The D'Karon Apprentice (59 page)

The dragon howled in pain, throwing her mouth
wide. A small shiny stone, one that had been pinned carefully
beneath her tongue until now, flew free and clattered to the
deserted street.

Myn tore herself away from Mott and rolled to
her feet, collecting herself while Mott retreated again to let the
latest damage mend itself. As he did, he clacked to the dislodged
stone and sniffed at it. It wasn’t until she saw Mott nudge it with
his nose that Myn realized she’d lost Garr’s gift. Seeing him
touching the prized possession caused her to grow rigid with
anger.

Mott glanced up and saw the look of challenge
in Myn’s eyes. He grinned mischievously, scuttling over the stone
and raising his two foremost spider legs over it. Myn released a
warning rumble, but this only seemed to encourage the creature.
With a fiendish chitter of glee, he stomped and smashed at the
stone, driving it into the street.

The sound that came next was enough to give
even the manic familiar pause.

Myn’s claws cut deep into the stone of the
street and she drew in a breath, releasing it in a roar of utter
burning fury. Eyes gleaming with white-hot rage, she broke into a
charge. Mott’s ears flattened to his head, his eyes widened, and he
pulled his neck back. The canine features and posture gave him the
uncanny look of a mutt who had just discovered he wasn’t the
biggest dog in the pack.

#

Myranda finally unleashed the spell she’d
been crafting. Though she’d had great success working off-the-cuff
effects by carefully weaving her will into the elements around her,
something that would remain strong and focused to its task even
after she’d moved on was another matter entirely. Deacon made it
look like child’s play, but it was akin to building a castle
without any planning and expecting it to stand against a storm.

She poured the last dose of her will into
place. The effect was, to her great relief, immediate. The
rampaging spirits had left her with more than a few ghostly scrapes
along her arms and across her face as she tried to focus, but it
was worth it. Where once they had passed through the restored walls
of the repaired section of the city, now they clashed and rebounded
from them. Myranda had imbued the physical structures with a
measure of substance even in the spectral realm, allowing them to
offer the same protection from spirits as they did from creatures
of flesh and blood.

A few of the spirits had been trapped inside,
but her subjects were no fools, and a spirit is no fonder of being
a prisoner than a living being. The instant a door or window was
opened, the insubstantial form swept clear. Slowly the spirits
began to withdraw from the inhabited part of the city. One of the
enchantments she’d layered upon the stone was a twist of magic that
had roughly the same effect as a bright light cast into a cluster
of insects. It filled the spirits with unease, repelling them.

Myranda stumbled as the focus of her mind
finally released. The borrowed strength was all but gone now, and
judging from the almost searing glow in her mind’s eye that was
surging from the remains of the castle, Turiel was anything but
defeated. She tried to head for the palace again, but her limbs
were slow to obey, numbed as they were by the cold and the attacks
she’d weathered.

“Myranda,” her father called, rushing to her
side.

“Is everyone all right?” Myranda asked.

“People are frightened, and some people have
felt the touch of these… things in the air. But the cries have died
down and no one has called out for the healers,” he said. “Myranda,
you cannot push yourself this way. If you are too weak, you must
leave it to others.”

“The others are doing all they can. I must do
the same,” she said. “What have you heard of the troops?”

“It isn’t good. Things have grown tense.
Troops are streaming to the front. The region is a powder keg.
Spotters say just across the border, Crestview has called up a
whole regiment of soldiers. We’ve been forced to do the same. If
there is any sign of hostility at the former front, there will be a
full-scale battle.”

Myranda put her fingers to her face, trying
to clear her thoughts. “Father… if I were to go to the front, do
you believe I could command the troops? Could I maintain
discipline, even in the face of orders that may be against all they
believe?”

“Myranda, these are Alliance soldiers. They
will follow your orders.”

“Good… then stand ready… Turiel’s focus is
shifting, I can feel it. She will move to the front, and I truly do
not believe we will be able to stop her. If she makes it there, I
must follow, and I must make it clear, crystal clear, that our
troops are dedicated to stopping her and her creations. The
Tressons are
not
the enemy. Turiel is. This is not an attack
by the north upon the south, this is an attack by a madwoman
against our whole world. We are
allies
. Do you believe you
can make the soldiers understand?”

