Cathexis: Necromancer's Dagger (40 page)

“Is there any chance it will take over as we
talk?”

“No, I’ll leave before that
happens. O
nce Ebemoon regains control of his
mouth I’ll have an idea of how long it will be before he regains
control of the body. Until then you should be safe enough, I sent
the other souldead searching in the wrong direction, so you don’t
have to worry about them finding us.”

“And you’ll keep your end of the bargain?”
G’Taklar asked.

Halvisun nodded his little head.

G’Taklar took a deep breath and then started
telling the lonely Halvisun all about Lindankar’s court, then about
his recent trip to Zinterdalin for his first embassy. After they’d
talked for over a full bell Ebemoon’s voice suddenly bellowed
out.

“Brains!”

Halvison’s
pipsqueak voice exclaimed, “Vorg change me, just when it was
getting interesting. Oh well, I do thank you for your
conversation.” Halvisun stood up.

“Eat your brains, get smarter than
Halvisun!” the big head exclaimed.

The small head sighed in the darkness and
said, “I can’t control his voice anymore, so I’d best get going.
I’ll go as far as I can get in the opposite direction so that he’ll
have a long way to return before he can hunt you. Follow this
passage to the river and take the path along the bank...”

“Kill you!” Ebemoon bellowed.

“...it will lead to a place out of the
caverns. Do hurry;
eventually,
he
will regain control…”

“Kill, kill, kill!” Ebemoon barked.

“...and he’s quite worked up.”

“Good-bye, Halvisun, I wish there was
something I could do for you...” G’Taklar said, his voice trailing
off.

“You have, now run, G’Taklar.”

G’Taklar heard the sound of Halvisun leaving
and a moment later he was alone.

“
Get moving G’Taklar, we’re not out of
here yet,”
Jatar reminded his cousin.

“No problem, all I need is a map and a
light,” G’Taklar replied, sarcastically.

“
Don’t complain, at least you have some
time. He could be using your head for a breakfast bowl right
now,”
Jatar answered.

“Don’t remind me,” G’Taklar replied,
shuddering at the thought, and then said, “Suggestions?”

“
Keep listening
for
the sounds of flowing water and
keep moving fast,”
Jatar answered logically.

“You’re the older and wiser, I follow,
master!” G’Taklar replied, dripping sarcasm.

“
Don’t lay it on too thick,”
Jatar
cautioned.

“Whatever you say, Halvisun,” G’Taklar
responded.

“
Oh, brother,”
Jatar complained.

“Cousin,” G’Taklar corrected.

At his Shadow fortress, SKartaQ, head of the
necromantic council, was visited by a shade. SKartaQ sat at his
desk in the Ice Tower, writing down the results of his latest
experiment. He was recording the details on a piece of tan
parchment with red letters done vertically down the page. He dipped
his pen in the bowl of human blood before him and then after a
thoughtful pause, he wrote his next three words and the parchment
absorbed the blood hungrily.

A voice broke the silence and SKartaQ looked
up calmly from his work.

“Greetings SKartaQ,” the shade of CAracusS
addressed his fellow necromancer.

“CAracusS,
how
go our plans in Lindankar?” he asked.

"Everything went as planned, with one
exception. Elizabeth Ardellen escaped with the heir to the
Lindankar throne, and all our attempts to apprehend her have met
with failure,” he replied.

SKartaQ absorbed that news for a moment and
then said, “She must be stopped, why haven’t you taken care of
this?” He demanded with a dark frown stealing over his scarred
face.

CAracusS gave him a quick summary of
everything they had done to try and kill Lady Ardellen and capture
her son. He finished with the absence of the Darknull.

"I sent a Darknull Baron after the wounded
sorceress and her child, but it has not returned. As impossible as
this may sound I have no other option, but to believe that she
destroyed the Baron. The only other explanation would be that she
reached the Kirnath School and the Darknull is still waiting, but I
doubt that is the case, he would have returned by now."

SKartaQ's frown twisted the scars that made
up his face into a new map of pain. "I find this all very
disturbing. You better have some plan to handle this,
CAracusS."

