further. "So, while you''re feeling talkative, what is the story with Calenda? The real story."


    "Couldn''t tell ya, Spook. On one hand, I know she''s not into women. On the other hand, she literally chose to die, rather than marry a handsome, wealthy, and powerful man. You''ll have to ask her."


    "She has no idea what she is, but you do." Lemia hesitated for a moment. "No. You don''t know, either, do you?"


    "I play my cards close to my chest, Spook. You ain''t gonna trick me into revealing anything."


    "You already have. I know your tell!" Lemia laughed, though it wouldn''t carry far through the rustling leaves. "You were terrified of Ell bringing Cali back. Cali was halfway between death and what she is now, Elruin was... well, Elruin''s just oblivious in general... but there''s something going on here and you don''t know what it is, do you?"


    "My secrets are mine, not yours," Scratch said. "Maybe I''ll share some of them with Elruin, but not you."


    Now Lemia was certain; Scratch didn''t joke about important stuff. He''d been avoiding Cali for a while, and even now wasn''t as enthusiastic as he had been in the short time she''d known him before. "Then I''ll tell you what I know. First of all, Cali''s not undead."


    "Then what is she, if you''re such an expert?"


    "Not a clue. I had my hands and magic all over her, her body is definitely dead, the same as all the rest of these corpses. And it''s undead, loaded with the same taint you are. But her mind and soul didn''t experience the same ravages as her body. She''s intact, she''s alive whatever the status of her body. And everything I know about death, revival, and undeath screams that this should be impossible."


    The more she spoke, the quieter Scratch got. "I''m sure you know the little secret those with resurrection magic don''t like to talk about... they don''t bring the soul back. What they do is pull together the remnants of life force that haven''t been consumed, then they use their magic to fill in the gaps, like mortar and bricks to make a wall. That''s why resurrections are so messy. What comes back is not the same being that went in. Same face, same memories, similar enough personality that friends and family can fool themselves into believing the trauma is to blame for the inconsistencies, but not the same."


    "Sounds like a bigger abomination than they call me."


    "I''d love to see you standing next to someone who''s been revived, to compare how similar you actually are, but that''s not important right now. What Elruin did was something different, neither revival nor enslavement, something that kept the soul in one piece. I can''t explain it, and neither can you."


    "Can not, will not, impossible for the outside observer to tell the difference."


    "But I know better because I watched how you panicked when Ell told us what she had planned. I thought it was suspicious then, and now I know why. You thought Cali was going to come back an abomination."


    "So?" Scratch stuck his head out of the chest of his puppet. "I''ve created four abominations in the time I''ve been working with Elruin, thousands more over the course of my existence. Other than what are admittedly the nicest legs I''ve ever seen on a dead woman, Calenda''s no different than the rest. Unless if, as you say, her soul''s still in one piece."


    "True." She had no counter-argument that it wouldn''t matter to Scratch what happened to Cali. Then she started to smile as the last piece fell into place. "But Cali was never your concern, except maybe as a curiosity. It''s Elruin you were worried about!"


    "Shoulda possessed you when I had the chance." Scratch muttered. "Fine, you win. Creating undead, true undead, not whatever it is that Cali happens to be, leaves spiritual marks on the soul. It''s pretty much the same taint that is the undead, eventually drives the necromancer to the same madness that normal undead experience. An undead soul in a living body, the opposite of Calenda. Do I need to explain to you how bad that would be for Elruin?"


    "Which is as good as admitting you have no idea what she did to make Cali," Lemia said. "Other than that it avoided this taint. My only remaining question is what makes you care so much about the status of Elruin''s soul? I don''t think you need soul to continue this con you''re running on death."


    "Who said it''s death I''m trying to con?" Scratch returned to dragging bodies. He''d be keeping a close eye on her, she was much too dangerous.


    Fine, keep your secrets for now. Lemia returned to scavenging the corpses. She''d be keeping a close eye on him, he was much too dangerous.

 Chapter 42

    Suggested Listening</a>


    While Lemia and Scratch had their conversation, Elruin was busy with preparing the cart. They had space enough for the map and the weapons, and even enough for Elruin to set up the cots for her and Lemia, so the now-dead mules need not ever stop traveling while the humans rested. It also made it a lot easier to use the hand-monster as a guard.


    "Cali?" Elruin looked up at her older sister who now shared her hair and skin color. It was fun, imagining she might grow up to look like the woman. "How do you feel, now that you''re..."


    "A walking cadaver?" Cali was never one to beat around the bush, and she wasn''t going to let death change that. "Better than expected. I thought it''d be annoying, disgusting, an inconvenience I took on to get away from worse, but it''s not bad. I''ve already come to think it''slessgross than being alive. I don''t get hungry, so I don''t eat and don''t use the toilet. So many biological things that are gone forever."


    "So, you''re not upset?" Elruin inched closer. "You don''t wish you were alive still?"


    "As long as I have my freedom, I''m content," she said. "That said, we''re going to need to find a way to restore my magic. I''m tougher than I was, but everything''s drawing off the same source."


    Elruin frowned. "But you have the vampire shared, it should replace your energy."


    "Maybe you hadn''t noticed, but I''m a spellcaster and most of the things we''ve fought aren''t," Cali said. "They don''t have enough energy to replace what I burn."


    "Oh." In hindsight, it seemed obvious that a mage like Cali who relied on heavy physical magic would consume energy fast, and most monsters weren''t magical enough to provide a lot of power back. She wrapped her arms around Cali.


    Cali rested a hand on her back. "That''s sweet, but I don''t know if hugs are- woah!"


    Elruin kicked up her black lightning, normally reserved for melting the hands of anyone dumb enough to grab her, and began to sink that energy into Cali''s flesh and bones. She made certain to be careful while she entwined their energies and reinforced all of Calenda''s magic-driven motor structures. She smiled up at her elder sister. "Better?"


    "That was quite the hug."


    "I''ll be happy to hug you whenever you want," Elruin said. She didn''t put any more energy into it; she would need to take time to recover, herself, first.


    "I''ll have to take you up on that." Cali let herself relax, now that exhaustion had faded into a dull and mild fatigue. "Now, let''s get back on the road. The more time we waste, the more people die."


    Suggested Listening</a>


    "Ell! Wake up!"


    Elruin''s eyes came open, with Lemia laying right next to her on her face, almost invisible in the dense night fog. Elruin squeezed Squishybones just a little tighter.


    "It''s goblins!" Lemia remained low in the cart, trying to hide herself as best she could. She''d put together what she could of an illusion using her ornate sword as a basis, but all it accomplished was making them harder to notice. True invisibility was a much, much more difficult feat.


    Elruin had never seen goblins before, but they had a reputation for abducting and eating children. Then, it seemed that every story ended with children abducted and eaten. It struck Elruin that there weren''t enough children to feed all the monsters of the stories, so either they ate something else, or they all starved to death long ago.


    She remained on her back, but began to look through the fog. The trees swarmed with flickers of life, not unlike those of the squirrels, but larger and more vibrant. These monsters were intelligent, that she was certain of. They also didn''t seem to have much trouble jumping from tree to tree in spite of it being night and Cali''s fog hanging heavy in the air. "How do we fight them?"


    "I don''t know, Cali said they use swarm tactics, and she always ran from them. They rely heavily on their toxic skin and... uh... bodily fluids. She wants the undead to take point, to draw their fire while we keep pushing for the edge of the forest."


    It made sense to make the dead, who could not be poisoned, take point. Elruin began to sing to her new archer guard, ordering it to stand point and fire upon the monsters of the trees. Then she continued singing, pouring necromantic energy into the cloud of fog. Goblins could see through natural blackness and Cali''s fog, but perhaps her supernatural darkness would do what they did not. It wouldn''t hurt, at any rate. Elruin kept pushing, infusing the area with death magic that would choke the life from those who pursued them.


    One goblin dropped, a victim of her dolly''s inhuman aim. In spite of the fairy tales, they weren''t very tough. The hand-monster took to the trees, chasing goblins who were its equal in its arboreal agility, but inferior in offense and defense. It grabbed them and threw them at the ground with enough power that they burst like watermelons upon collision.


    Meanwhile, Calenda dropped another with a rock, since she''d used up all the knives she''d taken off the bandits. They weren''t good knives, anyway. It rolled to its feet, then crawled away to nurse its wounds. In her opinion, the worst thing abouts goblins of all types were their ability to heal from any injury short of death, including lost limbs. Or perhaps the worst thing was that they bred so fast that if any survived, they''d be back to full numbers this time next year.


    Scratch walked ahead, since he didn''t care about his body at all. The goblins pelted him with balls of muck containing copious amounts of their toxins, but all it served was to make the dead man stink of something not unlike a dead skunk that was set on fire. Scratch fingered his chain armor, which was beginning to corrode due to the chemicals.


    "Fall back! And watch beneath your feet!" He shouted to the rest of them. "They''ve got hobgoblins!" Still, Scratch kept his puppet standing, evading what attacks he could while serving as a decoy. Sooner or later, this corpse was going to be overcome to the point that his power couldn''t keep it moving, but that was true of everything he possessed. For now, what mattered was getting Elruin to safety.


    The name meant nothing to Elruin, who knew little about monsters, but Lemia was a little better read. "Ell, make the mules run. As fast as you can."


    "But, Cali, Scratch, and my dollies..."


    "Cali can outrun the cart, Scratch will catch up, and we can find you some new dollies! If those things reach us, we''re both dead!"


    Elruin hated abandoning her dollies, but she knew Lemia was right. She changed her song, amplified it, and did what she could to strengthen the mules as they began running as best they could while still dragging the cart along. She saw the things moving underground, so she changed the nature of her song to go around the ambush.Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author.


    Too late to avoid all of the trap, the ground caved beneath the cart and broke one wheel. For almost anyone else, it would have meant the end of their fleeing, but Elruin maintained her song. No living mule would have willingly dragged a cart up such an unstable hill, but her dollies obeyed without hesitation.


    Their ambush failed, several leprous-white lanky bipedal things emerged from the muck to give chase. Elruin blasted one with a death-bolt, but it didn''t seem to do much more than slow the pursuer for a few seconds as the glowing fire of life energy overwhelmed her death magic.


    Calenda came out of the woods, flying feet first into one of the monsters, slamming it to the ground, then jumping forward to catch up to the rest of the group. She remained on foot, next to the damaged cart, but threw another rock which beaned one of the goblins to little effect.


    "Where''s Scratch?" Elruin shouted.


    "Dunno, lost track about three body-swaps ago!" Calenda stumbled, then by sheer force of will made her unliving body to get back up and move. "If you''ve got any crazy tricks, now''s the time to use them!"


    If death magic wasn''t working, then she didn''t expect her fear magic to be much better. Perhaps her decay magic, but that ran the risk of destroying the damaged cart. She did have one other option, however. Elruin changed her song, exciting the passions and anger of one of the lead goblins.


    "What are you doing?" Lemia asked. Then she recognized the nature of the magic. "Oh, that is brilliant." She joined in, using her magic to mirror Elruin''s.


    Twin exposure to her anger-inflicting magic was enough to drive the goblins into screeching at one another. If the troupe could speak goblin, they would have learned that one was blaming another for their ambush failing, and the other made a remark about the former''s cowardice. Soon, that pair was reduced to violence, while tempers were magically stressed with the others until they, too, succumbed to infighting.


    Unable to speak their language, all Elruin and Lemia learned was that goblins could continue clawing at each other long after they had sustained what should have been lethal amounts of blood loss from opened arteries.


    Soon they broke into open terrain, the sort of clearing that could only be found near civilization in Engeval where painstaking effort was taken to prevent the trees from encroaching upon city walls. The goblins, having given up on trying to kill Scratch''s puppet, remained in the trees, unwilling to step into the open plains where they lost almost all of their range and maneuverability advantages.


    Rushing toward Elruin and Lemia from the other direction was a pack of white dogs, their fur glowing in the night, with another set of inhuman but intelligent beings on their backs. They weren''t goblins, or anything else she''d ever seen before, but the way they guided their hounds was well organized, a team that had trained to fight in formation.


    "Entek!" Cali muttered. "Ell, exorcise the mules now!"


    Elruin obeyed, singing her song as she stripped, purified, and consumed the necromantic power of the mules. It didn''t restore much of her energy, but it was better than nothing. Their bodies collapsed into piles, leaving the cart still and listing to one side.


    They split into two teams well before reaching the cart, circling around on both sides, then going forward to the edge of the forest. The white-cloaked figured on top threw something at the trees, which began to erupt into blooms of flame, and goblins dropping to the forest floor. The rest began to flee into the forest.


    Suggested Listening</a>


    "Don''t worry, they can be trusted," Cali said. "The Hounds are mainly followers of Klaro, true believers in the concepts of order and righteousness. Also many, many Truthsayers, so be very careful."


    One of the canines, and its rider, approached. "Hail, tra''lers." Elruin realized the rider was shorter than she was, moments before she pulled her white hood back to reveal a face more akin to that of a rabbit or squirrel than a person, with soft yellow fur covering much of her forehead and muzzle. "You speak wi'' Moira and Tua."


    The canine dipped its head, as ifto bow.


    "Hail, Ghost Hound." Calenda forced herself to stand straight, then pulled her Ecrosian icon from her vest. "I am Esra na Ecross. We desperately need your aid."


    "Priestess?" The yellow-furred woman gestured, drawing the rest of the pack closer. "Come, let us o''er shelter." While there was no interfaith requirement of supporting the priests of other religions, let alone ones of different cities and species, she needed to know what drove a small group of humans so far through such dangerous wilderness. Promising shelter was a small price for that knowledge.


    Cali''s strength failed and she collapsed like the corpse her body was.


    Moments after, the short blonde was at her side. "She''s cold!" Soon, she began to draw on healing energy.


    "Stop! You''ll kill her!" Elruin shouted. She drew together some of her own magic, to try to shield Cali from harm. Healing magic worked by mending and infusing with energy, but it would untie the ''knots'' that made up the puppet-strings which let Calenda''s body move. Several of the Ghost Hounds pointed weapons at the pair, interpreting the drawing of magic as a possible attack.


    "She''s a necromancer," Lemia said. If she let Elruin say anything more, it might lead to Cali being discovered, and all of them executed. Thinking fast, she began to build a case that wouldn''t trip a Truthsayer or raise suspicions. "And a famous healer in her own right. If she says healing is dangerous, I believe it." All true statements, none of which were in any way related to one another, but still true.


    Necromantic healers were an oddity, but not unheard of. "Why would healing kill her?"


    Elruin hesitated, sputtered over her words. "Because it will hurt her inside, like poison."


    "Please forgive her," Lemia said. "She is a child, and a wild talent. Up until a few months ago she never had a day of formal training with her magic, so it stands to reason she doesn''t know how to explain specifics. I think what she describes sounds like mana poisoning. Esra did the hardest fighting to get us away from the goblins." Once again, all true statements that were unrelated.


    Mana poisoning wasn''t an unreasonable explanation, either. "Please, listen to them," Cali mumbled. "I appreciate your concern, but let me rest for now. They can explain the threat."


    Tua drew back, uncertain about the condition Esra was in, especially the coolness of her skin, but she was unfamiliar with humans and what was and was not healthy for them. Perhaps they were like dwarves, but the opposite, and felt unhealthily cool to silmid rather than unhealthily hot.


    "Right," Lemia said. "I''ll explain on the way, but the basic details is that some powerful madman claiming to be Enge''s Chosen is going around conquering half the cities of Engeval. We''re trying to get a warning to the capital, but had to go north to avoid him and his armies. We were trying to escape to dwarven lands, in the hope that they could deliver the message we can''t. Looks like we failed."


    The guards and their dogs glanced amongst themselves. "You did not, ''ese are dwar''en lands, but our stone-bro''ers stay in ''eir tunnels. Silmid abo'', stone-brothers below."


    "Good, please let us deliver our warnings to your leaders." The sun was just now beginning to come over the horizon, and Lemia was ready for the day to be over. "Hey, Rin, help Esra to her feet." If Calenda wanted to use pseudonyms, then she''d trust they all needed one. "We''ll have to abandon the cart for now, but there''s nothing of value in it."


    The glowing dog tilted her head at the words, then made a small, soft, growl. "Nothing?" Tua asked.


    "Uh, I mean, nothing valuable enough to delay our warning. But the, uh, tapestry is important as well." Now she knew they were using Truthsaying magic. Slipping ononeharmless lie was worth it to test the waters. "It''s a historical artifact. I know not its value in coin, but to scholars, even amateur ones like myself, it is a priceless relic. Everything else is survival tools, I trust they won''t be needed under your hospitality.


    "And Mister Squishybones!" Meanwhile, Elruin helped pull Cali to her feet, while doing her best to check on her elder sister with her senses. She''d survive, in fact she could regenerate to full if she just remained still for a few weeks while feeding on ambient death energies, but for now she was one or two more spells away from destroying herself.


    Lemia smiled as Elruin unknowingly helped her test the limits of the canine Truthsayer. "Of course, I''d hate to forget Rin''s stuffed toy, which is extra priceless."


    The dog nodded her head. "I understand." Tua smiled. "I ha''e children o'' my own. Dena, Uren, show special care to the tapestry and toy. See what you can do about ''e cart and supplies, but ''ey''re not a priority. I''ll take our re''ugees to Sonhome."


    Now Lemia knew the dog was more than just a Truthsayer, she was smart enough to discern nuance in statements. That meant she could understand their language, and was at least as intelligent as most humans. "So, what was that stuff you used on the goblins? I know it wasn''t magic, so nonmagical alchemy? I apologize if it is some sort of secret tool."


    "We call it ''enom''ire," Tua said. "It''s a harmless powder ''at will con''ert to hot ''lame when exposed to certain chemicals. Like on goblin skin. It requires some special ore dwar''es dig up, can''t say where else to ''ind it."


    "If there''s no special secret, maybe I can get some before we go. But first, please tell me you have hot baths in Sonhome."


    "We ha''e hotsprings."


    Later, Lemia would deny that she whimpered in joy, but Elruin and Cali knew better.

 Chapter 43

    Suggested Listening</a>


    It was slow going, helping Cali limp across the plains, to a city Elruin was beginning to worry wasn''t there. Then she started to recognize the wall of trees they approached was not a forest, but in fact an actual wall made of living trees that had been grown close together so that they fused into a single continuous lifeform.


    It was, in her opinion, a far superior defense than the walls which protected Arila, in that it was more than capable of blinding her magic. Every branch sang with complex and well-crafted magic that was of powerful but unknown function. She came to the fast conclusion that the magic of the tree-wall would have repelled Claron''s attempts to take this city, if he used the same tactics he used in Arila.


    "Attempting to take our measure?" Tua asked.


    "No." Elruin rethought her words when the white dog growled at her. "Not in a bad way. I was studying how beautiful the magic was. I don''t think Claron would dare to invade here."


    "Is ''at so? I''ll tell you what I tell all ''oreigners," Tua said. "We don''t know how good our walls are. No''ing''s e''er reached ''em be''ore."


    That piqued Elruin''s interest, so she opened herself up to the magic, to the songs which resounded and confounded. "You have a Lyra? A stronger... no, the songs are... you have two Lyras?"


    "Lyra''s the name of the dryad in Arila," Lemia explained. "You might know her better as ''the Granddaughter of Enge'', or perhaps ''Daughter of Tythes''. She''s powerful, made a magic tree like the one that is your walls, but not nearly as big."


    "Ah, you must mean our Sisters, Cleda and Melana," Tua said. "You must be quite skilled to sense ''em so well, ''rom out here. Did you say you had only one Sister in your home?"


    "Lyra''s the only one we know about," Lemia said. "I''ve never heard of there being another."


    "Such unspeakable loneliness she must endure," Tua muttered. She spent the rest of the walk in silent contemplation and prayer, until they reached the gates of the great tree fortress that was her home. "Welcome to Sonhome."


    They passed freely through the opening, without a single guard to stop them, but Elruin could see the magic dancing through the roots of the city. If they were to turn upon these people, every inch of the soil was a trap ready to spring. Either they would be impaled upon spikes of wooden death, or they would be ensnared and stripped of vital energy while waiting for whatever punishment the city saw fit to deliver.


    Tua began speaking to other silmid in their native language, which Elruin didn''t understand. She returned to the much less comfortable human tongue moments after a pair of silmid approached. "''Ey''ll take your companion to a ground nest to reco''er."


    "I''d feel more comfortable if Rin stays with Esra," Lemia said. "Don''t worry, I can tell you everything of importance she knows about the invaders. She''s a good mage, I trust nobody to care for Esra better, but she''s not well equipped to explain political or military matters."


    "As you wish, but we might speak wi'' ''em later," Tua said. "While you''re here, you are ''ree to visit the city, but please stick to the ''isitors'' section. And don''t be too upset by the behavior o'' our people, you''ll ''ind our culture is... more permissi''e... ''an yours. And keep out o'' our bough nests and ''e dwar''en tunnels, ''ey are not sa''e ''or you humans. And don''t let Rin out on her own. Our people are beyond reproach, but we cannot speak for all ''isitors."


    Once through the great wooden archway, they found themselves on a stone path just wide enough to allow two wagons to pass side by side, and a large trader''s pavilion to service and store such things. It was the only artificial stone feature in the entirety of the city that Elruin could see. The rest of the city was covered in wild grasses, with networks of tree branches above where the silmid would leap from branch to branch not unlike Cali, or squirrels.


    Elruin could understand why they didn''t want humans up there.


    Suggested Listening</a>


    Hours later, Lemia finally stumbled into their small ''nest''. "Ugh." She looked around. "Uh, do they really expect three people to stay in here together?" The survival tent she''d brought had more space in it than the alcove they called a nest.


    Cali shrugged from her corner. "From what I understand, silmid fit seven or eight into nests like this one. Up to twice as many if some are children. So, how''d the interrogation go?" She traced a line from her nose to her jaw, the Engeval cultural gesture to be careful what was spoken of.


    "Don''t remind me." Lemia sighed. "So, they know know I''m Mila. They know the story about Lord Claron, and that we snuck out with Lyra''s help. They seem to have a lot of respect for their dryads, I think it extends to ours, too. Had to tell them that we killed our way through a bandit ambush and stole their cart. Got hairy there for a minute, but necessities of war and all. Also, they said something about caravans saying bandits are humans who act like goblins? I said that was a fair description. What is it with silmid and dwarves hating goblins? It runs deep, like us with the centaur-demons."


    "Religious, you mean. Because it is." Cali shifted to a new position, not because she was uncomfortable, but because she had to remind herself to move now that she no longer experienced comfort or discomfort. "The stories vary, but silmid claim that they were the first mammals created by the gods. It''s in their name- silm means fur, id means beginning. Their religion teaches that they were to be inheritors of the world, taking over from the reptiles like goblins and dragons who ruled before the age of the mammal, but the reptiles rebelled against the natural order, thus cursing themselves and the world. Naturally, the curse is whatever vice the silmid storyteller holds as the most evil."


    "If silmid were first, what are humans, dwarves, elves, and ferin?"


    "Well, the dwarves are silmid," Cali said. "That''s not speculation, we know dwarves are silmid that became their own bloodline, much like elves descend from human bloodlines. Humans, according to the silmid, were created to serve as warriors and drive out the reptiles who refused to die. Until we forgot our purpose and turned upon ourselves in a civil war that is destined to last forever, which is why silmid want so little to do with us and our wars, they believe them nothing more than the prelude to the next war. Then the ferin were created last, warriors perfected from the lessons learned by humanity''s inadequacy."The narrative has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the infringement.


    "Well, ain''t that lovely? Anything in there that might be true?"


    "We''ve found dragon remains so ancient that the bone transmuted to stone, which lends credence to the belief that those were the eldest of all species as the silmid claim. Otherwise, the ferin and reptilian religions teach more or less the same story. The difference is that the reptiles claim us mammals to be usurpers who stole their rightful place as the caretakers of the world, and that the world will remain chaotic, flawed, and filled with injustice until every last one of us are exterminated."


    "Well, that explains their willingness to keep chasing us even after we killed so many while retreating," Lemia said. "Their whole belief system teaches our deaths are more valuable than their lives."


    "About the sum of it," Cali said. "But back to more immediate problems, we were at the part where you told them about the bandits."


    "Right, then I told them that Elruin used her necromancy to drive the mules to the point that they died of exhaustion. I don''t know how it worked, I''m not a necromancer. They asked me a bunch of questions about magic, then dwarven elders at the meeting declared that they would use their stone magic to send warning to all the major cities of Engeval. I tried to talk them into giving additional help, but..."


    "But dwarves are infamously isolationist, and silmid are pacifists to a fault," Cali finished. "Frankly, I''m amazed you were able to talk them into sending messages in the initial meeting. I expected at least three days of begging while I spent every night digging through religious texts to find arguments supporting even that much involvement."


    "Yeah, about that. They spent half the time I was there asking about scrying, and suspicious magical activity. I told them Arila was having problems with scrying, too, and tried to imply Claron was responsible. They didn''t buy it. So I switched to arguing that at least he was prepared to exploit it, which implies he somehow knew it was coming ahead of time. Still don''t know if they agree, but they''re getting desperate for answers and want any clues Engeval has to offer. They didn''t tell me much, but the goblin population around here''s going nuts and they don''t know why."


    Calenda looked up. "You did good work, but linking Claron to the erratic events was a mistake. If they think Claron has answers, they may contact him directly to ask what he knows, and who knows how that will play out? They don''t care who rules the human kingdoms, so long as they stay out of dwarven territory."


    "Merat!" Lemia looked down. "All that hard work wasted!"


    "No, we can salvage this," Cali said. "Dwarves are slow to act, but when they do, it''s decisively. It might take weeks before they''re ready to contact Claron, but they will message Engewal and the other cities by the end of the day. And they will stay neutral, which means they won''t hand us over to Claron no matter how he insists."


    "And he was afraid to fight one Lyra," Elruin added. "Imagine how scary two would be!"


    "I guess it all depends on how desperate he is, but I think we''re safe. He wasn''t willing to fight Lyra, so I don''t think he''ll come after Sonhome, and he can''t absolutely cannot lay siege to a city as well-defended as this one. Speaking of, Rin and I should avoid the dryads. I don''t think they''d be fond of me anymore."


    Everyone looked unhappy, which made Elruin unhappy. "We should go play in the hotsprings!"


    Cali laughed, an odd, silent chuckle since she didn''t have the air in her lungs to do a real laugh. She took the breath she needed to speak. "Know what? That sounds like a great idea. Nothing we can do until we all get our strength back, anyway."


    "Unanimous vote, then," Lemia said.


    Once they climbed out of their nest, Lemia looked at the nearby silmid that was their effective guide for now. "Can you please tell us where the hot springs are?"


    "Ataways," the guard pointed toward where hills began to form. "Along the ri''er, impossible to miss."


    "We thank you," Lemia held her hands over her chest. Elruin and Lemia did the same as they passed.


    Once they got deeper into silmid territory, they realized that Tua was not exaggerating about the differences in culture. The first thing they noticed was that silmid did not wear clothing. Once away from the wall, with guards who wore armor, silmid seemed content to walk around in nothing more than a belt to hold coin purses, and the occasional necklace or bracelet for jewelry.


    They were saved from appearance of indecency by the fact that they held few notable human characteristics. Their hind limbs were shorter than humans of their height, while their forelimbs were longer, and they had no breasts or external genitalia. Coupled with their thick but short layer of fur, they might have been mistaken for human children wearing fuzzy, tight-fitting clothes with decorative animal ears. They may have been compared to giant, tailless, meerkats, if any of them had seen a meerkat before.


    If that wasn''t enough, they had no sense of privacy. While hugs weren''t unheard of for humans, the twelve-silmid cuddle pile taking place one of the patches of grass would have been called indecent. None of them were copulating, they were merely hugging and grooming one another, but it was uncomfortable for the women who had lived their lives in a different society where such actions, were they ever to occur, would never happen in public.


    "Silmid like to hug a lot," Elruin observed.


    Cali put an arm around the girl''s shoulder. "They do, but let''s leave them alone. They''ve clearly got enough members."


    Several other such groups, none quite so large, were lounging along the trails as the hill grew steeper and the lazy river split apart into numerous fast-running brooks. Further still, and Lemia began feeling the soreness of their climb up the scenic but steep hill.


    Near the top, they found a silmid of white fur with stripes of black who grunted and pointed to different paths while speaking in gruff, uncertain words. "Males, ''emales, laundry, toilets. I no good speaking."


    Calenda made the gratitude gesture, followed by the others. "Thank you."


    "As I walk," the silmid answered back.


    "She looked different," Lemia said as they moved along toward the women''s side of the springs. "Like, pointier?"


    "I think that one was a male," Cali said. "It''s hard to spot, but males are a little wider, with more protruding muzzles and more pronounced claws. They''re burrowers, while females live in the trees when they aren''t in their mates'' nest."


    "Mates?"


    "Yes, mates, and that''s all I''m going to explain." Cali gave Elruin''s shoulder a meaningful pat. "Keep in mind that silmid aren''t like us, on a level deeper than any you imagine between rich and poor or the virtuous and the evil. Those all share the trait of being human, while the silmid do not. Whatever you think of their religious claims that humans were built for war by the gods, it is true that we have a lot of violent tendencies that they lack. Greed and jealousy being two of the big ones. On the other hand, they are indecisive and unambitious, some might say lazy, so it''s hard to call them ''better'' than us, but they are different."


    "I''ll keep that in mind."


    In the bath, they found a number of silmid near the edges of the water, seeming unwilling to move deep into the water. Instead, they stayed near the shallow edges, and scrubbed one another''s fur in the steaming chemical-scented waters. Most stopped to gawk at the human trio as they began to strip for their baths.


    With the eyes of the other bathers on them the whole time, there wasn''t much the three could speak of except small talk, but after they had been through, an excuse to be quiet and relax in the simple luxury of warm water was just what they needed.

 Chapter 44

    Suggested Listening</a>


    Once clean, the trio took the time to clean their clothes as well. Cali had it worse than Elruin and Lemia, since she couldn''t avoid the close quarters fighting that saw blood and other fluid splatter on her clothes. In addition, she was the only one of the three who had normal clothing rather than the magically reinforced clothes that was required for training magic, and it showed after the week they''d been on the road.


    "We''ll need to do some shopping," Lemia said. "That is, if you''re okay that most of our money is in the form of stolen gold and coins I doubt they accept here."


    Cali held up the tattered remains of her shoes, victims of the hobgoblin attack. "I suppose if there was ever a time to learn to enjoy going barefoot. Pity that would be far too suspicious."


    "You''re welcome," Lemia said with a smile.


    "I don''t need shoes to drop-kick you."


    "Don''t fight." Elruin did her best to look commanding in her damp clothes. It worked as well as one might expect of a grumpy cat. Then she touched her stomach. "Umm, can we get something to eat, now?"


    "Huh, somehow I completely forgot about food," Lemia said. "I haven''t eaten since last night." She gave her stomach a pat with both hands. "On the plus side, this has been the best diet plan of my life. Well, goodbye flat tummy, hello feast. Think they''ll let me have a whole hog?"


    "Good luck finding a hog." Cali began walking down the path. "Silmid are insectivores and herbivores. The only meat you''re gonna find here is dog food for the ghost hounds. If I recall, they farm rats."


    "Couple more days and I might consider it." Lemia spotted a lone silmid on the path, heading toward the baths. "Do you know where we can get food?"


    The presumable female, if the flat snout and small hands were an indication, only stood up to Elruin''s shoulder. She cocked her head to the side and looked up at them with wide eyes. "Ek?"


    "Umm," Cali stepped forward. "Ahtuhk?"


    "Atuk." The silmid repeated with better annunciation. She glanced around, then pointed at the ground. "Atuk." Then she returned to walking up the path, wondering why foreigners were always so weird.


    "... They eat the grass, don''t they?"


    "Grass, tree leaves, fruit, berries, bark and wood when they want something to chew on," Cali ran down the list of options. "Their teeth never stop growing, so they''ll chew just about anything. Look, there''s an apple tree up ahead. Best meal you''re gonna find here. On the other hand, they have some of the best dried rations, which we need to stock up on."


    "Guess that''ll do."


    Soon, they''d returned to their nest, where Elruin curled up with Mister Squishybones and went straight to sleep nuzzled against Cali. After the girl child was unconscious, Cali extracted herself and scooted out of the hole to take a seat outside.


    "Was the cramped hole in the wall not spacious enough for you and your little sister?" Lemia didn''t stop looking up into the soft glow of the leaves of the silmid tree home.


    "I''ve had worse," Cali said. "But I slept like the dead all morning and into the afternoon."


    "Hah." Lemia stretched her arms, then rolled to her feet. "This new strength thing is weird, but I''m not complaining. Say, wanna go check out the silmid night life? I need to find an alchemist."


    "No, one of us needs to stay here. Go ahead and have fun." She waved Lemia off. "But, uh, keep an eye on your pouch. Silmid are notorious kleptomaniacs. I don''t think they see anything wrong with it, they steal trinkets the way human kids play with swords and dolls. Normal kids, at any rate."


    "Implying that Rin is normal."


    By the time Elruin awoke, it was to the sour tang of acid in the air. Cali and Lemia both sat around the tiny campfire, where Lemia generated a burst of flame every so often to warm the kettle.


    "What are you doing?" Aside from the bursts of flame, there was no magic involved in the alchemy that she could sense.


    "Took all night, but I found a place that sells venomfire powder, and I got a weapon I can use." She patted the bracer on her arm. "Silmid design, adjusted for humans. With this baby, I can crack a man''s skull with a rock from twenty yards. Or use alchemy pellets. The silmid know their alchemy, half their library is full of alchemy books."


    "A library?" Elruin''s face lit up and she gazed at Cali. "Can we go, please?"


    "Sorry, I''ve got a date with a bunch of silmid leaders to explain what I know about Claron''s activities," Cali said. "I doubt it will make much difference, but I can give more information on the scrying blocks, maybe we''ll stumble across some clue. And maybe they''ll stop eavesdropping once they know everything we know." She raised her voice for the last sentence.


    "I''ll take Rin to the library when I''m done," Lemia said. "When this mess is over, I might drop out of the College and move here to live in their library. Silmid alchemy couples mineral and herbal properties in ways I never imagined possible, let alone seen before. I don''t think our teachers know half the stuff they do."


    "Have fun studying while I talk to all the most important people of the city."


    "Thank you!" Elruin gave Cali a hug, and a once-over with her senses to make sure all of her work remained functional. "I''m going to read all the books!"


    "Have fun trying not to gouge your eyes out from boredom."


    Helping Lemia with alchemy didn''t require much other than to hand her older friend the right powders at the right time. She had no intrinsic talent for non-magical alchemy, but if Lemia believed it would let her do the same trick that let the silmids set goblins on fire, she approved. Goblins were mean and because of them she had to kill more of her dollies.


    Soon they found themselves at what the silmid considered their library, a stout building near the center of the city. The silmid at the entrance gawked at them, but nobody stopped them from entering. "We''re here for the human section," she told the scholar at the desk.


    Said scholar, who understood not a word of what Lemia said other than ''human'', pointed at a small side corner. Meanwhile, the silmid of the library were busy climbing up the walls to reach other sections of books intended for them. Stairs and ladders were things that happened to other species.


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    "I started on this corner," Lemia said. "You go to the other side, and we''ll work our way to the middle. Let me know what you find." They stepped around a silmid boy who stared at them from the entrance.


    So the pair spent their time in the library, hunting down books that offered the best alchemical bang for their buck. It was approaching midday when Lemia came across alchemy that might interest Elruin. "Hey, Rin, I think I have something for Esra."


    Elruin all but jumped at the possibility. "What is it?"This story has been unlawfully obtained without the author''s consent. Report any appearances on Amazon.


    "Well, check this out, they have something here for treating leather, an alternate form of mageleather, but I don''t think it was initially designed for that purpose. It looks an awful lot like it was made for funeral rights. If you look here, they''re using it to harden the hide against both physical and magical forces, but it could also be used to fortify an entire body down to the bone."


    It wasn''t too far removed from being usable on living tissue, but life energy would build up within the bindings until it cooked the subject inside out.


    The two sat down, reading over the alchemical processes that were meant to fuse fresh dead tissue with magical reactants, in order to protect the recipients from harm in the afterlife. Where the silmid found this book, neither could guess, but it would have been burned along with the author, if it were penned within any human city.


    "No," Elruin said after they got about halfway through the book. "They''re good ideas, but they''re too blatant. They amplify and refine, which is great, but it''s too visible. Besides, it''s dangerous."


    Lemia agreed, it would be almost impossible to hide Cali if they infused her flesh with these forms of alchemy, and there was no telling what effect it would have on the trickery used to protect her mind, but Elruin missed the obvious. "We don''t use it on her, we use it on her clothes. It''s still a good leather treatment technique." However, she wasn''t the only member of their group which was undead. "And maybe on dolls?"


    Elruin''s eyes widened at the prospect. It would take time to craft the alchemical paste, longer still to find the proper ingredients, but given time she could coat any of her dollies with the substance, making them stronger and tougher than before by a significant amount. She would have to be extra-careful about which dollies to treat, however, because they would be expensive and stand out to magical senses.


    "It''s perfect," Elruin whispered. "We need to find some untreated leather right now."


    "I know where we can start looking." Lemia set the book down next to some of her own paper and ink. "But first, we need this." She began the necessary vocalizations, then started to trace patterns of the spell that all scholars would learn with time. Tiny drops of ink lifted from its phial, then jumped to the blank paper, a perfect copy on white of the yellowed parchment containing such a brilliant spell.


    She flipped through the book, finding methods to work runes that reminded her of the sarite protections build into walls of cities, powered by sapping energy from the very magic trying to bring down the walls. It was inferior to sarite defenses in some ways, but in a siege it beat anything she''d seen before.


    Soon, she''d moved on to golem-crafting techniques, then into weapons techniques. It seemed like the whole book was built around using Negation magic as a replacement for Creation magic all wrapped in rituals exalting and worshiping the dead. Dozens of pages of notes, rituals, and techniques using knowledge that would turn magic society on its head. The trick would be to avoid getting her own head removed for possessing it.


    She rolled it up with the other useful recipes she''d found, half a dozen methods to improve alchemy using what were not uncommon reagents in the wilderness, if one knew where to look. The mineral recipes were less useful, but she knew there''d be scholars back in Arila who''d clamor for the privilege of learning these new methods.


    With a final glance back at the library, she swore to herself she''d return some day to all the glorious knowledge this place held.


    Moments after they left, a silmid boy stood from where he sat next to the two human girls. Then he took a certain text from the shelves. A book which did not belong here, which did not belong anywhere, save for this brief moment to deliver information a certain young necromancer needed to survive her coming trials.


    It had served its purpose, and so it returned to the aether from whence it came, along with the boy.


    [placeholder suggested listening] (Seriously- I need something here and can''t find anything fitting)


    Meanwhile, Lemia and Elruin made their way to the shop where Lemia picked up her new weapon. It looked different in the day, now that dwarves had stocked the place.


    Inside, Elruin came face to face with her first dwarves. Taller than the silmid, they were almost to Elruin''s height, but so broad that their arms were thicker than her waist and hung down well past their knees. Each was coated in thick, silver, shield-shaped scales that covered their entire bodies, with longer and looser-hanging metal draped on all sides around their neck like a chain armor coif.


    They seemed mostly to be moving stone out of the tunnels, along with various metalcrafts along a back wall. Signs in their language let Lemia and Elruin read the basics of what metal equipment and treasures could be purchased here, including all sorts of armor and weapons sized for men and women, with promises of custom designs for a modest fee.


    A bulkier than usual dwarf walked over to them, using both fore and hind limbs. Unlike all the other dwarves in the building, he had scales of solid gold. "Do not be upset, but your hair? ''at is how humans display ''ey are ''emale, correct? I can get my wi''e, to put you at ease?"


    "That would be appreciated," Lemia said.


    The dwarf twisted his head further than a human could without breaking his neck, and literally barked toward the back. Soon, another dwarf that looked just like all the others came waddling into the room.


    "Ah, human traders," she said. She kept her mouth closed as best she could, for long experience had taught her that humans did not appreciate the broad, toothy display of the dwarven mouth. "Tell me, what do you seek to trade? Or perhaps you seek more weapons?" She had also perfected the art of avoiding the sounds it was difficult for dwarven mouths to produce. It was difficult, but if she did not, some other dwarf would, such was the nature of competitive markets.


    Lemia took the time to look sheepish. "Well, that is complicated. You see, we''re alchemists who were studying some silmid techniques and we came across some interesting ideas. We were hoping to buy untreated leather. As well as natron and saltpeter, if you have any. Oh, and some ilmenite powder, that''s for the venomfire I''m making."


    Lemia hoped the mention of venomfire would get her a better deal; as much as these people hated goblins, they might be happy to learn outsiders were going to help remove a few from the forests.


    "We can provide all you seek, except leather." She shrugged, a calculated gesture to look more human. Like most calculated gestures, it was ineffectual. "You see, we do not eat meat. We use spider silk."


    Lemia thought about it for a moment. "Would spider silk work?"


    Elruin shook her head; when it came to necromancy, she was the expert. "It must be from living animal tissue. Silk and fur aren''t close enough." She chose not to mention that flesh was the ideal substance, that of sapient beings more than anything.


    "Perhaps, spider shell? No charge." It was odd, but she''d come to expect oddity in dealing with humans. "Is not good quality, garbage, but you need experiment, so you do not need quality?"


    "It should work," Elruin said.


    "Better than going into the wilderness to hunt for supplies," Lemia said. "I''d rather we know it works, before risking our lives out there."


    "Yes, and what quantities do you require?"


    "Not much, for now," Lemia fished into her pocket for two of the coins taken from the centaur temple. "I hope these are acceptable."


    The dwarf woman accepted a coin, then licked it. "I need to consult my husband." She barked at where the gold dwarf was speaking to another human, a man who looked to be part of a mercenary or merchant band. There wasn''t much difference between the two, when on the road.


    Soon, he waddled back over to the group, barking quick sounds at his wife while she barked back. He took the coin from his wife. "Odd coin." He stuck his tongue out, licking it as she had. "Centaur gold, you ''ound ''is in ruins, no?"


    Lemia was taken aback that the dwarves knew of centaurs, but all of her books knew them only as ''demons''. She then thought about lying, but decided against deception on the cusp of a business deal with what might be the only merchants who could speak their language. "I hope you don''t expect me to tell you where the ruins are located."


    "No, you are welcome to them," the dwarf said. "Many centaur relics in your lands, more than any one could explore. Centaurs use almost pure gold, not but a small amount o'' copper."


    "So they''re worth something to you." Lemia liked it when she had something others wanted, made life much easier.


    "Yes, say, ''e equal o'' twel'' o'' your billon coins?"


    "Fourteen."


    "Deal, but only i'' you promise to remember my generosity next you return to our establishment."


    "Oh, I swear I shall," Lemia said. She wondered just how much she got ripped off, but now was not the time to start arguing. The supplies would be expensive enough as is, and later she''d need to find a trustworthy appraiser.


    "And is ''ere more you may desire, while here?"


    "Uh, I have a question, please?" Elruin put her hands together, in request.


    The dwarf regarded the child-human, as tall as he was though laughably skinny. It took him a moment to realize she wasn''t going to say any more. "And your question is?"


    "Why are you gold?"


    The golden dwarf began to laugh, a deep, echoing sound that drew attention from all nearby people.


    "Rin!" Lemia hissed. "I''m sorry, that was rude of her."


    "Rude?" The woman-dwarf scoffed. "E''reyone asks him about his color. Some days, I''d almost suspect he hires people to come in, but I''m the one who tracks our spending."


    "Pay her no mind," the dwarf said. "It is a simple, but important, story. See, dwarves eat metal." He held up the coin that came from Lemia, then tossed it in his mouth. "Stone, too, but metal is most important. Our bodies are natural ''orges, we absorb it and it grows out as our scales." He slapped his arm, eliciting a mighty metallic echo. A dwarven handprint was left in his shoulder plates. "I, a goldsmith, turn gold ore and alloy into pure gold. It is a prestigious position ''or our most success''ul."


    "That... is quite the ability," Lemia admitted. "Hey, Rin, do you think a dwarf... uh... scale? Might work instead of the spider?" She had no desire to pay for a gold scale, but it looked like there were plenty of dwarves with iron or copper scales to draw from.


    Elruin looked through her vision, then shook her head. "No, it''s too much like hair, it won''t work."


    "Worth asking." If the spider shell worked, it wouldn''t matter. "So, while we''re here, let''s see about your other supplies."

 Chapter 45

    Suggested Listening</a>


    Elruin was hard at work over the alchemy pot when Calenda returned, so much so that she failed to notice her elder sister had arrived until Lemia spoke.


    "How''d your interrogation, I mean interview, go?" Lemia wasn''t paying too close attention to Cali, being far more concerned with the chemical paste they had made for the purposes of bolstering the undead. Try as she might, she couldn''t comprehend why anyone would develop such magic, but it existed and they were going to use it as best they could.


    "I spent the whole time remembering one time I was having dinner with... acquaintances... and one of them expressed a concern that I''d get myself killed outside the walls." Cali slumped down next to their nest-hole. "I can''t remember my exact words, but I said something about being immortal because dying requires too much paperwork. Proving once again that the universe is a joke, and I''m the punchline."


    "Well, the universe better stop right now," Elruins said with a huff. She continued working, for now was the proof of concept. She dipped the spider chitin into the white paste, which blackened with necromantic energies as she hummed her necromantic song, converting the complexities of alchemy and weaponized magic into a structured, patterned magic.


    Through Calenda''s sense, it felt as it had when she was controlled by Scratch, for those brief moments she could. Echoes of death, and things deeper still, rippled outward like waves crashing against Elruin''s. Each new pulse outward, pushed back until it was held like a pond in the space of a mud puddle.


    Lemia''s eyes saw something quite different, as the formula of Elruin''s math twisted, folded folded inward, and ''solved'' itself one step at a time until it was locked into the simplest possible expression. She had seen such work, done better, as part of her enchantment courses, but it was interesting to watch Elruin fumble around with the basics and using raw power to compensate where she lacked finesse.


    Soon, she held up the shimmering black tar-soaked shell. Black electricity danced from it to her skin, seeking a place to discharge itself and finding Elruin''s skin contained more power than it did. "This is my gift!"


    "Oh." Cali reached out, as if to pick up a dead mouse offered to her by a cat. She''d never owned a cat, in fact the closest thing she''d ever had to a pet was Lyra, whose idea of a gift was turning her house into an indoor jungle. "Woah!" Once she had grip on the strip of material, the energy pulsed outward into the lower, shallower ''pool'' that was Calenda''s energy pool. Once in the larger pool of a human woman, it wasn''t quite the significant power that it appeared to be when concentrated into a strip of tissue, but it did serve to restore some of her limited power before the remnants of chitin crumpled to the ground as black dust.


    Elruin sighed in disappointment. "I thought it would last longer."


    Lemia put a comforting hand on the girl''s shoulder. "That''s what test runs are for. We knew what we were creating was just the ''potion'' phase, and with what we learned we can move on to enchantment."


    Cali blinked. "Are you telling me you could turn that into an enchantment?"


    "Uh huh," Elruin smiled up in pride at her elder sister. "I can do it with any of my spells."


    "Don''t get too excited," Lemia said. "There is a significant gap between the power you got there, and what enchantment can do. What you experienced there was, for all intents and purposes, the same as you''d get from a potion. The permanent version might generate that much energy every six hours, and that''s if we do everything perfect and have quality attuned sarite to work with. But without a lab, a trained enchanter, and the perfect set of supplies, you''ll be lucky to one that can restore that much every twelve to fourteen hours."If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation.


    What Lemia left out is that no other enchanter could do the work they were doing. It normally took a creation mage to set the groundwork of permanent magic items, or so her scholastic experience had taught her. That negation magic could accomplish the same in its own odd way was nothing she had ever considered before. To her, negation was always a means to eliminate other magic, not add more.


    "At this point, I''ll take it. Good work, little sister." Cali rested her hand on Elruin''s head. "So, what do we need for the permanent version?"


    "A lot of things, but Lemia can explain better than me." Elruin was barely at the point of producing potions that didn''t explode or decay in mere minutes, let along long-term enchantment work.


    "To leave Sonhome, for starters," Lemia said. "We need fresh untreated leather of the highest quality possible. Which we can turn into... I suppose you could call it Necromantic Mageleather. We''ll want a supply of sarite to grind for dust, the closer to pure negation we can make the powder, the better."


    "But I thought there was no such thing as pure negation sarite?"


    "So you see our dilemma," Lemia said. "The best we can hope for is ''close''. Scourge aspect would probably be the ideal, not that I know where you''d find shards like that. But once we pull together all those supplies, it should take no more than a day or two to craft a basic magic armor for you. The best part is, if you''re near full strength, the bleedoff could even be used to hurt whatever you hit. I was thinking spiked gloves."


    "Not a weapon, or boots?" Cali considered herself much better with her feet than her hands, and thrown knives were her preferred backup option.


    "You want as much surface contact as possible, and the ability to take them off fast. This sort of thing will be visible to mages who know how to look, and once they start looking-"


    "Hush!" Cali hissed, then focused her eyes on the shadow in the distance.


    "Hey, outsiders," a dwarf shouted from the clearing. He, or she as the case might be, began the slow bipedal gait toward them. It was a show of respect, shouting from a distance before approaching. "My name''s Ketak, heard some rumors about you. I''m here to o''er my blade to your cause. And since it matters to you humans, I am a ''emale."


    Knowing she was a woman did matter, social norms being what they were. Now Calenda crossed her arms, ready to tell her to get lost without feeling awkward in the process. "Ours, specifically?"


    "Anyone going out to bash goblin skulls is a cause I can get behind," the dwarf said. "And i'' you wanna get on ''e good side o'' our leaders, the easiest way is to haul back a mountain o'' goblin corpses."


    Cali kept her eyes locked on the dwarf''s, unwilling to look at Lemia or Elruin for fear they might react to the idea of corpse piles. "We haven''t decided we want Sonhome''s help, save sending the message they already sent. It''s possible we''re about to double back into human territory, or march further north, straight into the Enge mountains. We have a number of concerns."


    "Like your hidden stash of centaur gold? It ain''t quite goblin hunting, but it''s a close second i'' I get a share."


    "One thing I love about dwarves, they don''t waste time," Cali said. "We''re not going treasure hunting, not any time soon, and we''re going to be dealing with human concerns, not dwarven interests."


