Cathexis: Necromancer's Dagger (54 page)

“It’s all right; we’re going to escape
together. The soldiers are looking for me as well, I escaped from
their dungeon the day you first met me,” G’Taklar explained, “My
real name is G’Taklar.

“G’Taklar? G’Taklar,” she said, sounding out
his voice, “I like it, it’s exotic. You’re not from around here
either, are you?” she asked.

“No, I was far from my home when they
abducted me,” he explained.

“
This isn’t necessary right now, you
ought to start saddling up the horses, quickly,”
Jatar advised
G’Taklar.

“Come on Rachael, we’ll have time to talk
later. Let’s saddle up the horses and get out of here before they
miss me. The recruits will be woken up any time now,” G’Taklar
said, accepting Jatar’s advice without argument.

“How many horses should we take?” Rachael
asked.

“
Take two apiece and two pack horses.
Load as many water skins as you can find on the pack horses,”
Jatar immediately advised.

G’Taklar repeated his instructions.

“I knew I could trust you to know what to
do, G’Taklar. That’s why I couldn’t have made it without you,” she
said, then placed her hand on his shoulder as she leaned up to kiss
him on the cheek. “I’m glad you’re here, G’Taklar.”

He was too flustered to answer.

The third chamber of the Ice Tower of Shadow
Keep was dimly lit by purple light from glowing crystals mounted in
eight places along the curving wall of the round room. The lights
supplied an even low level of light and illuminated an oval shaped
shining black onyx table. Red stone was inlaid at the center
forming the image of an open hand; a solid black circle lay in the
center of the palm. Two small red points
stared
from the center of the blackness
like
the twin eyes of an evil snake.

Beings who had once been fully human sat in
eight of the nine chairs that surrounded the black table. None of
them wondered why the ninth member was missing; they knew the
reason for his absence.

The head of the Necromantic council spoke,
“CAracusS has succeeded in destroying Jatar and taking his body, as
many of you already know,” SKartaQ began, his raspy voice sounded
like rough wood drug slowly across coarse sandpaper.

SKartaQ wore a red hooded cloak, and as he
spoke he pulled the hood down to his shoulders. His bald head was a
motley mix of red, pink and white lines, crisscrossing the bumpy
surface. Scars overlaid
scars
as
if someone had whipped his head unmercifully with a barbed, metal
stranded, multi-whip.

“Then why have you disturbed me with this
unscheduled meeting?” a stunning woman exclaimed. She was seated
across
the black table and two
seats to the left of SKartaQ.

At first
glance,
her face was beautiful, with brilliant red hair
curling down the firm line of her high cheek, but her beauty ended
when you noticed that the left side of her head had been sheared
off by a blade, taking her ear, skin and a large piece of her
skull. Through the hole in her
skull,
you could see the contours of her brain covered by
a thin translucent layer of scar tissue. Each time she breathed you
could see blood pulsing through the dark network of veins that
branched like a spider web over the nearly exposed brain. Her name
was RIveK, and she too was a necromancer like all of those seated
around the black table.

RIveK waited impatiently for SKartaQ to
answer her question.

“As I was trying to say, CAracusS has taken
the body of their ruler, but all has not gone according to plan.
Jatar’s wife, the Kirnath Sorceress, has escaped with the heir to
the throne. Her child is rumored to possess at least his mother’s
potential of aura power, therefore representing a danger to our
plans,” SKartaQ finished.

“CAracusS has failed, so he should pay the
price of failure! I say we strip his powers and let the Darknulls
claim him,” RIveK demanded and slammed her hand on the onyx table,
her blood red painted nails shown bright against the perfect black
of the table.

“I agree, his failure has complicated our
plans, but he has accomplished the takeover of Lindankar, and the
Sorceress is on the run. If we strip his powers we’ll lose control
of Lindankar. Remember that the Tchulians are involved, their man
would step in and take control if CAracusS was removed,” SKartaQ
answered.

To SKartaQ’s left sat a necromancer with
little left of a burnt face. It looked as though a concentrated
blast of heat had struck him low in the face. His lips were melted
off and a gaping hole was the only evidence of a missing nose.
Blackened exposed teeth looked like a permanent death’s head
grin.