The shade nodded and replied, “Our Tchulian
merc has a spy within the Kirnath School. The spy is watching for
the Sorceress and has orders to kill her and the heir if she shows
up, but I don't want to trust this to the Tchulian and his spy,
which is why I’m here now. My resources are limited while I play at
being Lord Jatar, so I'll need you to convene the council and alert
them as to the developments. You must convince them to apply
further assets to the destruction of the Sorceress and the
heir.

“I also suggest we postpone the
assassination of the traitor, the Tchulian has found another use
for our pet Lord. As far as the Tchulian major himself, once he is
no longer an asset I will remove him myself,” CAracusS said,
finishing his briefing.

SKartaQ paused a moment in thought and then
spoke: “For now, at least, I will do as you request, but RIveK will
ask for your soul when she learns of this foul up.”

“I know, but if she becomes too big of a
problem
then send her to see me, I
can still handle that bitch,” CAracusS claimed.

“You underestimate her, CAracusS, you have
never been able to handle her,” SKartaQ noted.

The Shade scowled, but refrained from
arguing with the council leader. “I’m returning to Jatar’s body
now, we’ll speak again at the next Council meeting,” said CAracusS
and there was a sick tingling in the air as the rift opened and the
projection of the necromancer was gone.

SKartaQ took out a new piece of parchment,
dipped his pen in the blood and started a summons message to the
other members of the Necromantic Council.

G’Taklar arrived at a place where the cavern
widened out into a larger space. It was still pitch dark, so he
felt around the walls until he discovered the openings of three new
passages. As far as he could discern the two left ones angled down
slightly and the passage on the right was level.

“What do you think,” G’Taklar asked Jatar,
“the left passage is as good a choice as any.”

“
Wet your finger and hold it up near each
passage opening, see if you feel any wind,”
Jatar advised.

After doing as asked G’Taklar reported, “My
finger feels a little cooler in the middle passage, but I might be
imagining it.”

Jatar had him take that passage while
feeling his way along the right side with his hand.

“Ho!” G’Taklar exclaimed aloud. He had
nearly pitched forward when his left foot came down on nothing. He
swayed on the brink waving his arms for balance, but managed to
recover; his earlier fall had made him leery of a sudden drop off
in these dark passages.

“I guess this passage was a bad
idea,
after all, we should go back and try
another one.”

“
Wait!”
Jatar exclaimed,
“Check
for
wind
.”

G’Taklar wet his finger again and held it
aloft and then said, “I definitely feel some air movement now, but
it won’t do us any good, we can’t continue this direction.”

“
Hold onto your boots! Let’s check this
out completely before we give up, something tells me this wind may
lead to that river. Find a small rock and toss it down the hole,
and then we’ll listen and see what we hear,”
Jatar
instructed.

By feeling around the edge of the tunnel
G’Taklar found a hand sized rock. Sliding his feet forward
carefully he relocated the edge of the pit and dropped his rock. It
only fell for an instant before clattering on the rock bottom.

G’Taklar spoke enthusiastically, “It isn’t
deep at all, I hardly let go before it hit.”

“Good, now lower yourself over the edge and
see if you can feel the bottom,” Jatar encouraged G’Taklar.

G’Taklar lowered his body feet first with
his back to the opening and his weight resting on his downturned
palms, but he still could not feel the bottom. “What now? I don’t
feel like going any further, I’d have to hang from my hands over an
endless pit in the dark.”

“
It’s not a bottomless pit, we already
discovered that it’s a short drop, but we’re just not sure how
short,”
Jatar reminded the teenager.

G’Taklar pulled himself back out of the
unknown hole. “There is no such thing as a ‘short drop’ when you
own the body taking the fall.”

“
Fine, then let me have control of your
body, and I’ll do it,”
Jatar suggested seriously.

G’Taklar’s mind immediately felt fear as he
remembered childhood stories of Wervorgangling monsters taking over
young children’s bodies. The thought of giving complete control of
his body to Jatar was terrifying at a deep level in the young man’s
psyche.