“They won’t need to understand. They will do
as they are told because you have earned their trust and respect
and they have pledged their loyalty to you.”

Myranda nodded, then raised her eyes to the
churning spirits above. Now repelled by the shelters keeping the
people of the city safe, they seemed drawn instead to the ruins of
the castle. The ground shook and rattled with unseen impacts. Some
came from the north, where Myn’s savage roars and Mott’s startled
yelps told the story of at least one battle that was going well for
the heroes. The rest seemed to originate from below the ground
itself. One by one the spirits slipped down through the debris of
the castle, joining the source of the battle.

She turned to her father. “If you’re
satisfied the people here will be safe, take some men and wait by
the southern gate. Turiel… she’s terrifyingly powerful. I can feel
her will from here, the instructions and commands she is giving. If
we can’t stop them, something will be coming this way, and it will
be moving fast.”

“We will be ready,” Greydon said. He touched
her arm. “Be careful, Myranda.”

“I’ll try,” Myranda said, rushing toward the
castle. “But the time for care is a rare luxury these days.”

She’d only just quickened to a sprint when
Ivy skidded out of a side alley and nearly crashed into her. The
malthrope was carrying a bundle of cloth and tugging at the twine
that secured it.

“Myranda!” Ivy said, startled by her near
collision.

“Ivy, what’s going on in the castle?”

She answered while keeping pace with Myranda,
still distracted by the cloth bundle. “Ether and Turiel are
fighting, and Turiel is starting to wake up the bits and pieces of
nearmen that were in the catacombs. Or put them together. Or make
new ones. I’m not entirely sure, but there are a lot of them. A
hundred at least. … Come on! Stupid knot!” She finally gave up on
finesse and dragged her claws through the twine, sheering it easily
into pieces and revealing the contents of the bundle.

Two stunning and ornate blades had been
carefully wrapped in the cloth, each with a horizontal grip, a wide
blade, and a faintly glowing gem set in the center. They were
curious weapons crafted specifically for Ivy, something their
designer called Soul Blades.

Grinning like a child given permission to
play with one of her favorite toys, Ivy clutched the grips and
brandished the weapons. The gems took on an increasingly intense
glow, the color yellow with pulses taking it closer to orange at
times. Matching blades that were nearly long enough to drag the
ground continued the line of her arm, and elegant carvings and
etchings made them as much the appearance of museum pieces as
weapons of war. Such was the hallmark of their maker, a man called
Desmeres Lumineblade.

She had only just properly armed herself, and
hence had a moment to spare a glance toward the castle again, when
Myranda held out a hand and stopped her from running.

The wizard and her ally stared at the ring of
rubble that separated the courtyard battleground from the rest of
the city. Something was cresting over it… No…
many
things
were cresting over it. They weren’t the intangible spirits that had
caused so much damage thus far. In fact, with each new dim form
crawling over the rubble, there seemed to be one fewer of the
floating spirits. These were human forms.

“The nearmen…” Myranda said, her voice
hushed. “She’s… Turiel is allowing the spirits to take the nearmen
as hosts. She’s given flesh to the lingering remnants of this city,
echoes of lost lives. Things that know only hatred and fear…”

“Why would she do it?” Ivy said, taking a
steadying breath and brandishing her blades. A telling dose of blue
briefly swirled within the gems.

“To free her mind of the burden of
controlling the nearmen? To draw our attentions away from her? What
does it matter? If they truly are fueled by the desire for revenge,
then they now have all they need to take that revenge. A hundred
men in Alliance armor rushing in a blood rage for the border, and
with troops already tense for war… we can’t let them by, Ivy. Not
one
.”

Ivy nodded, her eyes gleaming almost as much
as her blades, clearly pleased to have a simple task with a simple
solution.