    "So long as ''ese lead-scaled cowards remain hidden here, I ''ear no''ing will be dwar''en business. No matter how many o'' our sons and daughters die out there, we hide. Sooner or later, some''ing''s gonna come ''at our walls cannot save us ''rom. Sonhome will die as Helmar and Leteka died be''ore ''em. I'' I''m to die, I''d ra''er bring an army the size o'' ''e mountains wi'' me. I'' I can ''ind no reliable allies in Sonhome, then I seek them wi'' humans. Take me to one o'' your cities, and I''ll do ''e rest."


    "I''ll keep that in mind," Lemia said.


    "I can see you need to talk to your people. I'' you make a decision, come ''ind me at ''e trading ''orges. I''ll be ''eir, i'' nobody else has taken my o''er by ''en." Ketak turned and began her lumbering back to wherever it was in the city that she called home.


    "So, in my expert opinion, she''s either greedy, insane, or a spy," Lemia said once she felt they were outside hearing range even for a dwarf. "And I seem to recall you saying something about dwarves not being known for such things."


    "There are exceptions to every rule," Cali said. "But a spy- even a dwarven spy- would at least have given us a better lie."


    "Or she read up on Ecrosian literature," Lemia countered. "That speech was right up there with your ''die on my feet'' line."


    "I detected no deception from her. So she believes herself enough to beat a Truthsayer."


    "You''re not a mind mage!" Lemia stepped closer to Cali, not that she had any hope of intimidating the undead warrior who was two inches and at least fifty pounds heavier than her, all of it muscle. "I may not have that skill, but I know that if you''re not reading minds, you''re reading magic flow in the body. Does that work on things that aren''t at least close to human? Besides, even if she''s sincere, how long does that last when she meets Scratch?"


    "We can deal with that later," Calenda said. "But I think it''s clear we''re not going to see eye to eye on this. We should see what Rin thinks."


    "Did... did you just hand a tie-breaking vote to a twelve year old?"


    Cali gave perhaps the smuggest smile that any of them had ever witnessed in their lives.

 Chapter 46

    Suggested Listening</a>


    Elruin gave it some thought. "I think we should take her with us. She''s strong and we need lots of help to stop Claron." How the dwarf could accomplish such a goal was anyone''s guess, but Elruin couldn''t imagine how any of them could stop him either.


    "It means hiding Scratch, but I struggle to consider that a downside," Cali said.


    "Fine, I guess I''m outvoted, but for the record I think if Scratch was here, he''d be on my side, with a number of counter-arguments."


    "Trust me, I know." Calenda took a seat next to the nest. "So we''ll get our shopping done tomorrow. If we want to stick around here for a while, we could earn money and goodwill by clearing out the forests. If we want to take the morks up on their offer, we need our cart repaired, new animals to drag it, food, I could use new armor, and maybe some of that acid-protection sarite if we can find any."


    "Can we sell our bandit weapons? It might help."


    "Well, dwarves are always eager to buy scrap metal," Cali said. "I never knew why until today. But truth be told, we''re better off keeping them. We can''t afford weapons of high enough quality to replace what we''ve already got, and as fast as we cycle through Rin''s toys, equipment is better than some small handful of billon."


    "Or for experiments," Lemia added. "But she''s right, we need tools a lot more than money right now. Especially if we''re going to be in the wilderness which doesn''t care how rich you are, unless you used those riches to hire a personal army."


    "But we''ll finish our preparations tomorrow," Cali said. "For now, Rin needs her sleep. Right now, she represents more than half this team''s magic power. If she''s not in fighting form, we''re all in trouble."


    As Elruin slept, who older guardians did their work in private. Lemia, studying the notes on necrotempered leather while working on the rote process of crafting more venomfire. The thought occurred to her that if she got hold of some goblin toxins, she could make a truly terrifying bomb.


    Meanwhile Cali spent her time going through her martial arts routines, learning to adapt for the differences between her living and dead bodies. A core aspect of her entire style was understanding and awareness of her body at all times, which was hard to accomplish with her new unliving form. She''d been lucky thus far that they were fighting creatures, rather than intelligent foes, because any skilled fighter would spot her hesitation and exploit her mistakes.


    Morning came, and with it a hug from Elruin to Calenda and the energy restoration she suspected she''d have to rely upon for quite some time. She bristled under the knowledge that she was so dependent upon Elruin, but it wasn''t as bad as being under Garit''s thumb, or worse yet Claron. Here, at least the dependency was mutual, as the poor child had little chance of surviving on her own.


    Once back in the trading camp, it didn''t take long for Ketak to find them. "So, does ''is mean you want to work toge''er, now?"


    Calenda gave a nod, then took the role of team leader as nobody else seemed to want the role. "We''ve talked it over, and just need to make a few things clear. First, you''ll have to bring your own equipment. You can buy out of your own share of treasure we find. Most of which will be in the form of sarite. We can loan some of ours, but it will be a loan. This includes food."


    "Deal." Ketak didn''t hesitate, she was confident her equipment was better than theirs, anyway. "But not i'' you''re going on the ocean. Dwar''es don''t do well in boats. We part ways in the port, deal?"


    Calenda hesitated to reveal too much of their future plans. "Deal."


    "And second, we need you to synchronize with Rin," Cali said. "You are revealed, right?"


    "I am. What''s ''is about synchronizing?"


    "It''s a special technique that accelerates magic attunement between people," Cali said. "What''s important about it is that Rin''s death magic can hurt allies as much as enemies, so if we can establish some resonance, it makes everyone''s life a great deal easier."


    "Ah, is ''at what you call it?" Ketak looked at the little necromancer for a moment. "I should tell you, we dwar''es call ''at a marriage. I didn''t ''ink humans had ''at type of magic."


    "My team has... an unorthodox historian," Calenda said. "And more than one thaumaturgical scholar. I''m afraid we only use the magic for utilitarian value, not your cultural beliefs. I suppose we can waive the synchronization."


    "I didn''t say I wouldn''t do it," she said. "It''s a magic ritual, it means no''ing wi''out vows and duty, aside making us stronger. I wanted to see i'' you knew, is all."


    "We''ll need to purchase the last of our supplies first, then we can do the ritual somewhere private," Cali said. "It''s easier to perform when you don''t have to worry about interruptions."


    "Acceptable," Ketak said. "I''ll come wi'' you, keep ''em ''rom gouging ''eir prices."


    As it turned out, they hadn''t gouged their prices, not that Cali had expected they would. They burned through much of their supplies, providing a suit of chain armor for Cali, getting their cart fixed and some animals to pull it, and some other basic equipment such as several days of food which they might need on the road. The only unusual treasures they found were some sarite.This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.


    One, a powerful Forge shard that could hone a warrior to deadly accuracy, and another offered powerful regeneration and an aura of deadly poison that afflicted everything the wielder touched, including herself. That one went straight to Calenda''s hands, since she was immune to the poison. It turned out she was also immune to the regenerative effect, but it was better than nothing.


    Suggested Listening</a>


    Elruin sang of her abandonment, of her lost home, left to die in the wilderness.


    The soft echoes of Ketak''s scales changed the nature of the song, their shared pain.


    "Oh, Mother, you worry too much. These are some of the safest tunnels we have." The young man, Tetark, did not speak in either language Elruin knew, but she understood him nonetheless. He was a handsome, strong stone-brother, or so his mother thought when she ''sang'' of him. He was a good man, with freshly minted scales of steel ready to face the world and all its horrors.


    "But they''re fresh tunnels," Ketak insisted. There was nothing she could do to dissuade her son, for unlike the human society, dwarves did not grant any special authority of parents over their adult offspring, and it would be inappropriate to use clan authority.


    "That they are, but we are well prepared." Tetark gave his hammer a not-subtle pat.


    Ketak rested her hand on her son''s shoulder, felt the furnace within him as it is within all dwarves. "We all are, but promise not to rush to your death."


    "I promise, Mother."


    It would be the last moment they shared heat.


    Elruin sang, she sang of Calenda and her rescue, being taken to the safety of Arila, of being granted a new family.


    Suggested Listening</a>


    Ketak rejected her song, the first Elruin had ever experienced such a thing. Ketak refused to accept Elruin''s story. Her song of loss climbed in intensity, evolved into the song of the death for her sons, her daughters, and her home. The echoes of hope and mourning alike burned away, leaving nothing behind but hatred.


    "We have to run!" Her coward of a husband pulled her arm. "They''re coming up the tunnels! If we stay here, we''re going to die."


    "Then we die fighting!" She yanked her arm free, leaving long gashes in soft silver plating. "Send out the orders! Gather our warriors at the third banquet hall, use it as the choke point! Their only advantage is numbers, take that from them!"


    She rushed for the hall, herself. She would avenge her children, no matter the price.


    She never had the chance. There were hobgoblins in the halls well ahead of the choke-point, and they ambushed her on the path. Their acid-infused skin against her fire-infused claws. They fell screaming, their regeneration struggling against the cauterization of flesh. She screamed as well, for their toxic fluids took their toll, melting her claws and burning her fingers.


    Individually, they were no match for a warrior like her, but there were no individuals amongst the goblins. They were a mindless hoard, a swarm of ants, with no care to the numbers that had to die so long as the swarm triumphed.


    Still she fought, as the venom on her skin soaked inward, replacing the burning fire of her blood with the burning poison of theirs.


    Then, the rumble-snap as someone enacted the final solution. The caves began to collapse inward, the stone dropping layer by layer. Some cowards had chosen to sacrifice the life of Helmar itself, rather than risk their own.


    The stone fell atop them, crushing the goblins and Ketak with them. She survived, though it took her over a week to dig her way to the surface with her wounded claws.


    So she sang, of the power of hatred to push people to succeed where they otherwise could not.


    Elruin, unable to push for a more serene accord, changed her voice, sang of the struggles at her cousins'' farm, and the bandits who were not bandits but sought to kill the babies. She sang of her fear and uncertainty while fighting them alongside Cali, of killing them one after another so that other, innocent, lives would not have to fight. Changed a song of a past worth killing over into a future worth killing for.


    Ketak adjusted her song, sang of justice and defense, not far removed from her prior song of revenge.


    It was an imperfect synchronization, for there were many differences between Ketak and Elruin. One was a dispassionate human child, the other an obsessed dwarf mother, but both could find common ground that there were terrible people who did not deserve to live. Even if Ketak would feel rather offended by the implication that goblins were people.


    Elruin trembled, fighting down the stomach-churning emotions of being buried alive with the toxic remains of the goblins. The song could not be continued, not now, perhaps not ever, but it had served its purposes.


    Ketak nodded, as dwarven mouths were not made to smile as humans. "We ha''e an understanding."


    Elruin understood many things, now. She understood what fanaticism looked like. She understood that of everyone she''d ever met, Ketak would make the most terrifying of undead monsters. She understood that this woman would drive a species to extinction if given the opportunity. It took a great deal to rattle the little necromancer, but that sort of fervor was more than adequate.


    "We have an understanding."


    Soon, they left the safety of the walls through a gate that only barred them in so much as to warn them. "There are a lot of goblins in the woods," the hooded silmid warned. "Are you certain your team can handle them?"


    "E''en our protectors speak in terror o'' goblins," Ketak muttered. "Sonhome is lost, it simply does not know it yet."


    Calenda began to regret inviting the dwarven woman along, but they desperately needed the physical power she represented if they wanted to accomplish anything of merit. "I assure you, we are well equipped for the woods."


    They left the safety of the tree, then walked across the empty plains to the threat that was the forest. Elruin began to play her violin before she reached the edge of the forest, sending out the sounds that would tell Scratch they were returning to him.


    "Announcing yoursel'' to the entire wilderness?" Ketak said. "Can''t say I was planning to start ''is soon, but perhaps it''ll be better with ''e city so close. Let ''em see us ''ight, and maybe ''ey''ll stop cowering behind ''e walls."


    "I think she was announcing herself to me." A tall, bulky goblin stepped out from the tree line. He oozed black ichor from dozens of wounds that would have proven fatal twenty times over on a human.


    "Troll!" Ketak stepped forward, ready to rush the larger breed of goblinoid. Her scales shook as she drew upon her native flame magic. Trolls were tough, champions of the goblin tribes, but no goblin did well against fire. "Stay behind me!"


    "Relax, I''m on the good guys'' side." The threat of destruction meant little to Scratch. "For a certain definition of good."


    "You''re not dead enough to be a ''good'' goblin."


    Scratch stuck his actual head out from the chest of the troll. "I''m willing to take that bet."


    "Wh-what are you?" Ketak stepped to the side, then turned to look at the two mages and warrior that she now realized were allied with this creature. She was surrounded, but if they wanted to ambush her, they wouldn''t have given her this warning.


    "I am many, many things," Scratch said. "Undead abomination, centuries-old ghost, and aficionado of all the best sins. Narcissism is my personal favorite. For now, I am the thing that''s been out here killing goblins to stave off boredom. Except this one, I''ve done everything I can think of to kill it but it refuses to die, so instead it persists in an agony that no merciful being would inflict upon any living thing. Call me Scratch."


    Ketak hesitated while considering the circumstances. She had been taught her whole life that the abominations were the worst monsters of the world, and yet this was the first she''d met. It was a monster, and it seemed not to care if she knew it was a monster, but it was out here doing good work. "I''m Ketak. I hope you don''t expect me to shake your hand."


    "I can think of a better use for your hand," Scratch said. "Goblins don''t die easy, and I''ve been trying to find ways to kill trolls while leaving a corpse, and it''s not working. Come along, I''ll show you. All of you."


    "Why are you killing goblins?"


    "They tried to hurt Elruin, and that''s all the reason I need. Please, interpret that as a threat." Scratch slowed for a moment, then made his puppet hold his hand out to Calenda. "Here, some goblin sarite for you. Didn''t find much, and I''m pretty sure at least one''s dangerous for unshielded mortals. Better than nothing, I guess. But more important, I have replacement dolls."


    Scratch led them to a rocky pit not but a mile away from the clearing. In the spring, it would have been flooded with water. In the summer, it was a dry rock-covered gully. Now, it was an abattoir of goblin flesh. Dozens of the small ones, each impaled by the throat on sticks wedged into the rocks. Some larger ones who looked to have died asphyxiating on each others'' arms, and in the center another troll like Scratch currently used.


    It was impaled by a dozen spears holding its arms and legs in the ground, and at least a ton of rock sat atop its chest. Several crows pecked at its face, even as it tried to bite them, for though the rest of its head was held immobile by wooden spikes, the jaw was free to move.


    Lemia backed away, then turned and threw up on the rocks, while Calenda, Ketak and even Elruin looked on in shock at the massacre before them. Necromantic energy danced across the killing field, a small bonfire of taint that still failed to overcome the natural regenerative abilities of the troll. Several of the pinned goblins, however, had died some time ago, and were now struggling to escape their imprisonment.


    "Like I told you, these things don''t die easy." Scratch said over Lemia''s retching in the background. "I had to get creative."

 The World Dies in the Light

    Suggested Listening</a>


    Elruin sang to the fermenting pool of torture and death. Scratch''s taint pulsed through flesh that refused to let itself cease, so Elruin sped the process with her Requiem and Rot of Ages. With time and effort, her power squashed their regenerative power and allowed death to claim them. One after another, their struggles ceased and they joined Elruin''s control, even if that control was limited to four of the dozens of dead.


    When she had taken as many as she dared, she began to break down the remaining energies. Nothing good could come of leaving the taint to spread and grow, unless she wanted to replace the goblin threat with an undead one.


    The remaining members of the team considered the situation in their own way. Until now, Elruin''s collection of the dead had consisted of incidental undead, born of circumstance rather than deliberate cultivation. This was different, and nobody other than Scratch was quite certain how they felt.


    Ketak had never seen anything like this in any form, but she told herself the victims were worse, so it did not count. Calenda accepted it as a necessity of war, she''d made her peace with worse crimes. Lemia reminded herself that they were desperate and in need of any advantage they could get, especially in such hostile terrain.


    Scratch relaxed as the girl walked the desired path without knowing there was a path to walk. "And now you have what passes for your army back, what do we do with it?" In time, her control would grow to such that she could take the entire slaughter pit and a hundred times more, but it would be a long time before they reached that stage.


    "We can clear some more goblins for now," Elruin said. Perhaps motivated by her recent synchronization with Ketak. "They should be close." She began to sing again, this time she spoke to the remnants of the dead, forced them to reveal their last thoughts. It took some effort, but she could follow their trails, track their path through the woods. "They have a nest nearby."


    "You ''ound it ''at easy?" Ketak asked. "How?"


    "It''s a necromancer thing," Lemia said. "A little like the synchronizing magic you did with Ell, but only a little. I suppose you can think of it like they''re already synchronized, since they''re dead and she''s a necromancer."


    Ketak was many things, but her mastery of magic was almost exclusively offensive in nature. "I suppose i'' it works."


    "Cursory exploration only," Calenda insisted. "We cannot fight a whole goblin nest with however many hundreds of the things swarming us."


    Led by Elruin''s stolen memories, the quartet and corpse slaves made their way in the general direction of the goblin nest. They were aware that danger could come from any direction, and that.


    Calenda ran her hand along a tree. "I never could figure out how goblin acid will go through metal, clothes, and flesh, but never seems to harm the trees." She whispered; goblins weren''t known for having good hearing, but goblins were not the only threat in these woods.


    "Maybe we can study that, some day," Lemia said.


    Soon, they found their target, a hunting band of a dozen jumping from branch to branch in the trees. "There!" Elruin hissed, and pointed in the direction of the creatures. A quick, soft song awoke her goblin dollies, which took to the trees to intercept.Unauthorized usage: this tale is on Amazon without the author''s consent. Report any sightings.


    They moved in, with Katek using her forelimbs to aid her in running, not unlike a gorilla might. Cali took to the trees, while Scratch stayed back with the vulnerable mages.


    A pity, it wasn''t enough.


    The first batch of goblins died in a whirl of confusion, pain, and death, but they were not alone. The team could not know this, but goblins do have hearing well into the ultrasonic range which left them close to deaf to common sounds, but allowed them to communicate with one another over great distances. It was a communication method that almost reached the level of rudimentary hive mind.


    When that dozen died, another six dozen heard everything they needed about the numbers, shape, and behaviors of the killers. By the time the party realized what was happening, it was too late. They were surrounded on all sides.


    Calenda and Katek fought valiently against their foes. Katek, possessing true immunity to the most deadly of goblin abilities, tried to make her way into a position that would let her protect the less resilient mages, while Calenda was immune only to the poison, not the acid that began to eat its way through her skin. She was forced to rely upon her vampire shard to keep moving.


    Elruin blanketed the area in darkness, which did little to impair either side, and killed a few. Others burst into flames, the victim of Lemia''s alchemical weapons.


    "Fall back! More are coming!" Ketak shouted. As much as she wanted to kill every goblin, she knew the need for choke points and tactics.


    In the end, they weren''t overwhelmed, they got unlucky and Elruin was struck by a ball of the sticky, caustic ball of toxicity that was goblinoid waste. For a moment, she was confused. A moment later, she began to scream.


    "Elruin!" Calenda abandoned her fight, leaving Scratch to deal with her foes on his own as she made her way to her wounded sibling.


    Lemia was hit moments later, and then the goblins realized that there were at least two foes that could die easily. Eager to claim at least one life in recompense for all their dead, they converged on the vulnerable.


    Suggested Listening</a>


    Panicked and in indescribable agony, Elruin screamed her song, a necromantic bomb that flowed outward, killing everything in its wake. Lemia and Ketak were spared, virtue of their attunement to the little necromancer. The grass, the trees, and the goblins were consumed by necromantic power and rendered either dead or dying.


    Then, only after witnessing such horrific loss of life, did the goblins choose to retreat.


    Lemia, blinded in one eye by acid, gripped one of her shards as she stripped it of power to counter the chemicals melting her flesh. Another shard was enough to mitigate the worst of the poison.


    Elruin lay gasping on the ground. Her natural resilience fought the worst of the acid, but she had no special defense against poison and nobody on the team had a method to counter it. Gasping for breath, she turned her sight inward to watch her own heartbeat stop.


    I made Cali cry. Then nothing but oblivion.


    EPILOGUE:


    Lord Claron lost the special powers of the Chosen of Enge, but remained devoted to his god and controlled his territory by inertia, reputation, and violence. In two years he was crowned king of all Engeval''s kingdoms. Four years later, he would be assassinated. His disastrous economic policies left the kingdoms in ruin, and ultimately accelerated their collapse to the wilderness. A civil war would wrack the land for the next two decades, costing cities and farmsteads to the wilderness. When the dust cleared, the population and territorial control of Engeval had been cut to a tenth of what it had been before Claron''s rise to power. It never recovered.


    No longer anchored by Elruin, Calenda''s sanity deteriorated in a matter of hours. Retaining just enough of her humanity to take Lemia to safety, she returned to the wilderness and fought her way back to Engeval territory and began a one-woman guerrilla war campaign. Slowly, she lost sight of her reasons, remembering only the goal to kill every last member of Claron''s army. Six months after she started her campaign, she was destroyed by a force led by Juna and Garit. They never realized who she was or the significance of the tattered toy horse she carried with her.


    Lemia would survive the conflict, if barely. Scarred for life, she was carried back to Sonhome by Calenda, where she would spend the rest of her life researching necromancy and resurrection magic hoping to replicate what Elruin accomplished with Calenda. A little over three years would go by before she was discovered and executed as a rogue necromancer.


    Driven by her obsession and hate, Ketak continued her campaign against the goblins. She lived longest of the three, nearly a decade of war before she died of drowning when a particularly clever hobgoblin commander flooded their tunnels with a nearby lake. This would not be the end of Ketak''s story. She retained her identity, perhaps in part thanks to her connection with Elruin, and became a sapient undead. She then spread her taint to the rest of the dead goblins and eventually the entire lake. Fifty years after the events of Requiem, her tainted lake remains unassailable by any force in the broken empire.


    Scratch moved on. He would find six other necromancers, but none ever quite had the potential of a little girl who died long ago in a fallen empire none of them ever heard of. Then he gave up, as there were no more empires, no cities, no people hiding within those cities, no trueborn necromancers to sing for him. His last flicker of hope died long before Elruin was born, but only a millennium after her death did he relinquish the iron grip on his sanity. She was amongst his last recognizable thoughts.

 Chapter 47

    Suggested Listening</a>


    Elruin sang to the fermenting pool of torture and death. Scratch''s taint pulsed through flesh that refused to let itself cease, so Elruin sped the process with her Requiem and Rot of Ages. With time and effort, her power squashed their regenerative power and allowed death to claim them. One after another, their struggles ceased and they joined Elruin''s control, even if that control was limited to a handful of the dead.


    It was a pity taint was such a destructive thing, as there would have been quite a supply of sarite and alchemical supplies in this pile of corpses were it not for the consumptive energies of undeath. The solution, then, was obvious enough: hunt more goblins later, when they had the time and resources for proper study.


    When she had taken as many as she dared, she began to break down the remaining energies. Nothing good could come of leaving the taint to spread and grow, unless she wanted to replace the goblin threat with an undead one.


    The remaining members of the team considered the situation in their own way. Until now, Elruin''s collection of the dead had consisted of incidental undead, born of circumstance rather than deliberate cultivation. This was different, and nobody other than Scratch was quite certain how they felt.


    Ketak had never seen anything like this in any form, but she told herself the victims were worse, so it did not count. Calenda accepted it as a necessity of war, she''d made her peace with worse crimes. Lemia reminded herself that they were desperate and in need of any advantage they could get, especially in such hostile terrain.


    Scratch relaxed as the girl walked the desired path without knowing there was a path to walk. "And now you have what passes for your army back, what do we do with it?" In time, her control would grow to such that she could take the entire slaughter pit and a hundred times more, but it would be a long time before they reached that stage.


    Elruin gave it a thought, then made her choice. "We promised the morks that we would stop the bad men."


    "You made a deal wi'' morks?" Ketak sounded about as pleased with that idea as she was with the undead creatures now climbing out of the burial pit.


    "It''s a bit more complicated than that," Calenda said. "We found ourselves in a fight with a group of bandits, nothing too difficult, and then a mork pack came along, promised to show us where they had their main camp. Their assumption was that we''re motivated by taking the bandits'' wealth, and in exchange we... well, we don''t bury the dead when leave."


    "I''m not a fan, either, but we got a few secret weapons, in case they''re even dumber than expected." Now that Elruin had been so kind as to kill his puppet, Scratch was a lot more relaxed. Controlling a monster like this one while it lived taxed the upper limit of his ability. Dead, it was as silent and compliant as all of the necromancer''s dolls.


    "Hmm, can''t say I appro''e," Ketak said. "But I suppose morks are better ''an bandits."


    "We''ve got days of travel before it matters," Calenda said. "Ell, keep your new ''dollies'' in the rear guard. Scratch, you, too. Ketak, you take point while I scout ahead. Everyone keep your eyes peeled, I only like ambushes when I''m on the giving side."


    Suggested Listening</a>


    Lemia took another crunchy bite out of her ration bar. "Know what? I think I''m starting to like these things. The nutty flavor takes some adjusting to, but they have good texture and are filling. Compared to the entek slime at the school, this is luxury."


    Elruin smiled and gave a quick nod, unwilling to speak with her mouth full. It was rude enough to speak at what passed for the dinner table, it was unthinkable to have food in your mouth at the time. It appeared Lemia was not raised on such standards of polite behavior.This tale has been unlawfully lifted without the author''s consent. Report any appearances on Amazon.


    "I''m surprised a human would eat our ''ood." Ketak, too, showed no interest in basic politeness. She took another bite out of a small branch once attached to an oak tree. "Most o'' you don''t look twice be''ore going back to ''e salted meats."


    Lemia took the time to swallow her bite. "Why?" She looked at the remaining piece, took another bite while waiting for Ketak''s explanation.


    "Humans don''t like ''e same ''ings silmid like. Same as silmid don''t like human ''ood. Don''t get how you can get hungry knowing what you killed was ''illed with blood and guts and ''e same meat you''re ''illed with."


    "Sure, but that''s meat, we still like berries and nuts same as you do." Lemia''s chewing slowed, then stopped, as she looked down at the mysterious crunchy bits of the ration bar. "These aren''t nuts, are they?"


    "Some o'' it is. Walnuts, more likely ''an not." Ketak took another bite from her strip of tree. Dwarves could and did eat the same meal as their silmid cousins, but also ate a great deal of tree roots. Ketak in particular liked the crunch of bark and texture of tree fiber.


    As she stared down at her food, Lemia''s skin began to match Elruin''s pallor. "And the rest of it?"


    "Dunno, but were I to guess?" Ketak considered the possibilities as she chewed. "Meal worms are cheap, ''ind ''em in all sorts o'' silmid recipes. Crickets, maybe, but ''at''s higher class, maybe tarantulas i'' you''re a big spender."


    "Meal worms?" Lemia gagged, but held her stomach. "I''ve been eating meal worms for the last four days? I think I''m gonna be sick."


    "Not here," Elruin said. "Get out of the cart, first." She then returned to chewing on her snack, unconcerned that she was eating bugs. She learned long ago that one couldn''t afford to be a picky eater.


    "How can still eat that stuff?"


    Elruin looked at Lemia, and did not speak until she finished with her mouthful. "I can see it''s clean," she said. "It has lots less of the bad dust that live in people and make them sick than the meat does."


    Lemia stared at Elruin for a full minute. "Are... are you saying you can see the things that make people sick?"


    "Uh huh. They''re all really tiny, smaller than a fleck of dust, but when you get enough of them together I can see them. They can live inside your stomach or blood, and they''re all over your skin and food all the time. When you have too many inside you, it can make you sick. Everyone has them." She looked down at herself. "Except me, I don''t have any. And Ketak has lots less than you. I think they don''t like heat or necromancy, because dead things have the most bad dust, but my dollies have almost none."


    Lemia continued to think. "And what''s the places that have the worst bad-dust?"


    Elruin sat and thought, herself. "Uh, poop is extra bad. All... entek..." she hesitated to say the word, as it was a profanity she saw her siblings get in trouble for using before. "And meat when it starts to smell funny. Milk is bad, water can be bad, sometimes, if it''s not clear water. My brothers'' still, but the heat kills the bad dust so it''s safe to drink. For adults, I wasn''t allowed."


    "But alcohol can still make you sick."


    "Right, because it has poison in it," Elruin said. "But bad dust is different. It eats your insides and grows like a plant. Like taint, but alive. Cooking kills it, but it floats in the air so it comes back if you leave meat too long."


    "Ell, if you''re right about this, we could revolutionize the entire medical field." Lemia''s mind couldn''t begin to guess how many techniques could be developed to curb disease if it was more than just blood-mold-like things that ate people from the inside. "And you''re telling me that this... bug... food... has less of the bad dust than meat?"


    "Kind of?" Elruin squinted at her bar. "I think it has a different kind of bad dust, a kind that can eat bugs, but not people. But the stuff that eats animals also eats people."


    "What about plants, do they have bad dust, too?"


    "Some, but less than bug bad dust."


    "Sounds like the plan is to eat nothing but plants for the rest of my life."


    "Maybe?" Elruin went back to finishing her meal, without much thought as to the nature of disease or revolutionary medical thaumaturgy. She was still hungry, and the meager fill of the ration bars left her yearning for more.


    It wasn''t long before Cali returned from her jaunt into the forest, Scratch and his troll puppet not far behind her. "Good news, found the end of the mork trail. Ambiguous news, no sign of the morks. Bad news, these guys are equipped and fortified. They''re using an old fortress, has what looks to be the same architectural style as the centaurs. It''s not big, compared to our farmsteads, but it is well fortified."


    She knelt in the dirt and began carving a top-down map of the fort. It was an ovular design, with just a single wall and a couple squares inside that represented buildings. As fortifications went, a simple one, but simplicity worked in its favor if it needed to be defended by a small force.


    "We can write off my plan to sneak in and slit all their throats in their sleep," Scratch said. "They got a sarite bubble. Not a strong one, bet we could break it, but they''d know when we started."


    "Only way in is climbing the wall, or going in the front gate," Cali said. "I counted twenty guards on the walls, between the two shifts. For a fort like that, I bet it means a total of forty men are inside at all times."


    "Which means we rush the walls, or set up for a long term siege," Lemia said. "With Elruin''s goblins, we could get over a wall fast if we need to."


    "Or go under," Ketak said. "Maybe we can tunnel through, or at least sap a wall."


    "Or wait, ambush the first party they send out," Scratch said. "They don''t know they''ve been discovered, and that fort does not have enough space to feed forty men for long. They hunt or they starve."


    "Which brings its own risks," Cali said. "Much as I love any plan that takes some of them out early, we can''t afford to stay here forever. Claron is still active, and the longer he remains in power, the more dangerous he''ll become."


    "Can we trick them into opening the gate?" Elruin asked. "If we tunnel close, maybe we can climb out and surprise them, like the hobgoblins tried."


    "Normally, I''d reject that plan outright," Cali said. "They must have life-detecting magic, but lifesight doesn''t necessarily mean an ability to detect the undead. If they don''t have a necromancer, it''s possible they won''t see us until it''s too late.


    "We could take multiple approaches," Lemia added. "Sap a wall, then while they deal with that we go over the opposite wall. Or have the undead lead a direct assault while we sneak around. If we play to our strengths and hit them from all sides, I think our odds go up."

 Chapter 48

    Suggested Listening</a>


    The first attack on the barrier was meant to be the last. Elruin stood at the tree line, drew a slow, steady breath, then extended her arms forward, hands flat against one another like she was preparing a high dive. Everything she could muster into a single black bolt of power, invisible in the night fog that Calenda helped to create.


    Elruin dropped to her knees, exhausted of strength. She didn''t bring down the barrier, she didn''t need to, all she had to do was weaken it enough.


    .....


    "Here''s the most vulnerable spot," Cali said as she pointed on her map in the dirt. "Southeast corner. They don''t have enough shielding shards, so the barrier''s especially thin at this point. Also just so happens to be furthest from their barracks, so by the time they get men there, we can tunnel under the walls and come up the other side. We sacrifice the element of surprise, but there was never any chance of keeping surprise and getting through the wall. Near the north of the camp is our second best spot. We''ll target both. Ell, you''ll give the signal."


    Elruin nodded. "I have an idea, too. We''ll need as much water as we can get."


    .....


    Elruin dipped her hand into the bucket of crackling black energy, allowing her stored necromantic pool to return to her body. She had no way to know, but what she was doing would have killed most necromancers.


    "Troll! It''s a tr-!!" A sickening crunch ended the warning cry. Scratch''s troll broke through less than a minute after the barrier was damaged, and punched its hand through the closest guard''s faceguard.


    Another soldier appeared in moments, propelled by superhuman speed he severed the troll''s forearm with a single swing of his axe, then continued forward and sank into the troll''s chest. A true strike which left the troll''s heart bisected by steel.


    As resilient as trolls are, even that might not have killed it, but then the attacker gripped the back of the blade for the killing move. "Ignition." One whispered word caused the innards of the troll zombie to erupt into flame.


    In a twist of irony, an undead troll was in many ways weaker than a live one, as its natural regeneration was sacrificed. Against fire, the situation was reversed as the the bolstered toughness and strength of a walking corpse cared not about whether its organs had been reduced to ash. The woman with the ax did everything right to fight a troll. She did everything wrong to fight a zombie.


    A clawed, burning talon lashed out, gripped the woman''s hand, and the ax it held, then began to squeeze with enough strength to crush her armor, and then her bones. The other, severed, limb twitched around, grabbed her leg, and began crushing that as well. Metal folded, bone splintered, and blood pooled in the ruined pieces of armor.


    She screamed, kicked out, shattered the troll''s leg, and did not see the two goblins come out of the dirt with their spears. Nobody would ever realize it was her own brother''s weapon that slid beneath the backplate of her armor and inflicted the wound that would kill her.


    She bought time, however, for a dozen other armed men to arrive at the point of conflict. Armed with spears, the goblins were dangerous, but being undead they lacked the native goblinoid instincts and biology that made the creatures truly terrifying. Intelligence sacrificed for strength and toughness, useful in some situations, but being overrun was not the right circumstance.


    Then they swallowed.


    .....


    "We''ll give the goblins some of the spare weapons," Cali said. "I know, goblin bodies would be better suited as archers, but we didn''t stock up on bows, and the goblins stopped making toxins when they died. Bit of a blessing in disguise, I bet they''ll take the time to get anti-poison magic ready before they go out to fight goblins, only to find there''s no poison to fear."


    "Might I suggest something?" Lemia said. "I''ve been looking into the venomfire and its reactions. The way silmid use it, it explodes into a flammable powder, but if we, say, dropped a pellet in goblin toxins, we could get a pretty nasty explosion."


    "Still facing the same problem of the poison being dried."


    "Not inside their stomachs."


    .....


    The ball of necrotized flame exploded outward from the now-annihilated goblin corpses, capturing a total of nine people in their blast. For half, it was minor burns, for the other half it was enough heat to burn their unshielded eyes or lungs. They fell back, retreating from the explosion as those with healing magic found that their spells struggled against the wounds inflicted.


    The troll, now the sole body remaining of this necrotic cluster, recovered in strength. Its bones forced themselves back into proper shape, and the severed limb pulled back into place, as if held by magnetism. The wounded, the blinded, they were easy prey.


    It ignored the three closest, those dying on the ground from goblin-bone shrapnel which found itself in the open points of their armor.


    "There''s more!" A man shouted from another wall. "The goblins are coming this way, too! Dozens of them!"


    A man shouted orders, then began to rush the troll while more men were sent toward the wall. He drove the beast back with a powerful blow of his guisarme, taking care to use the flat of the blade, instead of the edge that ran the risk of getting stuck in the monster.If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, it''s taken without the author''s consent. Report it.


    A stream of necromantic energy caught him by surprise, numbing his limbs and for a moment blinding him. He shuddered, fell to his knees, then jumped to the side when another stream of power nearly struck him. "Necromancer on the wall!" he shouted at what few able-bodied men remained near him.


    To the north, men began to gather on the wall, looking out into the fog. "Where are the goblins?" One of them demanded of the guard who''d called them.


    "Right there, come closer!"  The soldier shouted, pointing down into the fog. "There!"


    The other soldier leaned over to get a better look. "Where? I don''t s- aaah!" He screamed as he fell off the wall, and landed face first on the ground below. The twelve foot drop probably wouldn''t kill him, which was better than Scratch''s new puppet could claim when he was impaled by one of his own friends. Then the wall rumbled beneath them.


    Scratch used his now-dead puppet to laugh. He hadn''t had this much fun in centuries.


    .....


    "Once the ambush has started, Scratch will abandon his troll, find some soldier, and lure others onto the north wall, where Ketak, Lemia, and the rest of our goblins will be waiting. Scratch sends a signal, then the wall comes down. I''m sure he''ll think of something obvious."


    "Can-do, Sis." Scratch forced his troll to salute, as best it could given anatomical limitations.


    "Let the goblins take lead, they do the fighting and the dying first, we can always get more later. Lemia, you need to spot their champions, then you and Ketak take them down."


    "Where will you be?" Ketak asked.


    "On the other wall, with Elruin." Cali said. "What looks at first to be the distraction will instead be the first wave of our pincer attack."


    .....


    A little girl began to sing.


    On the northern side of the camp, the wall rumbled and collapsed, claiming six more lives. Six more goblins, also already dead, rushed over the collapsed segment and savaged those who by luck or skill survived the falling stone.


    A burst of lighting lashed out, catching all the goblins and several bandits in brain-destroying electrical death. All fell, but the goblins rose again. Without a nervous system, without a brain, only the heat of the lightning had any effect on them. It was not enough.


    Moments later, another lightning bolt shot back over the wall, catching the mage. He was tougher than most lightning mages, but he was still amongst the most fragile castes of magic wielder. He stumbled back, used a windstorm to force the goblins away from him. Then he fell to the ground, gasping for breath as he drew on his sarite to replenish his strength so that he might escape.


    His eyes widened in terror when Ketak walked through his windstorm. Like most dwarves, she stood under four feet tall and weighed over five hundred pounds, it was rare to find a wind that would so much as slow her down. He brought his hand up, to cast another spell. A single swipe from hers left nothing but cauterized stumps where his fingers once sat.


    "Good news, of sorts," she said. "Surrender, and you li''e. Or ''ight and die. Your choice, but i'' I were you, I''d choose to die."


    The magic started to collapse around them, as the mage made his choice. He rolled onto his stomach, keeping his head down while the goblins ran around him into the compound seeking more bandits.


    "You''re a bra''e man, or a ''oolish one," Ketak muttered. "I suppose ''ere is no di''erence, when it comes to humans."


    On the other side of the fort, the man with the guisarme jumped up to the wall to face the necromancer. "A child?" He smirked. "Or something that''s meant to look like a child, at any rate."


    Elruin did not stop singing, for she could not. There were too many dead, too many who would come back soon. The storm of death and taint continued to grow with every passing second, far beyond the pit Scratch had created.


    The man twirled his weapon behind him, striking the second troll, the one that Elruin maintained control over. In that moment of vulnerability, a dagger tainted with goblin venom struck from behind. The man ducked under, which resulted in a troll with a dagger wedged in its forehead. A minor inconvenience at worst for the corpse.


    Now began the real offensive, as Calenda began her all-out offensive with the troll as her flanking partner. He had to face her down, as she had speed and strength to match his own, while treating the troll as a secondary threat. Between the two he had no hope of approaching the child necromancer. They kept moving, both fighting defensively while the troll lost bodypart after bodypart in the clash.


    Soon, it came down to the two of them. He was panting, while Calenda remained in peak form, despite having consumed much of her spare strength. Still, when it came to skill and strength, he had her beat. Were this battle to continue, she would lose.


    Pity, then, that she was already dead. Elruin sang, and she knew it was time. She allowed herself to falter, to make a minor mistake that resulted in the guisarme wedged deep in her chest.


    She just grabbed hold of the shaft. She wanted to issue a taunt, but the metal had blocked her wind pipe. Instead, she just smiled as a stream of necromantic power struck her from behind, and passed through her into him.


    He didn''t have time to look surprised, before he fell dead.


    Calenda pulled the weapon out of her. Still unable to speak, she gave it a couple exploratory swings. She knew what share of the treasure she''d be keeping for herself.


    Elruin continued to sing, chaining the necromantic storm to her will one section at a time. She fed half of it into Calenda, used the power to stitch her Elder Sister back together even as she jumped into the fray of facing the remaining bandits. There was little left as the battle went, but she needed desperately to scrub the necromantic taint before it became a threat to Lemia, Ketak, and the others she knew weren''t fighting.


    They soon walked empty streets. Half of Elruin''s dollies had been destroyed, as well as Scratch''s troll puppet.


    "They have puppies?" Elruin spotted the cage first, thanks to her lifesight. She approached the three slender pups that stood up to her hip. Their large fox-like ears folded down, as they hid in the back of their cage. They whimpered and yipped at one another, hiding away from the necromancer.


    "Wanna bet this is why the morks were so interested in our help," Scratch said. He was still without a puppet, but in truth he preferred to roam free than be stuck in a corpse. "I''d eat my own ass if these ain''t their pups."


    "Why would the bad men want mork puppies?" Elruin asked. As frightened as they were, the puppies were adorable. She wanted to give them all hugs.


    "Slaves," Cali said. "It''s all sorts of criminal, but if you get them young, morks make for useful guard animals. Far stronger and smarter than any normal dog, they can even serve as war mounts. There''s quite a price on the black market for intelligent beasts."


    "Why didn''t they tell us?" Elruin inched closer to the cage. "We won''t hurt you." The pups pressed further back into the cage.


    "Because then we''d know we had them over the barrel," Scratch said. "We could have negotiated for better terms, perhaps demanded they help fight the bandits with us. By pretending they were only tangentially interested, they got a better deal outta us that they might otherwise."


    Lemia ran out of the larger building. "Cali! Elruin!" She stopped, gasping for breath. "We have a problem. They have captives, some are in bad shape." She gave a pointed look at Scratch. "Ell, you need to stay out here and hide your dollies where nobody will be able to see them. Cali, we need your medical knowledge."


    This was when Cali learned her dead stomach could still feel queasy. "Right, I''m coming. Ell, stay out here, and leave the mork pups alone. They''ve been traumatized, and we should leave them until their parents arrived."


    Soon, howls began at the walls, followed by excited, desperate yipping from within the cages.


    "Speak of the coyote devil," Scratch said. "I''ll handle our employers, don''t worry, I speak their language better than you humans do. I''ll keep things vague without making any promises, but right now we''re not in a good position to double-cross them, so I suggest barter."


    "We''ll meet up in ten to discuss our situation. Lemia, could you take stock of the storage barn? I was about to, but..."


    "Sure, you''ve got the worse job, anyway."


    Some time later, they all returned from their respective tasks. Lemia and Ketak kept close to Calenda, so they could whisper to one another outside of Elruin''s hearing. "Physically, they''ll recover," she whispered to the pair. "The mental scars, I can''t begin to guess. And... I didn''t have the heart to tell them, but two of them are pregnant."


    Lemia closed her eyes, then nodded. She''d feared as much, given the condition she''d found them in. "Let''s take inventory, then." She spoke loud enough for the other two members of their team to hear. "We got six more donkeys and three more carts, enough food to last for a while, and more than enough leather for our little side project."


    "I lost most of my dollies," Elruin said. "Only two goblins survived. But I got four more dollies to replace them, and Mister Clackybones the Second!"


    "Enough weaponry to outfit a small army," Ketak added. "Twenty bows, spears and arming swords, hundreds of arrows, and basic chain or gambesons enough to fully armor fifty people, and enough coin to pay them all for a month. Though it seems they were paid more in alcohol than coin, there are more barrels in storage than we could hope to haul in just four carts. This was not a small operation. Oh, and one living prisoner, who I buried with our remaining goblin ''dollies''. I trust you want to talk to him."


    "Four men, seven women," Cali delivered the least happy news. "From what I could gather, they''re the remaining prisoners from three separate merchant caravans, being kept until they could be sold for ransom." She left out the other reasons. "Also a great deal of sarite. Most interesting is the shielding sarite on the walls. That stuff is hard to come by, and we can use it to hide ourselves while transporting the prisoners."


    "Not back to human lands, though," Scratch said. "They wanna go that direction, they gotta go on their own, because we can''t afford to let witnesses survive. Oh, and last but not least, we got three mork pups with their parents eager to get them back. Things will get violent if we say no, and I can''t promise they won''t get violent if we open the gates."

 Chapter 49

    Suggested Listening</a>


    Calenda felt ambivalent about the combination of lack of fatigue and the desire to express frustration via bodily functions which no longer came natural to her. She made herself sigh, but found it disappointed her. Weeks ago, she would have found some alone time to work out or take a nap, but those no longer offered the reprieve they once did, either.


    "Ell, pile the destroyed zombies and tainted corpses you can''t control in the far corner. Then have your controlled dead help take corpses up to the gate. Lemia, would you please go help the captives, use our Silmid cover names, and imply we have more members on our team without actually saying who they are." She smiled as a deliciously evil thought came to mind. "And, while you''re at it, mention an Inquisitor. Drop the word ''dominator''."


    "A what?"


    "Mind control mage. Nobody likes to talk about them, but they do exist." Lemia started walking to the gate. "Ell, come with me while your ''dolls'' do all the work. Have the goblins grab some bows and meet us at the gate."


    Calenda and Elruin took position atop the wall, with their pair of goblins at the gate and a small group of the dead behind them. Scratch followed, for lack of anything better to do and an interest in playing the role of political foil.


    "There they are." "The leaders." "We made a bargain." "Knew humans couldn''t be trusted." "Were we fools?" "So disappointing." Thanks to the power of the sarite barrier, damaged though it was, the morks had to communicate via standard vocalization, rather than the magic they had used before. As such, the seven of them could be seen from above.


    They moved as one, circling around each other and only speaking when their mouths were hidden from view, so they could retain the illusion that all and none were speaking. As tricks went, it was no less disturbing than when they were using the forests to hide themselves, but Elruin took comfort in knowing they were on the safe side of the magical wall.


    Morks chastising her about honesty? "But I recall no agreement one way or the other, when it comes to your puppies." From an objective standpoint, an outside observer would probably take the morks'' side in this scenario. They were, after all, seeking to get their children back, while she was an undead abomination made even more horrifying by her ability to circumvent many of the so-called ''absolute facts'' about the undead. "That said, we have no interest in keeping your children away from you."


    "Yet you stand there." "On the wall." "With our children." "We hear their cries." "Bandits slain." "We smell the blood."


    "Because we found human captives here as well. We can''t open the gates, until we get a promise from you. That said, I think we can make a new deal that benefits us both. But first an oath that so long as you''re willing to leave in peace, we''ll return your offspring. The rest, is us offering a little more in exchange for an arrangement I think will benefit us both."


    "We''re listening." "Speak your plan." "But give us our children." "And the other two." "Right, we heard only three." "Should be five." "Where are they?"


    Cali looked over her shoulder into the camp. "We haven''t seen any others. They must have been taken elsewhere." She hesitated to admit they took one alive, but at this point it wasn''t much of a secret. "I''ll be certain to ask our prisoner about it."


    "Good." "Make him suffer." "Make him scream." "Give him to us alive."


    "They''re lying," Scratch whispered in her ear. "They know there''s only three pups, they''re trying to play on your sympathies."


    "No promises." She had wondered, herself, but her form of Truthsaying didn''t work well on anything other than humans. "He knows a great deal that I want to know." More to the point, he knew too much about the strategies used in the assault. Every one of their team earned the death sentence twenty times over this day, especially Elruin. The irony was that at this point she and Scratch would be considered the least guilty of the team, for they were already dead and thus their actions were the necromancer''s fault.


    Soon, the gates opened, and two morks came through. Flanked by four armored zombies on either side of the gate, the pair of morks kept looking around in all directions, no doubt sizing up the defenses within the fort. There was no reliable method to determine how powerful beings were by looking at them, even with magical senses, but the piles of dead sent their own message.


    They rushed to the cage, the moment they caught sight of the pups, yipping and growling in their own language, unintelligible to human ears.


    Cali moved to open the cage, but the larger mork turned his head and bit down on the metal bars of the cage. With some effort and twisting, the metal of the cage warped and snapped out of their base, providing space for the pups, already larger than most adult dogs, to go free. Elruin wanted to give the fuzzy creatures hugs, but knew she had to settle for watching.


    Still alert, the pair of morks took to either side of their young, and guided them to the exit. Soon, they walked out, and the undead soldiers marched out behind them, taking position on the other side of the gate alongside the newly minted Mister Clackybones II. Elruin sang her corpses to the nearest patch of forest, well out of sight.


    "Okay, I organized the survivors as best I could," Lemia said. "One of the women was the daughter of a caravan leader, closest thing we''ve got to someone who knows what they''re doing. Ketak''s drafted the men, putting them in armor. They don''t seem to realize she''s a woman, and it''ll be easier for all of us if they don''t find out. She says none of them are worth a damn in a fight, but as long as they look like soldiers, we''ll be fine."


    "It''s something," Calenda said. "The morks are happy enough, for now. I''ll be doing more negotiations once they''ve talked to their children, made certain we did nothing to harm them.


    The author''s tale has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon."Still going through with feeding them the corpses?"


    "Don''t see what other option we have," Cali said. "We can''t take the corpses with us, we barely have carts enough for the living, and no matter what direction we head, it''s going to take a week to get this many ordinary people to any form of civilization. More if there are any delays, and with civilians there are always delays."


    "We can get there faster on Mister Clackybones the Second," Elruin said. She knew little or nothing about politics or caravans, but she knew her new warhorse could run much faster than the donkeys and their wagons. "He can outrun anything in the wilderness."


    "Ell, I''m pretty sure that your new ''horsey'' is a girl," Lemia said. "I mean, I think it is, I''m not an expert on horses, but it''s shorter than a male should be."


    "No, you''re right," Cali said. "I saw her when she still had some flesh attached, definitely a female."


    "Okay, we can still take her, right?" Elruin accepted the wisdom of her adult companions without hesitation. "Mister Clackybones says she''ll run as fast as she can for me, I bet I can get to Sonhome by nightfall. Then we can bury her when we get close to the city, like I did Mister Clackybones the First."


    Cali smiled at the little girl who failed to understand their point entirely, and decided not to address the idea that the mindless horse could say anything. When it came to Elruin, this wasn''t too unusual. "It is true, she can outrun anything I''ve ever seen. I don''t want to risk you out there alone."


    "You can come with me!" Ell said. "Mister Clackybones is strong enough to carry both of us."