“I can’t, Jatar, I just can’t,” G’Taklar
whined, “It was bad enough letting you use my arms to undo the
locks, but at least I was still in control of my body, so I knew I
could take control back
anytime
I
chose. Isn’t it true that if I gave you control of my complete body
that you would then be the host, and I would be the rider? You
could keep the body no matter what I wanted, right?” G’Taklar
demanded.

“
Technically you’re correct, but I
wouldn’t ever do that, ‘Tak. I only suggested it so that I could
help you overcome your fear of falling in the dark, a fear that is
very understandable,”
Jatar answered.

“I know you think you would give it back,
what if you changed your mind after you had control? Don’t you
agree it would be tempting to have a body again? Then you could
resume your life. You could track down the men who did this to you,
return to your wife and be there to play with your child as he
grows,” G’Taklar embellished.

“
Enough!”
Jatar said with pain
obvious from the tone of his thought.

“I’m sorry, Jatar, but I had to talk about
those things to show you why I couldn’t let you have control my
body,” G’Taklar explained.

“
I agree, those are things my heart aches
for, but I still wouldn’t take your body, G’Taklar. As tempting a
picture as you painted it still wouldn’t happen, I am not the kind
of person that could live with the thought of stealing your body.
It would be like murdering someone in cold blood, I just couldn’t
do it. And you’re forgetting Elizabeth, she wouldn’t take me that
way, and I wouldn’t want my son to grow up knowing that his father
stole someone’s body,”
he said, trying to reassure his young
cousin.

“I still can’t let you, or anyone, take my
body, Jatar, it’s mine. The thought of someone else using it is
the most terrifying
thing I can
imagine, I hope you understand,” G’Taklar said to Jatar.

“
I understand your fear, G’Taklar, but
you are wrong about me. I just hope that no situations come up
where your choice turns out to be your
bane
,”
Jatar cautioned.

“Everyone goes through life making their
choices; they just hope they make the right ones. I’m only taking
the risks that everyone else takes,” G’Taklar pointed out.

“
Yes, but most people aren’t in a
situation where every other decision might be a fatal one. Just
remember, I have some skills that you do not yet possess, try and
take advantage of them,”
Jatar instructed his frightened
host.

“I’ll do the best I can, Jatar.”

“
I know you will. Now are you ready to
look
for
the
bottom of that crevice?”
he asked, now that G’Taklar seemed to
be calmer.

“All right, I’ll extend down, but I’m not
going to like it,” the young man said as he moved over to lower
himself down into the darkness.

G’Taklar hung his legs over the emptiness
and once again rested his weight on the palms of his hands, his
arms locked at the elbows.
“I just hope you’re right about
this,”
he thought to Jatar as
worry
for his predicament started to rise and eat into
his momentary calm.

“
Lower yourself down onto your elbows,
you’ll probably find the bottom then,”
Jatar suggested.

“All right, I’m at my elbows and still feel
nothing,” G’Taklar responded.

“
Yes, I can feel it with your senses. Try
hanging by your hands.”

With a large intake of breath that
communicated his nervousness to Jatar, G’Taklar lowered himself
further until he hung straight down; his gripping fingers gave him
his only purchase on the rock above. He still could not feel the
bottom with his feet.

His fingers began to slip on the loose
gravel on the floor above his head.

“I’ve had it!” he exclaimed to Jatar, panic
making his voice ragged. “The bottom’s too far down, I’m getting
out of this hole.” He started to pull himself up and put too much
stress on the traction between his fingers and the rock. With a
yelp,
he lost his grip and
fell.

He landed at the bottom of the crevice about
one foot below where his feet had dangled a moment before. His
panicked scream cut off abruptly when his feet suddenly impacted
the floor.

Jatar didn’t say anything, but sometimes
silence is the worst critic.

G’Taklar growled aloud, “I know, I know, you
told me the bottom was close. I shouldn’t have panicked, but I’m
doing the best I can, so would you give me a little rope this
time?”

“
I didn’t say a word. I know you’re doing
your best, so let’s both forget it and get going before Halvisun
and his dim brained sidekick get back on your trail,”
Jatar
said to get G’Taklar’s mind off his embarrassment.