He spoke and though his speech was slurred
from his lipless mouth the other necromancers had no trouble
understanding
SCorcH
; they were
used to his impaired speech.

“I say we let him live, for now. If his
continued actions outweigh his errors, he can redeem himself. If
not, he dies,” the hideously burned man counseled.

SKartaQ stood and held his hand up, palm
out, fingers spread.

“Those in favor of SCorcH’s proposal, please
stand with me.”

All except RIveK stood and held up their
spread hand, she placed her hand down on the table to indicate
disagreement.

“Then let it be understood that this is the
council’s choice,” and he looked at RIveK as he added, “any actions
opposing this will be met with by the destruction of the guilty
party.” He re-seated himself and the others followed.

RIveK’s hands clenched, the tips of her
nails cut into the palms of her hands until blood dripped onto the
table. She said nothing, but she thought,
One day CAracusS, I
shall see you defenseless, then I shall feed you to the Darknulls
and reap your power; until then rest uneasy my husband.

SKartaQ addressed them again, “Our next
piece of business is the destruction of the Sorceress, Lady
Ardellen and her child, Michael Ardellen, the heir to the Lindankar
throne. Who will accept this task?”

RIveK stood quickly and spoke, “Since
CAracusS cannot clean up his mess I will do it. What man could know
a woman’s mind as well as a woman? I say we send a woman to catch a
woman. I will find this sorceress and I will destroy her, it’s that
simple,” the
red-headed
necromancer said, her long white robe hanging in straight folds
from her shoulders to the floor, red hair and nails standing out in
bold relief like blood splashed on a clean sheet.

“What of your troubles with the bandit gangs
in Autrany?” SCorcH asked, his black teeth clicking, his words
slurring and hissing from his lack of lips as he spoke.

“Autrany is subdued; it is under my complete
control. The bandits you speak of are negligible, I can destroy
them whenever I choose,” RIveK said scornfully in reply to
SCorcH.

“How, may we ask?” the hideous voice of
SCorcH inquired.

“That is my affair,” RIveK responded
haughtily.

“It is a legitimate question RIveK, it
concerns the council’s plans,” SKartaQ interjected.

“Very well, I have an underling who leads
the largest band of the worthless refugee scum. He is destroying
the smaller groups or absorbing them. Soon, very soon, his work
will be done. At that
time,
he
will gather the largest of the remaining bands together for an
attack. They will think they are uniting to attack their mutual
enemy,
Paridine
, the man they call
the Usurper. As you all well know, he is my puppet. In
truth,
they will be entering a trap where
they will all be massacred. Does this meet with your approval?” she
asked SCorcH sarcastically.

“A good plan, but with this in the works it
seems a delicate time to be away hunting a sorceress,” SCorcH
stated.

“Nonsense, I only need to send a few
messages. My involvement is finished as an active participant.
Remember, no one outside this room knows that a necromancer was
involved in the takeover of Autrany. Letting my puppets do the
actual deeds helps keep me, and therefore the council, out of the
public eye,” RIveK finished, and looked at SCorcH, daring him to
refute her logic.

“Accepted, but I offer my aid in the
destruction of the Kirnath woman, just in case things do not go as
planned with your bandit scheme,” SCorcH replied.

“I don’t need your meddling presence to jog
my aim,” RIveK replied, glaring shards of ice from her green
eyes.

“I think it’s a wise idea,” SKartaQ
interposed.

RIveK started to say something, but paused
and considered for a moment. “Fine, if that is your wish, SCorcH
and I will handle the sorceress together.”

SCorcH didn’t look pleased when RIveK
suddenly gave in to his suggestion, it usually meant she had
thought of some other way to get what she wanted, but he said
nothing.

“Then it is decided, RIveK and SCorcH will
hunt and destroy Lady Ardellen and her brat.”

Rachael and G’Taklar slipped their small
train of horses out the door of the stable and headed down the
alleys toward the edge of Headwater. It was still early, but
G’Taklar figured that the Tchulians would soon wake the recruits
and then his absence would be discovered. He was not sure how long
it would take them to respond when they found out that he had
deserted. He and Rachael moved through the silent streets quickly
and soon found themselves on the road west, paralleling the muddy
river.

