Cathexis: Necromancer's Dagger (32 page)

While the wounded sorceress waited she went
over in her mind what she must do:
“Wait until he is close, too
soon and he will sense the power and stay away. I must overcome my
fear and wait until he can no longer escape. Great G’lan, I plead
to thee, help me channel Michael’s aura correctly. Please help me
for I must not use it all or he will die, yet I have to use enough
to get rid of the Darknull for good. I will only have one chance,
so I ask for your help G’lan.”

As she finished her prayer the foul Baron
arrived.

The Darknull slowed to a crawl and located
Elizabeth by the glow of her weak aura and Michael’s young one.
Quickly the Baron evaluated Elizabeth’s condition and it knew it
had the sorceress, so it spoke in her mind, savoring its victory
over a Kirnath, “So Kirnath, the chase is finally finished. The
difficulty in obtaining your spirit will make it even more
satisfying. Too bad you are so weak, I feel a little cheated that
my meal is so small. Oh well, sometimes quality is better than
quantity. Besides the aura of your child will be quite a nice
dessert.”

“No! Elizabeth cried out in emotional pain
and struck the Darknull Baron with a bolt of light blue energy from
her hand. She nearly passed out from the effort.

The Darknull pulled back as it remembered
the recent pain when Elizabeth had struck with her powers, but when
the incredibly weak bolt of energy merely
singed
slightly the Darknull laughed and said, “Is that
all that the mighty Kirnath Sorceress has left to avenge the
destruction of her fine protectors? They fought well, but you must
have known that you sent them to their death. I see from your aura
that I spoke
truly
; it pains you
and that pleases me.”

“Spare my son and you can destroy me,”
Elizabeth said, knowing that it would not take the bargain, or keep
it if it did, but she hoped to bring it in closer with the
conversation.

“I would have made that bargain, which I
offered before, but now it is too late. I expended my energy to
obtain your power, and so your offspring must help to replenish my
power. I will eat him, right after I eat you!”

The Baron let its body flare out to
completely envelop the two mortal auras before it, but Elizabeth
had been waiting for that moment.

The sorceress drew on the link she had set
up through her palm on Michael’s chest and aura power surged up
through her hand into her body. It was
power
beyond her experience. The aura power filled her
completely and her wounded spirit was healed, yet still more power
came forth from her son. Elizabeth did the only thing she could,
she directed it forth out of her body through her other hand as
fast as she could let it flow.

The light that flashed from her hand was
blinding and it struck the surprised Baron’s unprotected center.
The evil creature of darkness screamed and tried to run, but the
power followed the conduit through Elizabeth and on into the
Baron’s body. The energy immediately surrounded its entire
form.

Elizabeth tried to stop the raw flood of
power, tried and failed.

Michael’s untrained aura kept pouring out of
him and if Elizabeth had not emptied it into the Darknull it might
have burned out her mind. She tried to stop, knowing her son would
die if she didn’t cut the flow and his spirit was exhausted. With a
convulsive
jerk,
she managed to
yank her hand away from his chest and the power cut off. She sought
her son’s soul and found it, barely; she leaned down in concern and
found that Michael was still breathing.

With her son’s life confirmed Elizabeth
looked up in time to see the white energy of Michael’s aura
dissolving the Darknull’s body. It shrank smaller and smaller as
the white aura energy consumed its dark ethereal body. The
Darknull’s screams of pain went on and on within Elizabeth’s mind
as its darkness was obliterated by the light.
Eventually,
it was completely destroyed and gone
forever, and its horrid voice was finally silenced.

Elizabeth stood up with her spirit
completely healed. Now that the threat of the Darknull was
nullified she inspected Michael’s spirit for further signs
of
damage. Elizabeth found that he
was physically healthy, but his aura was almost completely gone. It
hardly registered to her Kirnath senses. Elizabeth searched
frantically and finally got a faint glimmer. His aura had been used
up to a point where his spirit was severely damaged. After a
frantic moment of
inspection,
she
was relieved to discover that although his spirit was damaged she
believed that he would heal and his aura would likely return to
normal, though that might take a long time.

She put her son back into his carrying pack
and mounted her horse. Then she headed for the Kirnath School deep
in thought about Michael’s recovery and future.

Elizabeth decided there were two things she
must accomplish: one was to keep Michael safe and raise him with
the proper instruction in the arts of the Kirnath and the second
was to meet with the loyal subjects that had fled Lindankar.
Presumably,
some of them would
follow the directions in her note that Becaris had delivered. She
had promised to have the resistance started and waiting in one
year’s time. Her problem was that these two things were mutually
exclusive.

The place for Michael to receive the proper
training was at the Kirnath School, but he also needed her
guidance. On the other
hand,
the
resistance would need a leader who was mobile and ready to lead
them into danger, not exactly the role of a mother raising a son in
safety.

Another problem, if she and Michael stayed
at the school then the necromancer would send assassins; he could
not afford to let the heir to his stolen throne live.
Eventually,
one of these assassins might get
through and kill her son. Even with the skills of the Kirnath the
threat of an assassin was serious if the target could always be
counted on to be in one place. Yet she could not take a
one-year-old
child into running battles, or
into the atmosphere of the
men,
she would need to contact to begin her revolution.

Elizabeth fingered the small round hoop in
her ear lobe and realized that it had been days since she had last
spoken to her grandmother. She wondered if that wise old woman
could help her granddaughter solve this dilemma. Within her mind
Elizabeth spoke to the imprint of her grandmother contained in the
secret family heirloom she wore, a cathexis earring pierced through
her right ear:
“Grandmother?”