    "Ell, before we do that, we all need to take a night to recover," Lemia said. She held up a small bag with a sarite crystal, one too dangerous for any of them to use thanks to the corruption leaking from it. It was a potent shard, to be sure, but its ability to bolster alertness, stealth, and spying magic came at the price of driving the user mad with paranoia. "Do me a huge favor and set up the alchemy equipment. We can use this to make Cali''s weapon, and perhaps a gift for Mister Clackybones, too, so we''ll need you to charge the water."


    "Okay!" Elruin marched toward their temporary camp.


    "Your adoptive sister is a helpful one, isn''t she?"


    "Yeah, she''s a good kid." Cali watched Elruin walk away. She worried about the girl who had gone through so much, then imprinted on her so thoroughly. She couldn''t imagine the horrors that might have been if someone less disciplined had provided a sense of family to the necromancer, and all the dangers which that entailed. "I worry about her."


    "Don''t worry," Lemia said. "We''ll stop Claron before he touches her."


    "Right." At the moment, Claron wasn''t the danger Cali was worried about. "I''m going to go back to negotiation, maybe get our cart inside before the morks eat our donkeys. Keep an eye on ''Rin'' while I''m away."


    "So now I''m a babysitter?" Lemia smirked. "I guess it''s an upgrade, since with you gone that means she''s your heir, right?"


    Cali made herself chuckle, to entertain the humor. "Not quite. You see, I never got married or had children, which means I had no claim to hand down. Any title she may have been able to claim died with me."


    "Oh, well, then if all of this falls through I still got my hair dresser career on the side. Speaking of, you need a touch-up." Lemia reached out, and touched Cali''s black hair. With a single brush of her fingers, the black came off on Lemia''s fingers. "When Elruin blasted you, it cooked the dyes. Would have cooked everything else, too."


    "When I get back, then," Cali said. A quick burst of strength took her to the top of the fortress wall, and then she hopped over to the other side. With her new weapon and armor, she felt confident enough that she could escape from the morks while the other undead soldiers helped fight them off. Besides, she could threaten that Elruin would use her magic to render all the food inedible and turn their dead against them. They didn''t know the limits of her necromancy.


    "Making friends, I see," Scratch slipped out of his hiding place in the soil.


    "Confirming for myself something I think you''ve known for some time," Lemia crossed her arms and looked down at the ghostly figure. "I just don''t get it."


    "If you''re fishing for explanations, I''m afraid I''ve got none to offer."


    "I meant, I don''t get why I''m the one you don''t trust," Lemia said. "You met Ketak for less than a full minute, and then you were all too eager to reveal yourself and show off your art project to her. Is it because you think she''s hot? Were you a dwarf when you were alive?"


    "If you must know, it''s because she''s a fanatic," Scratch said. "We all are. We have goals so important that we will sacrifice our lives, and our afterlives, if that''s what it takes. I understand Calenda, who chose to die rather than accept slavery no matter how gilded her chains would be. Ketak''s revenge, too, I know it, and I know how to harness it. You''re the anomaly, because you value nothing higher than your own survival. That makes you the weak link."


    "Which makes them ever-so-easy to manipulate, is what you''re implying. We both know that''s bullshit, fanatics can''t be controlled for long." Lemia kept watching the ghost for some tell, aside that he stopped joking whenever she got close to anything important. "I notice you left one name out when discussing motives."


    "And I shall continue infuriating you with lack of information about me until the day you die."


    "Not you, you''ve proven your ''fanaticism'', not that I consider it a reason to trust you." Lemia turned to follow Elruin''s wake. "I was thinking of Elruin. That girl is many things, but fanatic she is not. Which means you don''t think her motives matter, for reasons I''ve yet to decipher."


    "Is that what you''re hung up on? Elruin doesn''t need the same motivations for me to trust her. She''s a necromancer, that''s all that I require."


    "I noticed, and one day, I''ll figure out why." Scratch was wrong about her, she had goals beyond survival. What she wanted, more than anything in this or any other world, was answers. One day, she would have them. For now, she needed to help the key to those answers build a present for her sister.

 Chapter 50

    Suggested Listening</a>


    Elruin stifled a yawn despite her excitement; she had spent half the night working with Lemia, and only had a few hours of sleep. "These are yours!" She held out the pair of ebon-black gloves, oblivious to the wisps of black mist trying to burn away her life energies.


    "Fingerless gloves?" Calenda lifted the gloves with her fingertips; despite being dead for the last couple weeks, she still had not overcome her aversion to obvious necromantic energy like that which bled off of these. The black smoke worked its way across her arms like ephemeral leeches, but instead of stripping her of strength, they melted into her skin and began a slow restoration of her power. "These seem... a lot stronger than I was expecting."


    "Thank you!" Elruin said with her best smile. "I worked my very hardest on them!"


    "We may have cheated a little," Lemia said. "Or a lot, depending on who you ask. Normal magic equipment has more failsafes to protect from magic than actual magic. Nobody wants a flaming sword that melts the hand of the guy holding it, or a charm that boosts the strength of your enemies as well as yourself, or bleeds magic into the environment because it lacks a reservoir. We included none of those failsafes. You''ve got an artifact which only exists to slowly generate necromantic energy, with no attempt to control or contain the power. Your body does that for us."


    "Breaking all the rules." Cali slide her fingers into her new gloves, and it felt incredible. Black lightning jumped from her fingertips down her wrist as she balled her hand into a fist. It would take some time to replenish her magic reserves, but her reserves would be replenished. "This can''t be legal."


    "You have no idea," Lemia muttered. "If Professor Abrax heard I made a device like that one, she''d petition to delay my execution long enough to retroactively fail me out of every class I''ve ever taken, then have me pressed with my own books and research papers."


    "You like them, right?" Elruin stepped between the adults and their conversation.


    Cali reached out, and rubbed Elruin''s head. Now that the excess magic had been absorbed into her, the gloves took on the dark brown coloration of worked leather hide. "Almost as good as a constant hug from my favorite little sister."


    "You''re welcome." Elruin gave Cali a hug anyway, to make everything that much better.


    "I better get back in the gates," Lemia said. "You''ll have to get ''Mister'' Clackybones'' saddle on, yourselves. I sized it, but I can''t touch that leather now that it''s been enchanted. We should be out in half an hour."


    Cali laughed. "So, see you in an hour?"


    They parted ways, leaving Lemia to the impossible task of herding civilians while Cali and Elruin went through the equally impossible task of weaving leather straps through a skeleton in order to keep a saddle in position on an animal lacking skin and flesh. Only after the saddle was attached did its effect become known, as black ink spread outward around the horse, cloaking the creature in darkness.


    Calenda gave the effect a critical eye. "Hmm, this almost works. Maybe with some effort and more leather, we could disguise it entirely." Where the canopy did best at blocking the sun, the effect was a beast shrouded such that it was impossible to identify as a horse at all, let alone one lacking flesh and blood. Where the sun broke through, darkness failed, leaving yellowed bone clear to the human eye.


    Elruin hummed a couple quick notes, which prompted the skeletal steed to its knees, and thus Elruin took her place on the saddle. "Good girl." The necromancer stroked the bones of its neck, as if imagining the horse had a mane.


    "Honestly, I never had much use for horses," Cali said as she took her place behind Elruin on the saddle. "They never had much use for me, either. Who knew that dying would broaden my outlook on life so much?"


    "Beats the alternative." Scratch walked out of the ground diagonally, as if ascending from a basement. "But I''d wait another century or two before I started singing its praises."The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.


    "I thought the plan was for you to go with Lemia''s group."


    "And I changed that plan," Scratch said. "Couple of those captives kept looking in my direction even when they shouldn''t be able to see me. I doubt it''s anything, but you don''t get to retirement age by being by being foolhardy. ''Sides, how could I miss on the joy of watching our young mistress take her first steps into becoming a general, complete with an army at her back? Speaking of, you''re about to miss the procession."


    Clackybones rose to its feet, then trotted near the edge of the forest, where the gates were opened and the procession of seven carts left the safety of the walls for their trip to Sonhome.


    Nearby, the morks left the edge of the wilderness and watched the wagons. Shouting and pointing at the giant beasts came from the caravan, only to quiet when each and every mork knelt on their forelimbs and tilted their heads down as if to bow as the procession went by.


    Scratch rubbed his nonexistent hands together. "That''ll get ''em talking ''til the day they die and maybe beyond. Gotta say, that ''dominator'' lie was absolutely devious, it almost makes this ''saving people'' nonsense worth the headache."


    As soon as the wagons disappeared into the forest, the morks rushed the abandoned fortress, intent on claiming their prize of not-quite-fresh human meat, and whatever else they might scavenge.


    "Now for the second dumbest part of the plan," Scratch said. He jumped off his perch on Clackybones'' shoulder, then floated through the greatly diminished shielding.


    Elruin sang in earnest, and her army began to move. Seven armored soldiers, stronger than they had been in life and incapable of defying their orders, began to march on the fort''s opened gates. They stopped at the entrance, an honor guard for Elruin and Calenda. Four of the skeletons walked off in sets of two, heading for the last remaining sarite crystals on the walls. Meanwhile the largest of the morks, a grizzled and scarred veteran, stood face to face with the procession.


    "Our deal is satisfactory?" He spoke without the echo-trickery his kind so preferred.


    "More than," Cali said. "We will return as we can, but expect this place to attract monsters within hours of our leaving. It will all but certainly attract scouts from the human lands, who may or may not work for a man named Lord Enge, within the week. Make contact, learn what they seek, feel free to lie to them and take whatever bribes they offer. We''ll make contact later as we are able, with a plan and greater bribe than theirs."


    "It has been... profitable... working with you." The grizzled mork turned and returned to the rest of his pack, and their feasting upon the piles of dead.


    The zombies returned carrying the four remaining shielding sarite crystals that hid the fortress and its human magical essence from the world. Soon the fortress would be overrun by the denizens of the forest, investigating the magical essence that attracted the real threats to human settlements. Such a small location wouldn''t draw in the true monsters like dragons, but even a pair of chimera would be a threat too great for Claron and his people to ignore.


    Knowing what Scratch had informed them of, that the essence of the dead had a habit of ''sticking'' to the living, Cali considered the possibility that the monsters sought fragments of human souls to augment their own strength. There weren''t many creatures with natural intelligence in the world, and all of them attracted ceaseless hordes of monster assaults. Humans, silmid, and some reptilians used sarite shielding to hide, while goblins used their toxins and prodigious reproductive speed to drive off attackers, but all natural sapient life were at constant war with nature.


    She tensed her fist again, as if to test Scratch''s theories. It was true, she felt notably stronger after the battles they''d fought, and she was becoming convinced that it was more than just Elruin''s magic that caused it. Elruin was also stronger, and Lemia had progressed from a fragile waif to someone who could be a good soldier with some training.


    "What are you thinking about?" Elruin asked.


    "What Scratch said earlier, about us getting stronger thanks to all the things we''ve had to kill," Cali said. "I didn''t want to admit it at first, but I think it''s true."


    Elruin thought for a moment, but couldn''t decide why it was so important to Cali. "Why are you sad?"


    Cali looked back at the fortress, and the small army of soldiers which followed in the wispy smoke of Clackybones'' wake. "I always knew the world was violent and unforgiving, but I accepted that as the nature of life. Now, I learn that it''s more than that, that nature is no different than man, slaughtering one another for power. We live in a world ruled by death."


    Scratch began to cackle with a cruel, bitter laughter.


    "Is something I said funny to you, ghost?" She hadn''t expected Scratch to care about her existential crisis, but he could have kept quiet. "I''m having a moment with Elruin, thank you."


    "Nothing funny about it at all," Scratch said. "In fact, I''d say it''s the least amusing joke ever spoken by human lips, and that''s saying a lot. Some day, I may even let you in on it."


    Suggested Listening</a>


    The days of travel had been long, frustratingly so for the dead army which was forced to stay apart from the humans they protected. It seemed like half the day, every day, was wasted on the biological annoyances of humanity which were little or no trouble for the army of corpses. Elruin, yes, still needed rest and food, but she could sleep in the saddle while Cali carried her, if needed. Still, they kept their distance, made a week of a journey that needed take them only a few days.


    During one of their many needless breaks, Scratch took a rare moment to get serious. "Hey, Dark Queen of Dollies and Death, what are you going to do? Later, after we put Claron on the proper side of the great divide?"


    Elruin didn''t so much as hesitate. "Cali and I go back home and live happily ever after, like both of the fairy tales where the children don''t get eaten."


    "That''s sweet of you, Ell, but I don''t have a home anymore," Cali said. "Don''t feel sad, though, I like it better this way. Free."


    "Oh," Elruin stopped and put more thought into the question. "Then I want a nice big farm with strong walls that won''t fall over in the rain. Where we can live happily ever after, and my dollies can do the work and make lots of crops so we can feed everyone and make money and have a nice house with a big library and Lemia can be there, too, with an alchemy lab and everyone will be happy forever."


    "All of your power, and that''s all you want?" Scratch pretended to lean against a tree. "You could be a queen, with time a goddess, and you''d rather be a farm girl?"


    "Uh huh." Elruin laid head down on Cali''s lap. "Queens have to deal with nasty people like Claron and do all sorts of boring things. I want a nice farm and all the books to read. And a bed made of stuffed animals."


    Cali rested a hand on the girl''s head. "It''s a lovely dream, Ell. I''ll do everything to make it happen."

 Chapter 51

    Suggested Listening</a>


    Click-Hiss-Click listened to the chorus, the shared language of the goblins. Shapes formed in her mind, a map of the sights her southern forces saw of the tallskin caravan. Soon, she saw a full map, one which she could travel in three dimensions through with her imagination, as if she were there in person and able to fly.


    She gazed upon the tallskins, some clad in the metals they stole from the earth, just as they had stole that earth from her kind. She saw a scalethief with them. Perhaps none epitomized the nature of the Usurpers as the hideous mammals which pretended to be as reptiles, stolen scales made from the stolen metals of the stolen earth.


    Her own mother once told her no other species possessed their situational awareness, nor the mental capacity to understand the experience. This was proof enough of their superiority over the Usurpers who lacked such minor mental talents.


    The traitorous voice in the back of her head asked the question she had never dared voice, never admitted to herself: If they are so inferior, why do they possess grand cities while the goblins hide in caves?


    She squashed that traitorous, heretical, thought with the practice of long decades, and converted it to further rage. For the answer was simple: the mammals stole their accomplishments from the goblins and other reptilians. All which the mammals possessed was stolen from the rightful masters of this world, or stolen from the world itself. Their weapons, their armors, their magics, all tools stolen from nature for they were too weak to fight on their own. Liars, thieves, traitors, Usurpers.


    She called ahead, sent the message along the chain of goblins which monitored the forest for foes, alerted her children to the opportunity for war. Dozens would die, such was always the cost of their conflicts, and in the coming weeks she and her daughters would breed constantly to replenish the lost. She placed her hand on her own gravid stomach. Her first clutch would be born in a matter of hours.


    Shouts of alarm and fear echoed back from the scouts circling around to harass the caravan into rushing unprepared into their hobgoblin ambush.Those that are not living follow behind. She fell into the mapping message of her children and grandchildren, witnessed the unnatural walk of dead tallskins. Then she recognized the source of the abominations, a tallskin of midnight hair and moonlight skin which rode atop a horse made of nothing but bone and black mist.


    "It is the Tainted One! It returns with more Evil than before! We can destroy it! Give us our orders, Mother!" Her children shouted through their ultrasonic language, their wills joined. They thought and felt as one."


    Almost all of them did, anyhow. "Back away!" She sent out her orders, as bile choked in her throat for her betrayal of her offspring and their holy crusade.


    "But, Mother! The abominations are worse even than mammals." The voice of Hiss-Spit-Click, the most dutiful of her daughters. "And mammals that ally with abomination are the most profane of all things!"


    Click-Hiss-Click trembled, for she knew her daughter was correct. Mammals, Usurpers though they are, were designed to exist within the world. Abominations were a blight born of mad gods, a pollution born in the diseased flesh of their wounded world. They should not be, should never have been. "No, do not act with haste."


    "No! This is the one that slew so many of our brave brothers, that turned us against our own, that murdered our sisters! Look, the Tainted One still keeps two of our sisters trapped in unholy slavery!" The songs rendered echoes of two of her grandchildren, their bodies desecrated by undeath and forced to carry tallskin weapons, no doubt to battle against their own still-living family.


    Her horde cried out to her, for her blessings to fall upon the abominations, to sacrifice themselves in the Most Holy Duty of destroying the tallskins and their abomination slaves. She could not give the order, however. "The Black Spirit was untouchable. It will spread its taint as it did before!" Their greatest shamans were not enough to cleanse the land last time, and it looked to be stronger now than before.


    "Then we must fight all the harder to atone for our failure! Slay the Tainted One! Destroy the necromancer before it grows too strong for us to stop!"


    "They march upon the scalethieves'' land. Let them destroy one another." Her body shook with rage and disappointment as she lied to her family, her gods, her duty, and herself. She knew the scalethieves would not turn upon the Tainted One, for they supported its evil.


    To atone for her failings, Click-Hiss-Click hugged herself, dug her own claws into the meat of her shoulders, and flensed herself. As fast as her flesh stitched itself back together, she dragged her claws through it yet again. She wailed in the forests, screeching as she both hugged and mutilated herself in the name of futile rage.


    Suggested Listening</a>


    Once in dwarven lands, Elruin''s skeletons moved around and ahead of the caravan in the night, to dissuade the goblins. She would never know how effective her ploy had been, as the dead took position to protect the living child as if planets orbiting a star.


    Calenda took a stance, facing the Elruin. "So, up for a little more training?" It was to Elruin''s benefit as well as her own to teach the girl how to defend herself in direct combat.


    "Okay." Now that she''d had some training in school, and experienced the brutality of war for herself, Elruin understood the necessity in learning to fight to protect herself. She sang to her magic, focusing all her strength into her defensive magic.


    Cali bolted forward, avoided Elruin''s clumsy slash of her stiletto, then struck outward at the girl''s face. She stopped at the last second, before she broke Elruin''s nose. Even if she was inclined to give the girl a repeat of her own childhood, she didn''t have the healing magic to make it work. "You need to learn to move," she said. "I know, your nature is in part that of an earth mage, but time mages don''t have the same resilience. If you don''t learn to evade attacks, you''ll be picked apart by fighters like me or annihilated by a fire mage."


    "Sorry, Sis, I got a better theory: kill everything that looks at you, before it has a chance to look at you," Scratch said. "They call that ''preemptive defense''. The best kind of defense."


    "You remind me of my family."


    "Thank you."


    "That wasn''t a compliment."


    "It wasn''t a sincere thank you, either," Scratch said. "You ladies have fun, but not too much fun. I''ve gotta go next door and help the college girl study for her test again. Oh, and if you wanna encourage Elruin to get stronger, have her try casting spells on you instead of against you. I''ve seen what a time mage can do with the walking dead. The effects are hilariously violent. But, well, test it on the puppets first. Wouldn''t want to break a doll like you."


    Calenda waited until she felt certain Scratch was out of earshot before she spoke, just to avoid admitting that the ghost had a point. "So, do you think you could use your magic to augment the dead?"


    "Maybe?" Elruin''s purple eyes turned black. "Show me how you do it. Slowly."


    "Alright, it''s been some time since I got back to basics." Calenda took a slow but unnecessary breath, one of many exercises that no longer mattered for her but were ingrained in her habits. A slow draw of power was safer and more efficient than rapid burst power, but speed trumped power in combat more often than not. She started to revisit that theory, now that her body was no longer living. Maintaining maximum strength would rip living muscle to shreds, but as life conspired to remind her, she was no longer a member of the club.


    For now, she went through her warm-up routine, shifting from footstep to footstep and hand position to hand position while Elruin watched her routine with rapt attention.


    Elruin began to hum, and as she did, the army of dead men began to emulate Cali''s motion both physical and magical. Calenda continued to move, Elruin kept the corpses moving as well. Cali heard them, felt them, and then she touched the strings that made them move. Most were born of Scratch''s corruption, outside her control, but one of them was her own victim, sacrificed on the altar of the vampiric shard she had to rely upon before getting her gloves. She tugged at those strings.


    Elruin changed her song, relinquished control to Calenda, who now watched herself through the dead man''s eyes. "This is going to take some getting used to," Cali said through two sets of mouths. Or tried to, at any rate; the zombie''s vocal chords were not as well preserved as her own. "I... think... I can... use this." Cali''s voice was halting as she sorted out which body was her, and which was the enslaved corpse.


    She pushed her energy into the body, used it to follow her own dance, then without fear of her own wellbeing, she began pushing the body past what had been her breaking point while alive. She felt her real body grow weaker as she burned through reserves. "How''s this look, Ell?"


    "It''s beautiful," Elruin said. Then she sang in earnest, amplified the song within the corpse, and began to adapt her Delirium and Empowerment magic to fit the structures she witnessed. She constructed a new variant, one which did not need a mind to enrage so long as it possessed a magical structure she understood, as with the undead.If you stumble upon this tale on Amazon, it''s taken without the author''s consent. Report it.


    "Wait! Too much!" Calenda shuddered as the anger in the magic started to wash back into her. "I will not be controlled!" She forced the body to punch a nearby boulder with all the strength she could muster. The zombie shattered its own arm, splintering every bone from fingers to elbow in addition to numerous other broken bones in the shoulders and ribs from the velocity and power of the force. The stone itself withstood the blow with numerous cracks, but otherwise in one piece.


    "Sorry!" Elruin rushed to her sister. "Are you hurt?" In the background, the zombie collapsed to the ground, its dead flesh destroyed by the overwhelming magical energy which had been pushed into it.


    "I''m fine!" Cali brought her hand up to her head. "I''m fine, really, sorry for yelling. After going so long with my emotions muted, it caught me off guard. But maybe we should call it a night?"


    "Okay," Elruin offered a timid smile. "Sorry."


    Cali smiled back, then wrapped an arm around Elruin. "Don''t be, this is going to be incredible next fight we get into. I should apologize for breaking your dolly, now off to bed with you. I think we''ve had enough excitement tonight."


    Suggested Listening</a>


    Cali and Elruin were last to enter the city, long after the others so that they weren''t seen as part of the group with the refugees. The extra secrecy probably wasn''t necessary, since it would take time for the former captives to find a means to return to Engeval territory, but the more steps they could take to obscure their actions from Claron, the safer they felt.


    As soon as they entered the city, Lemia found them. "In spite of my earlier objections, I did what we agreed and gave all the money we took off the bandits to the refugees. Every coin. Go ahead, Truthsay me."


    "You did a good thing." Elruin gave Lemia a hug to make her feel better since she lost the vote. "We gave the money back to the people it was stolen from." Not quite accurate, but as close as they were going to get under the circumstances.


    "I guess so. I just wanted to get something out of bandits trying to kill me besides the warm fuzzies, y''know?" Lemia gave Elruin a return hug. "Besides your new toys, of course."


    "Oh, we got quite a bit more than that," Cali said. "Shielding sarite is expensive stuff. More importantly, with that much of it, we can use it to hide us from just about anything. Monsters won''t detect us, espers will overlook us, and anything short of a minor god will be unable to find us with magic. Notice how nothing attacked us on our way back? Our lives in the wilderness are a thousand times easier, as long as we don''t have too many people with us."


    "How many is too many?" Lemia knew about shielding sarite, but she hadn''t realized it could be used when not on a wall. "It can''t work as well as it does when stationary, can it?"


    "No, it''s not as good as on the walls. I''d say we can hide about thirty sapient beings. Animals and other things follow different rules, but are usually less visible than people. A group our size will be invisible."


    "Good to know." Lemia still have been happier to keep the money and let the refugees have the excess carts and other supplies, but the promise of fewer monster attacks was worth the risks they took in the siege. "So, did Scratch tell you I found a nearby ruin I think is full of treasure?"


    "He also mentioned one that might have a weapon we can use on Claron," Cali countered.


    "He has no idea, he just said it was once a home of scary magic, refused to elaborate at all. Unless he told you something he refused to tell me?" Lemia waited a moment to see if Calenda had more information to provide. "I found what must have been a front line fortress against the desert invaders. It has to be full of magic weapons, and defenses that could hold up against a full magic beast siege. If we take it, we''ll have a permanent base of operations."


    "If any of it still works," Cali said. "If the centaurs didn''t take it with them when they abandoned the place or died. If looters didn''t steal everything of value before our grandparents were born. There are too many unknowns."


    "Still better odds than this ''well of void magic'' that Scratch says he can''t explain or predict but is certain must still be there."


    A pair of silmid interrupted the conversation. This pair wore the robe uniforms that were the only clothes the girls had seen any silmid wear. "You are Esra, correct? Our council needs to speak wi'' you."


    Cali sighed. "Take Rin to a bath, see about shopping, I''ll meet back up with you-"


    "Our apologies, priestess, but we were told to bring you and your companions. It is a matter o'' urgency."


    Calenda considered for a moment the possibility of a trap, but if it were it was already too late. Even if they had the strength to fight their way through dozens of dwarven and silmid warriors, somehow open the gates, and escape into the wilderness, this city was protected by two beings of power equivalent to Lyra. They lived or died at the sufferance of their hosts for the time being. "If it''s as essential as you say."


    Suggested Listening</a>


    The trio followed the silmid guards, neither of whom admitted to any knowledge of what the meeting was about, save that the highest members of the council would be there. They were led deep into the city, toward a massive growth almost identical to the one Lyra crafted.


    "It even feels the same as Lyra," Cali said as she stared up at the branches. Somewhere in those leaves, a pair of incredibly powerful dryad nested. If nothing else, they could feel safe from Claron while here in this city. Now if only they could feel safe from the city''s guardians.


    "It smells like Lyra, too," Elruin said.


    The inside of the great tree was different, as hollow as the Lyra''s creation, but there were no rooms or flooring. The many silmid in the building scaled the trunk to get to the platforms where they needed to go.


    "We head downward," the guard said. Roots seemed to have shaped themselves into a long, winding, narrow leading deep into the heart of the earth.


    As they went down, they found that natural light faded to nothing, yet they could still see thanks to an omnipresent blue glow that seemed to emanate from nowhere. Cali smiled at the familiar presence of edible moss dangling from the roots now above them.


    "More than Lyra, this place feels a little like the shelter," Lemia said. "It serves a completely different function, but something here was built by the same architects that crafted the ruins Arila was set atop of." The centaur-demons that Scratch had spoken of, if he spoke truth. That the monstrous slavers of every child''s horror story, the ones that it appeared were once real, were also the crafters of such wonders still proved difficult for Lemia to grasp.


    "Communication magic," Elruin said. "The artifact sends a message. I bet it can be heard anywhere in the world."


    "Such insight in one so young," an elderly voice said. "Perhaps it could reach across ''e world, but it can speak only to its sister constructs."


    Now that they had reached the bottom, they could see the vast room, and the numerous silmid and dwarves which had been awaiting their arrival. "Honored Elders," Calenda clasped her hands together and bowed, an act which her companions imitated. "To what do we owe such honor?"


    "Oh, don''t encourage ''em," one of the elder dwarves said. "You''re loyal to a ''oreign crown, no ''alse platitudes, i'' you please. Now let''s get on wi'' ''is war meeting."


    "War meeting?" Calenda blinked. "You''re getting involved?"


    "Not as such." A silmid of solid white said. As she spoke, she moved her hands over the shapes of the artifact. "We merely pro''ide the means."


    Suggested Listening</a>


    Magic burst from the stone device, warped around it, then the light shifted until they stood in an ancient but well maintained stone building. Several examples of centaur art stood, carved into the walls, with a man and woman in finery standing in the middle of the room.


    Calenda dropped to her knee, head down. "My liege!"


    Lemia dropped a moment later, followed by a confused Elruin a moment after. She had never bowed like this before.


    "Rise," the woman- the queen- said. "We owe you too great a debt."


    "As you command." Lemia rose to her feet, followed again by the other two. "To what do we owe the honor?"


    "I''m afraid there is little honor to offer." The queen put her hand on the elbow of the man next to her. "I admit, I was skeptical at first when your accusations against my step son were brought to our attention. Recent events leave no doubt that either he or a convincing impostor has conquered Arila, and much of the northwestern edge of the empire. Thanks to your early warning, the eastern half the empire remains free for now."


    "We did as any loyal member of the empire would do."


    "So many would claim, but when time comes to do, far fewer rise up to do so. We are in your debt, Priestess Esra." The queen smirked, for she knew that ''Esra'' was a false name, or rather was the name of a priestess of olden times stripped of her title and executed by a corrupt and jealous high priest who lusted after her. No member of the church took the title, save as an obscure warning to those rare few who knew the tale, as any competent religious advisor to the crown would. "And we must put ourselves further in your debt."


    "What do you require of me, My Queen?" In spite of her death, and the theoretical ending of her oath, Calenda was still devoted to her service. She could not, however, drag her companions into the situation with her. "Though I am afraid there is little I can accomplish."


    The queen once again looked at her husband, before she spoke. "As of this moment, you are the only apparently loyal free agent we possess. You see, this pretender claiming to be Lord Claron has incredible power. He, or his agents, seem to know whenever we try to act. By means unknowable, he appears before any force we send out, and destroys them with his inhuman power."


    "You fear spies?"


    "We find it unlikely," the queen said. "Or, if he has spies, they are the least of his abilities. It is not just that he can attack any of our forces. Somehow, he has routed all of them, sometimes on opposite sides of the empire, within minutes of one another. Such power, perhaps he is the ''Chosen of Enge'', as he so claims?"


    "I refuse to accept it. Whatever his power, it does not come from our god." Cali''s nails dug into her palms hard enough that they would have drawn blood, were she still able to bleed. "If he was truly Chosen, he would not need to conquer. Every High Priest of the empire would have known and proclaimed his station."


    "Well spoken, and the same conclusion our advisors reached," the queen said. "His claims aside, there is no deception in his power. He can find any of my agents, even the ones that none but I know of, yet in spite of all his efforts, he has been unable to locate the young child standing next to you."


    Cali took her eyes off the floor for just a moment. "I''m sorry, my queen?"


    "My agents may have been caught quickly, but some were loyal enough to send what information they could," she said. "We know he seeks a child necromancer of pale skin and black hair, one which was defended in Arila by the dryad known as Lyra. The reports say your name is Elruin?"


    "Go ahead, Rin, there''s no point in hiding it now," Calenda said. Whatever else was afoot here, the girl''s cover was blown. It would be miracle enough to hide her own status as deceased.


    "I''m Elruin," the girl kept her head down. She had never been taught how to address a queen, before. "My liege?"


    "Do you know what this pretender to the throne wants from you? Or why Lyra defended you? Might it be her influence that protects you from being found by his magic?"


    "Lyra lived with my big sister Cali... Calenda, and Rena, who looked after her. They''re both dead now." Elruin had enough tact to leave out that this didn''t stop one of them from being in this conversation with them. Her sadness that Rena died was genuine, however. "Lord Claron said he was going to sacrifice me to Enge. I don''t know why, but I don''t think Enge wants me to be sacrificed or he''d have told the priests."


    "Knowing his goals, even if we don''t know the reasons behind them, is still useful," the queen said. "Which brings us back to your goals. You are now the only people who can act with impunity outside of the walls. Do you have any plans for stopping the pretender?"


    "We... may have one or two," Calenda admitted.

 Chapter 52

    Suggested Listening</a>


    "We can''t tell you." Elruin spoke out of turn, fearing that Cali might say something dangerous. "What if Claron has a way to hear through his magic?"


    The king and queen were less concerned with the possibility of the magic being intercepted than with the potential of spies, but they kept their thoughts to themselves. The fact was that the child said nothing they had not already considered.


    "My apologies, my queen, Elruin is young, and has no talent for indirect deception." Calenda, however, did speak. "Ell, we all recognized the risk, the plan was for me to provide a series of half truths and whole deceptions, in the hopes of sending Claron on some fruitless chase through the wilderness while we pursued our true goals. For example, I might have fed them a story of a hidden monastery with the other Eye of Enge. Claron has one, and no doubt would stop at nothing if he knew where to find the second."


    The queen nodded, a dainty tilt of the head that hid all of her emotions. "Perhaps it is better this way. The pretender appears to have skill in the courtly process, and knows the lies you choose can reveal a great deal about your plans. Of note, the Eye of Enge still sits upon its Pedestal. Now I believe we would be best served ending our conversation here."


    "You are most wise, my queen." Calenda, who still had her head down, bowed even further. She kept her head down until she felt the ripple of energies from the ancient artifact release their hold on the area, and the dryad energies washed it all away. Now they stood once again in the presence of the dwarven and silmid leaders.


    Suggested Listening</a>


    "I''m sorry," Elruin said.


    "Don''t worry about it, Queen Laris was right, there''s no way Claron would have been fooled anyway." Cali hoped her smile was reassuring. "This way, he won''t be able to guess what we were saying by what wasn''t said. All he could learn, now, is that you made it somewhere safe. I would almost advocate we remain here, where it''s safe, but for the stuff that the queen didn''t say."


    "I don''t know this court garbage, but I read a little between the lines," Lemia said. "It has to do with that ''Second Eye of Enge'' myth, right? Wait, it''s not the myth, is it? There really are two? I suppose it makes sense, eyes tend to come in pairs."


    "They come in a trio, in this case," Cali said. "Which is where the icon representing Enge comes from. There is no official doctrine as to whether the so-called ''Eye of Enge'' artifact is really one of Enge''s lost eyes. It is, however, an artifact blessed by our emperor, and one believed to have a long lost twin."


    "Does your queen know ''ere''s a second arti''act?" A young looking silmid asked. If she was in this group, she was an elder and thus quite old in spite of her youthful appearance.


    "I''m uncertain, but she must be under significant political stress at the moment," Cali said. "She never called him Claron, just ''the pretender''. If I had to guess, it is because Lord Claron is King Velan''s son. I''m sure it pains both of them in their own way."


    Lemia now recognize that the conversation was never for their benefit, but for the silmid elders. "Wait, does this mean the other Eye might not have a requirement that the wielder be ''Chosen''?" While the Eye of Enge was far from alone in being enchanted to serve only a select few, there were many artifacts with no such security measure.


    "That, and so much more!" Cali looked at all the silmid; they had their own traditions and practices, but they still worshiped the ancestral god which protected their homes and was their homes. "It means Claron knows he''s not Chosen! He knows he can''t take the true artifact, or it would destroy him as it destroys all pretenders. He could at any time walk up to Engewal, request the right to touch the artifact, and if he was truly Chosen, it would acknowledge him, and all the kings of Engeval would be his to rightfully command by Enge''s own law. What purpose would his barbaric war serve if the empire was already his by divine will?"


    Some of the silmid and dwarves began to speak amongst themselves, in their own language.


    Calenda tried to listen as the debate grew more divisive and chaotic. "We should leave." She stepped toward the exit tunnel, and the long walk up. "The longer we stand here, the more they remember how they feel about outsiders."


    Lemia and Elruin deferred to their more experienced teammate. "I don''t speak silmid, but even I could tell that it''s getting unpleasant. What happened?"


    "I can only speak a few words," Cali said. "The word ''liars'' came up more than once. I think some of it was because we we hid our identities. More was their general distrust of outsiders, however. Something about how we ran off and came back with more dead men''s treasures. The usual ''humans are unthinking war machines who only come to us when they need us'' rhetoric. What it comes down to is that they don''t trust us, and our actions didn''t contradict their prejudices."


    "Then, what, if we stayed here and helped them out, they''d be more inclined to help in the war against Claron?" Lemia asked. "And then they have the nerve to say we''re the ones who don''t care unless we need something from them?"


    "But if we stayed here, then those bad men would have been able to do awful things to those poor people, and the puppies," Elruin said. "We did the right thing!"


    "We did a good thing." Calenda put her hand on Elruin''s shoulder, to comfort them both. "But not necessarily the smart thing. On the other hand, the silmid have little choice but to get involved to some extent, just not as enthusiastically as hoped. And we did profit from destroying the bandits, even made some allies that Claron would never expect."


    "Maybe it''s better if we don''t work too closely with the silmid, anyway," Lemia said. "We''re different than them, perhaps even incompatible. I have yet to see any silmid playing with dollies, you know."


    "You''re right," Elruin said. She was still a little sad that they couldn''t have the silmid helping them, but not if it meant she''d have to destroy Mister Clackybones again. She would never let another of her wonderful horsies die again.


    "Now, let''s go plan our trip. If we leave the carts behind, take only what we need, and avoid distractions, we can make a hundred miles a day with a hard march. How far are we from the well?"Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.


    "I can''t speak for weather, but it''s easy terrain. Even if we have to be careful not to get seen. No more than three days," Lemia said. Once again, Cali was lying, and so was Lemia. Their target took them almost straight up a mountain, and with the benefits of sarite and undead labor, they could travel far more than a hundred miles in a day.


    "Good, I''m meeting up with Katek, she''s buying anti-poison and acid shards for you and Elruin and stocking up on food. I want you to pick whomever of our refugees seems most trustworthy to look after our equipment. Hire a few of them, we should only keep the useful hardware, let them have the clothes and other less useful stuff. Let''s see if we can''t get rid of the excess animals and carts, give them away to the merchant caravans if we have to, it''s better than paying to feed animals we can''t use. I want out of here by tonight."


    "Great." Lemia hated traveling at night, but she reminded herself that the beasts of the wilderness were just as happy to hunt during the day. A thought which did nothing to improve her opinion.


    By the time Lemia arrived at the entrance where the refugees remained, she found a handful of other human merchants were eying their camp and the people still there. She took a breath, reminded herself that they were not in human lands, then walked toward the men. She would pretend it was like talking with silmid.


    As it turned out, she needn''t have worried, when Mato stepped away from the group to greet her, smiling for the first time since they''d met. "Lia!" Mato then gestured at the men. "These are my cousins!"


    This was better news than the alternative that they''d somehow broken a law or offended someone. "Good. I''m glad for you." To her surprise, Lemia found she was speaking sincerely. Mato had been a great deal of help, in spite of the misery she''d been through. "Say, does that mean they can help us?"


    Mato glanced back at her family. "Uh, first, can I ask a question? I know you said you were mercenaries before, why did you risk your lives for us?"


    "Truth told, we didn''t," Lemia said. "Our clients lost family to the bandits, we were paid to take blood for blood, nothing more or less. We didn''t realize there were living prisoners until the battle was over."


    "Oh," Mato looked back. "Uncle Nel said that was probably it, but I guess I was expecting something a little more romantic. Like, our families came together to hire heroes to save us."


    "Sorry, as far as I know that only happens in fairytales," Lemia said. In half of those fairytales, the captives were found dead. "But on the off chance you find a bunch of families who want to chip in to get a rescue done, be sure and let us know." Lemia wasn''t certain how the rest of the team would feel about the mercenary deception, but it was the best lie she could come up with, and it was true from a certain point of view.


    "Don''t take it too hard, Matty, such is the way of the world." The eldest, and thus presumable leader, of the men came forward. He was in good health, though his hair had grayed enough that he was probably the father of the other men. "But their actions were more heroic than most, if they chose to bring you to safety without being hired to do so. I''m sure they weren''t expecting to have to guard you from the wilderness for the whole trip. Managing caravans is difficult enough when it''s full of trained workers rather than traumatized children. And then to give you the goods the bandits stole, instead of keeping it for themselves. "


    Lemia bit her tongue. "We got what we came for, and more." They did get sarite and magical equipment, after all. "Why compound suffering with suffering? Well, aside the bandits, may they be forgotten."


    He then addressed Lemia directly. "You have my undying gratitude, not just for finding my cousin and removing the bandits from the road, but for restoring an old man''s faith in humanity. The world is made better by your efforts."


    "If you truly mean that, then we could use your help," Lemia said. "Our team likes to travel light, and we have little need for most of these supplies. If you could take them off our hands, that would be wonderful. Don''t worry, we''re not looking to profiteer, but you will have to take the people we rescued home. We don''t have the time or resources to get these people back to human lands, and you do."


    The older gentleman gave his cousin a meaningful look, and did some calculations in his head. The cost of the extra animals would be a little steep, but decent quality clothing was hard to find and easy to sell, so he would still do better than breaking even. In addition, it wouldn''t hurt to have extra wagons around, just in case. Not useful enough to pay for, but not a burden either. In fact, he could ease the burden on himself by calling in a favor or two with the other traders coming through. Each had their own routes to the more civilized corners of the world, which could be closer to these kids'' homes.


    "I''d be happy to do my part," he said.


    "My team will be glad to hear it."


    Later on, Cali smirked at her. "Now we''re your team, huh?"


    "Hey, I got the job done, didn''t I?" Lemia crossed her arms. "And whose team do you think this is? And don''t say yours, just because you''re the one who knows how the military side of things are run."


    "The military. The political. The religious." Lemia took her thumb and started placing fingers on it as she listed. "The economic."


    "And I handle all our alchemy, or did you forget your new gloves?" Gloves which were left outside the gates, buried with a small army that dug their own mass grave. "Besides, I''m the one who located our next mission objective."


    "Yeah, but we voted to go to the one you didn''t want," Cali said. "By that argument, Scratch is the leader."


    "Can I be the leader?" Elrun asked. "I promise to give you lots of hugs and let you play with my dollies whenever you like."


    "She does represent most of the team''s firepower," Cali said.


    "Sure, why not?" Lemia said. "The twelve year old is now in charge. Makes about as much sense as everything else we do, and you are more than half of our firepower."


    "Thank you, I shall endeavor to lead you to the best of my ability." Elruin said with the seriousness that only a child could muster.


    "Live up to that promise, and you''re already better than half my commanding officers." Cali ruffled Elruin''s hair. "Now go to bed. We''ll be heading out early, and part of being a good commander is getting enough sleep."


    Elruin beamed up at her. "Okay!" She gave Cali a hug, then crawled into the nest to take a nap.


    "You''ve been a big sister for a few months, and already you''re better at manipulating small children into doing as they''re told than most parents are by the time their kids are her age."


    Suggested Listening</a> (Warning, this one''s rather unpleasant)


    The sun was still below the horizon, though perhaps that was because the horizon was well over their heads. "And we''ve arrived at the bleeding anus of the world!" Scratch announced, as if he was a tour guide.


    "Should we make the corpses start wiping?" Lemia asked. Aside a distinct lack of vegetation, she saw nothing special in about this place. More to the point, she felt nothing special, which was rather the opposite of her expectations when promised a well of exotic magic unlike any she had ever experienced before.


    Clackybones slowed to a stop, responding to Elruin''s trembling. "Get out." A quiet, pleading whisper. "Get out!" She put her hands over her ears in a vain attempt to block the discordant, hateful, unacceptable song tearing through her mind. "Get out!" She screamed at the offending distortion, cried out with the power of Requiem, and drove the twisted music back with a violent force of will that staggered Calenda and left the mindless undead crumpled to the ground.


    "Knew you''d feel it first," Scratch said.


    "Merat!" Lemia ran to Elruin, but was driven back by the tornado of necromancy trying to drive back an unseen foe.


    Ketak, too, was forced to admit she could not safely approach the chaotic negation magic. Perhaps long enough to kill the child necromancer and shut off the mage''s power, but not enough to rescue the girl.


    Elruin''s heart hammered in her chest, every fear she''d ever known amplified by a thousand lifetimes crushed down on her from all sides. Her magic, her mind, her soul, nothing but a fragile egg crushed not by a careless girl''s slippery fingers, but by the power of a world that sought nothing more than its destruction. Keep singing. Nothing else matters. Keep singing. Elruin mumbled her song, a frantic defense against the wrongness of this terrible, horrific place.


    Then the others began to recognize the horror, as they gazed over the precipice of reality, and knew that what lay on the other side was a cloying emptiness that threatened to peel away their souls.


    "This is Void magic?" Lemia closed her eyes, desperate to find pattern in the emptiness. She found nothing, but Elruin struggling to drive it back, to construct a reality around herself. Lemia reached out, grabbed the notes and bent them, reinforced the necromancer''s instinctive magic with pattern and law. Ketak contribute as well, warmth and heat, interactions between interactions, a fundamental ''atmosphere'' for them in the astral emptiness.


    Calenda was last to recover. Lacking a true connection to the flesh, her experience was different and alien to the others. In some ways pleasant, and that enjoyability allowed her to be drawn deeper than the others before Elruin''s cries drew her back. She granted motion to the pattern, allowed it to dance within its own song. A floor to stand on.


    Soon, far sooner than they had expected, they built their shell of stability against the maw.


    "Not bad," Scratch said. "Most of the time, I have to drag everyone out one at a time, so they can recover and do it on the second try. Also change their pants."


    "You knew this would happen." Lemia glared at the floating creature, the only one of them which hadn''t contributed to the shield, and hadn''t needed to.


    "There will be plenty of time for recriminations later," Scratch said. "For now, you''ve awoken one of the inhabitants."


    The air shook, crack, broke as if it was a pane of glass. Stained glass, the whole of reality nothing but a fragile colored portrait, hiding an unknowable vastness behind it. A long, amorphous pallid limb slid through broken window. Its eyes, all eight of them, looked in every direction as if unable to comprehend their world any more than they could recognize where it came from.


    "Ooh, and a thaumivore on the first try. Magic''s worse than useless against them. They''ll suck it right up and be that much stronger for it."


    Another tendril slid out, then a third, until it plopped out on the ground, a writhing ball of giant white worms and eyes. Now, the countless eyes began to focus on the one other anomaly in this broken place: them.

 Chapter 53

    Suggested Listening</a> (Warning, still unpleasant)


    "Everyone get back!" Elruin shouted, then she gave orders to those that did not need to hear her to obey.


    The dollies had to go in first, to protect the people. Elruin knew this, though she still hated to sacrifice them. She sang her song to the closest human corpse, using her newest spell to bolster its strength and speed. It charged spear-first into the mass of tendrils that she could not yet decide if was a single creature, or a mass of worms that got themselves tied in a knot. Perhaps there was no difference, where this thing came from.


    The beast howled when the spear pierced it, though it was impossible to guess whether it did so in anger, pain, or joy, or explain how it could howl at all without a mouth.


    The magical augmentation of the sacrificial doll melted on contact when the tendrils wrapped around the doll. For some inexplicable reason, the taint which let the doll be puppetted remained. Elruin changed her notes, the doll released the spear and began to hack away with its arming sword even as the creature attempted to strangle and crush the doll.


    "We can''t rely on augmentation or magic weapons!" Lemia launched one of her incendiaries at the beast. Flame erupted across the creatures surface, causing it to cry out again.


    Ketak''s scales began to shimmer as she drew together her magic. A simple, minor spell that provoked the flames to burn hotter. "Merat na!" The flames dimmed a moment later, and the tentacles started to rub the flame away. "It even feeds on indirect magic!"


    "What part of ''thaumivore'' confused you?" Scratch asked. "It eats all magic it comes in contact with. Except taint, it seems to instinctively avoid taint. Good show, though, I always wondered what happened if the magic was added after the attack."


    Meanwhile, Elruin''s other zombies began to encircle the beast, pelting it with arrows.


    It dropped the drained corpse, then began to roll forward, propelling itself by means of tendrils toward Elruin.


    "It''s coming after the strongest source of magic!"


    Clackybones jumped back, then bounded away, moving more like a deer than a horse. The tendril blob gave chase, moving far faster than anything its shape had a right to move; it would catch Clackybones soon.


    "Circle around the archers!" Cali shouted at the retreating necromancer. "Enhance them!"


    Elruin trusted Cali''s judgment, and made Clackybones turn. If she rode a normal horse, which required guidance from its master, she wouldn''t have had the time to spare to cast her spells, but Clackybones was tied to her thoughts and mind, allowing Elruin to time her actions for the exactly right moments to enhance one zombie after another.


    "Gimme that!" Ketak yanked a spear from one of the zombies, it didn''t seem to notice. She gripped the arrowhead, concentrating her power upon the tip until the metal began to glow red, and the wooden shaft caught fire. "Entek ne! Cheap trash!"


    Arrow after arrow struck true, then the creature gave up on Elruin''s retreating source of magic and engulfed another skeleton. Once captured, it released its bow in order to use its sword. Moments after the energy had been drained, the corpse was forgotten in favor of the next nearest zombie. The released zombies were still whole, and in fact left unharmed aside the magic stripped from them, and some small burns from the flames of the alchemical weapons Lemia hit it with.


    "Stop enhancing the zombies!" Lemia shouted. "It''s using the magic to heal itself!"


    Now that they had distance, Elruin could see it was true. Her lifesight didn''t work on this thing, save to show a featureless empty blob where some living force should be, but with natural eyesight she could see the wounds stitch themselves together.


    Then the burning spear sank into its side, quenching the red glow in monster fluid while steam that was once its blood rose into the air. "Hah! I knew I could beat its trick! Someone get me a weapon that''s not magic or cheap garbage!"


    Even with the burns and cuts, the creature kept moving from zombie to zombie, stripping them of power.


    "Persistent little bastards, ain''t they?" Scratch sat in the air, watching the show. "Fun to watch, ''course I ain''t gotta worry about ''em eating my face like you do."


    "I swear if I die, I''m going to come back just to ruin your afterlife!" Lemia launched another bomb at the creature. As far as she could tell, it didn''t like fire of the natural variety.The narrative has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.


    "No thanks, sounds too much like being a parent."


    Having consumed all of the magic on the skeletons, the creature refocused on Elruin, and began to chase her along yet again. Meanwhile, the zombie troops picked up their bows and returned to the strategy they had used before.


    Calenda waited until the chase came close to her, then she threw all of her power into her own augmentation and jumped over the pair. When she was directly above, she threw a sword straight down at the creature, impaling it through the center mass and pinning it into the dead soil below.


    It oozed apart, then began to roll away with but a small pool of brackish white goo left behind on the blade. Now that Calenda was flaring her power, it decided she was the more desirable target and began chasing after her.


    Cali threw her knives at the creature while continuing to flee. "Why won''t this thing die?!" As fast as she was, the tendrils allowed it to move faster still.


    Scratch, still floating above, laughed at the unintentional joke. "Better run, I''d be real upset if you died. Again."


    Elruin fired her death bolt so that it sailed past Cali, and exploded into a shower of necromantic energies. It was harmless, more illusion than actual power, but it did distract the beast long enough to let Cali gain a few precious feet of distance before it returned to the chase.


    Then it fell over, twitched, and deflated.


    "Is... is it dead?" Lemia took a step back, in case it sprang up yet again. Everyone else followed her example.


    "Not quite, give it a second." Scratch floated down above shapeless mass in time for it to release a loud, foul-smelling blue gas from some unspeakable orifice. "Heh, that never gets old. Now it''s dead."


