Nightlord: Shadows (57 page)

I laid the empty, desiccated husks against the inside of the great hall’s outer door, just to annoy the invaders. They would force the door against the wedges, then have to shove wedges and bodies. I doubted they would use the rams when the door was already opening, but the mountain was already alert to start repairs if they did.

I slung my elf over one shoulder and hustled down to my chapel. The elf I laid out on the altar at the foot of my statue. I stripped him naked as a peeled banana and proceeded to flesh-weld his arms to his sides and his legs to each other: Elf sausage. I then built a new spell, tying it to the vital power centers in the elf’s body. His life force would regenerate over time as he rested. All the excess over the current amount, however, would siphon off, trickle down, and feed the living essence of the mountain. It didn’t need it, but the point was to keep the elf unconscious.

I climbed into my drawer, slid myself into the base of the statue, and dropped into rapport with the stone.

I’m not sure I’ve ever had a busier night. And now the real work starts.

Interlude

Rakal finished binding the entity into the corpse. The corpse sat up and turned its head to look at him. He gave it orders and it obeyed, rising from the worktable and walking from the room.

A servant of the more mundane sort hurried into through the open door and threw itself on the floor, tapping its forehead on the ground three times.

“Speak,” Rakal commanded.

“Master, there is a fire!”

“Then put it out,” Rakal snapped.

“It is in the chamber of the seer, master!”

Rakal bit back a sharp reply. A fire? In Tyrecan’s chambers?

“Where is the Dragonsword?” he demanded.

“The Sword of Kings sits upon the dais, next to the throne, master.”

Frowning, Rakal stalked swiftly from the room, robes almost fluttering. He ascended the stairs to the main floor, then crossed to Tyrecan’s tower. He could already smell the smoke. A few floors later he had to order the stairs cleared of the curious;
orku
and
galgar
shuffled past obediently, trying not to touch the magician.

Rakal gestured and muttered. A wind rose up the stairs, flowing past him and into the fiery room. Smoke and flames wavered and hurried toward the blasted-open windows. Various items of broken furniture, thrown against the walls, were still aflame.

As was Tyrecan.

Rakal gestured the flames down, down further, down into embers, and finally into nothingness. He waited until the room had cleared and cooled in the magical wind, then examined the body, or what was left of it. The upper torso was mostly missing, but some parts of the head remained—charred bits of skull and a few scorched teeth.

Whatever it was had shattered every mirror and scrying crystal. The bowl of visions was bent and partly melted. The other implements of Tyrecan’s specialty were in similar condition.

Rakal gave orders to have the room cleared and cleaned, then continued his climb to reach the flat roof of the tower. He found the skyboat spell and activated it. Mist gathered together in the shape of a long, low ship. He stepped aboard as it bobbed next to the tower top, then sailed at great speed to the northwest, shedding bits of cloud from his transport as he pushed the spell to its limits.

The cloud-boat, diminished into no more than a cloud-canoe, settled on top of another tower. Rakal dismissed the remnants and descended.

Prince Parrin received the magician immediately.

“Well?” he demanded. “You could have just called.”

“I do not feel comfortable scrying right now. Even less comfortable in Vathula.”

“Oh?” The Prince raised an eyebrow. The eyebrow spoke volumes.

“You wanted an army sent after the—the nightlord. I had Keria give the orders; they went. Now, somehow, Tyrecan is dead—you don’t want to smell what’s left.”

“And what is it doing now?”

“I’m afraid to look,” Rakal admitted. “It might see me and do what it did to Tyrecan.”

Prince Parrin sighed and ended in a coughing fit. When he finished, he glared at Rakal.

“Fine. I’ll have Belosh take a look, since you’re afraid.” The Prince rang for servants, gave the necessary orders, and sent for refreshments. Rakal sat and joined the Prince while they waited.

Belosh, a wizard in the Prince’s employ, came into the room shortly thereafter, white-faced and shaking.

“My lord,” he said, bowing deeply.

“Report.”

“My lord,” he repeated, and swallowed. He clasped his hands together to stop their trembling. “I essayed the vision you ordered. I saw no mountain, nor any soldiers. Instead, I saw only a realm of darkness and fire, with a huge tower, all of black stone. Atop it burned a great, lidless eye of flame, and it… It
looked
at me, my lord! And then it looked past me, all around, as though seeking to identify the room in which I stood! I banished the vision, my lord, but I fear it may have seen enough to find this place.”

The Prince sighed heavily and coughed. He dabbed at his lips and noted again a trace of blood.

“Lidless eye of flame, hmm? That sounds familiar.”

“You knew of this thing?” Rakal demanded.