Throughout the rest of the
day,
G’Taklar kept looking back over his
shoulder expecting to see a dust cloud that signaled pursuit, but
nothing disturbed the hot rising air of the desert.

“
Keep to the road for as long as
possible, that way you can water and feed the horses along the
river without wasting your supplies. I’m not sure why, but that fat
Sergeant Herms hasn’t taken out after you yet. It puzzles me, I was
sure he would hunt you to the Dark Plane; they can’t afford to
allow deserters to escape. If coerced recruits were allowed to
desert easily the whole barracks would bust out,”
Jatar thought
to G’Taklar.

“
Perhaps he’s just glad to get rid of me.
From the way he treated me I’m sure I didn’t fit his idea of the
perfect soldier,”
G’Taklar thought back.

“
Nonsense, you were one of the best men
he had. You don’t get good recruits from the pickings in tap rooms.
This particular Tchulian outpost’s location in a hot desert dust
pit doesn’t leave the recruiters with a high caliber of men from
which to choose. He can’t let you go this easily. There has to be
some reason he hasn’t pursued, but he will,”
Jatar
predicted.

“
I’ll keep an eye out for pursuit. We
should see a cloud of dust;
otherwise,
they wouldn’t be traveling fast enough to
catch us anyway, right?”
G’Taklar asked, looking for
confirmation.

“
Unless they are just keeping pace, then
they could speed up under the cover of dark and take you,”
Jatar reasoned.

“
All right, we’ll speed up after dark as
well, and then rest through the day tomorrow, on high ground where
we can watch our back trail. What do you think?”
G’Taklar
asked, and it was obvious that he was proud of his plan.

“
Good thinking, ‘Tak. It’s best to rest
in the day and ride at night in the desert anyway,”
Jatar
commended the teenager.

“
I read about a similar chase in ‘Furnian
the desert Rin’,”
G’Taklar explained.

“
He escaped by moving at night?”
Jatar surmised.

“
No, he rode by night to get ahead and
then buried himself in the road. When the souldead reached him the
next day he sprang out of the ground at their feet. Surprise and
the
Gingga
Moon
sword gave him the advantage; he single-handedly annihilated all of
them,”
G’Taklar explained.

“
I see, well I don’t suggest we try the
same thing,”
Jatar said.

“
Definitely not,”
G’Taklar
agreed.

“
What was so special about the Gimppa
Mood sword?”
Jatar asked with amusement.

“
Gingga Moon sword,”
G’Taklar
corrected and pulled out the old dagger he had found in the
caverns
. “Well, when either moon was in the sky Furnian could
twist the pommel, like this,”
he said, using the round pommel
knob on the dagger to demonstrate,
“causing the sword to... hey,
this pommel comes off!”
The young man exclaimed, interrupting
his story when his dagger’s pommel actually moved.

“
It shouldn’t move,”
Jatar said,
puzzled.

“
Maybe this is like the Gingga Moon
sword!”
G’Taklar exclaimed, excitedly.

“
More likely it’s a broken dagger,”
Jatar noted dryly.

G’Taklar continued unscrewing the knob
.
“No, look, it’s meant to come off! There’s something inside!”
Tilting the dagger to point up, G’Taklar poured a handful of gold
round out of the hollow handle of the ancient dagger.

“
Oh, it’s just gold,”
G’Taklar
thought, in disappointment.

Rachael glanced over and spotted the handful
of gold. “By G’lan, you’re rich!”

“I just found the coins; they were in the
handle of this dagger. At least we won’t have to worry about round
metal when we reach Myrnvale,” he answered, consoling himself.

“
That’s quite a bit of gold,”
Jatar
noted
, “you won’t have to work in any taverns now. Whoever the
dead man was in the cavern he must have used that dagger to hide
his personal treasure from thieves.”

“
He won’t need it anymore, so I guess
it’s ours.”
G’Taklar decided, putting the gold back into the
dagger and sealing it up.