    Suggested Listening</a>


    Lemia coughed and covered her face. "Ugh! Kill me so I don''t have to breathe anymore!"


    Elruin pulled her dress up to cover her nose. It didn''t help. In spite of the stench, she began to sing, and play her violin. Their defensive bubble had been damaged in the fight, and she feared the unshielded void far more than any aroma. She changed it, twisted it further, to smooth the cacophony into something that wasn''t about to drive her mad.


    Ketak looked around as only she and the dead weren''t reacting. "We dwar''es don''t ha''e a sense o'' smell like yours. I don''t ''ink it''s toxic, whate''er it is."


    "Give me one good reason I shouldn''t torture you to your second death!" Cali shouted at Scratch. It required taking a breath of the horrid air, but she was dead so it was limited to the one breath.


    "Woah, don''t you think that''s moving too fast? Maybe we should have dinner first, catch a show, some forepl-urk!" Scratch had no features to look surprised when Calenda reached out and gripped him with her hand, then began to squeeze.


    "I''ve. Been. Practicing." Cali answered the question everyone thought, and replaced it with the question of how she could practice to catch something that didn''t have a physical form. "Now talk, ghost."


    "First, I''d just like to say that is totally unfair," Scratch said. "Second, none of you were ever in real danger. Third, this is our key to beating Claron."


    "Never in real danger?" Calenda squeezed harder, causing Scratch''s body to distort and bulge through the gaps in her fingers. "It was running around sapping magic from everyone!"


    "Right, sapping magic, not life force or anything else that''s permanent. Worst thing these guys can do on their own is give you a hangover. Granted, it''s the worst hangover of your life, but it doesn''t kill. Besides, they die in a minute or two on this side of the void hole. I think it''s for about the same reason humans don''t do so well underwater. It was all in good fun, and you were never in any real danger. As long as you''re here, at least. These things are nothing compared to some of the horrors out there. Lucky us, most of them are too smart to come over here where they know they''ll die."


    "Right, the other side." Now that the danger had passed, Lemia was curious about the void. "What is that thing?"


    "Not a damn clue," Scratch said. "I once had a scholar try to explain it to me. Best I got is that it''s what happens if you walk in a direction that doesn''t exist."


    "A... what?"


    "Well, we got up and down, left and right, back and forward," Scratch said. Meanwhile, Cali had relaxed her grip enough for him to slide out. "Then there''s the magical directions, inward and outward, or something to that effect. Or that''s what the mage said to call it, something about the relationship between the self and other. Then there''s Void. Which is none of those things. That which cannot exist yet does. I admit, I feel a certain kinship. I suspect I''m not the only one here who does. Right, Calenda?"


    "No!" Then Cali hesitated. "Well, maybe it feels a little less alien to me. It''s... still wrong, though."


    "So are we," Scratch said. "And before you ask, no, I can''t tell you what relationship Void has with Taint, if they do at all. I''ve taken every necromancer I''ve ever worked with to a void-hole, save a handful who died before I got the chance. Some devoted their lives to studying them, if any found answers they neglected to share them with me."


    "Who made them?" Elruin asked. She''d stabilized her song to one of mourning for the pain of the world. "Why would anyone cause something so horrible?"


    "That''d be the Kiara, the Goddess of the Void. Or, as I like to call her, ''the bitch who fucked the world''. What you''re looking at is one of the holes she did it with. There are hundreds of them across the planet. For those strong enough, you can theoretically climb in that hole, fight your way through all the freaks on the other side, then climb back through anywhere anywhere. But none of you are anywhere close to that strong. As to why she did it? Couldn''t tell you, she lived and died long before I did."


    "A shortcut, perhaps?" Ketak suggested. "Or seeking resources. We dwar''es do it, why not a goddess? What incredible secrets might be on ''at side?"


    "I''ve never heard of a Goddess of the Void before," Calenda said. "She''s not on any of the divine charts, controls no element, and I can''t imagine an Ancestral God having such power."


    "She wouldn''t be," Scratch said. "She was a Living God. The most powerful mortal to have ever existed, stronger than any of the High Gods, perhaps even stronger than The Seven, but a mortal still. She lived, she wielded power enough to shatter a world, she had some offspring, and then she died like mortals tend to do."


    "A few minutes ago, I wouldn''t have believed you," Lemia said. "But that was before I witnessed hole leading in a direction that doesn''t exist. It... truly is bleeding, isn''t it? This wasn''t meant to exist, it''s a wound."


    "A wound, infected with disease," Scratch said. "Which we are going to use to kill Claron."


    "How?" Cali asked. "This... thing... is tough, but you said yourself that it can''t kill."


    "No, it can''t, but it doesn''t need to," Scratch said. "I got a look at Claron''s power, most of us have. He''s not weak, but he''s relying on the Eye of Enge to empower him. Strip that power away and I''m sure you can kill him now. Nothing in this world strips power quite like a thaumivore. Especially when the victim bleeds energy like Claron does, we''ll have at least two or three of the nasties climbing out of that hole. Then when they''ve sucked him dry, we carve a few extra holes. And the best part is, there''s only six or seven beings on the planet who know enough to explain it after the fact, let alone see it coming, and none of them are Claron."


    "It could work," Cali admitted after a moment. "Luring him here might be tricky, and I can''t imagine how we''re going to explain how we killed him. They''ll know it wasn''t through raw power, none of us have that sort of city-breaking strength. We''ll have to do a lot of planning."


    "Details you can worry about later," Scratch said. "The first question is, does Elruin want a new extra-abomination dolly, or would you kids like to see what void sarite looks like?"


    "Couldn''t we just, I dunno, lure more of them out to die?" Lemia asked.


    "Yeah, but I don''t know how many are that close to the hole," Scratch said. "More than two, less than six, that''s my best guess. We kill off too many, and there won''t be any left for Claron. Of course, after Claron''s dead, we can do whatever we like with the remains."

 Chapter 54

    Suggested Listening</a>


    "I don''t know why you continue this resistance." A casual brush of his hand elicited a hiss through the clenched teeth of his half-sister. He dragged his gloved hand down Juna''s jaw, leaving a trail of broken skin, cooked flesh, and smoke behind. "Then, you always were a little off. Perhaps the rumors are true, perhaps you enjoy my ministrations?" He moved down her neck, her chest, soon he''d crest over her breasts, the first overtly sexual step in this drawn out process.


    He had no particular love of torture, nor any puerile interest in his sibling, but such was the burden of dealing with a rebellious city. She wasn''t the one he was trying to break. If he was, he wouldn''t have wasted time on torturing her. He was confident he could torture her to death a dozen times over without breaking her, but she wasn''t the weak link in this chain.


    "Stop!" Garit shouted, struggling against the magic-suppression bonds which held him. "I''ll talk! Just leave her alone."


    "Don''t you dare." Juna gasped for breath. "There is nothing. He could do to us. That will compare to what I''ll do to you if you talk." Her statement was made with utmost sincerity, for she hated nothing so much as a traitor. She glared, as defiant as ever, at her elder brother. "You may as well kill us now."


    "Careful, I might take that as a challenge." A minuscule pulse of power heated the glove again. He would have to limit the damage, so that the healer could fix her before permanent scars were left behind, at least ones of the nature that numbed her flesh against further pain. He held little hope that this would be the session where the pair broke. They might try to pretend it, to feed him lies, but soon the lies would be dismissed and he would be that much closer to the truth.


    "Elruin!" A soldier was wise enough to shout her name as he entered. Then he fell to one knee and kept his head bowed low. It was bad enough that people knew that he resorted to torturing his siblings, he would have preferred no one knew the method used. He had power to spare, but legitimacy would continue to be a struggle until Enge gave him his final acknowledgment. "We have a lead. It comes from Morks, but appears credible."


    Juna''s head tilted up just a little. Fear, concern, all were obvious to Claron in watching her features. She was the fighter, but she lacked the social finesse of her brother, and that was also part of why it was her that he targeted for torture.


    That she seemed nervous suggested they might know something about the girl''s movements, something which they feared morks might discover. This, more than anything, gave Claron confidence that this was the moment he''d waited for. "Uewatsu, to me." He braced himself for the wave of cold discomfort that came with rift magic. He waited, then grew impatient. "I meant immediately."


    Suggested Listening</a>


    "I am an old woman." Her cane came through the hole in nowhere before she did. "Children these days, no respect for their elders." Her faded, tangled purple hair covered her face, and her black cloak covered most of the rest of her body, but the wrinkles on her hand showed she was of advanced age. "What do you need of me, my lord."


    He ignored her sarcasm and disrespect. Let his siblings think whatever they liked, for they would never speak of it to the public. He turned his attention to the kneeling soldier, chosen for discretion as all his messengers were. "What did the morks reveal?"


    "Little, my lord," he answered. "They claim they intercepted a message from a child necromancer, sent to Enrest. They claim to know where she''s hiding, and her future plans. Two of their number wait there, for you to bribe them for the rest of their knowledge."


    "Enrest?" Claron kept one eye on his siblings as he pretended to consider the situation. "They must have fled to dwarven lands, Sonhome is the most obvious possibility." They provided no specific tell, so he decided they didn''t know the reason the girl was there aside the obvious.


    "It will take some effort for me to open a gate for your armies of that distance."


    "No, it would be a fool''s errand." Claron knew of Sonhome''s guardians, and had little desire to learn their capabilities. If the morks knew what Elruin''s plans were, he had reason to believe the girl would leave the city at some point, or that he could use the knowledge to find her other allies. "Take me to Enrest."This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.


    "As you command."


    Claron hated going through portals, and the stomach-churning distortions that came from moving from one place to another in the blink of an eye. He remained tall, proud, but had to take several seconds after his translocation to avoid losing the contents of his stomach. Instead, he took stock of the two morks waiting before him. One was old, scarred, a true veteran. The other was smaller, a female.


    "You came." "Such power." "Unlike any we''ve ever seen." "But the child of ebon hair and purple eyes." "The girl who sings of death." "She who smells of grave soil." "She eludes you." "We can tell you where to find her." "We can reveal her secrets."


    "Five head of cattle." Claron''s patience for mork chattering lasted as long as it took for him to recover from the stomach-shredding magic he subjected himself to. "Fifteen more if your information reveals her exact location and plans."


    The pair looked at each other. "Double it." "Yes, double." "Valuable child." "You need her." "You need u-rk"


    Claron''s eye socket burned as he called upon the magical artifact which held the will of his god. Before they could say another word, he had a hand on each of their throats, squeezing their larynges shut. "Here''s an offer. How about if I don''t execute the both of you for wasting my time?" He loosened his grasp.


    "Northwest of Sonhome!" "They found magic!" "A way to escape from Engeval." "A magic portal." "They could go anywhere in the world." "They prepare even as we speak!" "No time to hurt us!" "Hurry hurry!"


    "Cowards." Claron shoved the two beasts, each weighing more than a horse, away from him. "Uewatsu, does this sound familiar to you?"


    The woman remained on the other side of the portal, but her voice carried through. "It is... plausible." A painful, interminable pause followed. "There are still old gates, damaged but functional. One lies in the direction they describe, but I know not how they learned of its existence. Few living mortals remember the secrets of the Isylan empire, I know of all of them by name, and not one has contacted the girl."


    "Living?" Claron considered the claim. "What of the dead? This is a necromancer Enge has set us on a quest for, after all."


    "I know little of the art, but I suppose it is possible," Uewatsu said. "Or perhaps the dwarves saved more ancient records than I had been led to believe. Here, let me show you the gateway."


    Light shimmered in front of his face, as a one way portal was constructed in real time. Uewatsu''s cooperation was unreliable at times, but her abilities were unlike any he had ever heard of before. Soon he was looking down upon an empty, all but lifeless patch of soil and rock. He recognized the black haired girl in a moment. She sat upon the ground, playing a violin.


    Nearby, a dwarf worked on carving a stone which looked to have been dragged to the location not long before. A man stood nearby, erecting a wooden post.


    "They''re trying to lure me into attacking directly, playing on overconfidence."


    "I do not see it," Uewatsu said. "Though I admit military theory was never a talent of mine. But do enlighten me, for the sake of scholarly curiosity."


    "On the surface, it seems like they''re unawares. Perhaps setting up for the ritual to exploit this portal." he said. "One step beneath the surface, you can see that the earth near the boulder was disturbed, freshly dug. I bet they hid a nasty surprise there. The pillar is at least half illusory, another weapon in disguise. And the girl''s violin is a known magical weapon. She''s not relaxing, nor is she engaged in active ritual, she''s drawing power together for a battle."


    "I see, clever."


    "Imbecilic and transparent," Claron muttered. "I refuse to believe anyone who could elude me this long would make such amateurish traps. Which means these traps are meant to be seen, in order to hide a real surprise that I cannot see. How dangerous is this gateway?"


    Uewatsu took her time to answer, as usual. "It''s of little direct danger, so long as one is not fool enough to attempt to traverse the gate without a rift mage to guide the process. One might find himself caught between worlds, unable to return to this realm. A sailor lost at sea until he drowns in the waves."


    Not for the first time, Claron questioned the wisdom of using Uewatsu''s portals to move across his empire. Enge''s empire, he reminded himself. "Interesting, and can they control the gate to capture or otherwise trick me into stepping through?"


    "I can''t imagine how," Uewatsu said. "Even a proper rift mage could not force the gate to move. Any being with such power could slay you in direct combat, without need for tricks and traps. And it''s impossible to walk through a gate without attuning yourself to it first. A process that is both slow, and voluntary."


    "Then the gate is their method to escape, if their traps fail," Claron said. "They hope to kill me, or if not then they hope to trick me into revealing a weakness they can exploit later. Can you track them through this gate, to the point were they exit?"


    "With ease, but I hold my doubts that they shall ever emerge. Without power equivalent in strength to your own, they would never be able to fight their way through to the other side. There is but one fate for those who enter the rift unprepared."


    Claron clenched his fists. He needed Elruin to prove himself to Enge, and it was never made clear what would happen should Elruin die without being properly sacrificed. Perhaps Enge would accept that as sacrifice enough, or perhaps he would be branded a failure and see his blessings stripped from him. It was not a gamble he wished to take while options remained.


    The idea that the child acquired a power to rival his own was dismissed as irrelevant. If she had, then he had already failed in his quest and it would be better to die on the battlefield than wait for the day Enge grew impatient with his failure to get results.


    "Open a voice rift to Renar. Now." He was the one Claron hated most, for his unfettered ambition. He was also the most competent of all the Ghosts of Sorvel, and the most well liked.


    "My lord?" The man was alert, attentive, hungry.


    "We found Elruin''s location," Claron said. "She''s attempting to flee using a source of magic similar to Uewatsu''s. Are your men ready?"


    "In your service, always." True, but only for the moment. Claron was well aware that the first thing Renar would attempt with Elruin would be to take the child to Enge himself, and perform the sacrifice first in the hopes that Enge would transfer the title of Chosen.


    "Then go, and know that Enge is always watching." As am I. If Elruin''s trap failed, then it would be a simple matter to wait for Renar''s double-cross. If her trap succeeded, then Renar would die and he would step in once the trap had been sprung.

 Chapter 55

    Suggested Listening</a>


    Elruin heard them gate in, but she said nothing. She drew her violin tighter, added a couple notes, an alert that meant nothing to their spies but meant everything to the dead which surrounded Elruin. Calenda''s eyes snapped open, though there was nothing for her to see from her position. Scratch watched from the carved indentation of the stone, and the mindless corpses began to stir as their mistress readied their programming.


    Everyone moved at once, a storm of blades and death.


    Renar let his own soldiers charge in, each a trained assassin equipped to evade and strike with deadly precision. If they had been ordered to slay Elruin, then the girl would have died there, clutching her violin as she bled out. Instead, their orders were to fan out, test defenses, and ensure she could not escape.


    Those defenses were discovered immediately, hunting spears burst from the ground the moment Renar''s men were in range. Eight traps triggered, two men wounded, with spear barbs caught in their flesh.


    On the defense, these soldiers were the perfect foe against the slow, predictable actions of the zombies. They danced back, like a wave breaking upon a rocky shore. Their speed, their precision, and their ability to coordinate was second to none in the empire and had been since long before Claron had begun leading the Ghosts.


    It was, perhaps, the worst imaginable matchup against those who did not think, did not feel, and did not die. They launched a volley of sensory bombs at the emerged foe. Light magic, shadow magic, emotion distortion spells, and alchemical poisons, were deployed. While it was certain that any foe would be able to ignore perhaps half of the different attack strategies, no living thing they could imagine would be immune to all of them.


    So they could be forgiven for their moment of hesitation and surprise when the zombies, obscured by the smoke and magic, pelted them at close range with their bows. Twenty good soldiers reduced to twelve healthy, six injured, and two dead.


    Renar bolted forward, deflected two arrows with bare hands, and shoved a knife up under the helm of a zombie. He twirled, avoided two attackers who''d switched to their arming swords and dodged another arrow. A moment''s distraction, brought on in part by the confusion that these men were willing to fire upon their own in close quarters, was enough that he failed to realize the man he''d impaled was still fighting.


    From the safety of the viewing portal, Claron watched the scene. "Undead? She''s Tainted as well?" Claron tensed and relaxed at the same time. Tensed, because the abominations were more dangerous than most would ever realize.


    "I suspect this is why she must be sacrificed." Uewatsu voiced the source of his relief. "Enge recognized the abomination, where no others could."


    Claron had always followed the teachings of Enge, but he was often less than flawless in his devotion. He viewed his god as a symbol uniting the empire, one who brought stability, and whose teachings allowed civilization to survive. Only after his revival did he begin to recognize that Enge was a personal god, with goals for his faithful. Then, upon the day of his resurrection, he was given the command to murder a child.


    It was a cruel test of faith, one which Claron undertook while hoping that Enge planned to spare the girl in the end. Now all doubt and guilt had been taken from his shoulders, for he knew his task was right and good. "Truly, Emperor Enge is the wisest of all gods." Never again would he question, for he had been shown that even when he could not understand the reason, his god did.


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    Elruin adjusted her song with a twirl and a drag of her violin. She drew up a storm of darkness and called on Calenda to answer with her fog cloud. The battle would now be fought in darkness. Sooner than they had desired, but her undead were growing sluggish from the damage the remaining soldiers had inflicted upon them. If she didn''t give them every advantage she could, then Claron would not need to show himself to defeat them.


    Renar stumbled forward in the inky night, fast enough to spare himself from a fatal injury by little more than an eyeblink. The blade drew a line of blood along his back, as the magic of his armor could not counter the strength of Elruin''s augmented undead, only mitigate them.


    The two zombies in front of him acted in concert with them, to exploit his wounds and vulnerability. He gritted his teeth and planned, if not victory, then to take these things with him before he fell.


    A light pierced the fog and necromantic shadows even as it mended the bloodied gash in Renar''s back. Once again, he had faced death and been spared. "Asceli?"


    "You didn''t think I''d leave you to die here?" Asceli drew her hands together, then allowed her power to explode outward, burning away the necromantic energies they were fighting, and with it the bodies began to collapse, their motivational power scoured from existence. Elruin was forced to look away from the woman, as her life energies flared like the power of the sun, blinding her senses. So long as she was on the battlefield, Elruin could not rely upon lifesight.


    This was the opportunity Ketak had been waiting for, although she had expected it to come when Claron arrived. A spear guided by the killing instinct embedded in Ketak''s sarite caught Asceli''s shoulder. She screamed and fell, spared from bleeding by the cauterizing heat of dwarven magic.The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.


    With many of her dollies destroyed, Elruin changed notes yet again. The tangled ball of dead tentacles, until now inert as the taint spread, burst from the ground with a speed surpassing any other doll she possessed thus far, and entangled one of the unprepared Ghosts. The living thaumivore sought to capture and feed, but the dead one knew only the desire to serve its mistress and kill in her name.


    "Merat ne!" Renar drew upon his speed enhancing magic and met the dwarf in a direct collision. His first slash took her eye, and the second would have cut open her throat if she had human anatomy. "She''s a healer!"


    Ketak brought her arms up, shielding her face with her metallic forearms while giving her own regenerative magic a chance to mend the injuries. "I know!" The human insistence that healers were a special caste, not to be harmed on the battlefield, was not shared in dwarven tradition. To them, you downed the most dangerous opponent first, and there was nothing more dangerous on the battlefield than that which allowed other enemies to stand back up again.


    "What is that thing?" Claron asked.


    "It appears to be one of the beasts from within the rift." Uewatsu fought the urge to giggle at the absurdity of the scene she was witnessing. "They''re little threat, no more intelligent than a rodent. It must have found its way through the rift, then died. They can''t live long in our world, and lack the comprehension to realize it. In the rift, they are little more than prey animals."


    "Then the abomination spreads her taint even to the things from this other world?"


    "It certainly appears that way."


    "How much difficulty would I have in killing it?"


    "As it is, now, I suspect it''s no greater than a weak chimera. A challenge for some, but not a match for your strength evenwithout the blessings of the Eye."


    Claron nodded, and continued to evaluate the beast in battle. It proved capable of holding its own against the two remaining warriors which Renar counted amongst his elite forces, but all they could do was fight it to a standstill, rather than defeat it. Still, even accounting for its status amongst the undead, if the things within the rift regarded such a beast as a prey animal, it would be wise to take Elruin before she attempted an escape.


    Meanwhile, Ketak and Renar continued their clash. The problem facing Ketak now was that she was hopelessly outclassed by this maneuverable enemy. She attempted to claw for him, but it allowed him to get close and slash at her face, which forced her to draw further back and shield with both arms again.


    With most of the undead devastated by Asceli''s magic, it was left to Elruin and Ketak to fight what remained of the Ghosts of Sorvel. Elruin continued her song, dipped into the essence of anger and played of rage and unmitigated hate. Unseen by the few remaining foes, Lemia did the same from her place of hiding within the hollow stone ''statue''.


    Ketak stayed on the defense while her foe''s attacks grew wilder. Magic overtook his resistance, induced emotion overtook his reason, and he ceased to be a true threat to her. His new berserker strength was quite the sight to behold, but without precision he could only hammer at her steel scales like a rampaging toddler.


    Meanwhile, she turned the heat up both metaphorically and literally. Her scales began to glow, and light was distorted by the energy radiating off of her body, yet her foe did not feel it. His body, stressed to the maximum, began to fail. In a few moments, exhaustion would overtake insanity, and he would be unable to stop her killing stroke.


    It was a good plan, one Renar might even have praised were he thinking clearly, and then he was. He fell back, using his superior speed to escape the dwarf''s plan.


    Behind him, Asceli climbed to her feet with the spear still inside her. "Don''t count me out just yet." Golden fluid dripped from the spear, and where it touched the ground flowers bloomed in dead soil. "I see now, I have little choice. I want you to know I love you, and I''m sorry."


    "Asceli?" Renar spared a glance, just a short one, at his partner.


    She ripped the spear from her body. She almost stumbled from pain, one of many things her regenerative power did not protect her from, her burden to bear. She held the weapon up, then thrust it into the ground.


    Necromantic power burned away against the bubble of purifying light, air lit on fire by the opposing energies canceling one another out. Elruin screamed in agony when she discovered her power was lacking. Blinded and weakened by creation, it was all she could do to continue singing, to protect Calenda and Scratch, a desperate attempt to cling to what remained of the plan.


    "Good job!" Renar encouraged as best he could, but he had to keep his eye on the dwarf. While he wouldn''t consider the two of them evenly matched, he had to admit that a fight between them would not end before the rest of the battle was decided. If she was going to fall back, then he was willing to take the opportunity to recover in Asceli''s healing power.


    What nobody had expected was the second burst of magic Asceli fired at Elruin.


    Elruin screamed again, but softer, for her lungs had yet to suck enough new air to vocalize her agony. She had never experienced such pain before, as nerves long dimmed by her necromantic power lit again. As if she had lived a life where all her circulation had been cut off, until now when it was restored. Her body lacked the experience, the neurological language, to understand what was happening. All it knew was that it was dying.


    Renar jumped in front of Asceli, gripped her hand to prevent her from firing a third burst of power. "What are you doing!?"


    From his position watching through the portal, Claron almost shouted the same question. Instead, he gave a command. "Open a rift for me. Now!"


    Lemia, too, left her hiding place. She knelt in front of Ell, leaving her back as a target to Asceli. She wasn''t worried, Asceli was using was pure creation energy; lethal to a true necromancer like Elruin, power traded for power in equal measure, but for most people it would be uncomfortable at worst.


    "Killing that thing before it''s too late!" Asceli pulled her hand out of his grip. Her next blast was blocked in part by Renar, and in part by Lemia, but even with two bodies to absorb much of the energy Elruin still shook in an agony she lacked the strength to voice.


    "We''re winning!" Renar tried again to capture her, but failed. Asceli was stronger and faster than him, a fact he never saw before. "We can capture her for Enge!"


    Lemia fumbled about for solutions, before coming to the one answer that might work. She took a breath, then began to siphon power out of Elruin not unlike the vampiric magic Calenda was relying upon. Sapping creation energy was easy enough, but sapping it from Elruin carried numerous risks. She couldn''t ask Cali to do it, without risking both of them dying.


    "And then what? Do we let Claron have his ''divine'' reward?" Asceli moved again, but now Ketak had joined in attempting to run interference. "I joined the Ghosts for freedom, not to trade one slave master for another! If Enge is going to turn a man like him into a god, then Enge i-"


    She stopped speaking, and looked down at the blade coming out of her chest. It burned so hot that the healing energy that made up her blood boiled off of the metal. Her blood boiled, her flesh melted, and her bone turned to ash.


    "No." The last word she heard was spoken by Claron''s commanding voice. "I think that''s quite enough of this farce."

 Chapter 56 (End of Act 2)

    Suggested Listening</a>


    Claron watched the assembly of enemies to the empire. Of them, the only one he had any real respect for was the girl tending to Elruin. She, at least, had the mental faculties to continue trying to save the child while the others stood still. Since he needed her alive to fulfill Enge''s command, they shared a tangential goal for the moment.


    The rest stood there, watching him, rather than trying to overwhelm him with everything they had before he had a chance to get his bearings. It wouldn''t have made a difference, nothing they could do had any hope of overcoming Enge''s blessings, but even futile action deserved respect. "My apologies, did I interrupt something important?"


    "Merat ne!"


    Claron closed his eyes, when the series of explosive chemicals Renar relied upon went off in his face. Another might have considered the open betrayal to be more contemptuous than inaction, but Claron disagreed. At least betrayal was action, the act of a dishonorable warrior was better than the cowardice of a loyal boot-licker.


    He drew upon his power, a whirlwind of flames blossomed around him and reduced the desolate landscape to ash. When his eyes opened, he stood in a circle of blackened glass. Renar, his few remaining soldiers, the undead, all gone. Only the dwarf remained to keep him company. He could have killed her with this attack as well, but that would risk destroying his prize, and with it his status as Champion of Enge.


    "Still standing? I''m impressed." That she survived was little surprise; the entire dwarven bloodline was tied to forge magic. Once, he resented them for being born with the power he had to work so hard to attain. Then he pitied them, for they were lazy and ignorant of the value of training one''s personal strength to its pinnacle. Now, they were irrelevant before Enge''s blessing. "Are you going to fight?"


    "No, I know when I''m beat." She slumped, used her overlong arms to hold herself up. Her glowing hot hands sank into the half-molten soil. "Will it disappoint you i'' I don''t make some speech about how I''ll ne''er surrender?"


    His chuckle was genuine. "That''s quite alright." Meanwhile, he kept his good eye on Elruin, and the woman struggling to heal her. For all his power, he had no ability with healing magic. The Eye would restore his own flesh and magical power in the rare event that he suffered injury to begin with, but he could do nothing to stave off another''s death.


    More, the woman trying to save her was doing so with some exotic fundamental magics that felt rather fragile to him. Until that situation stabilized itself, he had no choice but to watch and wait. The opening salvo established his dominance, and now that none of them were likely to lead an attack that risked Elruin''s death, he was content to bide his time.


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    "Ell, c''mon, you can make it." Lemia muttered as she made another cautious attempt to drain the excess power.


    Everyone, even mages with those aspects, made the mistake of believing creation and negation were synonymous with life and death. This was not true, for life and death at the core was a fragile balance between all elements, more fundamental in nature than anything else. Treating an excess of fire aspect was not so simple as adding more water in spite of their opposing positions, no more than a man could breathe underwater if the water was boiling.


    Right now, Lemia''s problem was finding a way to drain off creation energies without running the risk of disrupting all other aspects of Elruin''s already bizarre elemental balance. The usual solution of diluting the excess power and bleeding it off into the atmosphere was not an option, because creation magic had a nasty habit of sticking to itself, forming ''clumps'' of magic. A great property if you wanted to create, but endless frustration for those trying to negate it.


    At first, she tried to absorb the energy into herself, but that plan was dismissed in heartbeat. Elruin''s native energy would kill any living thing, even those attuned to her. Meanwhile, the creation energy made it impossible to use any of the undead as a vent.


    Then she felt it, the void in reality, bubbling just beneath the surface of this wound in the world. It couldn''t be that easy, could it? In desperation, she took the other option, and began to force the creation energies in the direction which did not exist, into a place that was not.


    To her surprise, it worked. The power vented... somewhere... to her perception it looked like it faded into nowhere, but without the telltale signs of dissipation into the environment.


    Elruin gasped, taking her first proper breath in minutes, while Lemia continued to find the worst damaged spots and vent them out in as controlled a method as she could. It was sloppy, destructive work, but she felt confident that it would result in a full recovery.


    Which, she knew, was what Claron waited for. She grabbed Elruin''s violin and the dagger which served as a bow thanks to magic. "Ell, take them." She had to move Elruin''s hands to the instrument. "It''s time. We need you. Please."


    Suggested Listening</a>


    Elruin trembled, forced herself to move with what little strength was left in her ravaged muscles. Lemia felt the distortion of her song on the fragile seams they stitched over the wound, as she undid the very thing she helped to build in the first place.


    Lemia also felt it when Claron moved toward them. She cringed, knowing she was about to die. The plan had never been for her to be out on the battlefield, but she made that choice in order to save Elruin. At least she felt confident that her future zombie self would appreciate all the effort she''d been put in to maintain her figure.


    Claron was uncertain of what the necromancer thought she could do in her current condition, but he knew he''d have to stop it. She seemed fond of her friends, so to him it seemed the best strategy would be one similar to his errant siblings. Capture the healer, and threaten her in order to make Elruin stop fighting.


    He stumbled forward due to surprise and imbalance, more than actual harm, when a dwarf leapt on his back and tried to dig her claws into his throat. He jabbed his elbow back, hitting the hard steel scales of Ketak''s stomach and sending her flying back. Her claws did draw blood, leaving six paper thin lines of crimson on his face and neck.Unauthorized use of content: if you find this story on Amazon, report the violation.


    Ketak paid dearly for the minor damage she inflicted, her ribs broken and some internal organs bruised. The inch-thick steel plates had a dent in them. She was down, and Claron''s next strike would have been enough to kill her, but he had other concerns.


    The rift cracked, and the things on the other side spilled out. They had been drawn by the echoes of a reality as alien to them as their reality was to the people fighting on the other side. They had no understanding or care about the motives of these magic-rich things, they knew only their own desires, instincts built by long eons of evolution to survive within the void where starvation was the greatest of all threats.


    The first three which broke through were greeted by a burst of magical flame hot enough to melt steel, but it was magic, and so to them it was pleasure and sustenance, strength which would allow them to persist for years in a realm that measured time as outcome rather than function.


    Claron reacted swiftly to the realization that the things from the rift were not stopped by his magic, but he lacked the ability to explain why. He did, however, know someone who could. "How do I fight these things?"


    "Top... Maj..." Uewatsu''s message was broken, unclear. She felt a moment of surprise that would serve to amuse her through long years of boredom to come. She focused on the task at hand, and constructed a far more robust communication portal. "They. Eat. Magic."


    "Why didn''t you tell me before!" He drew back his power, in order to rely on his combat prowess. With a swipe of his sword, several of the monsters'' limbs fell to the ground, twitching and leaking their ichor. Once he was granted his true status as Enge''s Champion, he would need to reconsider his relationship with the rift mage. First, however, he had more pressing concerns.


    They moved to engulf him, and he continued his steps backward, not falling back, but keeping his distance while he learned the strengths and weaknesses of these creatures. They were fast, and against a normal opponent they might be considered tough, but they were weaker than most chimera and possessed abysmal, swarm-like tactics more appropriate for a hive of bees than a large organism.


    With each swing, step, and parry he took a limb. Blood loss caused them to slow and collapse. One fell, then another, then a third and fourth and fifth.


    He was so caught up in the pressure of combat without the advantage of the Eye that he didn''t spot the human threat from behind until the metal had pierced his spine, then twisted inside.


    "Die!" Renar kept pushing, both the dagger and his whole body against Claron''s back, to drive him into the beasts he seemed so keen on avoiding.


    Claron reacted on instinct, flaring out with his magic to slay his former companion and drive the blade out. Too slow, for the thaumivore tendrils had fallen upon them both, and so his magic mutilated Renar, but failed to kill him.


    Now wounded and covered in the magic-sapping creatures, it was all Claron could do to hack away at them, taking one limb at a time until they began to weaken and die around him. He stumbled from the pile of corpses, wounded and exhausted, but alive.


    Elruin now stood on wobbly legs, still playing her violin, but now it was just the pair of them. He allowed the Eye''s power to return to him and begin the slow, agony-wracked process of mending his wounds.


    "It was a good trap, but it''s over now. You lost." Claron walked toward her, knowing full well that he couldn''t run without ripping his healing wounds open again, an act which was potentially fatal with a death mage so close. Even a Champion of Enge had limits. "Surrender now, and I''ll have no need to continue hurting your allies."


    The healer stepped in front of the girl. "How ''bout you cut off your own dick and sit on it?"


    Claron said nothing. He wondered why he expected any decorum from those who would work with abominations. His flesh continued to stitch itself together, gaining in speed as the worst damage was undone and it began work upon the superficial. More confident, he began a swift march toward the two standing mages.


    The ground beneath his feet erupted in an explosion of mud and stench of sulfur and tang of incense. His eyes burned, and he coughed on the poison now seeking its way into his body through his lungs. The Eye of Enge took its ''attention'' away from the remaining wounds in his back, and began the process of fighting the deadliest herbal toxins the wilderness had to offer.


    The mixture had been measured for the maximum possible slow and long term harm in mind. Several ivies for their contact poison, wolfsbane to disrupt regeneration, and ten times the lethal dosage of hemlock, for certainty''s sake.


    That Claron remained standing, that the worst side effects of this brutally lethal chemical weapon was coughing and eye irritation rather than seizures, coma and death was testament to the magic protecting him. Magic which had been severely drained by the thaumivores.


    Then, finally, Calenda got her chance to act. She pounced upon the wounded, blinded, poisoned and exhausted Claron and grabbed for his face, then began to sap energy away from him, while doing her best to pull the Eye of Enge from its place in Claron''s skull. If she could disrupt contact for a mere moment, the damage inflicted on him would be lethal.


    Claron knew this as well as they did, and he still had power and speed to surpass Calenda. He grabbed her arm, pulled it away from his face, and tried to pull her off of him entirely.


    Necromantically augmented biology, driven as far as Elruin could push her, proved inferior to the Eye of Enge. Calenda screamed when her forearm snapped like a dry twig. Grunted when an elbow smashed her ribs much like it had Ketak, but unlike Ketak Cali did not require her organs for survival.


    Elruin stopped her song. "Stop hurting her!"


    Claron noted the cry, but he couldn''t afford to not fight back against this zombie which was sapping what precious strength he had left. He hammered her again, busted her other arm, smashed her skull, and once he got an arm free he swept the blade across her torso.


    She fell to the ground in five separate pieces, her necromantic pattern flickering, then Claron brought his sword back around to deliver a final strike.


    Elruin screamed with inarticulate rage, tears dropping as she ran for the only family she had in this world. This was Claron''s plan from the beginning, even if he hadn''t realized he could use one of the undead to achieve it until that moment.


    He caught the flailing, foolish child by the arm, batted her stiletto away, and then with a short series of practiced twists, had both the necromancer''s arms pinned behind her back. He didn''t want to damage her any more than he had to, for fear that shock would be enough to finally kill her. "Come with me!"


    Elruin stared down at the dismembered Calenda, while Claron began to drag her away. Calenda needed help, needed her help, or the necromantic structures would shatter and she would be lost forever. "Let me go!"


    Claron didn''t waste his time dignifying her demands with a refusal.


    Then the scream changed from desperation to unforgiving rage. The solid black of her eyes spread outward, across her face, down her neck, over her clothes, every inch of her body bled necromantic power.


    Frost spread across Claron''s fingers moments before they shattered from the cold. He stared down at the child for the brief moment with his one good eye as half his body froze while the other half burned. All the heat of his body forced away from the necromancer until it erupted from his back. He dropped dead, not comprehending where it all went wrong.


    Euwatsu, still watching the show from the privacy of her secret chambers in a hidden corner of the empire, began to giggle and clap her hands. "So soon!"


    Then she stopped, remembered herself, and the lives lost this day. Claron had died doing what he believed to be right, but she knew from experience history would not remember him as such.


    She bowed her head. "Claron was a good man, a hero, and his death is a tragedy. The greatest of all tragedies that he was born to this world which needs monsters, not heroes. He will be remembered longer than he can know."


    She dismissed the portal, set the Eye of Enge down on her desk, and sat in her chair. Then she allowed herself to cry. She was indirectly responsible for more deaths than she could keep track of, but this was only the second time she inflicted the killing blow.


    Moments later, she smiled again and jumped back to her feet. There was far, far too much work to do, and for the first time in a long time she was excited to see what came next.

 Chapter 57

    Suggested Listening</a>


    The moment Claron fell, Elruin stumbled to Calenda. "You can''t die." It was a whisper, a command, perhaps the first prayer the girl had made with complete sincerity in her life. What power she had left went to her song, bolstering Cali''s energies as best she could. Next, she extended her power to all of the necromantic energy remaining on the battlefield, the tainted corpses of the butchered undead, the taint that remained from the dollies which Claron incinerated, and what residual power remained in the stitched fabric of the void hole.


    It was energy enough to restore the dying spark of power tying Cali together. Then Elruin stopped singing, grabbed Cali''s arm, and stuck it against the stump just above her elbow. "Don''t worry, you''ll be okay. I''ll fix you."


    "Ahh!" Calenda hissed in agony as her arm began to restitch itself to the rest of her flesh, a process forced along by Elruin''s magic.


    "Sorry, I''m doing the best I can." Elruin kept humming as she warped Cali''s flesh, melding it back together on string of sinew at a time, and began the process of fusing the bone. Now that the limb was reconnected, the necromantic glove would be able to supply some minor amount of strength. Elruin reached for the other limb.


    Calenda smiled. "Don''t know what you''re talking about, I feel fine." Perhaps the most obvious lie of her life. The nerves still attached to her were working, but the same could not be said of the pain-ignoring process the body used to put itself in shock. "Gah! Okay, but I can say I''ve been through worse." That much was true, though it hadn''t happened often.


    "The next part will be worse." Calenda had been bisected along the stomach, and now that meant Elruin had to go through the process of stitching all of that back together. "Sorry."


    "Hey, you''re not the one who cut me in half." Calenda grit her teeth in agony as the process started with her spine, then worked itself forward. "Make him apologize!"


    "Too busy being dead to apologize," Claron said. "HAH! You should see the look on your faces! If you weren''t already dead, I bet you''d have shit yourself!"


    "Scratch!" Cali clenched a ball of claylike soil, then chucked it as best she could at Scratch''s new puppet. She impressed herself with her aim, with a solid blow to his face.


    The puppet smacked his lips, an act which resulted in some of the mouth to break apart, dangling chunks of frozen flesh held on only by some small amount of pliable skin. "Mmm, tastes like my last girlfriend." He waited a moment. "Speaking of, I just found the reason Claron was an insane egomaniac. Specifically, it''s what I didn''t find." He gestured at his crotch with both hands. "Unfortunately, I''ve already shown you one void hole today, and I don''t do repeat performances."


    "You degenerate reject!" This time, Cali found a rock in the dirt, and with a combination of skill and luck, she hit him in what passed for the good eye. "You didn''t defy death! It took one look at you and left you behind!"


    "That may be, but I''ve some experience in how walking corpses deals with pain," he said as he turned away. "Getting angry works a whole lot better than trying to stay calm, as you now know."


    Cali hesitated, then looked down at where a line of natural tan now bisected her cosmetics-paled skin. "Huh."


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    "You''re welcome. Now come help me deal with the trash, you''re the only one equipped to do it right." Scratch gestured at the man who''d led the attack on their group. As of this moment, Ketak had him pinned to the ground, her steel claws pressed into his back. "Speaking of, we got a lot to planning to do now that Claron is gone and we''ve caught one of the Ghosts'' other commanders."


    "Claron''s dead, we won, what''s left?" Lemia asked.


    "Do you think because the enemy general dies that his army magically vanishes? That they all surrender, knowing they face executions?" Scratch was finding it far too easy to exploit Claron''s deep, booming voice in making his points. "What lazy hack writers have you read? Because real life don''t work that way."


    "Hey, I''m an alchemical scholar," Lemia said. "When it comes to war, I''m supposed to build the weapons, not fight the battles. So, what does happen, now?"


    "It''s going to be a mess," Cali said. "Cities that will need to be sieged out. More innocent people are going to die in reclaiming our cities than were lost when Claron invaded in the first place. Fortunately, we have one of their commanders."


    "Just kill me and get it over with, abomination." Renar didn''t bother to look up. "Claron restructured our entire command system, now that he''s dead there is no clear succession. The Ghosts are lost, Asceli is dead. You''ve won. And we both know I''ve seen too much to live. I think you owe me a clean death after I helped save that necromancer from Claron, or did your honor die with the rest of you?"


    "Honor, he says." Scratch crossed his arms. "Eh, this ain''t my play."


    "Does he know anything we can use against the bad people?" Elruin asked. "You can make him talk, right?"


    Calenda looked at Elruin. It was true, if he spoke to an Inquisitor, or almost anyone outside of this select group, it would spell disaster. Torturing him would also be a waste, and not something she wanted to do. "He''s too good for my brand of Truthsaying, best I can tell is that I can''t tell, and torture is useless without magic to prevent lying. Scratch, want to take a new puppet?"


    "Sorry, he''s outside of my power as well," Scratch said. "And I''m afraid he''ll explode while I''m inside him. I promise it''s less fun than it sounds."


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    "Lucky you, quick death it is." Calenda knelt in front of Renar. She gripped his head with both hands, and used the vampiric shard to the fullest extent. Pain and pleasure blended inside her as the basic repairs cobbled together by Elruin were replaced with fresh, healthy, undead flesh. For a few brief moments, her heart beat again.


    Elruin looked down at the corpse, then began to sing to it. Flashes and concepts, longing glances he made toward Asceli when she wasn''t looking, a hope for a better future than the one he had grown up in. She ignored those distractions, pushed deeper, sang of his friends and made his remains sing back. "They have a teleporter," she said. "An old lady. Uewatsu?"


    Claron''s body laughed.


    "You know her, corpse?" Lemia stared at the maimed, bloodied eye sockets of a dead man that stood a full two feet taller than her.


    "I know the organization she works for, or I can make a good guess. And as a preemptive note, they''re either insane, or are better at pretending to be insane than anyone I''ve ever met. They''re trying to save the world."


    "Entek ne," Calenda muttered. "I''ve had enough of these crazy cultists who think they can make a better world by the power of happy thoughts."


    "Oh, you wish," Scratch said. "No, these guys are full-on deepest end of the death cults that other death cults call crazy. They believe the world is broken, and the only way to save it is by killing it, and by extension everyone on it. And every time anything starts to look like it''s going in what most would call a good direction, here they come to kick it all down again."


    "Three above, four below," Lemia said. "Do you have any proof?"


    "You''re the scholar, I bet you can find the patterns better than me. I''ve seen the aftermath of their ''projects'' over the centuries. Seems like they find any empire that gets too big or stable, then set about sabotaging it from within. Fan the flames of rebellion, get them to destroy themselves. Or maybe I''m wrong, maybe empires inevitably tear themselves apart. I am paranoid, and proud of it, but I have been known to jump at shadows on occasion."


    "More than half of their forces are in Arila," Elruin said. While Scratch talked, she''d continued her violations of a dead man''s privacy. "All the strongest ones are still in the city. They''re weaker than they pretend, which is why they needed Claron."


    "Let''s worry about that," Calenda said. "Suicide conspiracies which might not exist are secondary to an occupying army. I can make it back to Arila by nightfall, hopefully before they reorganize from Claron''s death."


    "You think you can kill all of them?" Ketak asked.


    "No, I may be stronger than ever before, but I''m not that strong," Cali said. "But I''m not the one they have to be afraid of."


    "Gluk." A sickly wet noise popped from Claron''s throat as the flesh of his esophagus collapsed inward as a squishy mess. Scratch poked his head out of his borrowed chest. "About time for me to ditch this body. Nice while it lasted. Speaking of, sarite. I''m guessing they''re good if he only had two." He handed off a couple crystals to Lemia, then Claron''s corpse collapsed like a marionette with the strings cut.


    "Oh, right, and the of Eye of Enge, no idea where it went or how to find it." Scratch said in his native form and voice. "I guess it was magicked to vanish when the user died. Or maybe it fell into the void, in which case it''s gone forever."


    "That''s a problem," Cali said. "Okay, we need to take Claron''s body as proof he''s dead. And his armor. I''ll take the armor to Arila, but someone needs to deliver the body to Sonhome, keep an eye on it until the Engewal''s royalty can send someone to pick up the body, and investigate the death site. Expect all sorts of Inquisitor nosiness."


    "I suppose I''ll deliver the message to the queen. Always wondered what it''d be like to have royalty singing my praises." Lemia said. "I''ve got some experience dodging Truthsayers, and I''m pretty confident I''m strong enough to prevent someone from reading my mind without my awareness. But, should I show them the battlefield?"


    "They won''t find anything here," Scratch said. "Long as Elruin clears the taint, maybe even if she doesn''t. Void plays havoc on sensory magic. Worst part''s going to be you having to swear in all conceivable directions that we didn''t keep the other Eye of Enge. I doubt even the gods know where it is now. I know I haven''t the first idea."


    "Is it safe to tell Engewal about the void-holes? These seem like the sort of thing the military would take advantage of."


    "As if they could," Scratch said. "Only a void mage can do anything with void holes other than get themselves killed. Tell them the truth, that you had a local guide of Fey origin who told you where to find the hole, and how it could be used to beat Claron. Lured him here with promises of Elruin delivered by morks. Then a lot of people died to kill him."


    "Fey origin?" Lemia looked at the insubstantial inky ghost.


    "Okay, a local guide claiming to be of fey origin, if that helps. Which is what I am doing right now, claiming I was fey once upon a time. Everyone knows we''re fickle and impossible to predict and you can''t trust anything we say or even our appearance. Keep asking me more questions on the subject and I''ll keep lying until you give up. I''m also a dragon and God of the Sacred Phallus. Tell them I said that, too."


    "Ugh, I get the point," Lemia said. "What else?"


    "See if you can get bribes out of them."


    "It''s not a bad idea," Cali said. "But don''t act like you want anything. It''s... one of those royal traditions. Talk about how happy you were to help, and how all you want is to return to school and live in peace. In effect, the first noble you accept a personal gift from wins the competition. Whenever they offer, suggest that instead of rewarding you, they provide supplies to help those suffering after the rebellion. They love that sort of humility."


    "Are you sure this isn''t just you manipulating me?" Lemia crossed her arms. "Sounds an awful lot like what you''d say to trick me into giving up my just rewards."


    "Well, you could take an offer," Cali said. "But then you have a noble family which has marked its territory on you. You''ve been bought, at whatever price you get for yourself. Or hold out, and your value keeps climbing. Maybe you get a noble scion husband out of the gig. I never took anything from them, and I had Lord Garit doing everything in his power to marry me. Technically, he succeeded. Then I killed myself."


    She said it with a smile, but it was a weak one. Somewhere inside her now-cold body, she felt pain at the loss of the life she had, and the future that might have been. She made the right decision, of that she had no doubt, but some part of her yearned for a path where she could have had her freedom, and the stability which Garit represented. He would make a fine husband and a wonderful father some day, and now all possibility that she would see that day was gone.


    "Not so different than my last career, then," Lemia muttered. "I''ll take your advice under consideration, but I am for sale with the right price."


    "Speaking o'' price," Ketak said. "I presume ''is means ''e end o'' our alliance?"


    Cali looked over at the dwarf. "Umm, it looks like it. Not forever, but for the time being. We have responsibilities to our home. You''ll want your share of the sarite, I presume."


    "No, I got one better." Ketak lifted the very weapon which bisected Calenda not long ago. "Dwar''en work, per''ect set o'' magic ''or a goblin hunter. I don''t know where he ''ound it, but I want it back."


    Cali sighed. "I''d give you the same speech I gave Lemia, but it doesn''t apply to nonhumans. We''ll just have to apologize and say you insisted and we had little ability to refuse under the circumstances."


    "Hey, if you don''t mind associating with a Fey guide, I''ll stick around," Scratch said. "Everyone else is going to be in the cities while I have to wait around outside, and killing goblins sounds like a good time. Also, you have a better chance of getting messages to my associates than I do if an emergency pops up."


    "Ell, can I talk to you for a second in private?" Lemia pulled the girl by the sleeve of her training uniform. It was a testament to their quality that the clothes survived the trials they had been through.


    "Okay." Elruin let herself be guided while Cali did the work of dividing resources between them and determining who''d take what with them.


    "How did you do that ice spell? Can you do it again? Or any other ice magic?"


    "I think so." Elruin tapped into her depleted reserves. As it wasn''t a combat situation, she used the weakest variant she could and took time to keep it as inexpensive as possible.


    "But I know you use time magic, and I''ve seen you use rage magic from time to time. And now you have ice magic as well. How?"


    Elruin hesitated. "I don''t know." She considered the song she heard, and could not for the life of her determine how she accomplished the use of ice magic in spite of not being able to before, and the assertion of all scholars that having direct access to more than three aspects was impossible.


    "During the battle, I was looking for a weakness in Claron''s powers, some aspect of death that could counter the magic flowing from him." She thought back to the battle, and the defenses and healing Claron relied upon. "It was fire, with blood and rage aspects that I think came from his equipment. I couldn''t stop him, none of my spells were more than an inconvenience against him."