“What? No, it’s not some power he has, or an entity on his side.” The Prince paused for a moment, thinking. “Well, I don’t think it is. Even if that entity existed, the two of them wouldn’t get along. No, it’s some sort of illusion, I think. I just recognize the description.”

“Then how did Tyrecan die?” Rakal asked.

“Fire?” Prince Parrin said, smiling coldly. “No, I suspect that our prey has eaten a good portion of the army, hopefully causing indigestion. Maybe not, though, if he’s expending power like that…”

“Like what?”

“Oh, he probably used Tyrecan’s scrying portal to open a gate back along it and attack him. Maybe with a fireball spell, or just a fuel-air explosive. I don’t know. It seems reasonable for him.”

“A scrying spell can be used in reverse to target a spell?” Rakal asked.

“Of course. The magical connection acts like a grounding—no, nevermind. But the plan is proceeding, yes? You sent all the armies of the Eastrange to Karvalen?”

“All of them? No.” At Prince Parrin’s lowered brows and beginning snarl, Rakal hastily added, “There was no time to gather them all. He’s tried to bespeak the Dragonsword and I had to shield it. Any delay might have seen him in Vathula.”

The Prince’s snarl diminished to a sneer.

“Well, we can’t have him so close to your precious skin, now can we?” he asked, rhetorically. “Fine, then. What was the last word on the attack?”

“I believe they have invaded the city.”

“And?”

“That is all I know. Tyrecan was monitoring.”

“I want to know how he deals with that army,” Parrin said, flatly.

“You believe he will?” Rakal asked.

“I know he will. Eric is a fool, but a clever fool. He will find a way and I want to know how he does it!”

“As you say, my lord.”

“Good. You have Bob locked up?”

“Yes. He will be no trouble.”

“Also good. Now, have you found a way to contain that damned psychic sword?”

“Yes. The case is being prepared even now. It is not an easy thing to cage.”

“I didn’t ask if it was easy,” the Prince snapped. He rubbed his temples with his fingertips. “All right,” he continued, more mildly. “Get it muzzled. I have some arrangements to make, then we’ll have it try to escape. Mmm. And use Keria to assemble the rest of the undermountain army somewhere southerly—someplace in striking distance of Mochara or Baret. I’m not sure which one I want threatened, yet.”

“You plan to let the Dragonsword escape?” Rakal asked, dubiously.

“No, I plan to have him come get it. It shouldn’t just escape. It’s part of your idea to use it as an inducement. I want him to go to Vathula and take control of the place once its military is depleted. That will add to his distractions without adding to his power. Plus, it’ll be useful to me for him to own the city, later.”

“I don’t like being so close to the nightlord, especially if it winds up holding that sword.”

“You can use Keria to hold him off while you escape,” Parrin said, as though explaining things to a child. “Her usefulness will be at an end by that point. Send her in to try and kill him when he gets there, but make sure he doesn’t capture her for questioning. Now get out. I have princes to intimidate.”

Rakal rose, bowed, and departed for Vathula.

Monday, May 17
th

I slid my drawer out again in the late afternoon. I was filthy, tired, and hungry. I still didn’t have a left hand, and it hurt like hell. Never mind that it wasn’t there; ghost pains are no less painful than physical ones. On the other hand—or, rather, building up to that hand—my left arm had grown considerably. If I hadn’t had several corpses to provide fresh blood, I wouldn’t have regrown as much of that arm as I did. By sunrise, my regeneration had restored it almost to the wrist, so that was to the good. It will probably finish later tonight, provided I can find enough blood.

That
, I reflected,
should not be a problem.

I swung my legs over the side of my slab and sat up, feeling both a profound sense of déjà vu and an awful headache. At least I could see out of both eyes equally well. A little exploration with my fingertips failed to find any scars anywhere on my face, so I was pleased about that.

The smell, however, was still disgusting. The more regenerating I do at night, the worse the transformation byproducts are in the morning. This was a lot of damage. Going down to negotiate with the oncoming army may have given the mortals time to escape, but it wasn’t the wisest thing I’ve ever done. It wasn’t the most foolish, either—there’s some pretty stiff competition for that.

On the plus side, things went
perfectly
after I made it into the secret drawer.

I was one with the stone of the mountain while the invaders streamed in like ants. I felt them through the stone, crawling like insects all over my skin and inside my caverns. The largest of them came in no farther than the great hall; the tunnels were only about man-height by then, making the passages difficult for the biggest ones, the ogres. The ogres would have to almost crawl down them, and there was no real point to that. A crawling ogre is at a serious disadvantage. I figured they would be left as a sort of rearguard, to prevent my escape, and I was right.

