Posts
Raekar winced and tried not to shift his hands too much. They’d been tied behind his back – after the ghouls had broken every other finger. The sharp pain had cut through his headache, but the dull throbbing left afterwards was more than enough distraction to make up for it. And that was a pity, since he had a lot to think about.Well, a lot to speculate about, he admitted to himself. He’d seen her while he was being hauled out of his cell: an elf. And not a halfblood, if the ears were any indication. And she was walking freely, and wearing the armor of this place.
And what did that mean?
It had been centuries since the Betrayal and Scourge. Halfbloods were few and far between, and true elves even rarer. How old was she? Had she fled the scourge, escaped to this remote isle and resorted to necromancy to protect herself? Too much speculation, not enough to base it on.
Raekar sucked in a breath and let it out slowly, trying to clear his mind. Trying to do anything without his hands or arcana would be hard.
Someone was whimpering in the dark. Raekar silently thanked whoever it was that told him to shut up. Then they started bickering, until lord Dedran cut them off, and so Raekar silently thanked him and tried to think. His brow furrowed, but sir Dedran began to lead the men in prayer.
To Raekar, it was just another distraction. He was almost glad when the cell door screeched open and the chanting stopped. He would have been glad, if he weren’t reasonably terrified of whatever was going to happen next. They were all bound, helpless in the dark of a dungeon run by the damned – and now one of their captors had entered the cell with them.
A light flickered into existence. It was cold, with none of the cheerful flickering of true fire: a harsh, blue flare like frozen lightning. It hovered above the open hand of a corpse.
“Warriors.” The lich stepped further into the room, it’s glassy eyes sweeping over them. “The crests on your armor are unfamiliar to me. Interesting.” He pointed a desiccated finger at Raekar. “And you wear no armor. Are you the one who destroyed my gate? It can’t have been the boy,” he said, his eyes swiveling in their sockets and glaring at the young sailor.
Raekar swallowed. “Ah…yes, that was my doing.”
The lich’s gaze snapped back to him. “Oh, how delightful. It has been quite some time since I last spoke with a man of learning. Come along.”
The undead magician turned and left the cell. Raekar was left to wonder for a moment how he was supposed to follow, bound hand and foot, when the silhouette of another corpse darkened the door. The ghoul scrabbled into the cell and hauled him out. Another closed and barred the door behind them.
In the hallway, the ghouls tore apart the ropes around Raekar’s feet and pulled him upright. One garbled an incoherent command which Raekar interpreted as an imperative to follow. The ghoul turned and stomped off; Raekar stayed a step behind, his mind wheeling in circles.
Bad, bad, bad bad bad, Raekar thought as the ghoul led him up the stairs and out of the dungeon. He wasn’t an expert on necromancy, but he did know that the essence of magic was granted by life. A sundered soul would need that essence simply to maintain itself in a body: Undead had to kill – to steal that essence – in order to exist. Expending any of it in sorcery would mean throwing away days of unlife…unless there was a ready source of power to replenish it.
Somehow, Raekar didn’t expect he would be returning to the cell alive.
He was led to a long, wide hall. In any other castle, it would have been a place for gatherings and festivities. In this one, it was barren: no fires in the hearths, no decorations, no windows. The only light came from a far set of doors which opened into a kitchen. Fires were lit there, and Raekar could see someone moving about within. He squinted, his eyes adjusting to the light, and saw a voluptuous woman…cooking. He shook his head, certain his mind was playing tricks on him.
“Do you like her?” rasped the lich.
Raekar jerked his gaze away from the door. There was a single table with a handful of rough hewn chairs; the lich was seated at the head. It gestured to a chair at the foot.
“Join me; sit. Answer my questions, and I will send her to your cell later: I’m conserving my energies for another now that there are such options, and it’s too damned easy to see through your own illusions.”
Raekar stepped past his escort and into the hall; the ghouls slammed the doors shut behind him. Raekar swallowed and kept his eyes out of the kitchen. Illusions. Somehow the implication that he would make it back to the cell alive was less comforting when it came with the offer of a corpse joining him. He sat slowly, careful not to jostle his fingers against the chair’s back.
The lich waited until he’d settled, then leaned forward, heedlessly scraping elbow bones against the table. “Give me news, wizard. How fares the Kadrin Empire?”
Very, very, very bad, Raekar continued his earlier thought. But aloud he simply began, in his best scholarly teacher’s voice, with: “The Empire collapsed around two hundred and fifty years ago. The closest successor it has are the Iron Kingdoms, which are more of a confederation, and only cover the westernmost expanse of the empire’s old lands….”
No comments:
Post a Comment