    "One of his sarite was designed for the sole purpose of countering necromancy," Lemia said. She held up the crystal which would have been a beautiful counter to Elruin even an hour ago. "I think he trusted his natural fire and earth aspects to protect him from your other abilities. He must have learned what you could do from someone at the school."


    "I felt so helpless, so weak, and then he started to hurt Cali." Elruin drew closer to herself. "I don''t know how, but something fell into place, and I could hear the song most suited to end him."


    "Which you still remember, like your other aspects?"


    "Yes." Elruin looked down. "It''s new magic, I think I''ll need to practice it if I want it as strong as my other spells."


    "We''ll need to look into that, when we have time." Lemia put a hand on Elruin''s shoulder, offering what comfort she could. "For now, you should keep your new aspect secret. Right now, anyone who tries to protect themselves from your magic is in for a nasty surprise. Better keep it that way."


    Elruin nodded at the sensible suggestion. "Alright."

 Chapter 58

    Suggested Listening</a>


    Lemia tried her best not to stare at Engewal''s fortified entrance, but she had never witnessed such splendor before. Save, perhaps, the city-in-the-branches of Sonhome. What did they use to make white walls for a city this size? It couldn''t be direct magic, such an expenditure of power to cover a city this size would be detectable from the other side of the planet. A pity Ketak stayed behind, she should have more expertise on the subject. Or was it racist to assume that because she was a dwarf, she''d know about stone construction?


    "The stone is from the ash of Emperor Enge, coupled with sand and limestone," their guide said. "Crafted through techniques taught to our ancestors. Then, as now, our god provided for us."


    Lemia offered a lopsided smile at the woman dressed in the finery of a royal guard. Her blue hair was short, kept in the style of a military commander, which reminded Lemia to some day ask Cali why she kept her hair long. "Was I that obvious?"


    "I can tell you''re the scholarly type, if that''s what you mean," she said. As usual, she was brusque, and bordered on the impolite. "However, it is part of my duty to tell all guests of the city about our blessed walls."


    Lemia chose to bite her tongue; there was nothing that could be gained in asking one of the highest ranking officials in the empire why she had such an attitude problem. Instead, she turned her attention to Elruin. "Ell? You''re doing it again."


    The black energy of Elruin''s magic leaked from her eyes like fire as she watched the walls. "Sorry." Elruin blinked, her eyes returned to their new normal. It seemed the whites of her eyes were now black to stay. "I can see why Claron was afraid to attack Engewal directly."


    "Assuming the claims that this pretender to the throne was, indeed, Lord Claron. You haven''t provided much evidence."


    Again with this insistence that he was a pretender? Lemia bit her tongue, for there was no right approach. Of a greater concern than the conversation was the fact that there were multiple soldiers with them, some of the best Engewal had to offer, and all of them were nervous about the child necromancer with black eyes. It struck her as unlikely that they were a match for even one of them without special preparations.


    "Ylasa, sister, I feel you should add context." The male lead of their honor guard interjected. He bore a strong resemblance to his sister, a strong, tall man with somewhat effeminate features which Lemia found more attractive than she wanted to admit.


    He addressed his sibling in order to question their guests, maintaining the standards of polite society. "They cannot know the disruption caused when we heard the rumors that our half-brother, or an impostor claiming to be him, lead the Ghosts of Sorvel. Nor could they have realized that we were sent to identify the body, and mayhap we could have been spared some suspense if we were informed he was maimed to unrecognizability in a zone of distorted magic. I''m sure the lost Eye of Enge weighs heavy on your mind as well."


    "What Weran said." Ylasa didn''t so much as look at them.


    Lemia could tell there was significantly more beneath the surface there. "If it is any consolation, the artifact wasn''t one created by Enge. At best, it was a tribute. At worst, a forgery. Either way, no true treasure of the Emperor."


    "Oh?" Ylasa still looked forward, but she appeared to relax. "What makes you believe that?"


    "The fact that we''re standing here," Lemia said. "We suspected from the beginning, when the dryad of Arila defied him, and none of the priests received the divine message of a Chosen having arrived. But the proof is that we, a handful of mortals, could overwhelm the pretender. Our traps and the warped magic zone did most of the work, but it could never have been enough to defeat Enge''s power. So I must believe our victory is proof that Enge was not aiding the pretender."


    "So it would seem, on the surface," Ylasa said. "But there is much that doesn''t make sense. That the pretender died to the hand of the very child he claimed he wanted to slay in Enge''s name."


    "I''m no theologian," Lemia said. "Nor a military scholar. I claim little knowledge of the inner thoughts of generals, and would not dare question the mind of a god."


    "Sister, please, you cannot expect they would have answers even Lady Nalet na Enge could not provide? We will have to rely on our exorcists and inquisitors to take the information from the pretender''s remains."You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.


    "They will fail," Elruin said. Then she realized she was looking at Weran instead of Ylasa. "Sorry." She looked down with hands clasped together, as demure and quiet as possible. She would have to mind her manners better after her adventures in the woods.


    "How can you know that?" Ylasa asked. She chose to take advantage of the child''s improper behavior to interrogate her some.


    "We used a lot of magic to attack him," she said. "When I killed him, it was with the strongest necromancy I could use, then I kept using it on him even after he died, to be certain he could never be brought back again. There is nothing left for an exorcist to find." It was true, even if she left out that the one who did most of the heavy lifting was Scratch.


    Lemia put her hand on Elruin''s shoulder. "Maybe we should save this conversation for when we meet with the queen''s advisors." These people were nervous enough as it was, and each one was amongst Engewal''s strongest. Worse still, the more Elruin talked, the more they might learn about her abilities, which could be a disaster. "We have a lot to tell."


    "Very well."


    Suggested Listening</a>


    Lemia could not have been more wrong. They were led to the palace, as expected, but instead of their ''honor'' guard leading them to some isolated corner of the mansion where they would be interrogated for hours, they were greeted by the queen herself.


    "Your majesty!" Lemia knelt, doing her best to imitate what Calenda did before, but she dropped to hard. The tingling sensation in her knee on down would have to be ignored for the moment.


    "Please, stand. No need for formalities, call me Queen Amiris." She then smiled. "Well, I suppose there''s some need for formalities. I would do away with them if I could, but even queens have their limits."


    "Yes, Queen Amiris." Lemia stood slowly, trying her best to hide the newly created weakness in her leg. The regenerative sarite would help her along.


    The queen looked at the young woman and child who helped deal the crippling blows to the rebellion. "You''re the one who killed Lord Claron?"


    "Mother, is it appropriate to..." Ylasa started to interrupt.


    "Your father''s not here," Queen Amiris said. "He may want to deny it, but everyone else in the kingdom knows the truth. Right now, he''ll be with the body. Here''s hoping he doesn''t try something so foolish as resurrecting him. Such sentimentality is unbecoming of a king."


    Whatever opinions they may have had on the subject, nobody present was willing to contradict the queen. Ylasa did speak on another matter. "The necromancer claims it won''t be possible to resurrect him, and indeed all attempts to reach his soul will fail."


    "Is that so?" Queen Amiris smiled when Elruin nodded. She would need to consult with her Archmage to determine how probable it was that a child would have power enough to block resurrection magic, but that was a task for later. "If true, you have done a greater service to the empire than you realize."


    "M... Queen Amiris, if I may?" Lemia waited for confirmation. "Is there any danger that the king might retaliate against us?"


    Amiris kept smiling. "You needn''t worry, it simply means we''ll need to maintain the official fiction that the pretender was impersonating Lord Claron. Perhaps he made use of illusion or shapechanging magic. Did you detect any such magic? Do you have means to do so?"


    "We have some means to deal with certain illusions." Sensing traps in all conceivable directions, Lemia chose her words knowing there was a real chance that everyone in this hall other than Elruin and herself were Truthsayers. "However, I don''t believe anyone in our team ever witnessed the official Lord Claron with our own eyes. How could we spot a fake if we never saw the original? I can swear with certainty we fought a tall, male, forge mage with blue hair and normal copper skin like most of ours. Elruin, did you notice anything that could sort him from anyone else?"


    "No," she said. Remembering Scratch and the words he spoke, she elaborated. "I think I could tell if he was using magic to change his shape, so I don''t think he was. Lady Calenda said I have a talent for sensing magic."


    "Even without illusions, what you say describes thousands within the empire." Queen Amiris didn''t try to hide the approval in her voice. "Forge mages are the most common bloodline we have."


    "And if I''m honest, I can''t swear he was even a forge mage." If the queen wanted plausible deniability, Lemia was willing to give it her best. Anything to keep an irate king from ordering their executions. "In the confusion of battle, it was impossible to determine where the man''s power ended, and the artifact''s began. It was more powerful than any artifact I have ever seen."


    "Which means thousands could be millions" The queen looked at those few escorts entrusted to be at this meeting. None of them showed an expression, but that was the sign that was given if the truth was being spoken. "That is an interesting theory, I shall pass it along post haste. For now, let us get you into dresses for the ball."


    "A ball?" Lemia hesitated; the idea of Elruin in a social situation was hilariously bad. She latched on to what Calenda said of rejecting bribes and extracting charity for the victims of the war. "Are you sure it''s appropriate to celebrate while there is a war going on?"


    "You would be correct, but the war is over," the queen said. "Your Priestess Esra delivered the news to Arila, and the Ghosts were routed within the hour. Lyra''s new keeper is far more proactive than the former. Once Arila fell and it became clear their pretender wasn''t going to come to save them, the counter-rebellions were merciless and thorough. Those that did not flee are either dead or in our custody. It was a crushing victory. Now come along, people are desperate to meet the heroes of the hour."


    So much for talking our way out of it. "When you put it that way, how could we refuse?"

 Chapter 59A

    Suggested Listening</a>


    Elruin stepped out of the changing room with her arms out, unwilling to touch the dress she suspected cost more than everything else she owned combined. The dark teal fabric became lighter as layers grew thinner toward the extremities. The billowing effect created the impression of a waterfall, or a fluffy and delicate flower. Elruin was afraid to use her lifesight, for fear even that minor use of magic would melt the gossamer cloth.


    "Oh!" Lemia was already outside, having changed into her own red dress long ago. It, too, was comprised of numerous layers, but it held together in such a way that they draped off her shoulders in a manner that accentuated her generous figure as well as covering it, topped off with a red ribbon in her hair. "You''re adorable! I want to hug you forever!"


    Elruin smiled at the approval. "Don''t, I''m afraid you''ll break it."


    Lemia gave Elruin a pat on the head. "Then I can wait. Besides, we should get going." She turned toward the demure maidservants waiting in silence. "I imagine being late to your own party is a faux pas.


    "Please, this way," the older looking of the two said. Neither were near elderly, but both were years older than the two heroes they escorted. Soon, they found themselves coming around a corner into a large ballroom which was filling with people. They weren''t first to arrive, but they were far from last, and they had people coming for them the moment the maids stepped aside so they could enter.


    Lady Juna and Lord Garit were the first to greet their arrival. Elruin missed the subliminal social interplay which determined it would be them, while the others stayed back far enough to be out of eavesdropping range. Lemia, too, took a step back. This was clearly not a place she should involve herself in.


    "I''m glad to see you''re well," Juna said. "Look at you in that gown. You''re the very picture of a fine young noblewoman. It brings me fond memories of the dances of my childhood."


    "Dear sister," Garit said. "I seem to recall you destroying those dresses in ever more elaborate ways, such as convincing our playmates to set you on fire. Much to the dismay of our parents."


    Juna''s grin was mischievous, bordering on malicious. "As I said, fond memories."


    Elruin couldn''t take her eyes off the burn scar trailing down Juna''s cheek and jaw, before it vanished beneath her clothes. "You''re hurt." She risked her lifesight for a moment, confirming that there was depth to her injuries. She had to be in a great deal of pain, with wounds so fresh and raw. "What happened?"


    "My traitor of a half brother..." Juna''s cheerful act slipped for a moment. "But you needn''t worry about me, it''s a minor injury. In fact, I think I''ll ask the healers not to touch the surface injuries. My face will bear the literal scars of our brother''s betrayal, especially for our father. Let him look at me and be unable to forget what his favorite son did."


    "Oh, wrathful and wondrous sibling, perhaps it''s better to move on to other topics?"


    "Ah, but of course, you were always better at pretending to be even-headed than I." Juna''s smile returned, forced though it was. "My dear brother wanted to ask what became of his lost fianc¨¦e. Claron''s people report she died, but other reports say you had a priestess with you, one calling herself Esra, who seemed familiar with matters of politic and war."


    "When I heard, I thought perhaps Calenda found a way to fake her death." Garit pushed the limits of social acceptability, in talking as he was, but he could always say he was speaking to Juna rather than Elruin. "I don''t know why she feels the need to hide, now that Claron is gone. If she''s avoiding me, I want her to know I won''t ask anything more of her."


    "I''m sorry." Elruin brought her hands together. "Cali died from a magic weapon I built. Like Claron, she cannot be resurrected. Her last words were ''I choose to die on my feet.'' She will be remembered."


    Garit closed his eyes, lest they see him cry. "As in life, so too in death."


    "Her absence will be felt by all," Juna said. "Which is the other reason we''re here. This would be your first experience in royal court. You''ll find many gifts and favors being traded about here, and we''d like to help you navigate the waters. Your position in the political order has become complicated. Between the death of Claron and the death of your mother, nobody''s quite certain what to do with you."The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.


    "Nonsense! It''s quite simple." An older woman approached. Her red hair might one time have possessed the same vibrant red as Calenda''s, but it had faded. In spite of that and other changes brought on by the march of years, Elruin recognized her well before she introduced herself. "I am Lady Aster, Calenda''s mother. That makes me your grandmother, and so you are secure within our house."


    "Not as I recall." Juna''s usual cheer carried a little edge to it. "My ever-so-studious brother, could you please confirm for me how the laws of succession apply in a situation such as this one?"


    "The children of non-inheriting children have no claim of estate, unless their parent or parents are made to be inheriting at a later date." Garit''s words were stated with a practiced neutrality, as if reciting to a class, or the instructor. "It''s a textbook case of broken lineage. I''m afraid all claims Elruin has of belonging to your house died with Lady Calenda."


    Lady Aster hid her displeasure a little worse than Juna managed. "Don''t listen to them," she said to Elruin. "They both know claims can be established by any head of a royal house. Or re-established, as is this situation."


    "Not without the approval of the recipient," Juna said. She smiled at Elruin. "Which, I suppose, makes it your choice."


    Elruin didn''t need to be asked, now that she knew Lady Aster couldn''t do anything to punish her, like a real grandmother could. "You''re a mean woman."


    Lady Aster''s mouth fell open for a moment, before she closed it, glared at Juna, then marched away without another word.


    "I hope that won''t come back to hurt us," Lemia whispered. "Antagonizing noble houses never leads anywhere good, in my experience."


    "I wouldn''t make a habit of it, but in this one specific situation I think you''ll be fine," Juna said. "House Andara was never a major player, I dare say Calenda was the only member of the line with any true talent, and her betrothal to my brother their last foothold on the national level. It hasn''t helped that Lady Aster lacks the political acumen, or basic human decency, of her predecessor. Asserting a claim on Elruin was their last visible opportunity to matter in our lifetimes."


    Lemia looked at the back of the retreating noblewoman. "What happens to them, now?"


    "The usual," Juna said. "They''re still a minor bloodline, and nobody can take that away. Their best will rise to a certain extent in the Guard or priesthood. They''ll continue marrying into lesser houses, waiting like the rest for an opportunity to take center stage again. But the night is young and there are many players still in the game."


    Soon, a girl younger than Elruin, in a somehow even poofier dress, approached the group. She kept her head down, but held out a locket of woven gold. "Please accept our gift, in gratitude for stopping the pretender." The child spoke as if reciting lines, while behind her, a pair that must have been her parents watched.


    As emotional manipulation went, it was as transparent as it was impactful, and all of it flew over Elruin''s head. "If you want to give gifts, it''s better to donate to helping those hurt by the war. There are people injured and starving who need it."


    The child nodded, then returned to her parents as fast as her little legs could take her without tripping over her clothes. They seemed less than enthused when their daughter recited what Elruin said, but accepted it nonetheless.


    "Good answer," Juna said. "You managed to refuse the gift without rejecting the house making the offer."


    "We may have received some coaching," Lemia admitted. "Is this sort of thing common at these balls? And what''s even the point?"


    "It seems to me it is all we do, every time we have a ball," Juna said. "The point is that the more wealthy and powerful houses test the lesser, learn their measure, and try to out perform each other in buying loyalties. They''ll offer gifts to one another as well, but as a rule the act of accepting a gift is seen as an admission of weakness. If you need to be given a gift, you''re not good enough to earn it for yourself."


    Lemia almost laughed, for this was a situation she had found herself in all too often. The difference being, the people she knew were more honest about their goals, and more violent in their methods. "You''re very good at it, yourself." Lemia kept her eyes locked on Juna. "We accepted your help first, and now you''re in a place where you can all but control who gets to make what offers to us. Even the major houses must admit you outmaneuvered them."


    "And you are a fast learner." Juna showed not a hint of shame, bragging, or condescension. "I''m glad little Elruin has someone like you to watch her back, I can tell she''s going to need you. As much as I loved Calenda, she wasn''t much better at dealing with politics than her mother. The difference being, her mother loves politics and hates people, while she hated politics and loved people."


    "I just find myself wondering what you get out of telling me all of this."


    Lady Juna laughed. "If you had asked me that question six months ago, I might have finished explaining it to you yesterday. The simplest answer, I suppose, is that I don''t care what the game is, I want to find someone who can beat me at my best. Go ahead, ask my brother."


    "I''ll take your word for it." Lemia focused on Juna, and avoided letting herself be distracted. "So, out of curiosity, what happens when you find someone who does beat you?"


    Juna shrugged, then turned to look at the crowd. "I don''t know."

 Chapter 59B

    Suggested Listening</a>


    A number of offered gifts later, and the young heroines were beginning to find themselves growing comfortable with how best to redirect gift-giving into charitable assistance, between enjoying the drinks and watching the dancers perform.


    "We''ll come back to visit you later," Lady Juna said. "You are the centerpiece of this ball, but by no means the only concern." She knelt down to Elruin''s height in order to speak to her directly. "And I promise I''ll see you again, soon. I want to see how much stronger you''ve become."


    Elruin clasped her hands together and nodded. "Be well."


    They watched the pair leave before Lemia turned to face Elruin so that nobody else could see what she was saying. "Why didn''t you tell me Lord Garit was so handsome? And his eyes! I thought I was going to die every time he looked at me!"


    "He is?" Elruin tilted her head to look at Garit. "You were?"


    "Oh, right, you''re twelve," Lemia said. "Forget I asked. In fact, forget I said anything. And don''t tell anyone else I said anything."


    Elruin didn''t get what was going on, but it didn''t seem important, and they had other things to worry about. "Okay."


    Soon, a young girl approached, as had happened a few times throughout the proceedings. Unlike most of those relying on the child ploy, this girl was older than Elruin, and the man she represented followed close behind. "Greetings. I am Runa." She clasped her hands and bowed. "My uncle heard you are students of the Order of High Thaumaturgy?"


    "We are," Elruin said.


    "She is," Lemia corrected. "I... may have burned some bridges before I left. I''ll have to find a different line of work."


    Runa looked back at her uncle, who smiled and nodded. She then turned her attention back to the pair. "My uncle is one of their alumni. He has lots of friends in the school, and knows all the teachers, if you need help. He also wants you to know he''s helping the recovery effort by donating two healing runes, one to Arila and another to Danul."


    Lemia almost swallowed her own tongue. "Two healing runes? How did he get two?" As a concept, runic magic was not difficult, a skill expected of all Archmages, but it was expensive due to the years it took to build self-charging magic artifacts that were stable and could generate a complex spell without human guidance. It was a labor requiring years from a master of the craft, but not as many years as it took to turn a human baby into a proper mage.


    "Uncle makes them." Runa puffed up with pride. "Might you take them back to Arila when you go, it would ensure they get to their destination safely, and faster than we could make arrangements."


    "I see." Lemia looked at the older gentleman with a more critical eye. He had the look of a scholar, a man who spent most of his life indoors with little natural light or exercise yet possessing of wealth and privilege. "It would be an honor and privilege to guard such works."


    The scholar smiled, then tapped his niece''s elbow. "We are glad they will help. We hope you accept our personal offer as well. I''m told the professors can be persuaded to look away from some transgressions, if one asks the right way."


    Ain''t that the truth. Lemia bit her tongue. "If someone knows the right way to ask Dean Meris not to have me arrested for running off with his prized magic sword, it would be appreciated."


    "And access to the upper class labs?" Elruin asked. "It''s hard to do important studies with all of the new students." That she was one of the new students was lost to nobody.


    "I believe that can be arranged." Runa looked back for her uncle to give a confirming nod. She then clasped her hands together to show gratitude. "I''m glad we were able to help you as you''ve helped Engeval."


    Elruin clasped her hands together in response. "As we walk."


    Soon, another woman approached them. This one was unusual for being near Lemia''s age, if perhaps a little younger. Too old to head a noble family, too young to be an adorable proxy for her elders. She was an attractive girl, with the telltale blue-toned hair of the upper class, though hers was a dark navy blue. "Greetings. I''m Prilla. I apologize for bothering you, I''m not here as a representative of a major house, but we heard you were a scholar?"


    Lemia relaxed and smiled. "I wouldn''t call myself a scholar yet, but perhaps some day."


    Prilla smiled back, though still nervous. "I thought so. My brother, Orsol, was hoping to speak to you. As a potential suitor. He will understand if you refuse, we can hardly compete with some of the other houses, but if you value a partner who values knowledge, there is no finer in the kingdom."


    Lemia looked in the crowd, and didn''t take long to spot the young man who must be Orsol. He had the same deep blue hair as his sister, and when she looked his direction he hurried to look away. He didn''t quite measure up to Lord Garit, but he was attractive, as all nobles seemed to be. The advantages of good breeding, easy living, and healing magic on demand, showed for everyone in the room. If he was the scholarly type, she could see herself enjoying his company. Until he learned anything at all about her past.The narrative has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.


    Elruin had other concerns to voice. "What about our research?" The nature of what their work would be focused on with Taint, Void, and an ancient map artifact. All of which held complex and dangerous secrets they couldn''t afford to share with others, for reasons which varied from greedy treasure-hunters to zealous heretic-burners.


    It was enough to push Lemia into a decision. She took a slow breath. "I''m sorry, Prilla, you''re operating on a misunderstanding."


    "It''s fine, we knew it was unlikely you''d be interested." Priscilla began to turn away.


    "No, that''s not the problem. You''re fine, and I''m sure your brother is as well, which is why you shouldn''t waste your time on me. I''m nothing special. It was Elruin, Esra, and Ketak who did the fighting, while I was bookkeeping and finding useful herbs. I come from peasant stock, with a bloodline to match. I can''t even claim virtue, I sold that to pay my way into school. A fact I''m sure it won''t take long for the gossips to uncover. Better to keep your family name out of my history."


    Prilla considered the implications of her statements. If true, it was best to deny ever having spoken to this woman for purposes outside polite expectation. "Your candor is appreciated." She raised her voice so the nearest people could hear her. "I''ll make certain our family helps the recovery effort." Prilla then hurried to her waiting brother, no doubt to share the news that he asked out a prostitute.


    Elruin watched the interplay, with no understanding of the subtext or what it had to do with donations. Donations were good, they''re why she came to help in the court so why did Lemia seem so sad? "Are you hurt?"


    "Nothing I hadn''t expected," she said. "But for a second there, I thought I could pretend things were different, and I was different."


    "Why would you want to be different? If you weren''t you, what would you be?" Elruin squeezed Lemia''s arm with her hand, the closest thing she could risk to a hug while wearing her fragile dress. "You''re smart, and nice, and have lots of friends to help you."


    Lemia smiled at the child who managed to be optimistic despite a laundry list of horrible events in her past. "You''re right, no sense in worrying about it. If I hadn''t made the choices I made, I would be in the slums, and if I met you at all, it would just be a glance in the distance."


    As the evening wore on, gift offers gave way to preemptive promises to contribute to the recovery efforts to spare themselves the rejection. Such was the nature of the game, sometimes, that those who played their hands last had the advantage of learning from the failures of those who came before. In the end, only two of dozens had won specific favor, but only Lady Aster had been outright rebuked.


    When the ball began to draw to a close, it was Queen Amiris who made the final move of the evening. Her outfit was purple and gold, with her husband next to her wearing silver and red in an opulent imitation of a military uniform. Everyone grew silent the moment they realized the situation.


    "Esteemed colleagues, honored guests." Queen Amiris projected her voice well, and made no indication of which label applied to which attendee. "Today we celebrate victory, but with heavy hearts, for the loss of many good men and women. Friends, family, and strangers."


    In the pause, the crowd responded. "They will be remembered."


    "And we look into an uncertain future, knowing we face a time of rebuilding and healing both ourselves and our kingdom. In the name of that goal, I propose we acknowledge the heroes who stopped the pretender, by granting them titles befitting heroes."


    "So say us both," her husband stated the moment she went silent. Even, perhaps especially, the queen had to follow social protocol about appearing to command the men in the audience. By giving his voice, it was now acceptable for her to continue.


    "We shall grant them lordship, with all the prestige that comes with it. Do any here object?"


    None did, for this was standard protocol. Many of them had witnessed these mud heroes be granted the title, to see them marry into a larger house in time. A lordship without a grant of property meant nothing, save the right to be known as Ladies. Their personal holdings were not at stake, for even the royal family could not grant property they did not own the rights to. Lady Aster might have tried, but she was not of a house in high enough standing.


    Juna stepped up next to the pair, knowing the song and dance far better than the newcomers could. "I''d suggest you take the titles," she whispered. "Thank Queen Amiris. No need to kneel, not now."


    Lemia took a breath, then stepped forward knowing everyone was watching her. "Thank you, your majesty. I... don''t know what to say."


    A polite series of nods were made throughout the hall, including by the queen.


    "Now if you like, I can give that useless title some meaning," Juna said. "Still more token than value, but a place to start, and a House to call your own."


    "Can you?" Elruin asked. As she understood it, a house title would require a claim of land ownership. A piece of property would be a great place to put their equipment, a private library and alchemy lab, and a home for her dollies. "I''d like that."


    As if waiting for the signal, Garit spoke from the side of the room. "I believe my mother, Duchess Hida na Arila, has an announcement to make." He then leaned down, and began the process of aiding an older woman to her feet.


    Duchess Hida was not an elderly woman, but she bore the stress of health problems which was beyond mortal magic to cure. The act of rising to her feet taxed her strength, and it was all she could do to ignore the pain in her abdomen. "I have instructed my son to make the announcement for me. Thank you." That was all she could do, before sitting down again.


    Garit waited for his mother to be comfortable again before he delivered her message. "In honor of her service to Arila, in slaying the pretender, as a healer who aided the poor, and saving lives during the occupation of Arila, House Arila has chosen to bequeath a portion of its land, the section known locally as ''The Shelter'', to Lady Elruin. And with it, the right to claim the status of Minor House."


    Elruin looked wide eyed at Juna. "What do I do?"


    "Well, you''ll be expected to look after the Shelter. As the only ranking noblewoman with a connection to Lyra''s new caretaker, you''ll be expected to maintain positive relations with her. And within certain limits, it''s up to you to determine how the Shelter is run from now on. In truth, it''s a symbolic act, since the land has no taxable value and nobody expects Lyra or her priestess to hurt the city."


    "What do I call my House?"


    "Anything you want," Juna said. "Most name the house after a founding member, a favored line of a religious text, or an ideal to strive for. As long as you don''t pick an existing House name, you can do almost anything. You needn''t decide now, some Houses have existed for decades without choosing an official name."


    Elruin didn''t need time to decide. "House Cali."


    "A fine ideal to live up to," Juna said. "I know she would have been proud to know you''d carry her name forward in such a noble manner, as I am proud to be the first to acknowledge Lady Elruin na Cali."


    It was all Lemia could do to not break out into laughter.

 Chapter 60- Fuzzy Harbingers of Madness and Death

    Suggested Listening</a>


    "You did WHAT!?" Calenda shouted loud enough to attract a glance from the people in the distance. That, or it was Lemia laughing nonstop as Elruin delivered the news. Cali chose to believe it was the latter.


    "I got a House, and I named it after you," Elruin said. "Lady Juna said you''d be proud."


    "Worst part of being dead," Cali muttered. "Everyone starts to imagine they can talk about what you would or would not have wanted. Funny how what they think you''d want is what they want."


    Lemia managed to get her giggle-fit under control. "Look at it this way, you couldn''t have asked for a more convincing method to tell everyone that you''re no longer amongst the living. Your beloved adopted sister said you were dead point blank to Lord Garit and Lady Juna, while who knows how much lie detection magic was in the room, then to honor your memory she names her fresh-minted noble House after you."


    "I would have preferred you turn down the titles in the first place. Didn''t I tell you not to take gifts from the nobility? I meant all of them." She knelt down in front of Elruin. "I was trying to protect you from their world. Now that you''ve taken a title, that means you''re part of their system, which comes with obligations. From now on, you''ll be expected to show results to prove you''re using your holdings well, oaths of loyalty. For you, in particular, that means they can and will make you serve the crown one way or another."


    Elruin looked down. "I''m sorry, I didn''t realize."


    "Guess there''s no point fighting the system, they always get what they want, and there''s not much we can do about it now." Cali stood. "Now we need to plan what to do with your so-called estate." She made a gesture at the ramshackle assortment of buildings.


    Elruin looked around. "I was told I have to talk to Erra. Lyra''s my responsibility, too, since she built her tree on my land."


    "It seems the gods of fate are determined for you to lead an interesting life." Calenda chuckled. "Let''s go find Erra."


    As they walked, Elruin asked a question that had been bothering her for a time. "Umm, what''s a wolf?"


    Cali''s face scrunched in thought while she walked. "I don''t know. I think they''re some sort of giant rat monster, but I''ve never seen one. In old myths, they hunt in swarms and eat livestock, or even people when they get a chance."


    Suggested Listening</a>


    Before they made it to the tree, Lyra came out to meet them. She flitted down from the tree and touched the ground like a leaf. Cali stepped back when Lyra looked at her. Lyra sniffed the air, then ignored her and went straight to Elruin and dropped a pile of small white crystals in front of her. They resonated with life energy, condensed and contained in shards that were not sarite, but served a similar function.


    "Oh, the crystals we found with the monsters..." Cali trailed off when Lemia reached back into her hair and withdrew three black balls of fluff. "Those. Don''t get too close, they''re more dangerous than they look."


    "They''re so adorable it hurts." Lemia stepped forward, only to jump back when the tiny furballs looked at her, their eyes glowing like hellfire. "Gah!"


    They squeaked at her, with a deeper tone than one would expect for such small animals. Fragments of fear magic emanated from their shared song, not enough to overcome Lemia''s resistance to magic, but she didn''t need active magic to make her wary of the unnatural beasts.


    Meanwhile, Lyra began handing them all off to Elruin, who scratched one''s neck while the other two climbed up her arms. "Aren''t they cute? What are they?"


    "I don''t know, but we found them in the rafters of a barracks that Claron''s people set up in. We tried to burn the nest, but Lyra''s taken a liking to them. They have some nasty darkness oriented magic, drives people insane, and then they, well, harvest them."


    "Harvest?" Lemia began using her own magic to observe the animals. These babies weren''t much, but she could see how the magic clung to them and transfused their bodies. Insidious stuff which would over time warp the native aspect of the environment into what appeared to be a rage-oriented elemental state, which might drive people insane without any direct action on their part. As they grew, so too would their strength. If they retained a natural squirrel''s reproductive rate, they could become a serious threat.


    Then she realized what the pile on the ground was. "Are those eyes?"


    "They were." Cali inched toward the pile of crystallized human eyes. "Infused with life energy extracted from Claron''s dead soldiers. Near as I can tell, this is what they eat. Two died before we figured that out."


    "Oh," Elruin sounded sad. "Poor babies." She looked down at the pile of eyes, observing the condensed and chained life force being used like fertile soil to grow into the necromantic energies the squirrels fed on. She could do that. She began to hum, and drew her well of power into a cupped hand, as if holding a small pool of deadly black fluid. Soon, the three surviving babies came down to the ''pool'' and began to lap away at the energies.The genuine version of this novel can be found on another site. Support the author by reading it there.


    Lemia shuddered when she realized there must have been thirty eye-crystals in the pile, then true horror dawned on her. "Uh, tell me I''m imagining that magical undertone."


    "I thought the same thing, but without having her nearby I couldn''t be certain. And now I was hoping you''d tell me I was wrong. Or at least could explain to me why these things have Elruin''s resonance all over them."


    Lemia swallowed, considering her training. Hybrids and chimera were not her specialty, but she''d taken a class on the subject. "Well, it''s possible for magic to infuse into living things, causing spontaneous conception. It''s... how spirits sire demigod offspring in the first place. But it''s unusual, especially if it''s not deliberate, but it is known to happen. Ell, what did you do?"


    "I made a squirrel help me kill the bad men Claron sent," she said. "It did a really good job."


    "Does this mean you''re taking them away?" Erra stayed a safe distance away from the fuzzy harbingers of madness and death, even though they seemed docile enough and Lyra would slaughter anything which was a threat to her.


    "We''ll figure something out," Lemia said. "But if Elruin keeps them fed, I don''t think they''ll have a reason to hurt anyone. Magic chimera tend to be smarter than their origin species, too. Maybe they can even be trained."


    Elruin smiled at them. "I''m a squirrel mommy!"


    "I tried to get Lyra to get rid of them, but she just put them in her hair and acted like that was enough." Erra inched closer, not taking her eyes away from Elruin''s new pets. She feared she was being rude to the girl who had done so much to help them, so she tried changing the subject. "I heard you helped kill Lord Claron, and then went to the capital?"


    Suggested Listening</a>


    "I have a House, now!" Even as she spoke, Elruin continued to provide supernatural nourishment to her new pets. "I have to make sure you and Lyra behave."


    "She means we were granted honorary noble titles." Lemia may have been speaking to Erra, but she couldn''t take her eyes off of the squirrels, either. The things were somehow even more unnerving than their accidental creator. "And House Arila gave her the Shelter as an official holding. Seeing as your tree mansion is here, we need to talk."


    Erra looked around. "I''m sorry, I''ve still not found much time to study noble protocol."


    "You can join my House!" Elruin stepped toward Erra. "I named it House Cali, after my big sister."


    Erra stepped back. "That''s actually quite touching. I''m sure Lady Calenda would be proud if she could see you now. I think it would be nice to help honor her memory."


    Meanwhile, a few feet away, Cali wondered if it was possible for a dead woman to develop a nervous tic. "As Lyra''s keeper, it''s better than you don''t join. Lady Elruin has attracted quite a lot of attention lately, and the church feels safer if Lyra is seen as theirs, rather than belonging to any specific noble house. Officially, of course. Unofficially, we''ll have to work together a great deal if we both want to stay here and make the Shelter a better place for everyone. But, well, you''re the one with the real power here. It may be Elruin''s estate, but it''s your home, and as we''ve seen, there''s no force in Arila which can make Lyra do anything she doesn''t want to."


    Erra relaxed. "So, what were you going to do with your new estate?"


    "We can make a farm!" Elruin slowed her feeding of her new pets, now that they seemed to be going to sleep in her palms. "With lots of nice crops to feed the city and make everyone happy."


    "A farm, without any animals to work it or space enough to feed said animals, or ability to stop people from sneaking in during the night to steal the nonexistent animals and crops." Calenda sounded less than enthused.


    "Actually, it might work," Lemia said. "Can''t do much about animals, but with Lyra and some botanical magic, we could get something decent going. Let anyone try to steal food meant to support the poor within the nonviolence field. Or just let these squirrels play in the fields, that''ll scare ''em off. And if we drop the ''food'' crops for alchemical plants, it might even be profitable. As long as Lyra''s around to boost growth speed."


    Elruin looked at Lemia. "I thought you said farming here would be bad because it would drive away the community."


    "It would have," Lemia said. "But Claron made a bigger mess than the farm ever could have. When the chaos settles down, everything will have changed. With our help, maybe we can make that change be for the better."


    "I don''t know how well it would work, but at least you''ll have something to show your chosen overlords that you''re trying." Calenda sighed, then looked out at the shanty town rebuilding itself amongst the temporary blockades which Claron''s people built. Either moving into the shacks, or tearing them apart for construction material.


    "Would a hospice be an option?" Erra asked. "We have so many who can''t make their way to the wealthier part of the city where they build the respite houses."


    "That could be done," Cali said. "Or a small chapel, which would all but obligate the church to station a handful of the priesthood here permanently. Then they''ll deal with the healing, instead of us volunteering to handle the task. No sense in going for both, however. We don''t have infinite space."


    "I say hospice," Lemia said. "If the church wanted our support, then they should have supported us against Claron. Cowards. Besides, Lyra is a beacon of nature magic, she doesn''t need the church."


    Calenda couldn''t object overmuch. "It will take more work than that, and you know it. If you want to establish a hospice without the church, it will require time and effort on all our parts, to avoid looking ineffectual."


    "Or we make it look like we need the church," Lemia countered. "And I''m not sure how they''d respond to some of our other projects. Like going back into those tunnels, or whatever we''re going to do with these squirrels." She left the more objectionable projects unspoken.


    "Will you have time, between that and dealing with school?"


    "I think I''ll be fine. With the sarite I have, I don''t need to sleep anymore and can even use some to cast healing magic." Lemia smiled at how convenient things were for her, now. "And more important, the deans sent us a letter, explaining that they understand the difficulties of running a noble house and were willing to be accommodating to our unique circumstances. Oh, and if you can believe it, Dean Meris is claiming he gave me his prized sword, so that I could use it to help stop Lord Claron."


    Cali frowned. "Well, that is convenient. Speaking of messages, our other allies sent one as well. They say they cleared out a major goblin nest. Nothing of value but a large supply of weak sarite. We should send a message back about this whole ''House Cali'' mess. Do we want to go collect the sarite, or donate it to Sonhome in the name of your new house?"


    "You mean House Cali," Lemia said, then basked in Calenda''s glare.

 Death of a God (Beginning book 3)

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    "One century," Kalla muttered. She looked out at the decimated, desecrated, landscape. "You were given over a century to consolidate, to grow your power, to become a god, and you squandered it indulging your cowardice and perversion."


    "I am a god, demon!" He shouted at the sky, but did not try to seek out her position. With the complex series of sarite defenses on his sedan chair, he was insulated against all forms of magic save the small amount of communication magic needed to command his deathless army, and enough light to see out. It was more expensive than a small castle, but when coupled with his own personal sarite that eliminated his need to eat, breathe, or sleep, not even the power of a god could reach him.


    At the necromancer''s behest, armies began to converge upon her. "I have slain the mightiest of dragons and enslaved them to my will! I am legion, and you are but one woman!" From within his personal fortress, he could command his armies forever, until the entire world stood in obedience to him.


    Twelve hundred and thirty nine arrows rained from the heavens, as she counted each one. No passion, no fury, just the lifeless actions of those who had died but could not rest, riding upon griffin steeds as dead as they were.


    Kalla looked upon the creatures, her heart moved to pity. They were victims of this coward who thought he could command her element better than she. He who imagined himself a god of the undead while hiding behind them and treating them as nothing but tools. "How many have you slain, to fight me? So many lives taken, so many futures extinguished, for the sake of one man''s kingdom."


    "You of all beasts would lecture me on morality?" He kept working his power, gesturing with his hands as he selected each of his swarm and set them upon the necessary path. The plague-bearers were useless in such a battle, but he had archers and siege weapons and griffin riders to harry her until the dragons could be wrested from their slumber. Even dead, they proved difficult to control, but they were amongst the strongest forces he possessed.


    "I will lecture you as much as I desire." She respected his tactical mind and control, but otherwise despised this degenerate. "Do you know how many griffins remain in this world? Before you, there were seven hundred. Now there are less than seventeen. Their species will soon be extinct, and their deaths are on your hands. I, for one, have never been responsible for ending a species."


    "For a self-proclaimed goddess of death, you care far too much about life. That is your weakness, and through it you shall die."


    "Heh!" For a moment, she felt genuine humor. "You remind me of a younger me. A much younger me." With a single act of power, she carved a hole through his sarite barricades, and split his miniature fortress-prison open to the light. Before he could react, she was standing before him, and had her hand around his throat.


    With his windpipe blocked off, he couldn''t shout while he struggled, but struggle he did. With a gesture of his fingers, as pulling on puppet strings, he used his Control Revelation to beckon his soldiers. Unquestioning, and swifter than any human, they struck her from behind with their swords and axes. Magic weapons infused with temporary power by the man before him, they had power enough to scratch her gown.


    "Which is a problem for you." With her wings, she batted them away. Weapons forged of dragon bone scattered to the four corners of the world, while their less-sturdy wielders exploded into a cloud of dust. "I don''t like myself very much." She squeezed harder, cut off the blood flow to his brain.


    Soon he would die a dog''s death, and then she would have to decide what to do about his army. On one hand, the swarm of the walking dead had its uses for future projects, and she could do so while circumventing the taint of her soul. On the other hand, it was a walking fountain of the highest order of taint, far too unstable to control for any length of time. This was a resource that would need to be used soon, or destroyed.


    Distracted she was by her thoughts, she did not recognize the upsurge of necromantic power within the swarms of the dead. A single child, flesh covered in scars, charged at her exposed back.


    She noticed the movement, her senses were far too good to be surprised by such an obvious weakness as not paying attention, but she did not recognize the power beyond that movement before one of her smoke wings was torn open by claws able to carve through the spiritual.


    For the first time in centuries, she felt pain. Unprepared for the sharp agony and all that came with it, she cried out and dropped the necromancer she had been strangling rather than slaying outright like she should have.


    Moments later, another slash of claws removed a second of her flailing wings, then the child zombie was upon her, each slash carving through her enchanted clothes and taking her blood with them on the way through.


    Panicked, she used her teleportation magic to take her and her alone into the upper atmosphere, well above the height where griffins could fly. Covered in enough blood to hide her nudity, she gasped and shuddered. These wounds were deep, and resistant to what little healing magic was available to a negation-aspect being such as herself.This content has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.


    She had never been so close to death as she came today, not since she faced her current master and lost. Once again, she was reminded that for all she claimed she wanted death, she feared what lay beyond. She observed the army below, rallying around its commander, the corpse-child. Kalla had damaged it during the fight, but it was the focus for all the power of an army of the dead, the locus of the taint.


    It was a clever ploy, what this necromancer had done in creating a sapient battery of undeath and then using it to power his army, rather than chaining an army to himself as so many other fools had done. It had not been enough of a divorce to protect his soul from the taint, which then reduced him to this deranged dead soul residing in a living body, and thus rendered him worthless to the world, but it was enough to spare his flesh from the price paid for the birthing of undeath.


    He might even have achieved the immortality he so desired, if not for one small miscalculation. Still reeling from his near-death experience, the necromancer had no chance to react before his own creation ripped his heart from his chest, with the merciless efficiency Kalla knew she should have exercised the moment the madman crossed the line.


    "Still haven''t overcome your suicidal streak, I see," a voice said from nowhere and everywhere. "That one got closer than any in a long, long time."


    "Still haven''t done me the favor of being swallowed by the pit, I see." Kalla glanced at the purple cloak billowing in magical wind that kept its user afloat.


    "It found long ago that I am not to its liking." In spite of the insults, the two were the closest thing to friends of anyone in this conspiracy. The others shared a mission, and little else. "Give me a moment."


    Void magic had a special influence upon the world, for it was the magic that defied reason and sanity. Little in the options of a void mage showed that difference quite like their healing spells. Paradox warped Kalla, twisted through her, and in a moment the events of the past were erased and replaced. Her blood returned to her insides, her organs restored, her wings, adrenaline, even her clothes no longer bore a single clue that she had been wounded. Where causality was concerned, the injuries never occurred, although she would remember them for a long, long time.


    "Is it safe for you to use that spell so casually?"


    "Here? On you? Yes." The purple clad figure looked down at the army of the dead mulling like a termite nest that had been kicked over. "What do we have here?"


    "Another failure," Kalla spat. "He thought himself a god, but in truth all he accomplished was creating a god, then controlling it for a short time. If our task were so simple, we would have been done long ago." She continued to observe the ''queen'' of this hive, a single once-human mind unable to make sense of the thousands of eyes which it controlled. "Still, the birth of an artificial god is an interesting phenomena. Now, what brings you here?"


    "Your project at Chiron''s Citadel has reached a surprising conclusion. While the subject had been using native undead for some time, or relying upon an allied ghost to carry the taint from one victim to the next, she recently constructed a fresh zombie with her own power."


    "Another?" Kalla spared a glance at the void mage. "Why didn''t you destroy her? Do you have something else in mind?"


    "She purified it at the same moment. It was made from love, a true desire to save another from an unjust fate, with the consent of the victim. The soul remained whole, and the taint has been harnessed. The construct even retains its ability to use magic and sarite."


    "What?" Kalla''s heart jumped in her chest. She long ago learned the word ''impossible'' was spoken only by fools who lacked understanding, but this was beyond her own understanding. The critical difference between her and the fools was her ability to admit she was imperfect. "I had not realized such a thing could be done. Undeath without degradation."


    "This has happened a number of times, though I''m not sure you were with us last time. The years run together. No, the taint remains, and if nothing shatters their bond beforehand, the zombie''s purification will last so long as the necromancer herself survives, then it will return to the usual pattern."


    "Fascinating." Kalla kept her focus on studying the young god below. "How are things progressing?"


    "They''re not. Your project ended, the necromancer and her allies were victorious." She held out the glowing magical sphere that was called the Eye of Enge not long ago. "It contains much for you to study. But we need a backup plan, soon."


    Kalla accepted the trinket. "You know, I think I have just the plan. How long do you think it will take to build a portal that can transport fifty thousand walking corpses halfway across the world?"


    "Ask no small favors. I''d say I should be ready in two hours."


    "I''ll be done in half that time." Kalla dropped to the ground. With a thought, she ensnared the undead, crippled them. Now that she understood the nature of the tiny god and the single once-mortal brain which served as its core grip in the world, she had nothing to fear.


    It still tried, oh how it tried, but the dead child was no match for her in power, and certainly no match in skill, experience, or strength of will. With the tainted hive enslaved, Kalla approached the dead man who thought himself immortal. It wouldn''t take long before he stood again, another mindless drone within the swarm, serving the very thing he once enslaved.


    However, that would not serve Kalla''s purposes quite so well as he could if he retained intelligence.


    Kalla dipped into the magical recording of the memory sphere, and sampled that of the child called Elruin, and her purified zombie. The technique was sloppy, and the process contained many emotional and spiritual requirements which Kalla could not meet under this or, she suspected, any other circumstance. How could she cast a spell that required love and innocence? Still, she cobbled together something resembling an equivalent.


    First, she insulated the corpse from the hive, then granted some small amount of strength to the slain necromancer. His own will to live, his fear of death, and his hatred of her in particular, did the rest. The fragmented remnants of his soul dug their way into his corpse, reclaimed his damaged mind, and revived the dead flesh.


    Meanwhile, she reprogrammed it, edited its thoughts, and gave it something else to hate. A child of twelve who had accomplished in her scant years more than he had in over a century.


    Unable to speak, but no longer having reason to, the new horror began to gesture to the god that it had birthed, and had turned around and birthed it in turn. An ouroboros of death.


    Kalla rose into the sky, unnoticed as the hive began to reorganize itself, and stabilize what remained of its sanity. "Now, let us see how she fairs against a god."

 Chapter 61- Blood and Flame

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    "Now that you have stripped the sarite of all its unique aspects, it will lose cohesion. Much like salt, you may have to grind it some to fully break it apart." Professor Abrax''s own shard fell apart, as did Elruin''s, but some students had to take the time to apply their pestle and mortar to the crystal. "You''ll find that as the quality of the shard grows, so too does the difficulty of breaking it apart. Part of why we practice using the weakest shards available. Remember, keep a careful feed to the powder, or it will sublimate."


    Elruin suspected the true reason had more to do with expense than convenience; weak shards were cheaper by a wide margin than their more powerful counterparts, since the weak shards were only good for low level alchemy. Still, she maintained the slow burn of magical energy needed to sustain the particulate sarite, a process requiring more control and power than one might expect. Three of her classmates, all years older than her, failed the process.


    "Now that you have the sarite stabilized, work the energy lattice into the powder while slowly adding it into your tincture," the professor droned on as if she hadn''t given these exact instructions a dozen times in the last few weeks. "Remember, it is a simple recipe and weak powder. You''re being judged on stability, not power."


    Elruin concentrated harder on her potion, because everyone in the room knew that statement was directed to her in particular. Her control had improved, but work this delicate was like trying to touch a spider''s web without shaking it. Her grades would be far better if they allowed her to use a stronger brew, an opinion she expressed once or twice, but it seemed the teachers didn''t approve of cheating while the whole class watched.


    Her vial lit up as the plant matter bonded with the sarite powder, creating something with its own unique properties. In effect, using what little life remained in the tea-like water to create a semblance of life that could contain magic, but not much more. Once again, it was too bright, with more power than the juices within could sustain. Within a day or two, it would separate and the energy would bleed off. The goal was a potion that could last for months.


    She reached for another shard, knowing there was little point in fighting the inevitable.


    Before she even began, an exhausted looking woman appeared in the door of the lab, along with one of the school''s guards. "My apologies, Professor, this is an emergency." In spite of the subservient language, the guard did not take subservient posture. Her guest, however, did. "She was sent to collect Lady Elruin, claims there''s a bloodmold outbreak."


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    Three other students lost their concentration, and in doing so ruined their projects as well. In a civilization with easy access to healing magic, the magic-resistant bloodmold was one of the few remaining diseases that most healers could not deal with. Many refused to try, for it was all too common that the fungus jump from patient to doctor, claiming another life in the process.


    While the students muttered in fear and shock, Professor Abrax remained calm. "You swear this to be true?"


    The woman, which Elruin now recognized as one of the caretakers for the children staying in the shelter, held out one of the few official seals of House Cali. To use a House seal without permission from an official of the House was a crime resulting in enslavement or worse. "I swear only that Lady Erra''s told me to deliver the message."


    Elruin had begun to move before the woman finished speaking. "My apologies, Professor, but it is an emergency." If it was a bloodmold infection, then it was a threat to thousands within the city. Specifically, anyone lacking the magical fortitude to survive burning the infection out of the body would die. If it wasn''t, then there was an emergency Erra and Cali felt worthy of starting a city-wide panic over.