The rest of the invaders scattered throughout, seeking my flesh-and-blood self. Their plan was obvious: find me, swarm me, and bury me in bodies. They weren’t even in much of a hurry. They could afford to waste a hundred or a thousand troops in keeping me cornered. When dawn rolled around, they would know exactly where I was and would easily overwhelm me then.

I’m sure they were confident.

So they spread out like a dark wave, flowing through the whole of the undermountain like the subterranean dwellers they are, to locate me, raise the hue and cry, and close me in.

Once they were suitably dispersed, all those doors—now weighted and balanced to close by themselves—suddenly started to merge with the stone of the mountain again. The seams between door and doorframe vanished, turning doors into walls. Foot-thick slabs of granite no longer opened at a push; they stayed rock-solid against all the force the invaders could bring to bear because the rams were still in the great hall. Walled-off corridors became sealed caverns. Rooms became prisons. Everything, everywhere, was cut off from everywhere else.

Then the walls thickened, millimeter by millimeter. Corridors shrank as the walls closed in. Rooms grew smaller as the stone around them closed in, sealing them tight.

And then we stopped. Twelve thousand or so troops, scattered and divided inside the mountain, trapped in squads and platoons, sometimes just ones and twos, all locked in cells without doors. Let them crawl down a two-inch ventilation hole if they wanted out. Let them stab and hack and hammer at the walls; the stone would grow back more quickly than they struck it.

The ogres in the great hall did have those rams, though. Those could bash their way out through the main door. That was why I left four firepits smoldering and one burning. With the ventilation in the great hall sealed completely shut, the fires and the ogres used up their air rather quickly.

Ogres aren’t renowned for their intelligence. They are generally about as smart as a genius-level potato, possibly even a really intelligent fern. They make up this lack with brute strength and savagery, qualities most useful when given direction by someone else’s intelligence. With simple orders—“Keep that door shut and kill that guy if you see him,” for example—they don’t need much supervision.

Until something goes wrong, as it most certainly did.

A few troops were still in the outer city when I climbed out, but it was a minor tingle on the skin of the mountain. Maybe a hundred? Certainly no more than that. There was nothing above the top level of the city proper—no one on the road to the courtyard, nor anywhere above it.

Tomorrow, the mountain and I are going to have a long, long talk about redefining the defenses.

Today, however, I planned to take it relatively easy. There was a clear route from the shrine to the great hall. It twisted a lot to avoid pockets of captives, but it would do. The mountain was already unsealing the doors in the great hall and restoring normal air flow through it.

First, however, a cleaning spell. I reeked. It was almost as bad as the first time I woke up in that drawer. I’m no withering violet to demand hot showers and shampoo, but given the opportunity to
not
smell like a week-old corpse…

Once I had that sorted out, I burned the filth and directed the smoke and stench up through the exhaust air vent. This lightened my mood considerably.

Next, the elf. He was still alive and likely to remain that way. I checked him over with some care and disconnected him from the mountain. Since it was daytime, I used a spell to see his life; the force of it immediately started to rise. I connected him to the mountain again and let his vital force drain into the stone. It would keep him unconscious and out of trouble.

I walked up to the great hall. Sure enough, the hall was still full of smoke and noxious fumes. Huge bodies lay clustered by the outer door. As I said, ogres aren’t smart. They did notice that they were choking and tried to get out; several of their clubs were shattered into splinters where they tried to beat through the wall. Only one of the rams looked used, but the impacts were too far to the left; they were trying to beat through several yards of mountainside, not the door. The mountain had already healed the cracks and gouges they made.

I dragged huge bodies, one by one, away from the outer door, regretting my hand deficiency; I could have dragged two at a time. I tried to be patient as I cleared the door. A good shove opened it and even more fresh air poured in.

It was a beautiful afternoon. Having survived a full-on assault by an army might have enhanced my appreciation of it.

Still, it had rained sometime that morning, lending a clean smell to the air. The sun was out, the skies had a couple of bits of white fluff, the blue backdrop was vivid, and the plains stretched away in greenish-gold splendor. It was well worth the labyrinthine walk up from the shrine.

Perhaps even more delightful, there was no one waiting to kill me. Not so much as a single
orku
or
galgar
. Of course, they might just be hiding in the city; they hate bright light. But I didn’t see any, and no one was actually trying make me shuffle off my semi-mortal coil.

No matter. I took a pleasant walk up the stairs to the upper slopes, poked around a bit for berries and fruits—not much to be had, unfortunately, but every little bit helps—and wandered back down again to go back inside, munching all the way.

I didn’t bother to save anything for my elf-sausage. It might be a nice day outside, but I was still plenty pissed off about last night.

