Nightlord: Shadows (11 page)

“I have one of those?” I asked, still sitting on the lid.

“Indeed. I was vital to achieving a passing grade in Sociology and in the University’s mandatory Government classes.”

I had to admit that sounded like me. I like electrons better than I like elections.

“Okay. I notice that I have some leftovers from Zirafel.” I gestured around the room. He glanced at it.

“I see. With these scattered everywhere, you will have difficulty accessing what information you may still possess from the consumption of the city. Shall I organize these remnants?”

“Um. Yes, please.”

Without a word, he gathered up a handful of papers and started sorting. I left him to it and paid attention to the stairs. Leaving them open seemed a bad idea. I envisioned a hatchway, had the floor grow into the proper configuration, and made sure the door only had a handle on the top side. And a bolt.

Much better. I headed into the workshop area and sat on a stool.

So, where was I? Right. Absorptive spell defenses.

The doorbell rang.

Under normal circumstances, the doorbell in my headspace signals that someone wants my attention and that I should come out. Another sort of doorbell chime signals that someone wants to join me in my headspace. This was the first sort, so I left the workshop and stepped out into myself again.

Bronze continued to nudge me with a hot, metal nose.

“What?” I asked, reaching up to stroke her forehead. She turned her head away to nod at the door. It was slowly grinding open as I watched.

I sighed. People keep trying to kill me. Well, they know where I am, so I shouldn’t be surprised. I drew steel and leaped up onto Bronze, and from there to the balcony. Bronze moved to stand by one of the interior exits, as though waiting for me to come back. With luck, whoever it was would assume I was down the hall. I hurried around the balcony to a point directly over the door and waited, absolutely still, not even breathing. I can do that.

The door stopped grinding open and a figure walked in. It was about five-nine, moderately slim, and bore a staff that it leaned on rather heavily. The crystal at the top of the staff glowed with a crimson light, making the figure’s robes appear bloody. Whoever it was, it walked with a limp. Judging by the hands, it was a woman or an elf.

There were a number of spells on this person. She seemed to be very well protected. If whoever it was intended to brace me in my own mountain in the middle of the night, then such protection was a very good idea. The spells I saw wouldn’t be enough, but that wasn’t my problem.

So, should I jump down and bisect my would-be assassin from crown to crotch or ask if she wanted to be reasonable. Decisions, decisions…

Bronze took the decision out of my hands. She headed straight to the figure and nuzzled it. Slim, feminine hands reached out to stroke Bronze’s nose and neck.

Okay, bisecting was out. Bronze would be upset with me. On the other hand, I could feel confusion weighing down my eyebrows.

“Hello?” the figure called. “I know you are awake. Are you well?”

I’ve never had an assassin inquire about my health. Generally, they just want to make sure I don’t have it. I sheathed my sword, stepped off the balcony, landed lightly, and straightened.

“I’m fine,” I began, and she turned around. I was immediately struck by the sensation of familiarity. I knew her. And, viewing her from this angle, I could clearly see that one of her feet was a magical, artificial replacement.

“I’m fine,” I repeated, “Tort.”

“My angel,” she said, and hugged me hard enough that I felt it. I hugged her, carefully; of all the mistakes I’ve made, I had no desire to add accidentally crushing her in an overpowered vampire hug.

“How did you get here?” I asked.

“I flew.”

“You can do that?”

“Of course. T’yl taught me.”

“You’ll have to teach me how to fly, someday,” I told her. She looked startled.

“You cannot fly?”

“Nope. Never learned a spell for it. I’m just a wizard, not a magician.”

“Ah. Then I will teach you, my angel.”

“Are you the one who put me in the drawer?”

“No, that was T’yl, at Raeth’s request.”

“What happened?”

“That,” she said, “is quite a long story. May I sit? My leg pains me if I stand for long.”

“I’m so sorry. I never did fix that for you, and I meant to. I will.”

“I know you will,” she said, softly. “You came back.”

“I promised, didn’t I? And I got lucky.”

“Not half so lucky as I,” she replied, and wept on my armor. I patted her back and held her. Armor is awkward for comforting a crying woman. Of course,
I’m
awkward at comforting a crying woman. Possibly moreso than usual, since this grown and beautiful thing was, last I saw, a small girl with big eyes. I wasn’t sure how to feel about this. My first thought was that Tamara would not approve. My second thought was that she might not be
around
to not approve, and I was even more unsure about how to feel about
that
.

“Here, have a seat by the firepit,” I said, guiding her over. She didn’t let go, but she did stop crying. “I’m afraid we’re a little short on furniture, at the moment. And food. And, well, everything. Welcome to my cave, nevertheless.”

She sniffled a bit, regaining control. Seating herself on the raised lip, she gestured into the low fire burning there and it brightened immediately.

“There is only so much one can do with raw stone,” she said, wiping her face with one hand. “I feel you should be proud of what you have done.”

“Before you launch a long story about what happened, is there anything I can do to make you more comfortable?”

“Only if you insist.”

“I insist.”

“Then, if I might make use of your powers for that purpose? I did not anticipate needing cushions, nor food and drink. Would it be more to your liking to fetch things for me, or to bear me back to Mochara, where such things are more readily available?”

“I leave that decision entirely in your hands,” I told her. “You choose what you want, and I will make it so.”

“Then, by all means, lets us see if Bronze is willing to bear me to Mochara. There, you may guest in my house while I tell you what has become of yours.”