    Another of Erra''s regular assistants at the Shelter, Rika, ran toward her in the hall. "Lady Lemia said she has something for you, and you should meet her in your dormitory before going to the Shelter."


    "I need my sarite, anyway," Elruin said. Most of it wasn''t applicable under the circumstances, but she had a couple shards that could boost her speed, more than enough to make them worth the side trip. She gave a glance to her servants. "I''m sure the guard will be here soon, tell them what you know." She didn''t wait for their response.


    The two women, older than her by years, bowed their heads. "Yes, ma''am."


    Elruin ran through the hall, but by now the news had begun to spread so nobody stopped her. She found Lemia in their dorm, holding a black outfit up.


    "What is that?" Elruin went straight for her sarite, Lemia could answer while they worked.


    "A gift for you," Lemia said. "I was going to save it for your birthday, but under the circumstances it might be better to have it now. I made it from necroleather off those hand monsters. It''s got a reserve of necromancy that should amplify your magic and protect you from other magic, especially creation aspect stuff. And I even managed to work some self-mending magic in there."


    Elruin turned to look at the sleek leather combat armor, similar in form to that which Cali had worn when the first met. She stripped out of her outer clothes, then put on the new armor with Lemia''s help. The absolute black of the armor contrasted against her pale skin, and served to emphasize her status as a necromancer and as a warrior and nobility, with her house crest stamped onto the left shoulder and proper sarite pouches stitched within. "It''s beautiful. Thank you so much."


    "Hey, I wouldn''t even be able to make something like this without your help." Lemia handed the outfit over. "But, umm, I''ll need it back in a few days. Not forever, but you''re wearing half of my grade."


    Elruin laughed. "Okay. Thank you again." Now when she ran, she had her sarite to speed her way through the school, and then the city proper. The armor felt incredible, as its magic blended with hers and restored her focus and strength in addition to amplifying her power. She tapped into her skills to amplify the strength of her sarite, pushing her speed to the point where she might have matched a natural horse at full gallop. Nowhere near competitive with Cali, or any of the other elites of the city, but enough that it would surprise anyone who expected her to be yet another backline necromancer.


    She arrived at the shelter in record time, with little of her strength expended on the journey, but the news had spread wide already. Around the quarantine hut, a crowd carrying torches stood. They were agitated, but not one approached the house. They could not approach to burn the building, for the nonviolence aura would not allow it. They would not approach for any other reason, for fear of the bloodmold.Support the creativity of authors by visiting Royal Road for this novel and more.


    Near the shack stood Lyra, whose incredible power made it difficult for Elruin to look within. Still, she could sense Calenda, two adult women, and a young, dying, boy. Another life force was in there, inhuman, but more potent than most people. She knew Erra would be nearby as well, but couldn''t spot her in the crowd.


    Lady Marela approached Elruin the moment she slowed near the edge of the crowd. "Lady Elruin." Like most of Calenda''s family, she had little love for the necromancer who had embarrassed their family so thoroughly. "This is a quarantine zone."


    Elruin regarded Cali''s older, less pleasant, sister. Almost two years ago, she had been intimidated by the tall, bulky soldier. Now, she could see the difference in their strength, and Cali had explained the gap in their political station. It was by technicality that Marela didn''t have to bow to her when they met. Besides, there were too many people here for the few guards who had arrived to control the crowd for long. At some point, probably soon, someone would think themselves around the peace field, by convincing themselves the people in the shack were already dead.


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    "A quarantine on my estate." Elruin brought up her violin and bow, then drew the first sharp notes. "It''s my problem to fix." Power surged within her, drawing upon her emotions then refined by her instrument. Darkness roiled around her, as she changed the notes to support the delicate process of marrying life-destroying necromancy to protective earth magic.


    Whether she was afraid, or hoped the bloodmold claimed her as a victim, Lady Marela stepped aside, and watched the girl pass without objection. Elruin walked forward, black energy seeping down her arms and legs like ink spreading on paper while people scrambled to move out of the way. They abandoned all plans to torch the building, for fear of what the lady of the estate might do to them if they tried.


    When she got closer, she recognized that Lyra had shielded this area, warped the wind such that the almost-invisible infective particles drifted inward instead of spreading outward. She had heard bloodmold was virulent, but this seemed excessive. "Thank you, Lyra."


    Elruin lashed out with a burst of necromantic power, burning away much of the living dust that carried the deadly parasite within. Now that she knew it would die when exposed to her magic, she stepped into the protective wind tunnel. When done, she would need to burn the soil around the quarantine house. It was odd, that there were no animals in the dirt. The bugs, even the worms, had fled or died before she arrived. She suspected it was Lyra''s doing.


    "Lady Elruin?" Cali asked from behind the door. "Please tell me that''s you." Within the building, a gasping series of weak sobs could be heard.


    "I''m here. You can open the door."


    "Good." Cali moved the barricade she put up. "I''ve been doing what I can to stave it off, but I''m not equipped to fight this stuff." She held up her hand, covered in blood red slime. "I don''t think it can truly infect me, but it''s doing damage. Don''t worry, I''ll be fine."


    Elruin stepped into a scene from a horror movie. On the ground, near a corner, lay a blob of red goop which looked more like bright strawberry jam than a fungus. The only hint that it might have once been a person was hair and clothes which the plague hadn''t subsumed.


    In the beds on the furthest side from the dead woman, three people were in various states of infection. The worst was a young boy, both legs freshly amputated, and a deep, throbbing red color just beneath his skin. Each vein was visible, with the same red goo as the corpse, but it pulsed with a soft glow each time the boy''s heart beat. It struck Elruin as not unlike the vampiric sarite which Calenda used, but instead of death feeding on life, this was life feeding on life.


    The other two, one of whom was a nurse who helped the sick, had smaller infections creeping up their hands and showing around their lips and eyes. Their pulses of light were brighter, more regular, as the disease had not yet ravaged them as it ravaged the boy.


    "Do you have a strategy?" Calenda asked. "We usually used fire mages for this, if we could find one brave enough to chance it. It''ll be better to get your mistakes out of the way on me first. I''m more resilient than they are."


    "Right." Elruin got to work, flushing Cali''s skin with the softest of necromantic touches; she needed a procedure that could work on humans, not zombies. It died fast, on Cali, who provided it no source of nourishment. To her shock and surprise, the corpse-blob began to dim as well. "It... shares life force?" She had never so much as heard of such a thing before.


    "Will that help us kill it?" Cali asked.


    "Maybe. How did this happen?" Elruin pointed her hand at the blob, then spread her fingers. A wide-spread wave of necromantic energy scoured the fungal pod, and its pulsation ceased. All three patients screamed in agony as the remaining bloodmold attempted to siphon off more life energy to protect itself from the necromantic barrage.


    Confident she had the basics down, Elruin moved to the boy. All but insensate, the poor child cried tears of bright red while Elruin worked and Calenda talked. She hated to admit it, but Professor Abrax''s insistance upon pinpoint precision and flawless execution were paying off in this delicate operation where a single mistake might kill the patient.


    "The boy came in, carried by his mother," Cali said. "I healed the mother, and she seemed fine, but her son got sick." Cali looked back at the pile of bones and rotting tissue. "She hid how bad she was hurting, I think, so that we focused on him. By the time I realized it was bloodmold, it was too late for her and I had to amputate his legs to slow the infection. I don''t know how or why it got to visible symptoms on the rest of us so fast."


    Elruin adjusted her necromancy to ignore human essence as much as possible, while targeting bloodmold as best she could. "It''s feeding on life energy, including that of the healing magic we use in the hospital. Or it was, something''s blocking it now. Lyra, I think."


    She stopped speaking in order to delve deeper into the diseased life energies of this poor child. She burned away the mold as she could, throughout his body, but there was so little else left in him. "Get ready to use all the healing magic you have on him, in a second. Cut open his stomach and dump the healing potion in if you have to."


    "What? Why?" Cali moved into position, ready to obey in spite of objections.


    "Because I have to kill him if I want to save him." Elruin sang to her power, and let out the black vortex of energy. Attuned as it was to the bloodmold, it still left the other women screaming, and it was enough to stop the boy''s heart. A moment later, she siphoned all that energy back to herself, while holding the boy''s soul in a shell which could not be breached by the usual ravages of death. "Now!"


    Cali obeyed, and poured healing magic into the dead body. The brain was alive, and the damage was light within the core of his body. The difficulty was in sparking life in the blood, but after a long minute he gasped and began sobbing.


    Elruin relaxed her grip, and allowed the soul to rejoin the body it had grown to be an intrinsic part of. "I... think we did it. Please help the other two." Elruin stepped out of the building, then began to look around. Still she wore her shell of pure death magic, a show of power as well as a precaution. She began the act of burning everything. When she was done, not a single fleck of dust or blade of grass lived within fifty feet of the women''s hospice building.


    "The bloodmold is gone." Now that they were safe, she allowed the necromantic ''ink'' to fade back into her body, leaving behind her natural pale complexion, then addressed her prestigious guest. "Lady Juna, how long have you been observing?"


    Juna smiled at the girl who just kept surprising her. "A few minutes. I almost went in when you flooded the whole complex with necromancy, but I decided to wait to see how you did. It appears your strategy worked out for the best."


    "What would you have done?" Elruin looked back at the building. "This is the first I''ve ever seen bloodmold, I had to improvise more than I''d like."


    Juna considered how to phrase her statement. "As per the best experts'' teachings, I would have kept a steady supply of healing magic on them, extended my natural resistance to heat to the patients, and then heated their bodies to the point that it cooked the disease out of them. I''ve never tried it before, but I''m told it works about half the time on peasant bloodlines. It''s the best we have."


    Elruin considered what she saw of the disease before she eradicated it. "I''m not sure that would have worked in this case. I think this version of the disease was changed, somehow."


    "You''re not the first who''s come to that conclusion," Juna said. "We need to have a conversation, in private."

 Chapter 62

    Suggested Listening</a>


    Elruin clasped her hands together and bowed as was expected of her as a vassal. "Please give me a moment to check on the patients, first. I wouldn''t want to put anyone at risk."


    "Be as thorough as you need. In fact, if you need anything, just tell me. Preventing an epidemic should be your top priority, as it is mine." Juna began to follow behind Elruin as she approached the hospital building. "I''d like to meet your priestess as well. She''s an elusive one."


    "She is, but I can always rely on her to be there when I need her." Elruin pretended not to be concerned. "Is the bloodmold dead?" She asked through the door. "Lady Juna has requested an audience. It seems there''s more to the disease than we know."


    "It appears to be, Lady Elruin." It was rare for Cali to use her title, but these were rare circumstances. "I think we''re safe, yet I must advise caution. It might be wise for us to remain in quarantine for a time, on the possibility that you were less successful than we hoped."


    "I agree." That it provided an excuse for Cali to avoid the direct eye of Lady Juna and perhaps her brother played no small part in the decision. "How is the child doing?" He was still alive, Elruin could see that much, but alive did not mean well.


    "He''s unconscious, and if the gods are feeling merciful, he''ll remain so for a long while," Cali said. "When he awakens, it will be to the news that he lost his legs, an arm, and his mother. With time, maybe a month or two, we''ll be able to restore his limbs, but nothing short of a god can bring his mother back now. Speaking of, although we should remain in quarantine, I would beg you make room for us elsewhere. The smell in here is terrible. Then we should burn this building."


    Elruin didn''t want that poor child to wake up with his mother''s desecrated corpse still in the room with him, either. "I''ll do what I can." After assuring Cali, Elruin dipped into her magic, and the practice she had with sound manipulation, to amplify her voice. "I need four quarantine shacks built next to one another over there." Elruin pointed to a spot a safe distance from the well of necromancy. "Then burn this building. If you''re not here to help, then leave before you''re drafted."


    "I believe I count as already helping." Lady Juna smiled for a moment, before adding her own orders. "Guards, see to it that those who lack a reason to stay are cleared out, or feel free to make good on Lady Elruin''s threat. This is a place to aid the sick, not to make a spectacle of their suffering."


    With the possible plague averted, people would have cleared out on their own, but the reminder of social propriety and potential punishment sped the process along. Meanwhile, Elruin found Erra near the edge of the crowd, alongside Lemia.


    "Is it true, everyone''s safe?" The worry that Elruin was lying for the benefit of the crowd was plain on Erra''s face.


    "Not everyone," Elruin said. "By the time I arrived, it was too late for one, and another is in for a difficult recovery. I think our people will recover soon, though. Lady Juna needs to talk to me. Lemia, you should come with. Erra, please keep things stable while we''re gone, since the priestess must remain in quarantine until we''re certain it''s safe. We won''t go far, in case I''m needed to purge the bloodmold again."


    "What will we do about the medical supplies in the hospice room?"


    "They''ll be useless, after I cleansed the room," Elruin said. "We''ll have to make up the difference with more herbs from the garden, later, but once word spreads that there''s bloodmold here... we might not see patients for a while."


    "Unless there are others in the city who''ve been infected," Lemia added. "If they hear you''ve even managed to slow it down, they''ll come to us first." She clasped her hands and bowed to Lady Juna. "My apologies, but the established nobility has a bad reputation when it comes to diseases like this one, which extends to the church and the Order."


    "A deserved reputation, I''m ashamed to admit." Juna allowed herself to be led along with no further commentary on the state of trust between peasant and nobility.


    Elruin took them to the small building they constructed to hide themselves from prying eyes and scrying magic, as well as to help prevent more of those freakish hand-things from crawling up the tunnel Lyra built for them. Their small collection of shielding sarite wasn''t much, but it covered a small building well enough for most purposes. "I hope it''s safe enough here."


    Juna looked around at the building that was more storage shed than proper meeting room. "You never cease to surprise me. Most people I know would have sold those shards the moment they got hold of them, and trusted the city''s protections to be enough. I always knew you were going to be something special some day."If you come across this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.


    Elruin smiled, taking the compliment for what it was. "You said something about others thinking the bloodmold was strange?"


    "I did." Lacking chairs, Juna chose to sit on a chest containing some of the unreadable centaur tablets. "We''ve seen several outbreaks. They began in the northeast, and began to spread almost immediately. Which makes little sense in its own right; bloodmold sprouts in small clusters, often in graveyards where former victims were buried. It moves slow, and kills fast. While this stuff is spreading faster than should be possible, and kills slow enough to let victims get through city checkpoints without anyone noticing there''s anything wrong, and we can''t find any shared spot the victims went that might have the original mold."


    "You suspect it''s being spread as a weapon, don''t you?" Lemia caught the implications before Elruin. "Is it the Ghosts of Sorvel, again?"


    "Yes to the first, no to the second. If the Ghosts had the sort of skill and knowledge needed to control and change bloodmold to this extent, they wouldn''t have fallen apart so easily after Claron''s death." On mentioning her brother, Juna touched the scar still on her cheek. "We think this is being done by some other force, one which comes from the plains."


    "Is this why you''ve been restricting trade to the northeast?" Lemia hesitated for a moment. "What? I kept in contact with the merchants we met in Sonhome. It''s a good way to stay aware of the world around us. They didn''t mention any plagues, though there was something about seeing monsters none of them recognized. They thought they were chimera, but I''m beginning to suspect it''s related."


    "And I thought we had our leaks under control," Juna said. "They''re called chamrosh, which until now had only been found in the plains to the north. If they''re migrating south, it''s because something even more dangerous is driving them south."


    "Are you going to ask me to investigate?" Elruin considered the disruption that would cause to the remnant of her school year.


    "I was going to have you deal with the outbreaks," Juna said. "While Arila has been spared until today, other cities have lost good people. Engewal lost two of their finest healers, including one of the six in the empire capable of resurrection magic. As well as four medical necromancers who attempted the same trick you did, and one of my half-siblings who attempted the same trick I almost did. This plague, whatever its origins, is by far the strongest of its kind. Did you learn anything of value in fighting it?"


    "I''m not sure." Elruin considered what she witnessed, and how best to explain it to Juna. "I''m not a medical mage, but according to the priestess, it grew faster and stronger when exposed to healing magic, which I think is normal for bloodmold."


    Juna nodded. "This one seems able to do more than most, but that is one of bloodmold''s defining features."


    Elruin considered how to explain it without revealing her lifesight. "I did notice it seemed to share its strength with the rest of the plague. When I hurt the infection in one person, it withstood more than it should have, but the disease around it also suffered. Like it was just parts of a single creature. When I changed to hitting all of it at once, that''s when I saw real progress."


    "Interesting," Juna said. "I''ll relay that to Engewal. The healers might be able to use it. What else did you learn?"


    "Nothing." Elruin bowed her head. "I apologize, I wasn''t thinking about how I might have to describe everything about the plague to you. I was too concerned with killing it to study it first."


    "Where did it start in the body, how did it spread?"


    "Umm, the hands?" Elruin guessed. "It was in the fingers and hands of the women, and I guess in their eyes."


    "Normal bloodmold starts in the lungs or stomach," Lemia said. She hadn''t studied much on plagues, a fact which she was fast coming to regret. "It will only start in other parts of the body through open wounds in the skin. Unless it''s been festering secretly in the body for quite some time, or it''s found another way to spread."


    Outside, screaming started.


    "Merat ne!" Juna rolled to her feet and jumped through the door, choosing to smash it rather than take the extra half-second to pull it open.


    Elruin rushed out next, followed after by a much less enthusiastic Lemia. Outside, Cali was struggling to fight with her own nurses whose eyes were now the pure red color of living bloodmold. Behind them, the blob that had once been a woman, and another which was a dismembered little boy, struggled to crawl after them onto the fresh battlefield.


    "But I killed it!" Elruin shouted. Then she looked, and realized the mold was, in fact, still dead. "Necromancy!" Somehow, using methods Elruin could only guess at, someone had found a way to bring the fungal goo back as a zombie without needing to be within detectable magical range. The technique was either more subtle or more powerful than anything she''d ever heard of outside a theology lesson to accomplish such a feat. "It''s undead!"


    "Then we both know how to deal with it." Juna didn''t wait for an acknowledgment as swords of pure flame manifested in her hands. Her first strike took off the heads of both nurses, then set their corpses ablaze like they had been coated in lamp oil. Juna then plunged her weapons into both the boy and his mother, a second death more merciful than the first.


    Elruin began to sing, to strip and purge the taint born of this strange, unliving, weapon. The taint fought her, resisted every step of its cleansing like a feral beast backed into a corner, like the occasional swine at the farm which realized it was being led to the slaughter. It attempted to flee, to hide, until it exhausted the tattered remnants of strength and burned itself out, the last remaining wisps chained and shattered by Elruin''s control.


    Only once before had she seen such a obstinate will to live from the force of undeath.


    Juna stood there, holding her breath amidst the smoke and flame of four burning bodies. Her eyes were on Calenda, rather than the carnage around them.


    Elruin said the only thing she could think of to draw attention away from elder sister. "It was intelligent."


    Juna looked up at her. "What?"


    "The mold, or the taint which controlled it, was sapient. A true genius loci, and one too old to have begun here. We''re facing an abomination necromancer."

 Chapter 63- Call to War

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    An aura of flame still dancing around her, Juna looked around at her guards with a barely hidden disgust. She had fought, Elruin had fought, and this priestess had fought, while they stood and watched. When the adrenaline wore off, she would ensure each and every one of them considered death by undead fungus more desirable than the ire of their commander. "Is it dead for real this time?"


    "I believe so." Elruin, too, remained in her ebon war mode. "It was an interesting trick, but one that I think can only work once. At least, to that extent."


    "How did an undead taint sneak into the city?" Despite reassurances, she had no intention of lowering her guard a second time.


    Elruin thanked whatever power it was that gave her power, for the calming effect of her own shielding was all that kept her from panicking at the risk of revealing the secret that was what she did with Cali. "It wasn''t undead before it died. It''s... it''s as if the fungus was infused with magic. Like a living potion, if that makes sense. When it died, it set off a series of preconstructed enchantments. There was no taint until that moment."


    "But how would one go about building an abomination spell into bloodmold?"


    "I don''t think it was." Lemia remained hiding behind Elruin. Unlike the others, she didn''t trust her magical abilities to defend her from this thing. "I think it was inscribed into the bones of the victims. Uh, I''m a geometric revelation. We''re sensitive to shape and positioning, and something about that child''s body looks wrong. I mean, aside the obvious stuff."


    Meanwhile, Cali was doing her best to inch away as well. If Garit had been here as well, she wouldn''t have bothered, but Juna was far more impulsive and prone to distraction than her sibling.


    "I''ll check." Elruin brought up her hand and struck the bones with her power. They crackled with power, then began to move, for a half second before Elruin stripped the necromantic energies from the region. "I don''t know how, but someone etched runic magic into their bones. I think it was a trap for me."


    "Not you," Lemia said. "Remember, Lady Juna said these were happening all over the place. Considering necromancers are the best equipped to defeat other necromancers, I think this was meant as an opening strike. It didn''t matter if the victims were alive when the necromancer purged the bloodmold, so long as their magic hit the bodies it would activate."


    "I saw the scars on the boy''s legs." Now that Calenda had managed to get to a safe distance, she was willing to add her own experience. "The maker of the enchantment would have had to have opened up his legs for hours, first."


    "If I may, Lady Juna," Lemia said. "The royal scholars need to know of this. I think these... living timebombs... can be detected once they know how to look."


    Suggested Listening</a>


    "I can find them, even subtle necromancy should cause a react... entek na! The cemeteries! They use necromancy!" Elruin dipped into her magic again, activating her sarite. "Warn the other cities! Lemia, scholars! Lady Juna, sorry, emergency!" With sarite empowerment, she got a solid head start before the others realized she was moving, with Calenda a half-heartbeat behind.


    "Soldiers! Remain on guard. Nobody enters or leaves without my permission." She tossed a bronze disc at the ground near Lemia''s feet. "Get whatever scholars you think you need to get. Anyone who has a problem can discuss it with me."


    Calenda caught up with Elruin the moment they were out of eyesight from Juna; as much as the young necromancer had improved, she still wasn''t a match for a battlemage like Calenda was when alive, let alone the enhanced abilities that came from her now familiar unliving status. "Please, tell me that was theater for my sake. They couldn''t create undead through mortuary defenses, could they?"


    "I don''t know!" Elruin kept moving in the direction of the cemetery. "If one of those runes get there, they might!"


    "Merat na!" Cali picked up pace. "If I get too close, the mortuary spells will notice me."


    Elruin considered her options. "I can handle any fighting." She wasn''t certain that she could, but she felt confident she could hold the line until help arrived. "Try to make contact with Scratch. If anyone''s seen this before, it''s him."


    "Go to the poor section, first. Weakest defenses, fewest guards, most bodies." Cali turned around after giving her advice.


    Elruin slowed right before reaching the mortuary, enough to make certain the guards saw the House crest emblazoned on her new armor. It didn''t stop them from pointing their weapons at her, perhaps because she was wrapped in necromantic energy that made her look like an enemy rather than an ally.


    "Official city business. Where do you put the bodies?" Healing magic was powerful, but it had limits, so one could expect several natural deaths per day in addition to the occasional murders, suicides, and accidents which were inevitable in a city the size of Arila.


    The woman guard stepped forward, her weapon still at the ready. "My apologies, Lady, but we received no word of official business here, and you''re not part of our command change."


    "There was an attack by an abomination mage," Elruin said. She allowed her death-shell to melt away, revealing her face. "We stopped the attack, but it might come here next."


    The guard hesitated, no doubt considering her position if something went wrong one way or the other. She settled on the argument that even were Elruin lying, there was nothing they could have done to stop the little necromancer who had better equipment and more raw power than they had. "This way, ma''am."If you spot this story on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.


    Due to the lack of space and perpetual risk of taint or other magical corruptions, cemeteries in Engewal were comprised of bricks made from the cremated remnants of the dead. A practice so common and widespread that nobody so much as considered the concept of burying whole bodies. The crematorium building itself was not far from the poor section of the cemetery, itself near the poor side of town.


    How the brick was treated after depended upon the wealth and traditions of the survivors, but for the poor they were oft used in the construction of small, ornate memorial rooms as lined the open space of the cemetery while the wealthy took the bricks home with them, to be placed in small memorial shrines, or whatever decision was made. Sometimes, entire rooms were built of a family''s long-forgotten dead.


    Elruin felt the twisting distortion of death magic colliding with undeath in this sanctified place meant to deny any spell that might threaten the fractured remnants of souls that stayed with their bodies for some brief time. "We''re too late." She returned to running toward the source of the distortion, only to slow when the two forces cracked against one another like a man breaking his hand by punching another''s jaw hard enough to break it as well.


    Several of the bodies began to move in a slow, halting process that was the weakest of any undead spawn she had ever seen. Slow enough that the morticians working with the bodies managed to undo the taint with their own talents without need for Elruin. These were professionals, educated in the tasks they were assigned to a degree which exceeded Elruin''s.


    Given time, perhaps a matter of days, the taint might have grown to be a threat to the cemetery, and then the city, but she had no doubt that everyone of merit within the city felt what happened here, and those tasked with defending the city were en route, expecting a much greater threat than what was born here.


    So Elruin began to sing, helping to purge the taint, while doing what she could to mend the damaged enchantments of the cemetery. Whomever was tasked with fixing this mess would be at work for a long time dealing with magic far more complex than that which she was accustomed to.


    As soon as the immediate calamity was dealt with, one of the church exorcists approached her. A man, but under the circumstances social decorum mattered less than making certain a disaster had been averted. He looked at her emblem, then gave the polite nod of one noble greeting another. "Lady necromancer. I am Exorcist Kale ne Mer."


    "I am Elruin na Cali." She had no specific title to go by, which put her at the social disadvantage on all notable levels.


    "Lady Elruin, I find it unlikely your arrival here was coincidental." The tone was calm, the choice of words stilted by a need to choose neutral words, asking nothing of the other while seeking to trade information.


    Elruin chose to make things easier by speaking to the woman soldier who had followed behind her. As an assigned defender of the cemetery, she was every bit as entitled to the warning, and without the social barricades. If a man just so happened to overhear the conversation, so be it.


    "I''m sorry I didn''t arrive in time to prevent this. I also didn''t expect a result like this one. The magic we encountered was... complex, and new. Lady Juna is warning other cities, and we''re already seeking to pull together the city''s scholars to study the technique used. All we know for certain is that it used runic magic carved into the bones of still-living people, which will then convert any standard necromancy into taint."


    "I''m no scholar." The guard looked at the Exorcist, as if seeking an opinion before speaking further. "Please, tell me what I can do."


    "First, separate all bodies, and make certain none are exposed to any necromancy. It might be wise to chain them down or lock them in cages." The ability to break through steel bars was beyond most undead. Even Calenda would have great difficulty doing so. "Second, be especially wary of those with diseases, the ones we faced were infected with bloodmold, perhaps to trick a necromancer into cleansing the bodies and trigger the runes." She decided not to mention it worked.


    "What will you do?" The guard asked.


    "I need to check the body which carried runes first, then other incoming bodies. I''m certain Lady Juna will have more specific instructions for everyone later, once we know how the magic works. It''s not my place to assume what she''ll command."


    "As you wish, Lady Elruin. I''ll lead you to the morgue."


    Suggested Listening</a>


    "The good news is that the attacks failed, and we know why," Lady Juna stated for the assembled group of nobility and officers. "The bad news is best explained by my brother."


    "To start with, the techniques used are sophisticated, third-generation enchantments." Garit paused to let the audience consider what this meant, which left Elruin to sit and guess. "Fortunately, they were designed using different magical traditions than our own. It means the enemy''s magic is unfamiliar to us, but also that our magic is unfamiliar to the enemy."


    "In short," Lady Juna added. "We have the same disadvantage, and now it''s a matter of us learning their techniques faster than they can can learn ours. With the failure of their sneak attacks, we''re in the stronger position."


    "Our scholars are already hard at work redesigning our protective wards to detect and counter the living-weapon techniques shown." As much as Garit liked his sister''s enthusiasm, he was less fond that he was always the one to deliver the bad news. "Until then, however, all cities will have to close their gates until we can adapt our defenses. The entire nation is to be treated as if it''s under siege."


    "Against the undead?" High Priest Rodar stood, as the only person in the city of equal rank to the Duchess, he had the right to question them. "If we allow the taint to fester, it will reach the point where there''s nothing left for us to protect!"


    "Correct, and we won''t," Garit said. "We know the enemy infects victims with bloodmold because it absorbs creation energies, which the necromantic runes are vulnerable to, and need only the time to design a form of creation spell that can bypass the mold. We will not spend some indeterminate time hidden while the enemy grows. In a matter of days, we will be ready for our counterattack, and until then we will help prepare your Houses as we can for the war against an abomination threat."


    Plans were discussed, revolving around a twin strategy of adjusting the sarite shields and preparing magic to counterattack the undead. Elruin bit her tongue, for she knew not how to explain what they were facing without admitting to knowledge of undead which could hide themselves from detection. More, it meant a real threat to Cali and Scratch as the magic was changed.


    Once she had some privacy, she asked Lemia the question which had plagued her this entire time. "Umm, when Garit said Third-Generation enchantments, what did he mean?"


    Lemia looked down at the ground. "It means, this magic has been used in war, already."


    "What? How can you tell something like that?"


    "The basic theory is this: whenever you design an enchantment, or any spell, you''re building it in a safe box, like at the College. Then you use it, and discover it doesn''t perform quite how you expected, so you redesign it with failsafes and tricks to protect it from failure, that''s a second-generation design, and most mages stop there. Third generation designs are when an enemy counters your design, so you redesign it again to stop the enemy''s magic from stopping your magic. Combining taint runes with bloodmold, for example."


    "So whatever is behind this has won a war using it, before."


    "Or were driven out after failing," Lemia suggested. She didn''t have the heart to make herself believe it, however.


    The pair spent the rest of their walk home in silence.

 Chapter 64- Plaguebearer

    Suggested Listening</a>


    Priestess Erena locked eyes with the necromancer, the first time they''d seen one another since she came into the church a dirty homeless peasant-girl following Priestess Calenda like a lost puppy. Erena knew the girl was dangerous then, but had no idea how dangerous until much later. How time changes the world. So it was with more satisfaction than might be considered holy that she answered the girl''s request. "I''m afraid the church can''t help you."


    Elruin gazed right back, not knowing the thoughts in the priestess'' head. "Why?"


    Lemia took the news less well, and stood with her hands clenched. "If this is about us snubbing your useless church, then that just proves we were right."


    Priestess Erena offered a serene smile, knowing full well it would do nothing but infuriate the apostates further. "Not at all." She felt full confidence that a Truthsayer would know her words to be fact. "We cannot tell you anything to help, for there is nothing to tell. Bloodmold is and has always been a deadly plague which resists all known techniques of healing magic. It is common knowledge that only by killing the mold first can you hope to heal the patient. And as I understand it, the abomination runes make it impossible to cleanse the mold without killing the host."


    "So you''re telling us that the only method is killing them."


    "I know little of the nature of this accursed magic, but if there is a method, it must be in defeating the runes, for there is none with bloodmold you don''t already know." Priestess Erena turned her eyes down. "I will pray that Enge might bless us with a better answer in this time of need."


    "Yeah, you do that, I''ll go do something useful." Lemia turned and walked away.


    Erena considered making an impolite quip asking what that might be, but that would have been petty. Instead, she allowed the young woman to storm off, before addressing the necromancer. "It is good that you''re not as impetuous as your advisor."


    "You have my apologies." Elruin clasped her hands and bowed. She was not known for her spiritual devotion, but there was no reason to be rude. "Please, is there nothing you''ve heard of which might help? Even rumors might lead us in the right direction."


    "I am reminded of a tale in Origins which tells of King Emarik, who sought immortality by having his body transmogrified to gold. Which, I suppose, would be immune to both necromancy and bloodmold." Erena wondered for a moment if she was, perhaps, too soft-hearted, then continued. "It was not long before the king was melted down and divided amongst his once-loving children. It is a warning, that those who would twist nature to their own will shall suffer unspeakable fates for their hubris. Bloodmold, horrid as it is, was born of nature. This abomination magic is the enemy of nature, so it is there which will be vulnerable."


    "As you wish." Elruin bowed again. "I believe we are done here."


    "Go with Enge," Priestess Erena said, then prayed in silence long after the necromancer left. Enge had not moved to action when the blasphemer claimed to be Chosen, nor did he seem inclined to act now with this foreign invader using the foulest of magics conceivable to attack his children. Were the world in better condition, she would make the pilgrimage herself.


    Elruin found Lemia pacing outside the church. "I think she was telling the truth."


    "I know, I know, I''m just frustrated. I guess it was too much to think there might be a solution more merciful than ''burn everything that so much as breathed in the presence of these poor people''. I hope you didn''t have to humiliate yourself too much on my behalf."


    "Priestess Erena told me the story of King Emarik." Elruin ignored Lemia''s huff of disdain. "It did get me thinking, however. Maybe there is a way to transform people, kill the mold, then turn them back? The runes are easy to deactivate, if not for the mold shielding them."


    "Only thing I know that''ll transform a body without killing it is some forms of sarite, but that will kill weak people faster than the mold. And I guess some dragons have venom that can turn a body into stone, but I don''t know if there''s a way to reverse the transformation. I also don''t know how either trick would react with bloodmold or taint runes. They might be cured, or they might explode like they do when exposed to fire magic."


    "Then we must wait for the experts to learn what they can of the runebone magic."


    "I have some thoughts about that, myself," Lemia said. "Didn''t it seem to you that this sort of runebone magic is exactly the sort we found in that book in Sonhome? More advanced, but based on the exact same principles?"


    "It did." Elruin looked down at her armor, crafted of that very technique. Which tied in all too well with her pets'' ability to extract life essence. All of them were connected, in some way she couldn''t begin to understand.


    Suggested Listening</a>


    Lord Garit finished the incantation pulse, which reverberated across all of those in witness, then took a breath while waiting for those amongst them to recover from the alien sensation of the magical wave. "As you can see, it''s a complicated alteration to your magic, one with notable deficiencies in speed and power, but it will allow you to bypass the body and strike the bone directly with any other applicable spell, including many variations of detection spells."


    Elruin frowned, considering the nature of the spell. It worked quite well, but it came with one notable drawback. "Am I wrong, or does this do nothing to save those who have bone runes?" She spoke to Lemia, but Lord Garit was the true target of the question.The genuine version of this novel can be found on another site. Support the author by reading it there.


    "Lady Elruin is astute in noting that, indeed, this will do nothing to protect those with bone runes. If the victims don''t carry bloodmold, or some other as yet unrevealed surprise, then healing magic will still break the necromantic runes, but if they do, then the mold will likely kill the victim. We cannot save everyone, so we must devote our efforts to protecting ourselves and our allies first. Such is the nature of war."


    In short, Lord Garit as well as all of the priests, nobles, and scholars in this meeting had consigned those people to their deaths. Elruin took a slow breath, then nodded. "I understand, we have a responsibility to our charges." It didn''t sit well with her, however. "As such, I will be going to seek out the creator of these abomination runes. I will make it tell me how to stop the runes, then kill it."


    Calling a person an ''it'' was a dire insult, but appropriate when referring to an abomination mage; they were not seen as human. Perhaps this made Elruin a hypocrite, considering her own use of the undead, but she felt there was a difference between her dollies and carving up living people to use as biological weapons, although she knew she was alone in that opinion.


    "Lady Elruin, do you believe that is wise?" Juna took over for her brother, as this was no longer a conversation that could be had without direct address.


    "I know I''m immune to the bloodmold, as was Priestess Esra." Perhaps volunteering Cali was wrong, but it was a good excuse to get her as far from the twins as possible for the foreseeable future. "I should be able to find other allies with similar immunities. Perhaps amongst the dwarves, their natural fire magic should protect them. I''ve controlled and destroyed the undead numerous times before, I can do it again."


    Lady Juna''s eyes narrowed. "If you can find the source of the runes, or recognize it when you do. It would be terribly shortsighted of us to let you leave under such circumstances, with little hope of success."


    "I have developed a spell that can let me see some fragments of a dead body''s memories." She looked at the scholars present; such techniques were unusual, but she wasn''t alone.


    For Lady Juna, there was but one response to such a claim: "Show me."


    Suggested Listening</a>


    Elruin stood before what was left of the runic bones, then began to play to the bones of the dead as the bones played back, singing the song of the last important memories of their lives.


    He walked alone during a dark night, hungry and uncertain of where his next meal might come from. In his desperation, he looked at the houses. Surely there was one which wasn''t so well guarded. He smelled then the soaking warmth of fresh bread on the air.


    She held her son close, as the morks yipped and chattered in the darkness. They were fools, these men entrusted with their lives. They left too late, insistent that there was still time even after all the delays of making certain her carriage was cared for. "It''s not your fault," a voice whispered to her.


    He stared down at the moonlight reflecting from the water, allowing his last few tears to drip out into the darkness. She rejected him, preferring instead that useless fop of a merchant''s son. He put one foot on the ledge, then heard a woman''s sobbing in the distance.


    The scent led him down an alleyway that, were he paying attention, he never would have went. No sane man dared go to the darkest corners, for that was where the men who were real criminals would go to hide from the law. He was hungry, so hungry.


    The morks scattered before the kind voice. A strong voice that reminded of her father, back when she was a little girl and he was strong and healthy.


    "Mommy?" Her son resisted, but not for long. "Where are we going?"


    "Somewhere safe."


    She disappeared into the forest, the caravan guards unaware that she had left until they heard her screams.


    He followed the crying girl''s voice. Surely, this was the voice of a goddess, for no mortal being could make notes so beautiful. He was half correct.


    The thing crawled out of the darkness three rotten limbs at a time. Sometimes arms first, sometimes legs, or a face, or a different face. Rotting flesh, exposed bone, and the stench of diseased flesh. Across its body oozed sores that pulsed with life, somehow, within the tainted flesh of undeath. They stood, watched, but did not struggle when it reached for them.


    Their eyes saw this horror, but their minds saw a kindly old woman willing to aid a starving man, a strong and reliable father worthy of the trust only a child could have, a lonely maiden who should never have to know heartbreak.


    They screamed, their flesh burning in agony as the thing carved open their limbs and extracted their bones. Then, it took bones from its own abundant collection of limbs and replaced them. Living gel consisting of unknown life was stuffed inside them, to hold the bones in place and seal the wounded flesh. It would not last forever, but it would last long enough to serve its purpose.


    Their minds only a full stomach, a loving embrace, a gently caress.


    The things carried them to new destinations to unknowingly deliver their secret payloads, cradling them as a parent cradles a child, as a spider cradles its cocooned prey. Meanwhile, its other limbs went to work carving a new set of runes into the fresh bones.


    Elruin watched both in disgust, as the mind and body told two opposing stories, until she lost control of her music and fell back into Lemia''s arms. "It... they..."


    "Shh, you''re safe, you''re here with us," Lemia whispered. "Take your time, when you''re ready to tell us."


    "It''s... they were attacked by a composite corpse-thing with dozens of limbs and multiple heads and a body made of at least ten different people." Elruin took her time, as memories faded away like dreams within dreams. "It took out their bones, and replaced them with its own."


    "At least I won''t have to caution the Guard to not accidentally kill someone innocent," Juna said. "Consider it standing orders to destroy crawling corpse horrors on sight. How does a thing like that hide?"


    "They have magic, probably miasma in origin. They used illusions of smells and sounds and attractive faces that were exactly what the victim wanted to see in order to lure them."


    "Undead with magic?" One of the exorcists scoffed. Later he might have to be chastised for speaking to a woman the way he did.


    "Not necessarily." As far as Lemia was concerned, if he got to speak to a woman that way, she got to speak to him the same way. That it helped deflect suspicion from the possibility of, say, an undead priestess healing people on the outskirts of town was also important. "It could be more runic magic, set to broadcast a lure spell following preset conditions. All the monster would need to do is follow a series of rote instructions built into it by its maker. The level of skill would be significant, but hardly impossible."


    "Some of their memories were erased, but only from their minds, not their bodies." Elruin stepped away from Lemia, to stand on her own strength again. "It only controls them until the thing is done."


    "Then we''re dealing with a dangerous necromancer with perhaps the most subtle of magical spellsets." Lady Juna considered her options. "I''ll work out more specific details later, but for now adjust our roster to ensure there are at least two inquisitors at the gate at all times, and make certain all our compulsion wards are checked twice daily."


    As defenses went, they were good ones, but they were a defensive strategy alone. "Lady Elruin, we can''t afford to part with any Inquisitors, but if you need some soldiers or specific equipment, I''m willing to listen."

 Chapter 65- Hunters, Hunted

    Suggested Listening</a>


    Elruin flushed another burst of magical power through her armor, this time taking it to the same extreme that she had used while driving off the bloodmold. With nowhere to go, the energies wrapped back upon themselves in a storm of death energies. She watched a few of her professors step back, their eyes wide in the face of her power.


    "As you can see, the enchantments and treatments are holding strong," Lemia said. "If anything, their stability improves as they''re exposed to further negation energies. In addition, they both insulate and amplify Elruin''s natural power, improving her defensive options while not hindering her in any way, save the brief period of time where she has to empower the leather. In short, a perfect tool for her style of necromancy, and one which has proven itself in field testing."


    "It is certainly an... unconventional... methodology." Professor Abrax watched the process without so much as flinching. "Under normal circumstances, I would be remind you that weapons of war are for the Acolytes, at which point some of my colleagues might argue the point that every aspect of this design is defensive or utility in nature, thus meeting the letter of the requirements if not the spirit." She looked at said colleagues, daring them to disagree. "Personally, I find such claims to belittle the College''s role as an institution of knowledge, and lends credence to those who feel we are little more than weapons manufacturers."


    She closed her eyes and sighed. "However, it has been made clear to me that these are unusual times, and I find no glaring faults in your technique, only your subject of design. You have met and surpassed your prerequisites. As such, I will not force the matter to vote, and officially recognize you as an Artisan. You will find the paperwork finished by the time you return."


    Lemia bowed, hands clasped. "You have my grati-"


    "However," Professor Abrax continued. "If you want to be recognized as a Master at any point while I still draw breath, I strongly advise your final project be an instrument of learning and peace, not military function."


    Now Lemia cringed back. "Yes, Professor."


    "And while you''re here, Lady Elruin, I believe that other than your alchemy course, you have satisfied your professors'' requirements. We will advance you in all other disciplines, and register alchemy as incomplete. We''ve deal with many situations where students had to take time away from their education, and have learned the longer they take to return, the worse they perform in the future. I advise you to keep that in consideration."


    Elruin nodded and clasped her hands as well. "Yes, Professor Abrax. Thank you."


    As soon as they left, Lemia looked up and breathed a sigh of relief. "I thought we would never get out of there."


    Elruin looked down. "I''m sorry you got in trouble for making me a gift, instead of doing something else."


    Lemia laughed, and gave Elruin a pat on the back of her hand. She would have gave Elruin a hug, but the armor was still charged with a great deal of necromantic power. It seemed stable, but Lemia wasn''t confident enough with her work to bet her life on that belief.


    "No, I should be thanking you for the excuse. Truth told, I barely squeezed by the practical requirements of the discipline, and it was only by applying the necrotempered techniques that I could meet the ''novel application of the art'' requirement. Armor for necromancer was my best hope to pass. Without you, I would have had to wait another three months at the earliest to get my license."Support creative writers by reading their stories on Royal Road, not stolen versions.


    Elruin smiled at her. "Oh, then you''re welcome."


    "Yes I am." Lemia left out the part where she had only planned to go for the status of acolyte, for the purposes of making her career as a basic potion-crafter.


    They made small talk while walking back to the Shelter, for there was little for them to speak of. Erra understood that they might not return for some time, if ever, and that for the time being she was in charge of Elruin''s odd little estate. Lady Juna and Lord Garit knew their path of travel, and everyone was ready to act as they needed. All they needed was their last pieces of equipment, and Elruin''s pets.


    Suggested Listening</a>


    "Nona, Deci, Mort, come!" She shouted into the smaller tree that her pets had chosen as their home. Soon, the three jet-black squirrels ran down the tree to their accidental maker.


    For a moment they sniffed at her, uncertain of her new armor, but they found its necromantic aura to their liking and climbed into their positions on her arms and shoulders, in order to lap at the excess power within the armor.


    The two girls walked to the front gates with only the equipment they could carry on them. Thanks to their current sarite, neither of them had need of a horse, and they had little use for ostentatious supplies.


    "Reminds me of the last time we left the city," Lemia said. "Except without the farewell party."


    Lady Juna awaited them at the gate. "Leaving light, I see." She looked over the pair, including a moment to consider the fuzzy red-eyed magical monsters which Elruin had collected. They seemed well enough behaved. "Where''s your priestess?"


    "She intends to meet us en route," Elruin said. "She went to get our dwarven ally, who should be immune to bloodmold. We should meet somewhere near Engewal. Perhaps we''ll find some evidence of the monsters or necromancer along our path. I promise we''ll be careful, but I suspect we won''t find anything of value until we reach Seyid. Until then, it''s best if we travel light and move fast."


    "You remind me of Calenda more by the day." Juna held out a small pouch. "You''ll find a couple mind shielding sarite, along with an official Arila house seal. I don''t advise you use it casually, but it may help you in dealing with local politics. But be careful, it will make many of them even more distrustful. Seyid is more plainsmen than Engevali, especially toward the northeast."


    "You have my gratitude." Elruin nodded before leaving.


    Soon after leaving, Elruin extended her arms toward a tree. "Up!" Her trio of necromantic rodents scampered into the branches, serving as an extra layer of protection from the threats of the forest.


    Further out, Elruin began her song, and called to her the dead she had hidden in the ruins which once stood in this land. During their time of preparation, they made certain their entourage would be waiting for them.


    Void tendril-beasts, or their skeletal remains, pulled themselves through the soil and into the open air for the first time in over a year. It was for this reason that Elruin had to travel light, for no living being in Arila save those out here now would tolerate the methods she would use to hunt this evil necromancer and the horrors he built. They, too, climbed into the trees, where their natural agility and unnatural stamina would allow them to assault any threat.


    She would have to wait to see her beloved and long-neglected Mister Clackybones II, who was with Cali, Scratch, and Ketak, taking their own route to meet up with them.


    Lemia watched the display, then started to chuckle.


    Elruin tilted her head. "What''s so funny?"


    "Oh, nothing, I''m just remembering the first time, when we found those bandits." Lemia stopped laughing, and returned to looking ahead on the trail. "I was so afraid, I thought we were going to die. Now, I almost want to find another group just to see the look on their faces."


    Elruin looked ahead as well, thinking back on the monsters that no longer scared her, but then her mind returned to the ones which still did. "I think if there are bandits out here now, they will need us to protect them."


    Lemia''s smile vanished, and the forest seemed darker than it had the moments earlier.

 Chapter 66- Powdered Pixie Parts

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    Two days of travel later, the teams found each other near the southeastern edge of the Engeval mountains. These were tough lands of foothills and deep gulches carved by heavy storms. Scratch made direct contact first, by virtue of being able to ignore all terrain.


    "Look at you," the ghost said while floating above like some sort of arbiter spirit. "That is classy armor, for a classy necromancer. Lady Elruin na Cali, your dear, deceased, big sister would be proud of you."


    "I can hear you," Cali came around the bend on Mister Clackybones. "And I can strangle your nonexistent neck."


    "True, but can you fly?"


    "Don''t test m-woah!" While Cali threatened Scratch, Mister Clackybones began to trot toward Elruin.


    Elruin ran up and gave the bleached skull of the mare a hug. "Mister Clackybones. I know, I missed you, too. I''m sorry I couldn''t see you for so long. I''ll try to do better from now on, I promise."


    Lemia and Calenda shared a look, before Cali reached out and rubbed Elruin''s head. "Thanks for letting me borrow your horse, she was very well behaved. Oh, and Ketak wants you to send a couple of your dollies back to help her. There''s a river not far back that she needs help crossing. Oh, right, and she''s got some sarite shards to give you."


    "Hey, to be clear, those are my shards," Scratch said. "I earned those helping clear out goblins, and I am the one gifting them to Lady Elruin. Especially that time sarite, I think House Cali owes me an official title for it."


    Cali either sighed or growled at the ghostly provocateur, and even she wasn''t certain which.


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    Elruin heard the screaming song moments before pain radiated from her back. She slammed face-first into Mister Clackybone''s neck, which would have caused further injury if not for her superhuman resilience. In her back was an arrow, white light pouring off of it for a few moments before it was blown out like a candle by her own power. The spell dissolved, but after the projectile severed her spine


    "Cover Ell!" Cali reacted first, and rushed to where the source of the attack had come from. Lemia was as capable of healing magic as she was, but Calenda knew she was their best option to stop the attacker from killing them all ahead of time.


    Lemia and Ketak rushed to Elruin''s side, preparing their own sets of spells to stop arrow attacks. Earth and air magic twisted around them, concealing the three of them and, with any luck, stop future projectiles. With the opponent undetectable to their eyes and magic, there was little else they could hope to accomplish.


    Then the resonance shifted, distorting the light and air around her until a jumbled swirl. "Lumusis!" She shouted, her words were so muddled that she couldn''t recognize their meaning. Then she realized it wasn''t the world being distorted, but her own mind. She stopped, turned around, and began walking toward Elruin, still laying atop Clackybones.


    I''m sorry, I can''t stop it! She tried to shout, tried to scream, but not a sound came from her mouth. As part of training all members of the Scouts are exposed to mind control magic, so that they can get some experience fighting the magic, but never before had she been puppeted like this. The magical energy cost for taking absolute control of a body was fatal to most mages, so the majority relied on far more subtle methods, and the few who thought themselves above the slow method found themselves dead in short order.


    She did as her training bid, and flooded her body with her natural magic, not to retake control of her body, but to make control too expensive for the puppeteer to maintain. As with most forms of magic, it was easier to break the caster than it was to break the spell.


    More important in this situation, however, was that it alerted everyone that something was wrong with her. Black mist roiled and blended across her native blue-green light like a storm at sea as seen from under the waves, and it would be a small miracle if they didn''t attract monsters from the beacon of energy she had turned herself into.


    Or would it? She was no longer alive, so perhaps the monsters wouldn''t find her energy so appetizing. Such were the thoughts that ran unbidden through her mind while she lacked all control of her body. At least her puppeteer didn''t know how to use her speed and agility, so she walked toward Elruin, and bought time for the others to react.


    "Cali?" Lemia took a step back, uncertain of of the situation. Her short time as an adventurer had not prepared her for such magic.