In the metals room, Bronze was doing very well. One foreleg looked welded to the wall where copper oozed out. Upon consideration, it looked more as though the mountain had trapped her leg in a fissure. But as the copper came out, it formed more leg, as though she was pulling her leg slowly from a crack in the wall. At that rate, she should have two whole legs—one rear, one front—before nightfall. Admittedly, it might be a while before the copper leg became truly bronze again—or truly Bronze again—but it was a start. Heating her up to the softening point and a lot of running would probably help.

Would it be helpful to give her actual joints? Hinges, for example, for her knees. Or would that work? A hinge involves separate pieces of metal. Bronze is a single, contiguous piece. Then again, that suit of armor T’yl enchanted is multiple pieces… and it’s a different order of golem—a robotic golem, rather than piece of living metal. Hmm. A living being has a knee joint that connects two bones, but the whole thing is still part of the overall system…

We’ll look into it later. Messing with her anatomy while she’s pulling herself together isn’t a good idea.

I spent some time petting her and explaining how pleased I was with her work. She was entirely satisfied to have helped. She was also more than a trifle annoyed with the weapons used against us, though. I assured her that some strategic intelligence was high on my list of things to do, and that someone was going to die horribly. She was content with that.

I also fed her whatever she wanted from the other metal piles. She didn’t really like eating large quantities of metal, but she forced it down because it was good for her. I presume there was a lot of tin, but she ate quite a lot from more than one pile, including the gold and silver. She even drank a very little bit of mercury.

Obviously, she’s a peculiar alloy of bronze. I’m not certain I can even call it bronze. I suppose it doesn’t matter.

While she continued to pull a copper leg out of the mountain, I went back down to the shrine. No changes, no problems. I checked the city’s spell to prevent scrying; that was also in good shape.

Looking at the elf-sausage, I had an idea. I looked at the globe of light floating near the ceiling. It was one of the enchanted lights the wizards guild had produced, so I wasn’t intimately familiar with it. I summoned it down to me and examined it. I didn’t exactly take it apart, but I unfolded the magical matrix and poked around with it for a while.

Any enchantment draws in ambient magic uses that power to perform its function. In this case, magic gets converted to electromagnetic radiation in the visible range. That’s not how a local magic-worker would explain it, but, fundamentally, that’s what a typical light spell does. It doesn’t take a lot of magical power; the actual energy content of typical illumination is pretty low. But the magical power it takes in—the enchantment sections of the magical construct—doesn’t have to be shunted through the magic-energy-to-light-energy converter section. With a couple of magical leads, the power it takes in can be rerouted to another spell.

I’m talking about it in wiring terms. Translating that into magical terms—magical symbols, a mandala, the proper words and gestures—was a bit more complicated. I had one big advantage: I knew exactly what I wanted to do.

I kludged something together and tested it on a fresh lighting spell; it appeared to work.

I then wired it up to my anti-scrying spell and watched it run for a bit. Yes, it was a small trickle of power, especially given the size of the spell in question. Still, it was a steady stream of power flowing into the spell, and that was a good thing.

Eventually, someone would probably come up to the city and try to break the spell; sadly, spells are relatively easy to ruin. In the meantime, this would make it even harder to overtax it with repeated scrying attempts. Every time someone tried to look through the barrier, it would expend power to send a bright, fiery image back to the source point; this would help recharge it between attempts.

Then again, the power level in my scrying defenses looked the same as when I first cast the spell. Was it more efficient than I thought? Or had no one even tried, yet? Come to that, did the guy who was spying on me in the great hall manage to survive? Or did his boss—assuming he had a boss—demand a report and discover a corpse? Or did the smoke coming from his laboratory make someone wonder what was going on?

Given what I tried with the last spy, it was possible no one has even tried to see inside the mountain yet.

I really wish I knew if I’d fried him rare, well-done, or extra crispy. If he was alive, he might be arguing against trying again. That would be a good thing. On the other hand, his charred corpse might also make a good argument against trying again.

Still, I remembered him from somewhere. He did look familiar… maybe a family resemblance to someone I knew? Possibly. Likely, even.

Okay, so I could take an enchantment’s energy-gathering components—let’s be inaccurate but simple: a magical power generator—and connect it to a spell. The generator was much too small for the spell, but, kind of like wiring up solar panels for the house, it was a little bit extra that just kept coming in, decreasing the overall bill. It really needed a much bigger power source.

On the other hand, I had an elf-sausage. I tried running his vitality through another of my kludged-together conversion spells and feeding it into the scry-shield. It worked. I had to fiddle with it to avoid sucking the life completely out of him, but it worked.

Seemed fair.

With that sorted out, I went back to the metals room and Bronze.

Bronze is an enchanted statue, not just a spell, so she draws in ambient magical power on her own. On the other hand, that enchantment is, fundamentally, a containment structure for living, vital force. The enchantment is what makes her magical; the vital force is what makes her alive.