I looked at Bronze. She gave me that look that says I’d be a fool to even think I had to ask. I helped Tort onto Bronze’s back, sidesaddle, despite the lack of saddle. She hung her staff in midair. I thought that was a neat trick. I leaped up behind her and put my arms around her to get a grip on Bronze’s mane. We walked out through the main door and Bronze nudged it shut with the flat of her forehead, after allowing the staff to follow us out. We went around and down and around some more until we had to corner in the square, just inside the city’s main gate. We passed between the stone towers flanking the massive pivot-gate in the lake wall. A quick run around the perimeter of the mountain and over the bridge, and we were headed south, hooves thundering and ringing on one of the roads beside the canal. The wind blew past us like a storm, dislodging Tort’s hood and whipping loose long, brown hair from her braid.

I ignored it, but Tort didn’t. A moment later, the wind whipped around us instead of over us; I saw the shield she erected. It reminded me of a Dymaxion car—sort of a teardrop shape.

Bronze seemed to go even faster. Aerodynamics help. And that staff just kept floating right along with us, as though tethered.

“Good work,” I observed, and realized the shield included something to dampen the sound of Bronze’s hooves on the ground. Very good work.

“It is an honor to be of service, my angel.”

“So, give me the short version of what happened, will you?”

“We—I say ‘we,’ but it was really T’yl—brought you back from the Edge of the World after the battle. Other magicians sealed the breach, but he knew you would have to be rescued immediately, before they thought to take you. You were badly injured and missing several pieces.” She smiled, slightly. “They did not want to let me see.”

“But you did, anyway,” I guessed. She smiled.

“Their solution was to submerge you in blood,” she replied. “Most of it was from butchered animals, but many of your subjects chose to bleed for you, as well. They could not forbid me,” she added, proudly.

“I wish you hadn’t had to,” I began.

“You saved the world!” she flared. “If you had not held the breach, that which lives in the outer darkness would have gained entry!”

“Maybe so, but I wish you hadn’t had to bleed,” I clarified. “I wish I had been in better shape, or at least that I had woken up when you did bleed for me.”

“Well, it did heal your physical wounds. I watched your arm grow back, as well as pieces of your chest and some of your head.”

I blinked at her and said nothing for several seconds.

“I assume I was pretty chewed up?”

“And clawed up. And a stinger had gone completely through—”

“I get it, I get it,” I interrupted. I didn’t want to know. “Let’s just move on, shall we?”

“Of course,” she agreed. “When you did not immediately regain consciousness, T’yl, Raeth, and Bouger met to discuss what to do with you.”

“What about Tamara?” I asked. Tort’s lip curled.

“Her useless goddess refused to help. Or so she said,” Tort told me. She sounded bitter, maybe even contemptuous. That was a story I wanted to hear, but later.

“I’m not arguing,” I said. “After what I learned about her in Zirafel, I have my own suspicions about the overheated bitch. But go on.”

“It was decided to hide you. T’yl guessed that, to preserve your mortal life, your immortal life would need intense magical power, so he wrapped you in a Sphere of Ascension,” she said. I mentally noted yet another name for the thing. “He hid you away, deep inside the mountain. After that, he departed with a large box, big enough to hold a body, every week. He journeyed to the four corners of the world and everywhere in between, just to distract and confuse those who might seek you.”

“I really should thank him, shouldn’t I?”

“Yes. But he has passed on.”

“Just to be clear… he’s passed on. That means he’s dead? Or that he’s physically relocated himself to another plane of existence? It makes a difference, you see.”

“He died recently.”

“Ah. My timing is sometimes awful.”

“Actually,” she said, uncomfortably, “you may have played no small part in his sudden demise.”

“Oh?” I frowned, trying to think what I might have done. “I don’t know how. What did I do?”

“You recall the magicians who once attempted to steal the secret of immortality from you?”

“Naturally.”

“The typical method of extending one’s life is to push the burden of years off onto someone else.”

“I recall,” I told her. And I did. Forcing someone to endure premature old age is not a kindness.

“T’yl found a better way. His spell made use of some principles found in your life-linking spell for accelerating healing. In his, he linked his life to that of other creatures so that their lives helped to maintain his own. Much as the previous method caused the subjects to take on the years of the magician, his spell did the same, but with any living animal of sufficient size. It was not perfect, of course, and had side effects on the subjects, but with enough of them linked together, it would not matter.”

“Okay. And?”

“He used a herd of
dazhu
to store all those years he had lived beyond his mortal span.”

“Oh,” I said, in a very small voice. “He died quite recently, you say?”

“Yes.”

“I’m so sorry. I had no idea,” I said. She shrugged and squeezed me a little harder.

“He was very old,” she said. “His researches were of only ways to extend his life. Many magicians who reach advanced years become obsessed with such things. It is not so much a tragedy as you might think. He was… no longer the man I once knew. If his last chance at immortality has worked, he will not likely be a man at all.”

“I suspect there’s more than one long story involved, here.”

“Yes…”

“I take it you have something similar to preserve your youthful beauty?” I asked. She blushed.

“In a manner of speaking,” she admitted. “T’yl taught me spells for such things early on in my training. I have improved upon the method, I think.”

“Do tell.”

“My spells divert my aging, sharing it among many subjects. While I have lived through eighty-seven years, my body has aged only a fraction of that. As a result, many
dazhu
colts have grown to adulthood more quickly than expected, since they were the subjects of my spells.”

“So, for every year that went by…?”

“I split it, diverting the effects to many other creatures. For every year, I aged, at most, a twentieth of that.”