    Scratch, however, had been around longer and seen more stuff than everyone else in the team combined and multiplied by ten. He dropped down in front of Cali''s face. "So, I''m about to possess you again. You know the drill, this time without the Faustian bargains and I can''t kill you."


    "No!" Elruin gasped. "Taint. Not safe." She hummed a few short, painful notes, and Clackybones began to trot away faster than the controller could make Cali walk.


    Scratch backed away, for he still didn''t understand the nature of Calenda''s construction, and had to defer to Elruin''s judgment. If he had to save the little necromancer by destroying Calenda, he would do so without hesitation, but it appeared to him that there was a less drastic solution that would hold up for the time being.


    Calenda felt the control slacken, leaving her paralyzed rather than attacking. A relief, until Clackybones began to buck under Elruin. Weak at first, but growing in wildness with each alteration of the notes. It''s not a mind controller, it''s a necromancer. In her time with Elruin, the girl had never once exerted upon her the power that a negation mage could exert upon the unliving. She was not prepared for this.


    "Fine!" Scratch flew away from Cali, and into barely controlled horse monster. It calmed, then froze. "Now can one of you do something!? These guys just disabled three of us and we don''t even know where they are!"Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings.


    "Get Elruin off the horse!" Ketak commanded. In spite of her solitary nature, she was an experienced commander and veteran warrior. "Work on healing her. If we''re fighting necromancers, we''re going to want her fighting before... Merat!"


    The whip-like tendril bones of a void monster began to roll toward them, moving in slow, jerky motions.


    Lemia began taking Elruin from her saddle. "It''s not a skilled necromancer! If it was, we''d be in a lot more trouble!" Which served to explain why they went for Elruin first. With her unable to give commands, the enemy necromancer could take control.


    Ketak took a step forward, facing off against the void monster. It lashed out with tendril that was more annoyance than threat, far from the machine of death that it was before. Ketak swatted it away with her sword that had once belonged to Claron. She could have burned the corpse to unmoving ash if she wanted, but that would have given the necromancer reason to take control of another of the stationary corpses and revealed the full extend of her strength. There was a time for every strategy, and now was the time to be underestimated.


    Meanwhile, Elruin helped as best she could to be laid down on her stomach by Lemia.


    "Jeez, Ell, what is with you and arrows? Next chance we get to upgrade your armor has got to be anti-projectiles." Lemia spoke to calm herself as much as the wounded girl, while working out how to extract the arrow and heal the wound. "Huh, this wood is alchemical. Probably how it cut through your defenses. I''m going to be here for a while, but at least I can use this to heal you through your armor."


    While Lemia worked with minor bursts of healing to halt and undo the internal bleeding, Elruin dragged her violin up near her, then set the bow on it. She couldn''t speak, but her arms still worked, so she could play. The disjointed strings of music did not amount to much, but they shattered the chains holding Cali with but a few moments of effort.


    She would have to trust her elder sister to handle the rest. She closed her eyes and struggled to catch her breath.


    Calenda moved the moment she was released, having gained a reasonable idea of where the controller was hiding during her time trapped. With her magic, a general idea was all she needed.


    First, the forest exploded into a cloud of dust, as she dumped a massive amount of power into the lifecycle of the plants. The area blossomed into pollen and flower petals, blinding better than her fog cloud ever had, for it even worked against lifesight and choked the lungs of most things unfortunate enough to breathe the reproductive spores.


    The best part was that she could still see through it, to an extent suitable for combat, so she was prepared when a humanoid attacker came out of the woods at her. He felt her, and didn''t bother trying to play a long game against a guisarme. He got close, swung again and again with pair of short swords that forced her to back away, unable to get the distance to exploit her weapon, or close enough distance to use her gloves.


    It reminded her of her practice sessions with Juna, who exemplified the art of turning a full offensive assault into the best defensive strategy. In comparison, this opponent was an amateur, but an amateur in comparison to Juna was still a skilled enough frontline fighter to force Cali back a step with every swing, each one a little closer to hitting home than the last.


    At this rate, she could lose before buying more than a minute, until she felt her strength increase with the power of Elruin''s music.


    Elruin continued to play her violin while still laying on her stomach. The shaft still wedged in her back, but her body as restored as one could hope for without removing the weapon. It was sloppy, imprecise, and ugly, but it was enough.


    "No!" The attacker shouted. "NO!!!" With a burst of power that exceeded what Elruin had granted Calenda, he began assailing his opponent until a minor mistake left Cali missing a forearm, and her guisarme on the ground in two pieces.


    Ketak moved to intercept, but she was not an agile fighter the way Calenda and this attacker were, so she found herself watching in horror as Clackybones rammed into the man in order to shield Elruin from harm.


    Lemia turned her attention away from healing in order to generate a burst of disruptive magic of her own. One of the few offensive spells an aspectless mage could cast, that of dismantling the structure of another spell. In this case, the numerous enchantment spells which their foe relied upon. It wouldn''t hold forever, but for a short time it could render an enemy without magic protection.


    It failed, and Clackybones was bisected.


    "Amplify his spells!" Elruin gasped upon giving the command. She began to work her violin, desperate to eek out what little power she could.


    Lemia hesitated for but a moment before deciding to pray Elruin knew what she was doing. She began a general spell which would improve the power supply available to an enchantment, and by doing so give it a temporary increase in power. Destructive over the long term, but in the short term it could make the difference between life and death.


    Then Elruin changed the nature of the spell, infusing it with her own necromantic power. That spell then changed the enchantments on the assailant, turning them into spells which worked by siphoning necromantic power from the environment instead of more general magic. Power which Elruin was supplying in greater quantities than any normal human could survive.


    He reacted fast, forcing all of his enchantments to deactivate and dissipate before the necromantic power scoured any semblance of life from his body.


    Then he stumbled, swayed, and fell sideways.


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    "Four below, he''s a boy." Calenda stood over the kid, looking down as sweat ran from his face like rainwater. He was, at most, a year older than Elruin, though with his soft green skin and yellow hair, age was the only thing they had in common. "Sylvanesti, at least half, with the pointed ears."


    "M-my sister. Give her back." He tried to sit, stand, call on any magic he might have left, but all he could do was lay and gasp. He lacked even the strength to use magic to kill himself, so long as Lemia kept maintaining an antimagic effect over him.


    "Sister?" Calenda said. "I''ve seen three Sylvanesti in my entire life, and that was years ago."


    "Liar. Necromancer. Abomination. Kill. All."


    "Don''t get too attached, Sis," Scratch said. "He''s seen far too much for us to let him go, we have to kill him."


    "Why?" Elruin looked from her position on the ground. For now, she was stable, if still paralyzed.


    "Yeah, the look in those eyes, that''s the look of a fanatic. Betcha money our abomination prey took his sister, and now he''s out for revenge. He''ll never believe we''re not allies, either, mortals can''t tell the difference between one army of walking dead and another. Kid''s got skills as a mind mage, too, so we can''t hold him forever, we can''t change his mind, and we sure can''t let him go."


    Cali couldn''t believe what she was about to say, but she said it anyway. "What about your oathbond magic?"


    "In his condition? Great way to add a resident to the doll house. But maybe you should do it, what with the missing arm and all."


    "N-no." Somehow, the child found strength enough to lift his head off the ground. Then he fell back and began convulsing.


    "What now?" Cali stood back, and moved to place herself between the boy and Elruin.


    "Fairie dust." Lemia recognized the symptoms, there weren''t many from the slums who didn''t.


    "What?" Elruin kept looking at the boy, whose life energies began to surge to superhuman levels in some areas while dimming to less than the soil beneath them in others, fluctuating back and forth in a chaotic, nonsensical pattern that was sure to kill him.


    "It''s a drug," Cali said. "Small amounts give a boost to magical power for a short time, but this kid overdosed himself to fight us."


    "Well, then I retract my statement, we no longer have to do a thing but hide the body. Unless we we still want a new doll."

 Chapter 67- Consequences

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    "Cali, you''re hurt." Elruin''s concern over the boy was a matter of curiosity over the strange magical distortions going on, which she now had an answer to. If he died, then it was his fault for hurting her and her sister. "I''m hurt, too. And Mister Clackybones."


    Calenda sighed, and with one last glance at this stupid kid trying to save his sister from the wrong foe, then went to help her own sister. She knelt down, and examined how the bolt entered her. It wasn''t deep, but there was no way she could push in through the center torso mass without hitting something important, and risking Elruin''s death in the process. Which made this a great deal more complicated.


    "Okay, I''m going to need you to hold very still and be a brave girl." She gripped the shaft, then with a burst of power snapped it off with about an inch sticking out of Elruin''s armor. The necromantic energies revitalized her own wounded body in the process.


    "Okay, now help me roll you over so you''re laying on my lap." Cali planted her knees in the dirt near Elruin, feet spread so she could sit on the ground. It wasn''t the most comfortable position, but it would work for her needs. With only one arm, she needed Elruin''s help.


    Elruin grunted in pain, but they did manage to get her in position. Now her back was on Cali''s lap, with what of the arrow in the gap between Cali''s legs. "Like this?"


    "Exactly like that, now this is going to feel strange, but hold still." Cali reached her one remaining hand down to touch the remains of the arrow. With some concentration, she found the fibrous plant origins of the projectile, and changed them with her magic. Working dead plant material was difficult, worse was the metal of the arrowhead.


    She concentrated on her earth magic, and through it the weak power she had over metal. It was enough to alter the arrow''s composition to a material more akin to rubber, then to a gel, then to a substance not unlike water in fluidity, but retaining the other properties of wood and steel, including weight. The liquid fell out of the hole in Elruin''s back, forming a pool of brown, silver, and crimson..


    "There you are, now all you need is a little time and you''ll be fine." It was a good thing they found a regenerative shard that could actually work on the girl, though like all healing magic that it didn''t work well when the weapon was still inside the body. "But stay still for now, that was in your spine." She looked over at the dead boy. Whatever his faults, he was quite the marksman. Her next glance was at Clackybones, also rendered lame by the severing of it spine.


    Elruin smiled up at her. "Thank you."


    "Hey, what are sisters for?" Perhaps not the best comparison, given their actual families'' actions. "Well, you look healed enough to stand, just take it slow."


    Elruin climbed to her feet, cautious not to move her back any more than she had to until she felt more confident. "My legs feel funny."


    "That''s normal, should pass in a few minutes." Cali had dealt with many spinal injuries in her career as a Scout. Sometimes she was known to treat one. "If you feel any pain, tell me. And keep your back straight, I don''t want you bending for a few more minutes." Even as she gave those instructions, she made her way to her severed limb and what was left of her guisarme.


    "Oh." Elruin looked down at her violin, then with great care kneeled without allowing her back to bend.


    "Pity, I liked this weapon," she said as she grabbed her arm. With as much spare necromantic energies bled off from her improved gloves, she didn''t need Elruin''s help reattaching her body part, but finding a good weaponsmith to restore her guisarme was going to be a pain.


    Meanwhile, Elruin began to play for the corpse, to capture glimpse of the history that led him to be here. Flashes of a face, young, innocent, and with eyes of sapphire blue looked back at her amidst a chaotic jumble of anger, pain, and confusion. She stepped back, dropping the violin in the process. "W-what was that?"


    "That, oh Lady Elruin na Cali, was drugs. Even in death, they ruin you." Scratch drifted down from his vantage point above them. "With as much of the stuff as he sucked down, I''m surprised he hasn''t melted. He was a tough one."


    "Oh." Elruin picked her instrument up for a second time. "If he''s strong, then I can use him." She began to play again, twisting the necromancy in the atmosphere. In addition to doing what little was needed to finish repairing Cali and Mister Clackybones, Elruin let her song pass along and through Scratch, taking just a little of his taint along with that from the other undead, and adding it to the boy''s body. She knew not to use her own soul to empower the undead, or it, too, would be infected by the taint, so she took existing taint, like using coals from an old fire to start a new one.


    "Ell? What are you doing?"


    Lemia watched on in horror while the body twitched, his fingers clenched, and he began to sit up. Muscles which had been charged with, then destroyed by, the magical energies in Fairy Dust, were now infused with necromancy and taint.


    Elruin looked at her new minion, who didn''t seem any different than the soldier''s corpse she had control over. "It''s normal."


    Calenda, now holding both halves of her guisarme, approached. "Elruin." She trailed off, unable to find the words she needed.


    Ketak, aloof as she typically was, watched as well. She''d grown accustomed to the use of violent enemies and animals as tools, but to turn what was ultimately a misguided child into a tool did not sit well with her. She clenched her sword, and considered incinerating it as a mercy.


    "What?" Scratch looked at the people who were watching the new ''dolly'' climb to its feet. "It''s just a corpse, like any other. Even Claron wasn''t special once he became a meat puppet. Now, let''s get moving. We''ve got a necromancer to put into a grave and, maybe, drag him back out. Then perhaps do it all over again, they can be tenacious when they wanna be. We''ve let this brat waste enough of our time, already."Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author.


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    "Having trouble sleeping?" Cali remained in the tree, looking out across the irregular terrain. Here, where the trees became sparse, was where they would face the most dangerous leg of their journey. The largest beasts did not do well in dense forests, where humans could best exploit their natural agility and small size. In the mountains, and further out the plains.


    "I don''t need to sleep, thanks to my sarite." Moments later, she stifled a yawn. "Besides, both of you are still up."


    Ketak grunted. She, too, watched the plains, but dwarven eyesight was weaker than humans. Instead, she devoted herself to hearing the forest around them; a sense humans were notoriously weak with. "Dwar''es are ca''e dwellers, we sleep in naps. Can sleep while walking i'' we ha''e to."


    "You expended a great deal of energy today." Calenda kept looking outward, at the desolate foothills. The things out there were tough enough to survive where dragons hunted, and there was precious little for them to eat aside each other. They were the main reason Engewal never tried to expand the empire. "Your sarite''s good enough to recover focus faster, or let you skip out on sleep, but not both."


    "I know, I know, I''m just having trouble sleeping."


    "Still thinking about that boy." Calenda couldn''t say she was close to Lemia, but the two had worked together with the hospital and other tasks of the ''estate'' over the last year and a half, so she was comfortable calling her a friend, and knew her moods.


    Lemia kicked a rock away, which failed to make her feel better. What she wanted to do was scream, an act which might get them all killed, perhaps that''s what she was hoping for. "I can''t get him, what''s left of him, out of my mind. I''ve seen more people than I care to count die to drugs, but with them, they were like slow suicides. They died to escape from themselves, it happens, it was their choice. He died for a cause."


    Ketak had seen such a thing many times in the past. Death was never easy, but the first death of an innocent struck people particularly hard. Especially when it was followed by what Elruin did. "He died a warrior, like many children have. It''s a war out here, and there''s never been a war without casualties on both sides." Perhaps it was her own conscience she was trying to assuage.


    "Then Elruin turns him into an abomination. Uh..." Lemia stopped, realizing what she implied. "Sorry. I think it''s because you still act like you, so it''s easy to forget you''re not alive anymore."


    "Funny," Cali said. "As time goes on, I''m finding it easier to forget I ever was alive. I was as disgusted as you were, but without the heartbeat, or upset stomach, or even the ability to feel like I was going to cry. You ever been so passionately emotional about something that you knew was stupid, but couldn''t help but obsess over even though you knew better?"


    "Yes, I have been in love before, and you''re still not my type."


    Ketak remained silent. Not because she didn''t care, but because had nothing to say. She had realized long ago dwarves didn''t have the same emotional behaviors as humans, the idea of a sick stomach was alien to her, but the feelings of a walking corpse must be even more alien.


    "Imagine that, but the opposite. I know I should be upset with what she did, but I can''t seem to find the fire to make myself care much. I''ve even begun to forget what hunger feels like. It''s disturbing how comfortable I''ve become with not being disturbed." Cali kept looking out for threats in spite of the nature of the conversation. Besides, the full moon was beautiful on this comfortable summer night. "Speaking of, you''ve been spending too much time around Scratch."


    "I think it''s Elruin who needs to spend less time around Scratch. I think we can lay most of the blame for this mess on his metaphorical shoulders. What I still can''t understand is why he was okay with turning that kid into another of her ''dolls'', but he was so opposed to doing the same to you?"


    "I don''t know, but I think it''s because I was made intelligent," Cali said. "Whatever else, Elruin didn''t tamper with the boy''s soul. She just borrowed some taint from Scratch''s pool, and used that. I''m different, somehow. I was never much of a theologian, and from what I remember, what Elruin did in making me was impossible according to the church."


    "There are no answers in thaumaturgy, either, and I''ve been looking as hard as I can without crossing into ''ways to get yourself burned alive'' territory. You are an impossibility there, too, near as I can tell. All I can confirm is that the act of creating undead by definition creates a permanent taint which is detectable and will ultimately consume the mage who does so. I guess it doesn''t count if you''re just spreading already existent taint rather than making it yourself, and also not for... whatever it is that you are."


    "I''m still undead." Now Calenda took her eyes off the terrain for a moment. "That boy knew just enough necromancy to slow me down, but it proved I''m as vulnerable to it being used against me as anyone else. An unscrupulous necromancer with the right skills could reach inside and rework my everything, even change my thoughts and beliefs."


    "Do you think that Elruin''s done that to you?"


    "No." Cali looked back out at the external threats. "She doesn''t have the sophistication to build the lie she''d need to build, and even after I died, I''ve given advice to her that she would have to have already known if she rewrote my mind. Advice she often ignores, as children do. If she inserted false thoughts into my head, why would they be ones that make me argue with her?"


    "But you''re afraid she might, some day."


    "If you had asked that question yesterday, I''d have threatened to punch you, but now... now, I don''t know. I thought I knew her better than this."


    Ketak considered now a time to speak. "Perhaps she ''ears she needs to. People do terrible ''ings in ''e name o'' war, and we ''ace ''e most terrible enemy, one e''en more horrible ''an ''e goblins." It surprised her to hear herself say it, but goblins only violated and ate the dead, they didn''t make them rise as weapons to slaughter their remaining family. "She is a child. Children need teachers."


    "I look back at the things I did at her age and let''s just say I''m not proud of them." Lemia tried to see something in the black emptiness of the foothills, but the moon illuminated only small features to her eyes. "Remember what I said about drug overdoses? I sold to most of them, but here I am today, a successful professional Artisan. And I had to turn myself around, while Elruin has us to help her."


    "You''re right, she''s still young," Cali said. "I''ll talk to her in the morning and try to get her to understand that it''s not okay to turn innocent people into monsters. Please, promise me, if it turns out we''re wrong about her and she changes me, that you will end me. And her."


    "I can''t make that promise." Lemia hoped she wouldn''t be judged too harshly. "I wouldn''t know how to begin to accomplish such a thing. As you are, now, would even Lord Garit and Lady Juna be able to stop the pair of you? At best, I might be able to get Erra to have Lyra hunt you down. Even then, I''d never make it back to Arila from here."


    "I swear, one warrior to ano''er, I will ''ind a way to kill you both," Ketak said. "I'' I ha''e to destroy mysel'' to do so, ''en she cannot turn me into an abomination alongside you."


    "I understand." Cali closed her eyes, took a breath which achieved nothing. "Well, good thing I''m a Scout. Walking into impossible situations without backup is our duty in life. Why should it be different in death?"


    Meanwhile, undetected by the three women, Scratch observed from the ethereal realm. He had revealed to them his ability to cloak his taint, but had always been careful to remain detectable by other means before today. He learned long before these ladies were born to keep a few secrets. Now he had to decide what to do with this one. What he knew for certain was that Elruin must be kept ignorant of this murder pact. She couldn''t be trusted to lie, not to her abomination amongst abominations of an elder sister.


    So he would do as he always did: observe, remember, and wait.

 Chapter 68- Optional Superbosses

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    Elruin awoke to Cali sitting next to her sleeping bag. The woman put a hand on her shoulder. "Are you feeling okay?"


    She sat up, wondering about the soft tone in Cali''s voice. She decided that her back didn''t hurt anymore, and the magic in her armor had repaired the leather overnight. "Yes. Is something wrong?"


    "No. A little." Cali looked off in the distance. "I want to talk to you about your new ''dolly''. Why did you turn that kid into a zombie?"


    "Because he shot me and cut off your arm." Elruin remained sitting, but scooted her way out of her bag. "Why?"


    "And it doesn''t bother you that he wasn''t a bandit?" Cali reached out and put a hand on Elruin''s shoulder. "That he was a boy trying to save his sister?"


    Elruin considered the question for a moment. "No. He tried to kill me."


    "And he paid for that mistake with his life," Cali said. "It''s sad, but all of us out here understand a single mistake means death. If we hadn''t made our peace with that, we''d remain behind the walls. But we don''t sign up to be turned into an abomination. Myself excepted, I suppose."


    "But we use my dollies all the time."


    "Never ones you made, yourself." Cali closed her eyes, trying to find a way to explain basic morality to a child whose family abandoned her to die. "Until now, we''ve been scavenging them, usually ones made by Scratch, or using animals. Turning people into zombies is bad, it''s bad, and it hurts your soul."


    "You don''t have to worry." Elruin still had trouble following this train of thought, but she thought she got it. "I didn''t make it, myself. I used some spare energy from Scratch, so the taint never touched my soul."


    "That''s not- there''s more to spiritual wellbeing than whether it''s been tainted by undeath. Look at Scratch and look at me. Save the lack of a pulse, the two of us are nothing alike."


    "Right, because your soul was insulated and preserved in whole form," Elruin said. "It never had a chance to be eroded and tainted."


    Cali sighed, then tried a different approach. "What if you swapped placed with the boy? If it was you who was trying to save me. It could happen, we know i''m vulnerable to necromancers, and we''re about to face a style of magic none of us have ever seen before. By the end of this there''s a chance that some of us, or all of us, will be enslaved by that necromancer. How does that make you feel?"


    Elruin''s eyes narrowed. "I won''t let that happen." The idea that someone might take Cali from her brought out the emotions which other approaches had failed.


    "I''ve said that many times about many things," Cali said. "I was right most of the time, but not always. We don''t know that we''re strong enough to stop this monster, and you''ve seen his victims, their memories, and the horrors they went through."


    Elruin fought back a shudder, thinking back on the people being carved apart by that composite undead monster constructed using magics she had never seen before and had little idea how to explain. "Right. He''s bad and we''re going to stop him."


    "How can you call him bad, while doing what is effectively the same exact thing to that boy? Killing people in self defense is one thing, but using their remains as weapons against your enemies? That''s exactly the reason we''re hunting him down."


    Elruin''s stomach hitched, as she realized she didn''t have a strong argument. Other than that the other necromancer was more skilled at the process, there wasn''t much difference she could name other than the argument she''d repeating. "But he attacked first."


    "Which, again, is reason enough for his death," Cali said. "Not for what came after. Now, please, exorcise him so we can give him a proper funeral. And from now on, try not to make any more monsters, because I''m starting to think there''s something more subtle than taint in play. Dodging side effects by spreading instead of creating is too obvious a solution, yet no necromancer has been known to walk away unscathed from what you did yesterday. Speaking as one of those abominations, and as your big sister."


    "Okay." Elruin still wasn''t certain about Cali''s argument, but something about making the dolly had upset her. Not unlike the first Mister Clackybones had. As she picked up Mister Squishybones, she decided that it didn''t take too long before Cali was okay with her other dollies, so she could wait for now. It wasn''t that good a dolly to begin with.


    Soon, they all stood around the funeral pyre of the boy whose name they hadn''t known.This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.


    "And may the fate which lay beyond be more merciful upon him than this world." Calenda finished the eulogy. "He will be remembered."


    "He will be remembered." Elruin said her part, but wondered who it was that would remember him. His sister was either dead, or had been converted into a weapon and soon would die by magic they had no means to reverse.


    Now that their path took them into the open, it soon became clear that they had far, far more immediate problems to worry about. Elruin''s squirrels, lacking trees, found perches on her shoulders while she was forced to abandon Clackybones and her dollies in the distance, so that she wouldn''t be identified for a different abomination necromancer and attacked on sight again.


    They still followed a series of deep valleys, relying upon Calenda''s botanical magic to help them track a safe path through a wilderness where monsters feared to tread. In her head, Elruin bemoaned the fact that she couldn''t move openly, for she felt confident Mister Clackybones could still outrun the monsters which resided here.


    In the distance roamed things which Elruin had read of in books, yet never given much thought. She had imagined that buffalo were little more than giant cows, yet the alert wild animals which wandered the distant plains bore little resemblance to the docile bovines she grew up with. They moved like an army, with their large males on the edge of the troupe, ready to defend the females and young with their massive curved horns and thick battle-scarred hide. As they grazed, their pack of hundreds moved as if a single animal, serving to frighten off the countless predators.


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    "Down!" Cali hissed, then dived toward them. "It''s a dragon!"


    They dropped into the narrow, muddy, stream bed, not daring to move as they prayed the beast could not hear their hammering hearts. They felt it approach overhead long before they heard it, a storm of ancient, concentrated magic. This one passed overhead, its body the size of Arila''s church, each of its six long, broad wings wide enough to block out the light of the sun, each made of flame so hot it burned blue.


    Elruin stared at the hardened, absolute, nature of its life force. Most living things were in their own way like waves in a lake, with energy dancing back and forth where needed or where depleted, an adaptive and ever-changing balance of energies. This dragon''s metaphorical lake was frozen in the form of ice as strong as steel.


    It twisted and plummeted to the ground at speeds that felt far too fast for a thing so massive, then at the last moment righted itself, kicking air out beneath it in a clap of thunder that kicked boulders off the ground and uprooted one of the rare few trees existed in the decimated landscape. If any of them had been able to hear after the eardrum shattering explosion of air, they would have heard the dismayed angry grunting of the bison herd, struggling to reorient themselves after the attack.


    With exception to Cali, they were all too busy gripping their heads in agony to notice, or watch the dragon came away with one eight-ton bison in each of its ten powerful talons. The dragon, too, paid a price for its meal, as the muscular animals bucked their heads backwards and embedded their dagger-sharp horns into the thick hide of the dragon.


    It shook them, until death caused them to stop them from inflicting countless tiny wounds upon the giant predator. Then it turned and flew off toward the deeper part of the mountains, toward its home where it would eat and hibernate until hunger once again drove it out into the world to kill again.


    "Entek!" Calenda muttered, being the first to recover from the shockwave and pain. The others, thanks to regenerative magic, were beginning to get their hearing back when the creature had become not but a bright blue star shining in the noon sky.


    Lemia got her breathing under control, then rubbed her ears to drain the blood from them. "That was a dragon? I thought you said dragons were about as strong as Lyra, not... that thing was like a god!"


    "Some dragons are stronger than others." Cali kept her head just above their trench, looking in all directions at the predators and prey alike as they recovered from the disruption to their usual schedule. "Legend has it they can live forever, and never stop growing in power, but there can''t be many as powerful as that one out in the world."


    "So, does that make us lucky or unlucky?" Ketak rubbed her head, still trying to shake off the experience. At times, the superior silmid hearing was more curse than blessing.


    "If we had time and were equipped for it, I''d have said lucky." Calenda considered cursing again. "It got cut up by those buffalo, which means blood. If we could get it back to Arila fresh."


    Meanwhile, Elruin was busy cooing soft nothings to her furry monster squirrels, who had been as upset at the humans but lacked the intellectual wherewithal to rationalize and speak of their fears. Instead, they hid in Elruin''s arms, seeking comfort in the necromancer and her energies which sustained and healed them.


    "Even a vial of normal dragon blood is worth a small fortune." Lemia still rubbed her ears, and had started using magic to draw together some water from the air so that she could clean herself better. "We could have been rich."


    "I can track it," Elruin said. The fragments of dragon-energy radiated from the ground like stars of their own, distorting the area with strange magics. Even these small drops were second only to such beings as Lyra, and the magic powering Shelter''s peace aura.


    "No, it''s better that we don''t." Calenda, too, felt the distorted magic, but she understood its consequences better than Elruin, because she had seen how such distortions worked. "Dragon blood is one of the components in making warped sarite. Unless you have the right protection, it can turn you into an insane monster, or any sort of other unpredictable events. Or you''ll explode, that''s possible. And that''s normal dragons, not the sort of monster that eats other dragons."


    Those humans in the group could see, even at a distance, as those plants and animals unlucky enough to be close to the splatters of blood began to warp and mutate. Insects grew to sizes which could rival the bison, only to die moments later as vines wrapped around them, strangled them to death, and used their corpses as fertilizer. This was warning enough that they lacked the ability to work with such a dangerous substance.


    "Come on, after that, the predators will be spooked and afraid. We might even make it to Seyid before nightfall. Then we can consider ourselves lucky."

 Chapter 69- Secrets

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    Scratch allowed himself to drift away from the group, knowing full well what would soon come. He was surprised only that Elruin found him sooner than expected, and asked him outright.


    "What happened to the other necromancers you''ve been with?"


    He understood the girl was about as subtle as a god razing a city to the ground, but had expected the question to be lead up to, rather than the first words from her mouth. "Oh, they died. Welcome to mortality, there is only one way out."


    "How did they die?" Elruin crossed her arms, acting as she thought a mother should act when chiding a child. "What happened to them before their deaths?"


    Scratch wondered for a moment if someone else might find what she was doing to be endearing, or perhaps annoying, but he had little emotion aside his goals, and the willingness to sacrifice everything for them, including mortality. "Mostly violence, defiant to the very end. A handful locked themselves in libraries which would later become their tombs." He paused for a moment, having realized that these questions were her leadup, and finished with the answer which was the real question. "And a few took a walk on my side of the great divide. They, more than any of the others, were fools. No sane living thing wants to be what we are."


    Now the spark of scholar''s curiosity lit in Elruin''s eyes. Here she could pursue her concerns without realizing what those concerns were. "What are you?"


    "I keep telling you, I''m neither theologian nor thaumaturge." Scratch drifted along, just out of arm''s reach of the necromancer. Though he acted like he was lounging in the air, he remained alert with senses not limited by physical organs.


    In the context of the conversation and their language, it was clear what they were speaking of. "I once told Cali I thought undead were made from resentment, hatred and jealousy of live, that undead aren''t truly negation, because negation brings the end of emotion, while the undead have lots of emotion, all of it bad. Now, I''m not sure."


    "I''d say that''s not far off, in a scholarly sort of way." Scratch said many times he was no scholar, but scholars fell short as well. How could one describe the hateful, cruel impulses that were so strong that even the combined forces of Life and Death rejected you? Humans had difficulty enough describing love, an emotion oft touted as hate''s opposing equal, yet love was too weak to survive long amongst the dead, while hatred could power an abomination forever.


    Elruin walked along in silence, thinking her own thoughts until it became clear Scratch wasn''t going to continue on his own. "What do you think the undead are?"


    "If I was forced to hazard a guess?" Scratch spoke just to buy time. Elruin was not going to drop the topic, which meant he needed a way to give her answers that didn''t give her real answers. It was far too soon for her to know the actual truth. Then he switch to the language of death, unwilling to allow the living to hear what he was about to say. "I think we''re like the void holes. Whether by accident or intent, we''re wounds in the universe. Neither life nor death, nor any other traditional concept."


    Elruin considered his words, but wasn''t satisfied. Theory was fine, but it wasn''t getting her to the answer she needed. "Cali says you''re dangerous, and it''s bad for my soul. You said you''ve worked with lots of necromancers who used the undead. What happened to their souls?" She, too, switched to the language of the dead, trusting Scratch''s judgment.


    "Once again, I don''t know. I don''t know what a soul is, or what it does, or if it exists." Scratch turned to face away from Elruin, or at least shifted his imprint of a presence in the living world to make it appear as such. "All I remember of death is a force ripping me apart while I fought to hold myself together. Memories and thoughts and feelings destroyed until only that small fragment of self that could not be consumed, the part which consumed instead, remained. If those are your soul, then I don''t think there''s anything beyond. No justice, no judgment, no arbiter of morality, what happens to the flame when a candle is blown out?"


    "Cali didn''t mention anything like that."


    "She didn''t experience it. You prevented the forces of death from ripping her soul, if you want to call it that, apart in the first place. She didn''t have to fight for her existence, she didn''t earn it." Scratch stopped, surprised at his own emotion. It had been a long time since he lost that much control, and as this conversation progressed the chances grew that it would happen again, perhaps to cataclysmic results.This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it.


    "I get what you''re asking." He chose to cut his losses and hope that the closest thing he was willing to say to the truth was enough. "Did any of my past partners wind up tainted? Yes, I''d say a full third of them, most by choice and plenty by accident. And most of those who didn''t died too soon. We are dangerous tools, same as the void and the things inside it. You should be careful with us, no doubt. That includes your dear big sister, whose only hold on sanity and that soul she so values comes from your protection. Can you shield yourself like you shield her?"


    Elruin considered the question, but her magic wasn''t good for looking inward. "I don''t know."


    "Then neither do I." Scratch drifted into the sky, and faded from sight. The conversation was over, but his next victim was going to suffer unspeakable agony to make him feel better.


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    There was little time to speak during the hard trek across the rough land. If not for healing and resilience granted to them by magic, Elruin and Lemia might have died to the brutal pace Cali and Ketak set for them. By the time they rounded the hills to get their first look at a Seyid city, Lemia was beyond caring and even Elruin''s supernatural toughness was reaching its limits.


    The first thing which struck Elruin''s eyes was the most obvious. "There''s no wall?" Never before had she imagined such a thing as a city without walls. "Why don''t they have walls?"


    "Out here, walls are useless." Calenda spoke down to her from a position along a narrow ledge of rock that allowed her to look over the hill at the threats of the plains. "Even the buffalo could knock down a wall, and they''re amongst the least dangerous things you''ll find here. The plainsmen survive by building bunkers and tunnels. The big plains monsters are easy to spot from a distance. They spread out their shielding sarite to hide much larger territories, then run for the tunnels if anything wanders closer. Now, Ell, I need you to get out of your armor."


    "Why?" Elruin looked down at her outfit, right at Decima clinging to her upper leg. Glowing red eyes blinked at her, before the creature felt shy and ran around to her back.


    "Because that runebone necromancer''s been collecting from this region long enough that at least one of them came out looking for revenge, and it''s going to be hard enough to get them to trust us as is. Best case, they suspect us and say nothing. Worst case, a truthsayer asks if you''ve ever made any undead. Believe me, you do not want a fight with the plainsmen. They''re hard enough to work with when they''re on your side."


    Elruin had started undressing as Calenda spoke, much to the annoyance of her three furry pets. While the nature of undeath and magic was a murky topic, she trusted her sister''s judgment when it came to dealing with people. "What do we tell them?"


    "Most of us tell the truth; a priestess, a scholar, and a forge mage sent from Arila to find the necromancer that attacked us. Ell, you''re a farmgirl I found along the way and had to take with us, because we couldn''t turn back. Just try to keep the pet squirrels from causing any trouble. We''ll tell them the things are a weird magic breed that can sniff out necromancy."


    "Let me tell ''em about ''e rats." Ketak gave the beasts a glance. "E''eryone knows silmid are masters o'' magical animals. A sellsword dwar'' wi'' pets to track down abominations won''t raise suspicions."


    Lemia smirked at the suggestion, while helping Elruin undress from her armor. "Isn''t all of this a little too on the nose?"


    "As close as we can get, protects us from Truthsayers later." Cali scaled further up the hill, to make certain there weren''t any nearby surprises. "Once they get to know us at least a little, we can talk to their leadership about our concerns. I''m just trying to keep us from being lynched on the outskirts."


    "Jeez, they sound like wonderful people," Lemia muttered. "At this rate I''m wondering why we''re bothering to help them."


    "Truth, they''re not that bad, once they get to know you. They just don''t like strangers, especially ones who act like they think they''re better than them. Speaking of, Ell, is there anything about my body that makes it so I can''t eat?"


    Elruin, now removing the last part of her armor, considered her answer. "No, I don''t think so. But it might be hard to get it out after."


    "Then I''m going to smell like a terrible drunk until we figure out a way. These people love their alcohol, and breaking bread is the surest way to make friends in their society. Especially if you bought the bread off them." Cali jumped down from her spot. "We''re clear for the minute, now let''s book it. Scratch... know what, you probably could sneak into the city, but if you do, don''t come anywhere near us."


    "I''ll stay out here, thanks." It felt good to lie, and he needed any excuse to take the edge off. "Wouldn''t want to end up being some weirdo''s puppet. I''ll stay out here and see if I can find a cute new doll for Elruin when she comes back. Don''t expect a dragon, but I think one of those buffalo would look nice with a tent on its back, don''t you?"


    "Yeah." Lemia gave a dry chuckle. "Nice enough for a dragon to spot from miles away and eat while we''re still on it."


    "You bring up a good point. In fact, you bring up a lot of good points, most of them teeth." Scratch drifted out of their hiding place. "Well, you kids have fun, I''ll see if I can''t find something worthwhile out here."


    "Just don''t do something stupid and insane like sending an abomination into the city to stir things up and give Elruin a chance to show off, or I will kill you with my bare hands." Cali glared at the ghost, willing him to understand that she could and would make good on the threat if she had to.


    "Don''t worry, I ain''t some amateur. That stunt only works if you''re already in a position of trust and you want to strengthen it." Scratch faded from sight, then began to snake through the ethereal pathways toward the city. By the time the others arrived, he''d already know where the mystery necromancer was hiding, how he operated, and every secret worth knowing.


    Then he''d do as he always did.

 Chapter 70- Coral Village

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    "The necromancer''s been here." Elruin drew her conclusion before they got in shouting range of the small Seyid town on the outskirts of Engeval''s empire. Her bleak sight could spot the torn tapestry of life energy that came from the most blatant use of necromancy in combat, so long as the usage was fresh. All higher power spellcasting left such marks, but each was distinct and Elruin was especially sensitive to necromantic power.


    Lemia asked the obvious question. "The necromancer, or any necromancer of sufficient strength?"


    "The necromancer." The subtle but lingering hum of undeath clung to the area, singing of old death and impending sickness. "The whole city is covered in a small amount of taint."


    "Sounds expensive." Ketak marched ahead, playing the role of the soldier she''d have to convince those of Seyid she was. "He can''t ha''e done ''at wi''out a reason, got any ideas what he''s playing at?"


    "Terror tactics." Calenda considered what she would use such a field for, from the perspective of the undead. "First, if it''s light, they gotta have exorcists who could cleanse it, but they''re not. Were they killed? Does an attempted cleansing set off more surprise bombs? Second, even light taint should make it all but impossible to find actual undead via magic. Third, people have got to know it''s there, and I can only imagine the effect that''s having on the population."


    Before they made it to city proper, the terrain began to shift around them. Spears of rigid purple and blue stone sprung from the ground, surrounding and trapping them behind beautiful but jagged walls. Elruin''s eyes widened, because the stone was alive, a construct of living bone that looked like rock. She was a moment from hitting the wall with all her power, fearing they were the teeth of some strange underground dragon.


    "State your business, outsiders!" Neither Elruin nor Lemia recognized the words, but Calenda and Ketak recognized the language of the Silvanesti.


    "How much Sylvanesti do you know?" Cali put a hand over Elruin''s mouth, to prevent the child from mentioning anything about the strangeness of the magical trap they were in, and thus accidentally revealing the wrong secret. "Because I only know enough to tell them I''m a priestess and basic ranks." Once, that was all she needed, but without a sigil of her Scout status, she had no authority to leverage.


    "My apologies! We am Dwarf. Know little Silv." Ketak tried her best, which she had to admit was terrible, but it was better than Cali could do.


    "Noble Stone-Sister, what brings you to this city of Klent?" Another voice, this one speaking silmid better than most in Sonhome could. She also managed to identify the sex of Ketak, which wasn''t easy even amongst the silmid.


    "My pardon, noble Leaf-Sister." Ketak slipped into the comfort of talking to one of her own in their native language, rather than the human tongue which had many sounds their mouths weren''t equipped to make. "We visit in search of the maker of abominations."


    "To what end?"


    "That we might kill it, on request from the humans of Engeval." The year with Scratch aiding her in the slaughter of every goblin near Sonhome was the greatest compensation she could ever have asked for. Never before had she seen such beautiful slaughter. "Abominations have attacked as deep as Arila and Engewal, with here being the possible source. We see now the speculation was true."


    "Then you have taken arms as a mercenary?"


    "Never!" Ketak shouted, for it was amongst the greatest shame to be a killer for money, worse than any but traitors and those who exploit children. "I follow the Oath of the Flame, and work tirelessly to that end. However, it is human custom to pay those that kill in their name, and I see no reason not to gratefully accept all donations that go to the cause, even by those that believe it mandatory."


    "Then we have much need of your sacred duties, Stone-Sister." If the silmid speaking had any doubts about Ketak''s claims, she had no reason to voice them. If she had taken the Oath of the Flame, then it was a religious responsibility to allow her to act, within reason. If she was a mercenary from the human nobility, then it was still at the command of a ruling authority. Unauthorized usage: this tale is on Amazon without the author''s consent. Report any sightings.


    "Leaf-Sister, do you mind if we speak the human tongue? My companions are less familiar with the first-furs than we are with them."


    "Yes, o'' course, I wouldn''t want to make our guests ''eel ignored." The silmid changed her tone, and slower speech for less comfortable syllables. "Yet I ''ear the city might not welcome your aid."


    "We expected as much." Ketak switched to speaking human as well. "Howe''er, ''e longer ''ose in charge delay us, ''e more die to ''e necromancer''s strange magics, including what ''e Arilans are calling bone runes. We bring a scholar to aid in teaching you ''eir defenses against such magics."


    The walls of colorful jagged stone shifted and sank into the soil, where it returned to appearing no more than part of the environs even to Elruin''s sight, while several soldiers waited for them outside. Two looked much like Lemia; people of dark brown skin, hair and eyes, though both were male. Another, the only woman, had the same soft blue tones of the boy whose zombie she had been forced to dispose of that morning, and one was a silmid of red-orange fur, with a white muzzle.


    The silmid came forward, with the blue colored woman right behind her. "My apologies, but we must test you be''ore we allow you into ''e city. Rys will use a simple spell, it won''t harm you, but it will re''eal i'' you''re one o'' ''e necromancer''s pawns."


    The woman, Rys, held up a large, bright pink sarite crystal. With a flash of energy, the group felt a tingle of energy that almost tickled, save for Cali who thanked her lucky stars that her body no longer had reflexes to scream or flinch away from pain. She remained standing, only because it was no different than collapsing in her current state of unlife.


    Meanwhile, three very angry squirrels hissed at the spell. "Shh, shh, it''s fine." Elruin did her best to calm them down by petting them and holding her hands out as if to feed them, though she couldn''t under the current circumstances.


    Lemia stepped forward, choosing to be confrontational while her friends recovered from the experience. "You lied to us."


    "No, ''e spell is harmless."


    "For normal people, sure, but if any of us had runebones, that spell would have set them off." Lemia considered the residue of the magic, and how it might respond once it made contact with bloodmold. "Then it... saps taint in order to manipulate blood by separating salt from water? I guess that''s one way to cure bloodmold. I bet it does a lot of damage to the undead, too. But it''s still a killing spell."


    The silmid closed her eyes, for them a sign of shame. "It is our best line o'' protection. Li''es lost are a tragedy, but a greater tragedy is ''e li''es lost i'' ''ey are allowed to continue on at ''e abomination''s whims. Do you ha''e a better way?"


    Now it was Lemia''s turn to feel apologetic. "Uh, we''re still working on it."


    "Enou'' o'' ''at." Ketak stepped in. "Recriminations won''t help anyone. We are here to ''ix ''e problem ''e best way, by bringing justice to ''e abomination and guarantee ''is ne''er happens again. Sooner we get started, ''e fewer ha''e to die."


    "You''re right." Lemia bowed in apology to the silmid. "It has been a stressful trip, and I fear our job has only just begun. Can you please recommend a good inn for us to set up for the night?"


    "Yes, ''e silver spire, it''s straight ''ataway." She pointed toward the southeast.


    It hurt Cali to walk, but she wasn''t like normal undead, and understood how to push her body beyond what the typical abomination could. She''d dealt with far, far worse pain in her life. Besides, the soft taint in the atmosphere was able to restore her body as she moved. Soon, it only felt like she walking on two broken feet, rather than breaking every bone in her legs with each step.


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    "You know, I thought she was giving us the name of the inn." Lemia looked up at tower of silver colored stone. It was both majestic and natural, like it had been carved by water rather than the work of hands or even magic. "It''s beautiful work, and the magic is so intricate, like it''s being powered from within."


    "Their buildings are alive," Elruin said. Now that they were further along, she''d gotten a look at the rigid buildings of the city. She wanted to help Cali, but she had to be good and hide her magic. She comforted herself by noting that Cali''s presence was enough to soak up the fragments of taint, so she didn''t have to cleanse it outright.


    "It''s called coral," Cali said. "It''s a plant that grows in the ocean, and there''s plenty of sylvanesti water mages in Seyid who use it to shape buildings similar to how the silmid shape trees. Still trying to figure out how at Rys woman controlled it using blood magic, if you''ve got any thoughts on that."


    "It''s not a plant." Now that Elruin was close to the inn and had time to look, she was certain of it. "It''s an animal. Or a bunch of animals, like ants, but they make their hive out of their own exoskeleton. It''s like living bone..."


    They all stopped as they came to the same realization at the same time.


    "Good thing I wasn''t planning to sleep tonight, anyway," Lemia said.

 Chapter 71- Ugly Little Lies

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    Ketak eyed the shore as she approached the temple. Its colorful spires against the night sky was perhaps the most beautiful merger of nature and engineering she had ever witnessed outside of Liselm. That beauty loomed overhead, made threatening by the knowledge that this monument might become their tomb and indeed murderer.


    Beside her, Xyka did her best to not upset the ebon squirrel that now sat upon her head. The silmid woman had seen stranger things than necromancy-seeking rodents in her life, but not often.


    It sniffed the air in front of the temple, and required all of a heartbeat to decide it didn''t like this strange new location, and without Elruin it jumped away and went straight into a nearby bush.


    "What does that mean?" Xyka asked in the silmid language.


    "She doesn''t like the temple. I presume this is where you keep most of your healers?" As was true of Arila and Sonhome, the talented healing mages were locked away in the center of the city, close to the wealthy and far from the threat of violence.


    "Yes." Xyka refused to look away from the glowing red eyes that stared at her in the darkness. As bizarre as thaumic breeding was, she never before encountered herbivores that looked at her the way predators looked at their prey. Weeks ago, she would have considered them the most unnerving creatures she had ever witnessed. Now she knew there were worse things in the night. "We lost several of our finest during the confusion of the first few days, and now the rest are cloistered away."


    "May they be remembered." Ketak resisted the urge to call the survivors cowards. She didn''t know their stories or the burdens they bore. "But please, I need to speak to them. This place appears to be in less danger than we originally feared, but we must convince them that there is no choice but to begin purging the necromancer''s influence."


    "If the necromancer''s left this region alone, I''m afraid it might be difficult to convince them to act, but I believe I can convince them to hear your words." Any excuse to get away from the squirrels which would remain forever in her nightmares was a welcome one. "I pray you''re prepared.


    Ketak took a slow breath, and considered her approach. Were she too forceful, the clergy might take offense and reject her, but if she didn''t make clear how dangerous the situation was, she might be condemning what remained of the city''s holy orders to the most gruesome of possible deaths. If only Calenda could be here. She was the one who knew how priests, or for that matter humans, thought.


    She had to hope things were going better with the others.


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    Calenda hesitated at the edge of the cemetery designed much the same as their own in Arila with a series of rune magic structures that were intended to block taint while doing more complex work. Such practices were a necessity of survival, not cultural preference.


    It was also clear from the onset that the system was nonfunctional. The visible runes were cracked and split, no doubt victims of the same attack which had been used on Arila, followed by an inability to control the border and prevent other corpses from being turned into weapons. As such, the area was busy with mages working to cleanse the area with the wards down.


    Two armed soldiers, both men, stepped forward with their spears pointed at Calenda. "State your purpose."


    Cali bristled at the commands these men issued. Did they have no respect for social propriety? "I am a priestess of Ecros, here on the authority of Engewal to track the necromancer responsible for the attacks on this city and others across the empire."


    The guards didn''t relax or glance at one another. "You have no authority here, foreigner."


    Cali once again found herself at odds with her unliving nature serving to keep her less emotional than she knew she should be. "I wasn''t aware Seyid declared independence in the last two weeks."


    "We should be so lucky," the one who hadn''t been talking muttered.


    "We may be part of the empire, but that does not mean we answer to you. Unless Enge Himself has ordained you the new queen, you and your lieges can both go back where you came from and stay there."


    "At the expense of allowing innocent people, even perhaps your entire city, to die?" Not for the first time in her life, Cali considered taking their spears and planting them firmly in their sphincters. Like always, she restrained herself and soaked in disappointment.


    "You may not have heard, but it''s too late to save the ones in here."


    "You may not have heard, but that''s not an obstacle to a skilled abomination necromancer." Perhaps she could crack their skulls against the ground for a few minutes, nothing important would be damaged. Then she saw a black blur move past her vision and rush into the confines of the cemetery. "Mort! Return!"


    The hellsquirrel ignored commands and shot right past the guards, leaving behind an aura of confusion and uncertainty which could manifest itself in any number of ways, but almost guaranteed they''d forget they saw him in the first place.This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.


    Shouts of surprise soon began within the cemetery as the various mages tried to deal with the bizarre, agile animal that fed upon their necromancy.


    "Merat ne!" One guard ran into the cemetery to figure out what was going on, while the other remained facing her, more agitated than ever.


    Cali crossed her arms as she watched the man who wasn''t a threat to her even when he had backup. "So, instead of accepting my help, you''d rather wait out here while horrible monsters might be murdering the people you''re supposed to be here to protect?"


    He hesitated, listening to the screams of panic and fear. One particularly shrill shriek made his mind up for him. "If you cause any trouble at all, I will make certain you hang to death!" He turned and ran into the cemetery as well.


    Calenda gave him a respectable head start before she ran past him like he was standing still, acting the part of a warrior expecting to find a fight. To her surprise, she did find a fight. Two dessicated corpses had started to move, and as they did Cali felt the tug of their energies. They were consuming absurd amounts of necromantic energy from the air, more than a human body should be able to withstand.


    Cali struck hard and fast, landing a bone-shattering flying kick into the closer of the two zombies. An act which the zombie didn''t seem to so much as notice. She stepped back, uncertain of herself. "How?" She could have accepted that it wasn''t destroyed, even that it remained standing, but to take a blow such as that without so much as budging an inch, was unbelievable.