Within her
mind,
she heard the voice of her grandmother's imprint
respond:
“Yes, Elizabeth?”

“
What do you think I should do about this
problem?”

“
I see it this way, your first duty is to
your son no matter what else; agreed?”

“
Yes,”
Elizabeth replied.

“
He must be kept as safe as possible. Let
me ask you
this…
if you stay with your son at the school will he be safe?”
the old woman posed.

“
No, assassins could get to him,”
Elizabeth answered truthfully.

“
If you take him with you to fight he
will be in danger, correct?”

“
Yes Grandmother, so it looks as though I
will have to take him far away and forget the resistance, and the
promises I made,”
Elizabeth replied, her spirit downcast
because she must abandon the people of her country.

“
Will that make him safe in the long run?
If you take him away and he doesn’t get the proper training in the
use of his power, what of his safety then?”
asked the voice of
the old woman.

“
But that leaves me no choice at all,
Grandmother,”
Elizabeth complained.

“
No, it just leaves you with a difficult
choice. I see one way; if he were to grow up at the Kirnath School
secretly, under another name, without knowledge of his station in
life, he could be fairly safe,”
the wise old imprint reasoned.
“No one would know he was there to harm.”

“
It wouldn’t work, everyone at the school
knows me. Spies will be watching the school, knowing that I grew up
there makes it an obvious place for me to flee; I would be
recognized,”
Elizabeth refuted.

“
You would be if you stayed, but if
Michael is there without you and unaware of whom he is, he just
looks like any other child. His face is not known to anyone. If you
were not there he would not be recognized and you could go to meet
Lindankar’s loyal retainers and begin the resistance,”
the
voice within her head stated, unfolding her plan.

“
I cannot leave my child to be raised
without the guidance of the only parent he has left. I cannot!”
Elizabeth replied in anguish.

“
Who said anything about leaving him
without the guidance of his only parent?”
her grandmother
replied instantly.

“
But you said I could go to start the
rebellion,”
Elizabeth replied, calming slightly.

“
You must be tired granddaughter, think.
How can you be there to give the guidance of a mother and not be
there to be recognized? I’m advising you now, yet I doubt anyone
would recognize me since I’ve been dead for ten years now,”
the
voice of the imprint prompted.

“
The earring, I have worn this cathexis
object for the ten years since your death; it will have my complete
imprint by now! If I left the earring pierced through Michael’s ear
I could speak to him and guide him through his growing years, at
least until it was safe to come back myself. I would be there with
him, but Grandmother, the real me would not be with him to see him
grow. I would be without my child,”
Elizabeth realized, and her
heart throbbed with the pain of that thought.

“
It would be a terrible sacrifice, I
know, but remember Elizabeth that he would not be without you,”
she reasoned with her granddaughter.

“
How can I leave him unguarded? He will
not know his true identity! He would be alone except for my voice
in his head.
Oh,
Michael, what am I going to do?”
she keened to her son.

“
You do what has to be done, Elizabeth.
As you well know from your teaching, the time comes when difficult
choices must be made. These evil creatures attacked your family and
they destroyed your husband and tried to destroy you and your
child. They took everything from you to use as they see fit,
including the body of your husband. Everything that stands for what
is right in this world calls out for justice. The people of
Lindankar are waiting for your guidance and the eventual coming of
your son. With Jatar gone you are the rightful ruler of Lindankar
until Michael comes of age, so lead them, as is your duty.

"Of course, your duty as a mother comes
first, but here you have an avenue of choice that allows you to
fulfill both obligations. To do so you will have to live with the
pain of not seeing your son grow, but remember, though you will
have no knowledge of teaching him, he will have the complete
benefit of your teaching. You will raise him and he will know you
as his mother, through the cathexis imprint. It is our family's
greatest treasure, use it now as it has never been used
before!”
her grandmother urged.

“
You’re right, I was being selfish.
Michael will be safer here without me and my people need me to lead
the fight. He needs the instruction of the Kirnath, and through the
cathexis earring I will guide him from within as his teacher and
his mother,”
she stated as she finalized the difficult choice
within her mind.

“
A mother is always a teacher,”
her
grandmother added.

“
You’re right again and I thank you for
your wisdom, Grandmother. I will further
ensure
his safety by blazing a false
trail away from the school. Who would believe a mother would leave
her child? Where I go they will believe Michael goes,”
Elizabeth's mind ran over the details of her new plan, trying to
think of everything she could to
ensure
her son’s safety.

“
He will be safer there than anywhere
else since no one, including Michael himself, will know that he is
the heir. A peasant’s son is his best cloak of protection, perhaps
one whose parents presumably left him on the doorstep of the kind
Kirnath teachers,”
the imprint of her grandmother advised.

Elizabeth saw the wisdom of her
grandmother’s suggestion.

“
The adepts will do the standard test for
aura potential when he is first taken in, but because I drained his
aura against the Darknull he will not be recognized as having any
special ability at all. That’s perfect because no one will suspect
he is Michael Ardellen. After the aurora stone
test,
everyone heard that my
son had a strong aura. I even sent word to the school about my
son’s potential power. With my imprint there to help
him,
this deception
will work. I’ll do it Grandmother, but it won’t be easy leaving my
son.”

“
I know,
daughter
, but I know you are strong enough to
handle the burden.”

“
I hope so, Grandmother, I hope
so.”

The city of Tarnelin was in mourning. A
proclamation from Lord Jatar Ardellen had been issued detailing the
deaths of Lady Elizabeth and the young heir Michael.
The celebration
had turned into stunned sorrow.
Heralds read the proclamation on street corners or from the town
squares and from the steps of the palace.