“Okay then…”

#

Ether was rationing her power, trying to rely
as much as possible on physical strength rather than magic. She
spent most of her time as stone, absorbing attacks and answering
them in kind. Only when it would reap tremendous rewards did she
squander the power to flash to flame, and even then only briefly.
In any other battle the tactic would have brought the clash to an
end minutes ago. At this time, and in this place, Turiel was
inexhaustible. Even so, she was only mortal. A physical form such
as hers could only channel so much power at a time, and it could
only endure so much damage. Every blow, even a glancing one, took
its toll on the necromancer.

“The gods chose wisely when they chose you as
their protectors,” Turiel said, her voice strained as she barely
deflected a blow that could well have ended her.

The shapeshifter didn’t dignify her with
banter or threats in response, choosing instead to keep up the
intensity of her attacks. At the edge of her mind she became aware
that things were not progressing as she’d expected. As the
necromancer grew more desperate and closer to her limit, her
attacks should have become more frenzied and frequent, or so Ether
anticipated. She expected the spirits to be sicced upon her like
attack dogs, or for the nearmen being drawn from the wreckage to
hurl themselves upon her. Instead, the nearmen were ignoring her,
and the spirits seemed to have vanished entirely.

Turiel tipped her staff forward and blasted
Ether with an incredibly potent burst of energy. The shapeshifter
scattered into her wind form, dodging the blast. Until now she’d
avoided the form of wind because this disciple of the D’Karon was
clearly no stranger to their penchant for absorbing power, and her
windy form was a veritable banquet of energy without much at all in
the way of defense. Even in the brief moment she’d spent in the
form, she could feel Turiel eagerly pulling at her reserves. Ether
did not give her a chance to capitalize, instead whisking above her
foe and drawing swiftly to stone again.

Her heavy form dropped down atop Turiel, too
near to dodge and too massive to deflect. The blow forced her to
the ground. Ether reached out with her stony hands, closing them
about Turiel’s throat. The necromancer’s eyes were wide, her
expression glazed with insane exhilaration. Black bands, stouter by
far than anything she’d conjured to this point, burst from the
ground and coiled around Ether, splitting until they’d encircled
her very fingers.

For the moment, the strength of each was a
match for the other as she lay pinned. Her voice a whisper slipping
through her half-strangled throat, Turiel spoke again.

“I would have dearly loved to finish the lot
of you before reopening the path for the D’Karon. I suppose it
should be no surprise to find those warriors who could overcome the
wise and powerful D’Karon would be more than a match for myself,
even diminished by one as you are.”

Ether felt a surge of anger at these final
words. Seeing it flicker through the glassy stone eyes brought an
even broader grin to the face of the foe.

“There… that is something, isn’t it? I dealt
little with Epidime, but he had always insisted the greatest
weakness was always the mind…” Her eyes darted indistinctly for a
moment, remembering. “Ah. Ah! Ivy is
certain
you had love
for the fallen one, Lain…”

“I will
not
hear you speak his name!”
Ether hissed, squeezing tighter. “You defiled his resting place!
His name is too good for your traitorous lips!”

The shapeshifter could feel the strands of
magic burning at her, trying like leaches to drink away her power.
If she was anything but stone it would be unbearable, but even so,
they were like living iron, peeling her grip open and inch by inch
lifting her away from the pinned necromancer.

“And there we see the wisdom of his words,”
Turiel said. “Look how it scatters your mind so, robs focus from
the task at hand. You really have
no
idea how to cope with
such things… Your beloved Lain… he’s passed on, hasn’t he? Dead,
and without a trace? Pity… I’m sure his body would have been a fine
thing to breathe life into. In death he would no doubt have made a
fine ally for me. Perhaps his soul is still lingering in that
place? Would it please you if I plucked him from his rest to tell
you what you already know? That he didn’t love you in return? That
he could
never
love you?”

Ether fought viciously against her bonds, but
they were just strong enough to keep her in place. Her mind burned
with hate and pain at Turiel’s words, stealing away precious focus
from her efforts. Smaller threads snaked around Turiel herself,
sliding her from beneath Ether and dragging her upright, like the
strings of a puppeteer. The bands holding Ether did the same,
leaving the pair eye to eye. Turiel’s lips were tight together, her
brow knitted with conflict.