    It seemed she wasn''t the only one unable to understand, as the local exorcists unleashed spell after spell, any one of which would have left Calenda crippled if not destroyed, upon the undead to no effect. While in the midst of the necromantic firestorm, a fuzzy rodent basked in the energies and shielded Cali like the good boy that it was trained to be.


    The zombies began to move, going straight for the necromancers while passing her by. Useful, knowing that they didn''t seem to realize she was there, but dangerous if anyone began to wonder why she was ignored. She hoped the others were having a better night than she was.


    Suggested Listening</a>


    Lemia kept close to the younger girl, doing her best to appear to be her mother or older sister. "Don''t try so hard to hide, you don''t want to attract attention as an easy victim any more than you do as an outsider."


    Elruin wanted to ask how she could both look like she wasn''t dangerous and look like she wasn''t weak at the same time, but she lifted her head a little in the hopes that would be enough. It seemed like everyone had a different way of doing things, and not a single person ever showed her what they were.


    "This is where the necromancer is taking his victims," Elruin said. The air all but screamed the song of undeath, a song muted, distorted, and echoed by the coral buildings. Magic warped much as canyon walls warped sound.


    "I know." Lemia didn''t need Elruin''s absurd sensory abilities to draw the same conclusion; she only had to look at this part of the city.


    The poor district in Klent was, in many ways, the opposite of the one in Arila. Instead of small shacks strewn about like debris after a storm, these impoverished people lived in massive and well-organized coral boxes, stacked atop one another like colorful bricks. In a city like Arila, people might have thought these large, sturdy buildings were a sign of wealth and power, but one look at the residents'' faces would disabuse them of the notion.


    People here were alert, watching one another and the strangers in their midst, asking the universal question of the slums: who are my allies, who are the threats, and who are the victims? Outsiders, by definition, could not be allies; anonymity made them both the quintessential victim and threat. Yet not a single local thug approached to cause them trouble or drive them out of ''their'' territory, not a single member of the well-meaning community warned them away. These were a people who had given up, they were all victims of a far more dangerous power.


    Elruin looked around, as alert to the mystical elements at play as she was oblivious to the human. "That way." She looked in the direction she was certain contained some fragment of undeath, but heeded Lemia''s reminders not to point or show any obvious body language.


    Lemia''s heart jumped in her chest, wondering what to do. They were as protected as anyone could hope to be, but the idea of confronting a necromancer with the skill and brutality this one had shown brought her back to the frightened little girl she thought she''d outgrown long ago. "Perhaps we should go get the others, first?"


    "No." Elruin''s eyes somehow shined darker than the night''s sky. "It''s here. I can hear it, it''s making another weapon."


    "Three above." Lemia forced herself to breathe. "Lead the way."


    Elruin set Decima down. "Hunt!" Then ran after, following her own path rather than relying upon the squirrel to lead her. As strong as the animals'' instincts were, they were not as sharpened as Elruin''s ability to trace magic. Decima was helping, however, by absorbing some of the ambient necromancy which allowed the abominations to hide in the city.


    The streets became more narrow, as they pursued the source of growing necromantic power in the dark, changing from rigid right angles to a series of labyrinthine curves and dead ends that grew ever closer to resembling the oceanic environs which coral formed in nature. Even in the day, these streets would remain dark. Even without a  monster, these streets would reek of blood and offal.


    Then they saw it. Standing over six feet tall, it was a mass of bodies twisted together as if made of wet clay rather than living tissue. Sinew and tendons draped from countless that moved in spite of not being connected to anything.


    At its feet, a man, a woman, and two young children sat smiling, naked save for the blood which coated them. All had serene smiles on their faces, while watching the man hold open his own thigh muscles as four rotting arms shoved a rune-marked femur into the bloody mess of his leg. Then, somehow, it cast a healing spell on the flesh, forcing it to stitch back together without sign of the original wound.


    Lemia gagged, but didn''t lose her stomach this time. "It''s like..." she didn''t complete the sentence. It was like Calenda, taint hidden even as they looked straight upon it, able to cast magic in spite of the fact that undead should not ever be able to cast magic.


    The thing''s six heads looked straight at them, each an echo of love. A concerned mother, a childhood confidante, a trusting younger sister, a doting father, a loving husband, a young son. "You are lonely." "Empty." "Pain. Suffering. Loss." "Come to me." "I will make you happy." "We can be together." "Forever." "Always." "Be part of me." "Let me be part of you."


    The girls received fantasies tailored to their own psychology, but in the end they weren''t that dissimilar from one another. Their mothers were affectionate, they knew their fathers, they beheld innocence unlike any in their real childhoods. They were offered a life of happiness, even if it was short and full of comforting lies.

 Chapter 72- Uglier Big Truths

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    Ketak stood at the shore of the temple, considering the sky while giving occasional check on the glowing red eyes which watched her. The joke was on the death-eating rodent, for her eyes were more than capable of seeing its sleek fur in the darkness. Dwarven vision may have been inferior to humans in the daylight, but come darkness and they lost none of their acuity while humans were all but blind.


    By the time Xyka came out, the moon had risen then vanished behind the clouds that promised rain on the morrow. Her eyes glowed white with electrical energy as she recited all the profanities of the four languages she knew under her breath as a private litany.


    Ketak knew the answer, but needed confirmation. "The cowards refuse to act, right?"


    "Like root worms!" Xyka shouted, confident nobody else would understand silmid or the significance of the insult. Root worms were both a preferred snack to silmid and nasty parasites which would often kill the trees by boring into the roots and bark. Their claim to fame compared to most grubs was an unparalleled ability to hide and flee from predators. To be compared to one was a high insult.


    Ketak growled and considered going up to the temple doors and carving through them. The temple was defended, true, but she could do a great deal of damage, perhaps enough to convince them that there was no safety in hiding.


    She chose not to, for she had better sabotage in mind. "Nona! Come!" She extracted the small bead containing infused necromantic power from her pocket. It was too weak to be useful in and of itself, but these squirrel-things favored them as treats.


    Nona''s tail twitched, then she bounded out into the open in spite of the unpleasant smell of the temples.


    Xyka took a step back and looked at both the squirrel and the concentrated necromantic fragment. "What are you planning to do?"


    "Don''t worry, it won''t hurt anyone." Ketak left out ''this time'' from the statement. "Nona, glow!"


    The fuzzy ball of insanity took a moment to consider her situation. On one hand, this strange person was giving her orders rather than the pack-leader. On the other, there was a treat waiting, and she liked treats. As with most things in a squirrel''s life, her stomach made the decision for her. Her red eyes turned black as she generated a pulse of necromantic power. A beacon of fear and death energy that would be felt by any nearby mages, and disrupt other magic.


    "Good girl." Ketak held out the treat while doing her best to ignore the cloying power of death radiating from the animal.


    Nona stopped her performance, because while she''d obey for treats, it would be for no longer than she had to.


    "There, they''ll notice that in the morning, then maybe they''ll reconsider." Her mission a failure before it began, Ketak began to walk away from the temple.


    Xyka looked back at the residue left behind by the freakish rodent. It wasn''t like abomination magic, but it was a thing of palpable harm that would require a great deal of work to cleanse from the temple. It could be days before it was safe to reopen the temples to prayer. "I should be arresting you right now."


    "On behalf of those cowards? Hmph. We both know our loyalties are to our people and what is best for them. Perhaps a few days without the distraction of collecting donations will remind the human religious leaders of their own oaths."


    Invoking the silmid contempt for human greed was a cheap ploy, but an effective one. "Let us hope so, stone-sister."


    "My companions won''t be done for a while." Now that they were further from the temples, Ketak deigned to stop and consider her next move. "I don''t suppose there are any good places for drinks around here?"


    "Good for proper alcohol, or good for information and networking with other mercenaries looking to kill a necromancer for profit? We have both, but they''re not the same place."


    "Of course not," Ketak muttered. "Why would anything be that convenient?"


    Suggested Listening</a>


    Calenda observed the zombies for a moment. Fueled by the ambient necromantic energies, they could survive any physical attack Calenda could dish out, and there wasn''t many options which a botanical mage could use against the undead. She went for the one she had, tracking the ground for a suitable chunk of stone, and forcing it to rise from the ground.


    Then the fresh zombies began to act, guided by a series of thoughts and emotions not their own. The nearest necromancer screamed for a total of half a second before his larynx was crushed by a zombie, followed not long after by the other three beginning to cast a series of spells meant to paralyze and cleanse the undead.


    Cali ripped the stone up from the ground, putting all her strength into lifting the rock that was twice as heavy as she was. Holding it not unlike one might cradle a baby, she picked up a running start while using her magic to reinforce and strengthen the ground so that she didn''t sink down to her knees in the soil.


    At the last moment, she brought the stone up and then slammed it right down on the back of her target''s head. A crack resounded as both stone and skull were tested against one another. A conflict that neither could win. The stone cracked through, leaving two large chunks on the ground next to the zombie and a spattering of small stones and brain matter.


    "They can be overwhelmed!" Her shout of encouragement was more meant for herself than her temporary allies, for even as she said it she came to realize it was wrong.


    It spite of its head being burst open like a rotting cantaloupe, it showed no sign of being slowed. Meanwhile, the mages redoubled their efforts to slow the monsters by any means necessary.


    It was only thanks to Mort that Cali remained standing in spite of the exorcism, but the zombies had power to spare. It seemed to her that they were benefiting from something not unlike Elruin''s ability to strengthen and shield her undead against other magic. Calenda took a step back, away from the certain failure that was about to occur.


    She closed her eyes and issued a prayer to Ecros. "It is the warrior''s burden than some must die in the name of victory. They are the mothers and fathers, who throw themselves into the predator''s jaws so that their children live on. In those children, they will be remembered forever." She then opened her eyes to watch these poor brave men die at the hands of the dead. She would see to it their last moments meant something.This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.


    One, less brave than the others, broke ranks and retreated for the gate. An act which earned him special attention from the still whole zombie, which chased him down far faster than a middle-aged scholarly mage could hope to outrun.


    Cali noted that the zombies acted in concert; its cohort didn''t so much as glance at the fleeing exorcist. Instead, it waited for the others to turn their attention away for a moment before it struck from behind and ripped the throat out of the stronger of the remaining mage. Cali added to her mental library that they used advanced tactics as well. Stronger threats were targeted before they went for the weak. Then the undamaged zombie caught the final victim and crushed his skull in an imitation of what Cali had done.


    Now that their only company was the dead dead, the pair still seemed disinterested in Calenda. Mort, on the other hand, was still alive, and the zombies began to chase after the squirrel which, being a squirrel, ran straight up a nearby building to the safety of the roof. The zombies pursued, then split up to try to deny their prey an escape route.


    All of this was important tactical knowledge that could be used in future battles, paid for in blood and screams.


    Now, as the undamaged zombie began to use its fingers to claw its way up the wall, it was time for Calenda to act. She gripped the climber''s shoulders and dipped into her vampiric sarite shard. Black lines began to creep across her hands and arms as what remained of her blood converted to an inky ichor made of raw necromantic energies.


    Used against people, it was a means to sap magic to replace her own dwindling supply. Used by people against the undead, it was a particularly horrific suicide. Used in this situation, it provided Cali with an almost ceaseless pool of power to draw upon.


    Using the zombie''s power against itself, Calenda twisted and squeezed its neck, breaking the spine as she slammed the thing into the ground like a rag doll. It grabbed at her, but it had half the power it did moments ago, while she had the other half and her own magic on top of it. She slammed it into the ground again and was rewarded with the sickening crunch of a jawbone collapsing inward. The next shattered the skull.


    Then she gripped its arm and ripped it from the socket, slammed her knee into the spine to break that as well, then kicked backward into the chest of the oncoming zombie behind her. Despite using far less force than she had expended against the first, the second was propelled back with its chest caved inward. Not enough to destroy it, but the half-dismembered zombie still moved as well.


    There was a solution to this problem, though not one she was eager to enact. She grabbed the zombie''s leg, shoved her foot into its spine hard enough to snap its bones like dried twigs, and separated another limb.


    The next few minutes were disgusting work at best, but it was easier with her newfound strength than it ever could have been before.


    She looked at her hand, at the black veins and arteries that now traced themselves across her body. She had no doubt in her mind that her face was as covered as the rest of her. Once again, part of her humanity died, and she became stronger for it.


    She took a running start and jumped over the wall of the crematorium, an act which was easier now by far than it had been but a few minutes ago. She pulled up her hood and hoped that and the darkness would hide her features enough.


    No longer could she afford to be seen by normal people unless there was something Elruin could do to return her to normal.


    Suggested Listening</a>


    The composite horror fed its illusions to the pair, and experienced what might have been shock when Elruin began to sing. Whether the credit belonged to their protective sarite, their natural strength, or the ad-hoc abattoir disrupting the effect, was a question for later. What mattered now was the illusion had little more impact than a pleasant daydream.


    It meant nothing. To Elruin, at any rate. She lifted her violin, gave herself to the power of requiem, and swam in the complex magical tapestry that was this, the most advanced necromantic construct she had ever witnessed. It was a complete being, a true soul, built from the ground up. It was not a native undead like Scratch, nor an insulated soul in an undead body like Calenda, but something which shared properties of both and a great deal more. As if it was a soul born undead.


    Lemia''s reaction was more appropriate for the manipulation and violation of memories, fantasies, and emotions on a fundamental level. She fumbled for her ammunition through tear-blinded eyes, all other emotions abandoned in favor of rage and disgust. Aim enhancing magic coupled with the size of the monster deserved more credit than Lemia''s aim, but the thing blossomed into alchemical flame.


    It stood watching its own flesh burn away as Elruin pinned its necromantic muscles with her own superior control of the element.


    They could not, however, control its psychic death-cries. Unable to speak words, it pleaded with them using idea in pure form. Flashes of a thousand possible lives rang out across the area, granting pasts that never were and promising futures which could never be.


    It offered a world of unparalleled, impossible happiness. The happiness it yearned for but could never have, the happiness it brought to others. The only thing it wanted was to bring joy into this bleak, merciless world. It pleaded for the life it did not possess. It did not, could not, understand why they sought its death. It felt, it thought, and that made it all the more dangerous.


    The inhabitants of this slum came rushing in, unaware of why or what they fought for, but they would fight nonetheless. Rocks began to bounce off of Elruin, thrown by the very people they were here to save. She ignored them, she had to, for if she stopped playing, then their target would escape.


    "Elruin!" Lemia was stopped from helping when three people grabbed onto her, pinning her arms. One of them was the blood-covered man who had not long ago stitched himself back together.


    Elruin returned to her music, this time to cover the area in darkness to hide her from the swarm. An act which was proved futile, for these people were not seeing her with their eyes, they were not seeing her at all. They were seeing the illusion fed into their minds by the undead creature. She looked at the faces of people a few feet from her, smiling at her as if she was their long lost daughter.


    Nobody had ever smiled at her in such a way before in her life.


    If she lost control of the monster, it would kill them all, so she grew more desperate for a means to fight back. Its mind alteration magic was stronger than her own, and to use raw negation risked granting the monster more strength, so she blended her ice magic into the song. People fell as they neared her, their bodies robbed of strength and warmth.


    A flash of black lightning erupted from Lemia''s own armor. Elruin''s armor wasn''t the only tool she''d built, and her own armor came with a cheap imitation of Elruin''s defensive power of choice. People screamed in agony, but the smiles never left their faces as they continued to cling to the very thing which was stripping their life away.


    It stared at them from sockets of eyes melted by heat, uncomprehending of why they tried to hurt it. It wanted them to feel joy, but they wanted it to suffer. So it pushed harder, pressed their minds and lifted the concept of sarite from their minds. Evil, hateful stones which stole happiness from those which carried them. The solution, then, was to take the stones from these poor people so they could be happy.


    So it showed its beloved family the secret of the evil sarite, so that they could save these unfortunates, and its family moved as an army to protect their one true source of happiness.


    Elruin changed her song again, attacking the illusions the creature had created. Every stroke of her violin was a blade slicing the strings which bound their minds. It was a terrible strategy, one which required breaking them free one at a time while they swarmed in by the dozens. They would run out of space to move long before the slums ran out of people the monster could throw at them.


    "I''m sorry. I''m so sorry!" Lemia continued to struggle to free herself from the wounded and dead. She launched one more projectile toward the monster, this one infused with pure creation energy.


    The bomb burst into a storm of energy that dimmed all the remaining necromancy in the area. An angry squirrel screeched and retreated for cover in a pile of garbage, while people gasped and screamed when their bodies were wracked with energy every bit as destructive as negation, but one which stripped them of the happy lie they had been given.


    Insulated as she was by her armor, Elruin didn''t feel the pain of the bomb, but it did cost her the use of requiem long enough that the monster could retreat into the darkened alleyway, leaving misery and death behind as was the whole purpose behind its creation.


    It was now on them to deal with the aftermath.

 Chapter 73- Past and Future

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    The sick-sweet stench of tainted necromancy hung in the aether like the stink of cheap bordello perfume and the odors it failed to hide. It was choking, oppressive, magic which clung to all surfaces of the physical and spiritual world. "Got hand it to you, you old hag, you sure know how to set a scene."


    "Why, Scratch, I do believe that is one of the nicest things anyone has ever said to me." Aether-space twisted as it was violated into a form it was never meant to be by forces that did not belong in this universe. An ancient woman, far older than even her bent and gnarled figure suggested, stepped without moving into a place where flesh was never meant to exist. "But I''m afraid Kalla deserves all of the credit. She has quite the formidable mind."


    "Coming in person?" Scratch continued drifting, watching the mortal side of the metaphysical coin. Besides, there was no point in pretending he needed to look in order to see with the likes of her, they''d known one another far too long. "That isn''t like you."


    "Ah, but why wouldn''t an old woman want to visit her dear friends as she nears the end of her long life?"


    "Hmph, old friend she says. I''ve spent my entire afterlife with the sole purpose of seeing you join me in death." He allowed himself a cold, cruel chuckle. "But now that I think about it, perhaps I am the closest thing you''ve got to true friendship. But for the sake of ''friendship'', what do you mean the end of your life? You never believed any of the others could kill you, and I know you don''t think this one can."


    "Not a ghost of a chance." Uewatsu cackled at her pun. "Kiara fought death itself, and it was death who died at her hand. I am every bit my ancestor''s equal, well outside the power of some silly farmgirl playing with dolls. But what I know doesn''t interest me so much as what you believe. You think she''ll break the cycle, don''t you?"


    "It''s a cycle that needs broken. You should never have been."


    "Ah, old friend, I see you still avoid the subject when someone touches a nerve." Uewatsu laughed some more. "I''m not like all those children you''ve manipulated to their deaths and beyond. Your tricks don''t work on me."


    "I don''t know." Scratch gave up on the possibility of getting away without answering. That didn''t mean he had to tell Uewatsu more than the absolute minimum. "But I think she has a better chance than anyone has had in a long time. She''s accomplished quite a bit for someone so young."


    "The creation of that half-undead freak of hers, you mean."


    "You tip your hand, crone." Scratch faked confidence, not because he thought it would fool her, but because it was expected of him. They all had their roles to play in this charade of a universe. "You''ve been watching quite close if you recognized Calenda for what it is. Which means Elruin''s surprised you, too."


    "Oh, it''s not so difficult to spot if you know how to look." Uewatsu''s grin exposed gums without teeth. "And while her trick is new to you, It''s not so special. I bet most of them could accomplish it if they thought to try and had a suitable volunteer. Maybe I should kill off her other allies, see if she''s close enough to do the same for them."


    "You wouldn''t dare. Now leave Elruin alone until she brings the fight to you."


    "Relax, old friend, I know the rules to this farce." Uewatsu never stopped smiling. "My puppets play with empires, your puppet plays with dolls. So has it been for a thousand years, so shall it be for another thousand. But I sense that Adageyudi will involve herself soon. You know how she feels about rules."


    Scratch faded into the background for a moment as he lost concentration. Adageyudi was worse than Uewatsu, if only because Uewatsu could be trusted to pretend she had a scrap of sanity remaining. The others were far less reliable. "It... has been quite some time since Ada made an appearance." He didn''t dare ask Uewatsu more information on the topic, for fear of provoking the half-crazed hag into doing something everyone else would regret. "Have a message you want to relay to your counterpart?"


    Uewatsu flexed her magic, twisting reality so that she could untwist it and return herself to the physical world. "Let her know that if I see her, I will kill her myself."


    "I''m surprised at myself for expecting anything else." Now alone, Scratch returned to observing the world of the living as it brushed against the world of the dead.


    Suggested Listening</a>Royal Road is the home of this novel. Visit there to read the original and support the author.


    Elruin watched the thing retreat, then looked at the death which surrounded her. She counted thirty-seven victims of this battle, but only nine survivors. Most of them were killed by her power, because she had no other way to fight off the swarm of people while trying to save the city from the abomination.


    Lemia sat in a corner staring out at the carnage, cheeks soaked in tears. "I''m sorry," she muttered to herself over and over, a frantic prayer from the closest thing their world could have to an atheist. "I''m so sorry."


    Elruin drew up her violin, playing a song to the dead, to death itself. She found the flickers of taint and dismantled them note by dissonant note, until she hoped she had cleansed the alleyway of the risk of undeath. This thing, whatever it was, shared Scratch''s ability to cloak its taint. As she played, she dove deeper into the complexities of the necromancy involved. It was miasma magic, of that she was certain, but it went even deeper still into forms and structure she had not so much as considered before.


    What caught her by surprise was the discovery of the song beneath the other songs, whispered echoes of the void portal she had used as a weapon against Claron over a year prior. Scratch called the undead wounds upon the universe, and this more than any other thing confirmed that belief. While she still knew nothing about how the two were related, there was no longer a doubt in her mind that they were related.


    With little left she could accomplish in that regard, she turned her attention to the dead which littered this cramped and dark alleyway. She slowed her singing and relied upon her bleak sight to reveal what it could. As her song faded, the sobbing and vocalizations from the victims took its place.


    It was clear from first glance that there were those who could recover on their own, and those who were beyond saving by any means, not a single emergency case to worry about. How they would deal with explaining the bodies was a question for another time.


    A woman and two children who were still in real danger took precedence. "They have runebones."


    "How do you know?" Lemia''s question was guided by reflex. All parts of her higher reasoning was occupied by the innocent lives who had died by her magic. She imagined their life energy clinging to her, bolstering her strength the way all those monsters she killed had. She choked down the urge to vomit


    "I know what to look for, now that I saw the monster."


    Lemia forced herself to stand. "W-what do we do, now?" She worked her magic into a sphere of light, then a moment later willed said light from existence. She was happier when the bodies were part of her imagination and assumptions, rather than seeing the dead around her.


    Elruin looked over at Lemia, then generated a light sphere of her own. It wasn''t the simplest of fundamental spells, but it was well within her skill range, as long as she didn''t need to perform any combat magic at the same time. Now that people could see, the crying began anew. These were their friends, family, and neighbors laying amongst the dead. Some fled the moment they could see an escape route, while others stayed because they feared the thing in the dark which this terrifying girl seemed to have the power to drive it off.


    "You have runebones in you." Elruin approached the three people, while the woman did her best to hide her children behind her. It was a touching gesture of a life that Elruin had never experienced.


    "R-runebones?" This dark-toned woman glanced around at the others, uncertain of what to do. It was difficult enough for her to remember what had happened not long ago.


    "I don''t know what your people call it, but it''s how the necromancer has been attacking the city." Lemia still couldn''t take her eyes of the corpses. It seemed insane to her that she could still speak, let alone answer questions. The last two years of explaining magic to Elruin must have ingrained the behavior into her.


    The children cried and pulled themselves closer to their mother, who struggled to hold herself together for her children. "Don''t tell them!" She looked around at the others, begging all of them for silence. "They''ll... do you know what that spell does?"


    "Yes, it agitates the necromantic runes, and sets off a chain reaction-"


    "Ell, she didn''t mean the particulars." Lemia cut in, reminded of the other reason it was always her doing the explanation. "We know that it kills, and it can''t be a pleasant way to go, but it can''t be worse than what happens if the runes activate in a normal situation. That''s what she means."


    "Oh." Elruin thought about it for a moment, while observing the runes. "I can stop that."


    "You... you can break the curse?" It was more than she had dared hope, that these young people could remove the curse, but they were the ones who found the monster and drove it away.


    "Not remove, but I can prevent it from activating as long as I remain nearby." In that regard, it was much the same as what she did with Cali, but much simpler and less complex, yet also less stable. "Maybe with time, we could find a way to stop it."


    "But... but, aren''t you hunting that monster?" She clutched her children tighter. "We can''t follow you."


    Lemia shuddered, still watching the corpses. Perhaps she could make some step toward atonement by helping this family? "We could set something up, so that you''ll be safe even when she''s not nearby. It won''t be much, but it''s the best anyone can do right now. We... have to go back to the inn, anyway. We need Cali and Ketak if we want to destroy that... thing..."


    The poor woman''s smile was forced, but genuine. "If- if you can save my daughters, then I''ll do anything."


    "We should go now," Elruin said. "Before anyone finds you." She began walking away, stepping over bodies as was needed.


    As they made their retreat from that place of gore and terrible memories, Lemia searched for some way to apologize for her failure. There were no words she could find that didn''t sound like they''d make things worse, but still she tried. "I''m... I am so sorry we couldn''t save your husband."


    "I never saw that man before in my life." She looked back at the bodies, one being that of her not-husband, then turned her attention to the backs of her daughters'' heads. "Their father died long ago, but that... thing..." she trailed off, unable to finish her train of thought.


    They walked for several minutes before she found what she wanted to say. "I don''t know how much was its lies, but he seemed like a good man."

 Chapter 74- Sanity is Overrated

    Suggested Listening</a>


    Calenda arrived home long before the others, and so spent an inordinate amount of time hiding in a nearby alleyway, petting the ebony furball. "If I''d known you were so soft, I''d have done this sooner. I think I was trying to distance myself from this carnival of death that''s replaced my life, and you were an easy representative of it. Sorry."


    Mort showed no indication that he comprehended her words, but he was the only ear she could speak to in this moment of confusion. For his part, he appreciated the necromancy-laded scratches that were almost as good as his owner''s.


    "I was trying to pretend away what I am." Cali looked at her hands. "No chance I''ll be able to do that, again." Even after burning a great deal of power sprinting half the distance of the city, she still had enough power in her that her veins and fingernails matched the color of the squirrel she was scratching. There was so much of it in the atmosphere that she couldn''t expend enough of it.


    "Think if I hit myself enough times, I''ll be able to drain off all the excess energy?" Cali looked into the glowing red eyes in the darkness. "Stupid question. If it was that easy, someone else would have fixed it before we got here."


    Cali felt the field of necromancy shifted in response to Elruin''s presence well before seeing her. The experience was nothing new to her, but she had never before been able to do it at such a range. She spotted Elruin''s guests in tow while looking for an angle to approach without being seen by onlookers.


    Mort hopped off her lap moments later, and scaled his way down the building, leaving no secrets to who his favorite was.


    Cali tried to sigh, but she''d forgotten to breathe beforehand. Instead she increased the intensity of the magic which flowed through her veins in place of blood, a series of pulses like that of a heartbeat. Elruin looked straight toward her, confirming that the girl''s range of detection was at least as good as her own improved abilities.


    Elruin stopped to talk to Lemia for a moment, buying enough time for Mort to reach her. Lemia went on with the woman and children, while Elruin waited until they were out of sight to start approaching Cali''s location.


    Cali hopped down into the dark streets, and took a deep breath before stepping into enough light to allow Elruin to see what she''d become. "Awful brave of you to walk into a dark alley alone like this, what if I was the necromancer?"


    "I knew it was you." Elruin stood observing all the changes in Calenda''s pattern, then decided that her sister needed a hug. For a brief moment before she could adapt, Cali''s new power numbed her skin. "Your song''s changed, but it''s not different. Like the same melody using different instruments. Besides, we saw the monster and you''re nothing like it."


    "You found the monster?" Cali wouldn''t consciously realize it for some time, but knowing she wasn''t like them made her feel far better. She returned Elruin''s hug, while remaining conscious that her strength was far greater now than it had been. "Where? What happened?"


    "After we went to the poor side of town, I sensed..."


    By the time Elruin finished, Lemia was coming back outside. "They''re inside, now what was s... four below!" Lemia''s hands went to her mouth. "Cali? What happened to you?"


    "I made a desperate choice, and these are the consequences." Calenda drew back the cloak she wore to reveal that the alterations across her face and neck. "It''s not all bad, I have to be at least twice as strong as I was before, but do you think you can redo my disguise?"


    Lemia moved close, hesitated, then touched Calenda''s skin. "I... maybe. Right now part of me wants to take some of your skin for study. Your body is almost like it was made from necroleather." Even as she spoke, the dyes spread across her skin, this time far thicker than they had been before.


    "I have enough enemies trying to take chunks out of me, don''t you start, too." Cali forced a smile. "Besides, there were two zombies just like me, but without the intelligence, you can carve one of them up. They''re tough, but stupid and not indestructible. We''ll see if Elruin can''t take control over one to study later."


    "This necromancer''s abilities are unbelievable, most would call them impossible." Lemia glanced over at Elruin, knowing full well the girl had similar capabilities. "We saw a spellcaster undead. It wasn''t rune magic, but a true undead mage. And now we learn the necromancer can make necrotempered zombies. Tell me the truth, do we stand a chance in hell of winning?"


    "Yes!" Elruin crossed her arms, trying her best to convey seriousness. "It has some clever tricks, but now that I''ve seen them I can do it, too. This is nowhere near as powerful as Claron, and we killed him! He''s only scary because he keeps running and hiding from us. All we need to do is catch him and we can beat him."


    "Too bad dark purple skin is almost unheard of, it''s the only skin color that''d hide your new... uh... look." Lemia changed the subject away from the necromancer, knowing full well that Elruin''s confidence was based on any number of flawed assumptions, not the least of which was her belief that she, who was having trouble on basic potion magic, was a match for a mage whose technique was superior to that of many archmages. "We should go inside, maybe I''ll be able to cobble together something more effective with my full kit."


    "What about your guests?" Calenda, too, allowed Elruin to keep her illusions that this fight could be so easily won. What they encountered thus seemed closer to a probing strike to harass and test the enemy for weaknesses, rather than a proper engagement, or so her instincts were screaming to her. If this was the necromancer''s idea of a harassment campaign, then open war would be a slaughter.


    "Don''t worry, they''re already asleep," Lemia said. "I made them take a poppy tincture and sent them to bed. It''s potent stuff, the building could catch fire and they''d sleep through it. With any luck, it''ll help them forget what happened tonight." She doubted it, but considering the dreamlike nature of the illusions, there was a chance. After tonight she felt the need to embrace what little hope she could find. The alternative was to collapse into despair.


    Several minutes later, the three of them were sitting on the floor while Lemia did her work on Cali''s disguise. "Alright, I think that''ll hold. I had to include sarite powder to maintain the charge and keep the necromantic energies from decomposing the dyes. Mages will notice if they look, but you can play it off as a form of camouflage and ward against magic. They might ask why you don''t just use magical armor, but this is a lot cheaper than armor and is keyed against necromancy, so it makes sense in current context."


    Calenda considered it for a moment. "I''ll claim it''s a religious practice."


    "Huh, you didn''t strike me as the heretical type."


    "Ecross teaches that one must adapt and grow, to change who we are into something better in order to overcome the challenges in our lives. This is adaptation, and thus I honor the teachings." Calenda closed her eyes, longing for the time when those words brought her comfort and strength. "Unorthodox though it might be. Now that I''m taken care of, how do you plan to help those poor people in our bedroom."


    "I can protect them, just like with you, but without the dying part." Elruin stopped to think about it for a moment. "Although if they did want to be like you, it would make it a lot easier. And now that I know how to make these necrotempered zombies, they could even-"


    "How about if we call that a backup plan, and look for something that doesn''t involve them following you around for the rest of your life?" As ambivalent as Calenda was on her current state of being, sure knew she had no desire to encourage Elruin to create more of her.


    "I don''t see the problem," a young girl''s voice said from the ceiling. "Simple transposition is all you need."


    Suggested Listening</a>


    Calenda rolled to her feet before the voice finished with ''don''t''. "Who are you? Show yourself!"


    Everyone else was slower to ready themselves, and still getting into a defensive position when a head with long purple hair stuck itself through a hole in the ceiling which hadn''t been there a moment ago. "Hiyaaaa!" She screamed, then landed with a thud on the ground. "Oww! What did they make this floor out of, rock?"Love what you''re reading? Discover and support the author on the platform they originally published on.


    Elruin watched and heard the girl''s complex, alien, song, while pair of black squirrels climbed up her legs to seek shelter from the noisy intruder. "She''s not a child, even though she looks like one."


    "Cute game you''re playing, but it''s not fooling us." Calenda wished she had a decent weapon to threaten her with, but she hadn''t had a chance to fix the guisarme and her basic throwing knives no longer held much meaning against anything close to her strength. "What are you?"


    "Oh, poo, you''re no fun." The girl climbed to her feet and rubbed her behind, even though she landed on her head. "I''m here to give you a hand, and you''re being terrible hosts. What happened to putting out a nice pot of tea, and talking about how great it is to see each other again? Did your sense of hospitality die with the rest of you?"


    "Her name is Ada. She doesn''t mean any harm, which makes her all the more dangerous." Scratch came up through the floor in a much more graceful display than their other surprise guest. He gave a meaningful nod to Calenda. "Hey, Sis, lovin'' the new look."


    "Scratch!" Ada jumped toward Scratch, arms spread as she ran through the spirit and hugged open air. "It''s been so long!"Your new friends are quite rude, you know. Not like you at all, you''re my favorite because you''re always so polite!"


    Scratch looked at the others while floating behind Ada''s back. "You heard the crazy lady, be more like me, I''m a regular Prince Charming." His amusement was feigned, for he knew better than most that they were one wrong word from utter disaster. "It ain''t their fault, lots of mortals get on edge when people drop in without sending word ahead."


    "But I did! And they were ever-so-grateful and thanked me for..." Ada stopped for a moment. "Oh, that hasn''t happened yet, has it?"


    "Totally understandable, happens to the best of us." Scratch looked at the others. "Isn''t that right?"


    "Sure, I forget things that haven''t happened yet all the time," Lemia said while backing toward a possible exit. She''d seen more than a handful of the unhinged during her years in the slum, but none of them held the sort of power this girl had. She wielded void magic the same way Elruin wielded necromancy; an intrinsic bond that was as natural to them as walking was to normal people.


    "You, too?!" Ada appeared behind Lemia without any indication that she was moving. "I''m so glad to hear that! I mean, not that it happens to you, but sometimes it feels like I''m the only one in the world that has that problem!"


    "Gah!" Lemia jumped and twisted the wrong direction, then back around to face Ada while the madwoman kept rambling. "Uh, sure, now can you remind me why we, uh, are going to thank you?"


    "Oh, yeah, I asked you why you don''t just transpose the rune magic onto, uh, her." Ada pointed at Cali. "The magic won''t hurt her."


    "Transpose? I don''t know what that means..." Lemia considered her words, and their implications. "... Yet?"


    Ada rolled her eyes. "Why can''t causality learn to keep up? Look, it''s easy, I''ll show you. Hey, necromancer." She pointed to Elruin. "Blast me, right now! Don''t worry, you can''t hurt me, nobody can. Well, one person can, but I think she''s asleep right now."


    Elruin hesitated for long enough that Scratch took initiative. "Don''t worry, Ada knows what she''s doing, for a certain loose definition of ''doing''. This won''t hurt anyone." He left out the word ''important'' at the end.


    "Alright, if you''re sure it won''t hurt you." Elruin brought up her hand, and put a conscious effort into reducing her power to the weakest possible blast before she fired upon Ada. A moment later, Calenda gasped as she received a fresh dose of ''clean'' necromantic power. Elruin turned her head to look at her big sister. "You made me hit Cali?"


    "No, I transposed Cali and myself," Ada said. "The spell hit me, but it''s her essence that felt the effects."


    Lemia caught on fastest. "So if we transpose the runebone victims with Cali right before we set them off, then they''ll hit her instead. But since she''s already dead, it won''t have any impact! That''s brilliant. There''s just one problem: I can''t cast that spell."


    "But you have sarite to cast it with!"


    "I do?" Lemia recovered. "Are you sure that''s something that''s happened?"


    "Yeah, it''s right here." Ada lifted one of the crystals Lemia carried that came off the void tendril-monsters between her finger and thumb. "See?"


    Oh. "I, uh, learn how to use those later."


    "C''mon, Ada, you can''t expect mere mortals like them to keep up with the likes of you," Scratch said. Later, he''d explain to Lemia how he''d saved her, complete with a description of how she was going to repay him. "Surely there was a time when you needed time to learn things?"


    "Ugh, don''t remind me." Ada put her hands over her blushing face. "Fine, I''ll do it slow and you watch."


    The next ten minutes were a lesson for all of them in the gulf between their talents. Ada''s impatient desire to skip past the learning process became ever more apparent, but in time she did manage to show Lemia how to harness and attune herself to void shards while Cali and Elruin stayed on the sidelines trying to comprehend the jumbled mess of magic that was Ada''s power.


    "And now that you know how to transpose, I better get those sweet cakes you''re about to promise me."


    "I..." Lemia hadn''t so much as thought about sweet cakes before Ada brought the subject up. "Sure, I know a great bakery. Just be sure to visit after I buy them, or we might go through this mess all over again."


    "Again?" Ada shook her head. "And I thought I had it bad. But I gotta go now before they find out I''ve been visiting. Tell Uewatsu I''m gonna eat sweets until I get so fat that I can''t see my toes!"


    This is why there are rules! Scratch considered his options, torn between the possibility of making himself look suspicious to the others, or risking the confrontation start too soon and end with him dying for real. His best chance was that they''d imagine it was more of her rambling lunacy.


    "They?" Calenda dashed his hope that nobody would think too much of the madwoman''s words. "Who''s ''they''?"


    "You don''t know? It''s the guys playing with you."


    "You''re getting confused again," Scratch tried in vain. "Nobody''s playing with us. Yet." Perhaps he could play off the choice of words as him cooperating with Ada''s delusions.


    "I''m quite sure they are, because they found a crazy necromancer and moved him here, and the crazy fire dude who thought he was a god, and the... uh... oh, right, I guess I''m not supposed to talk about that. Bye!" Ada fell through the floor, into another of her magic generated holes in reality.


    "Huh, well that was g-urk!" Scratch was interrupted from his attempt to dive into the ground by Calenda''s grip on his head.


    "Now where do you imagine you are going?" Cali pulled him away from his refuged and held him at eye level. "Start explaining, before I become the first person ever to murder a ghost."


    "Sorry, sis, others beat y-ouch! Okay, fine, I''ll tell you what I know!" He lied to her face, while formulating the more complex web of half truths and whole fabrications he needed to weave together to hold the deceptions together. "It ain''t much, but remember that death cult I mentioned way back when?"


    "Something about them wanting to kill the world, right?" Calenda scoffed, making it clear she didn''t buy it. "We both know that a group like that can''t do what these guys seem to have done."


    "Okay, look, they have a better reason behind their goals than I made it sound. But, let me ask a question that explains it. How many people do you know are twins, or triplets? How often do you see single children being born at all?"


    "I don''t know, single children are pretty rare, maybe one in fifty births?" Calenda looked over at Elruin for a moment. "Ell was a singular birth, are we supposed to believe that''s their motive? Killing single children?"


    "No, they''re not that discriminate, and their goals run deeper," Scratch said. "Here''s another question, how long do human women stay pregnant before they give birth?"


    "Assuming they don''t get pregnant again while already pregnant? Almost a full season. This is common knowledge, and I don''t see what it has to do with anything."


    "Because it''s not normal," Scratch said. "Even two hundred years ago, triplets were more rare than single births are today. Six hundred years ago, and single children were more than half of all births. I''m told that long ago, back when things were stable, it took nine months for human babies to be born, and twins were only one in every eight births. Other animals were also slower. Still faster than humans, but not this much faster."


    "Let''s pretend I believe you." The problem for Calenda was that she was starting to believe it, if only because nobody would believe such an outlandish lie. "Why? And what does this have to do with the cult?"


    "The buildup of life magic, somehow." Scratch knew he had to keep that a secret, whatever else he revealed. "I don''t know how or why, I don''t think anyone does, but life magic has been growing in strength for thousands of years. A little more, a little faster, every generation. This death cult is... trying to reverse the process. By killing lots and lots of people, monsters, and animals. I think they have some sort of more complex strategy, damned if I know what it is." He was damned, and he did know, and they could not be allowed to find out.


    "And this is where we come in?" Cali asked. "Why?"


    "What part of ''I don''t know'' do you not understand?"


    "Then start guessing!" Calenda squeezed, inflicting what she hoped was pain on the annoying ghost.


    "Okay! Fine! I''ll guess." Scratch writhed, putting on a good show. "They don''t act all the time, they do things in cycles, so I''m guessing there''s some sort of ritual component. Or maybe they work like nomads and pick a new place to wreck every few years. The world''s big, maybe it takes centuries for them to run out of new places and go back to the old ones?"


    "And what does this have to do with them messing with us?" Since Lemia couldn''t threaten Scratch, she relied on Cali to do it for her.


    "I! Don''t! Know!" Scratch shifted some more. "Maybe they''re hoping to spark an undeath wildfire? That''d keep a land nice and cleansed of life energy for a long time while they move on to a new project. Or maybe, being a death cult, they like to study necromancers? The only thing I can say for certain is that nothing survives their attention, be it people or nations, they don''t leave living witnesses."


    Pity there weren''t any gods who could control Ada, or Scratch would have prayed to it that she didn''t show up again until it was too late. But if there was a god that could control Ada, he could have prayed to it to fix the real problem.


    Calenda relaxed her grip and allowed Scratch to escape. "It... makes more sense than I care to admit. Tell me, what''s your role in this tale? And I don''t want to hear you say you have none."


    "If I have my way? I''d like to march up to them start carving away every part of them that they don''t need to survive, and then leave the rest in the sun to dry. Unfortunately for me, I''ve yet to find anyone strong enough to stop them. Except maybe Ada, and she wouldn''t kill a goldfish. Unless she was trying to keep it alive, then all bets are off."


    The whole time, Elruin had been listening, and imagining how these people had been killing people for so long. If they were responsible for Claron, then they were also responsible for Cali having to die and all the other terrible things that they saw.


    "Then I''m going to get strong enough to stop them.

 Midara Combat System

    <div>


    The combat system itself was built around what I once described as a top down battlefield game combining the Infinity Engine with a tactical RPG (Age of Wonders 1 was my example at the time) with "location damage" from MechCommander... but, well, it''s Kenshi. Everything I was envisioning can be done by the system used by Kenshi. With modifications, of course. Saved me about four or five paragraphs of explanation right there.


    Unlike, Kenshi, the game does not use "health" of any metric as a system. In that, it''s more like Dwarf Fortress. Every attack simply inflicts numerous status ailments (bruising, breaking, bleeding, burns, frostbite, hyperthermia, hypothermia, and dozens of others) that do things like reduce the use of a body part, or cause "organ stress" and shock trauma. As trauma mounts, the fighter slowly becomes weaker (either overall or specific stat reductions- injuries to the brain will significantly reduce Perception and Intelligence, as examples) until no longer able to fight. Precise stats and abilities determine how much trauma it requires.


    This means, much like in Real Life (before guns), most opponents will be removed from the battle by small injuries and exhaustion (usually by overheating) rather than the sweet release of death. This is especially true because of armor, which prevents injuries from doing enough damage to one location to get beneath the surface and damage something vital. Because instant death does exist, if an injury destroys a vital organ.


    Then there are the numerous magical and psychological means to end a battle the easy way. Mind altering magic and impressive displays of power (determined mostly by how scary the move is vs the stats of the opponent- a creature vulnerable to an element will similarly more psychologically vulnerable to said element, because the AI isn''t as stupid as most game AI) might end a battle by causing the foe to flee or surrender. It''ll generally be a fairly complicated behind-the-scenes Morale system.


    The AI will be smart (cowardly) in other ways as well, such as the entire enemy team targeting a single foe at a time, using cover to their advantage, preferring to stay near allies, and just generally not letting themselves be kited to death. Also- once they see an element being used, they''ll default to countering it with attacks based upon the opposite element (if they can- they can''t use abilities they don''t possess).


    In addition, some creatures, such as the undead and constructs, are immune to the normal "easy win" options like organ loss or terror, making them resilient and terrifying foes (as they should be). Fortunately, the undead AI is intentionally stupid, and (unless controlled by something intelligent) will usually just blunder toward the nearest living thing and kill it without any consideration of danger or tactics.


    <u>REGIONAL MAP MODE</u>: The exploration map will use two map modes. The first will be the "fog of war" map- which will have a stylized mapmaking design like one would expect from medieval or renaissance era maps- yellow parchment, some damage or stains. The second map is the region near the player, which will show more detail, color, and serve as the zone of awareness.


    It will still be stylized, but I''d like the style to be clearer and the art somewhat exaggerated for atmospheric purposes. Not unlike the Heroes of Might and Magic games did, but a little more gothic.


    On the map will be awareness of the surrounding- monsters the characters can detect will be displayed, and there will be "AI effect fields"- certain monsters will seek to approach the characters if they''re detected, while others will flee. This is the game''s replacement for random battles.


    Different characters, abilities, and movement options will be used to determine how the game plays out. Stealthier options will reduce detectability range, sensory powers can turn the little icon dots into something more detailed that can let the player make a good guess as to what the encounter might be. Stealthy monsters can get closer without detection, while large ones can be detected from further away.


    Movement will also be controlled by the terrain... flying creatures move faster through forested terrain, many creatures can''t (or won''t) cross water regions, sharks don''t (usually) come out on land to attack. But that''s no guarantee. The system will proceduraly generate many monsters (known as Chimera) at random, and "shark with wings" is certainly a possible outcome, so have fun with that.


    The creatures will also move around based on the behaviors of each other- predator monsters which detect prey monsters will try to chase down prey, different packs of predators avoid one another, locations with water attract animals as it does in our world, ambush predators like to live there. The PCs might stumble across battles in progress (so, Kenshi) and all sorts of other fun.A case of content theft: this narrative is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.


    <u>LOCAL MAP MODE</u>: This is where character monster modes


    Once the player''s party encounters the monsters, the map does a zoom-in effect where it generates terrain based upon nearby battle-tiles and places the characters and opponents to fight. Not unlike oldschool JRPGs- something of a more elaborate version of Chrono Trigger''s combat transition.


    There will also be crafted maps, especially of city and dungeon environs which includes exploring and talking to various NPCs and interacting with the world in all the ways that pretty much every game with even the slightest hint of RPG elements have. But with more freedom than most, since characters (PC and otherwise) have numerous options to circumvent terrain (flight, teleportation, swimming, climbing, etc.), while also dealing with magical alterations to terrain like forcefields and space warps.


    Use of terrain will be a big part of the combat system, whether it involves hiding behind (or in) trees, attacking from the rooftops, or slithering around in a network of underwater tunnels. And with any luck, there will be elements of stealth and decoy gameplay, letting one circumvent many encounters rather than engage them directly. In some cases, the only solution will be to circumvent or flee from threats rather than fight them directly.


    <u>ENVIRONMENTAL EFFECTS</u>: Or, how positioning winds up mattering.


    The game will factor in height when considering damage and range via archery. Cover will matter, and the AI will seek cover and turtle rather than rush the players, more often than not. They will also try to avoid environmental hazards where possible, and won''t run through fire unless they''re either immune to flame, or are even more afraid of something coming for them.


    Stealth and sensory abilities (as mentioned above) will have a significant role to play, and Detection will matter, using a fog-of-war system that will render undetectable creatures invisible on the map until they''re close enough to be detected. This will work in reverse as well- the AI will ignore entities the NPC in question cannot detect.


    It will also factor in numerous weather phenomena like darkness, fog, storms, heat and cold, and so forth.


    And high level spells will have particularly terrifying effects, as one would expect.


    Which brings us to:


    <u>ELEMENTAL ASPECT FIELD (EAF)</u>: How magic do.


    If you''ve been reading character sheets, you''ve noticed the mention of "Local Aspect"- this is a value that is calculated whenever a battle map is generated, and is usually based upon the natural circumstances of the environment. Water EAF, for example, will be easier to find near a lake or ocean than in the middle of the desert, while fire aspect would be more common in the desert (or anywhere currently on fire).


    Depending on the current EAF numbers, some spells can become difficult or even impossible to cast, while other spells become cheaper to cast and more powerful. Some spells can only be cast if the EAF is favorable. And at a certain point of EAF, the environment might cause status effects based upon that Aspect''s element. An area of high Miasma can poison an entire army to death, while an area of high Nature can heal wounds that might otherwise be fatal.


    All elemental aspects have their own series of potential status effects, both positive and negative. An area with high Passion EAF, for example, is basically the same as getting drunk (such as reduced inhibitions and overconfidence), but without the reduced coordination, sleepiness, vomiting, or memory loss.


    In addition to all eighteen Aspects having their own EAF numbers, there are also EAF for Void (which is terrible for all magic not wielded by Isylans and can result in Lovecrafting horrors crawling in from the Outside and making this even worse) and Taint (the force that creates the Undead- which might actually be worse than the Lovecraftian horrors). Taint in particular has some horrifyingly bad status afflictions, like infesting the soul with taint, thus turning living things into the undead simply by being nearby.


    Some spells, sarite, and abilities can also alter the EAF- usually to become more similar to the Aspect of the spell/sarite in question.


    Using the EAF to your advantage will be essential in certain boss fights.


    Individuals with magical bloodlines also have a Personal Elemental Field, which is like the EAF, but effects only that specific individual''s response to spells. PAFs are intrinsic to the character and tend to determine resistances, vulnerabilities, and array of spellcasting options. PAFs can alter the overall EAF, if there are a large number of beings with the same PAF, or it''s a particularly powerful being''s PAF. Once again, Taint is particularly bad, since the presence of any undead creature alters the environment over time and will eventually spawn more undead creatures. A literal magic soul-plague.


    <u>THE PLAN</u>- All Midara games should be of the general RPG genre(s), though there are a couple that are planned to be based on strategy games like Age of Wonders and Heroes of Might and Magic (the early inspiration is not hard to spot), so every one should be expected to use this combat system. Though obviously, the strategy-game version will not use the other aspects of the game. As such, I see no reason for any of the games to use a different engine, since any engine that can do what I listed above will be able to handle any RPG appropriate for the setting.