The Archmage Unbound (34 page)

“No jewelry? The Countess wore a
necklace I made for her,” I told him.

“No your Lordship,” he said.

I felt a tiny spark of hope. One thing
we had learned in our few encounters with the shiggreth since I had made the
enchanted necklaces to protect our people was that the undead did not like the
enchantment. A few of our men had been taken since Dorian’s famous battle with
them and in every case we found each man’s necklace not far from where he had
been ‘turned’. Apparently once they had gone over to the other side they found
the necklace to be unbearable and removed it. If Penny still had hers it meant
she had not been ‘turned’, it meant she might still be alive.

Dorian of course did not wear one, his
natural ability as a stoic had made the enchantment unnecessary for him. I
wondered what that would mean if he was taken by the shiggreth. Would he go
mad? He had no necklace that could be removed. I was still uncertain why the
mind protecting enchantment bothered them so much after they had become undead.

I looked at the people around me. “I
will go and see where they were ambushed. I’d rather do something while I wait
for this wizard to wake up. I don’t think I can sit still.” I glanced at
William Doyle and without waiting I indicated the door that led out. “Let’s
go.” I started walking toward the door before he had even risen from his
chair.

With my mage-sight I could see him look
toward the Duke, who merely nodded, and then he ran after me.

I walked through the courtyard from the
keep to the main gate, scanning the ground as I went. William walked beside me
silently. He obviously had a good sense of my mood. We passed the stables on
the way to the gate, but I never even spared them a glance. I didn’t intend to
ride. I wanted to examine the ground carefully from here until the trail went
cold, and possibly beyond.

“Tell me what you know of what happened
here,” I said. William was a smart fellow and he did as I asked, giving me
only the information pertinent to where we stood. Once we got beyond the gate
he showed me the area where they had mounted horses and ridden away.

“And Dorian was on foot here?” I asked.

He nodded affirmatively. I walked on
without commenting. William led me to the trail where they had turned off the
main road to follow a small forest trail. I watched the ground along the path
with both my eyes and my other senses. I wasn’t sure what I was looking for
but I didn’t want to miss anything. Unfortunately I didn’t find anything that
William hadn’t already noticed.

“What was this? The ground is all
churned up here,” I pointed at a place where the earth had been disturbed.

“I didn’t see with my own eyes but some
of the men on the walls were watching. According to their reports the enemy
sent one of their riders back to stop Dorian’s pursuit. The rider charged him
with weapon drawn and if the witnesses are to be believed Lord Dorian threw him
over his shoulder.” William hesitated as he spoke, unsure if I would believe
such fantastic details.

“What the man dismounted first?”

“No your Lordship, according to the
people watching Dorian picked the horse and rider up and threw them both over
his shoulder,” he clarified.

I stopped and put my hand on the
ground. I couldn’t imagine what my friend had been going through at that
moment, but I knew he had done his best. I might have laughed at the image of
him throwing a horse, but the fact that he was probably dead now stole the
humor from the thought. I straightened up and resumed walking. Despite the
emotions within I still had not had the urge to cry. I was somewhat numb,
though I felt a cold fire burning inside my stomach.

William led me along the path, showing
me where they had found Miriam before leading me on to the place where their
last stand had occurred. I surveyed the area carefully. “What happened to the
body parts that were found?” I asked.

“The Duke had them collected and
burned,” William replied.

I nodded approvingly. “Give me a moment
alone William,” I told him.

Without a word the huntsman retreated
back down the path and waited at a distance. For being a man of few words
William was remarkably adept at discerning my intentions from a few words. I
imagined his perceptiveness must come in handy when tracking and understanding
game.

I closed my eyes so that I could better
focus on my mage-sight, then I took a deep breath and began to search the area
carefully with my mind. I hoped to find some indication of which way they
might have gone but I knew that it was a long shot. After a quarter of an hour
I had nearly given up when I detected a faint gleam of magic, something that
had fallen to the ground.

It was a few hundred yards to the north
of where we were now and I had a sickening feeling I knew what it was. I
pulled my mind back rather than examine it more closely. I didn’t want to
know, not yet, not till I could see it with my own eyes.

I waved at William and pointed north so
that he would understand my intention, then I started trudging through the
brush. It took me almost twenty minutes to reach the spot where it lay and the
closer I got the more I shuttered my mind, to keep from seeing it before I
could pick it up. Now I stood over it and I could not avoid looking at it any
longer. Lying at my feet was a silver necklace with an enchanted pendant, the
first of its kind I had ever made. The necklace I had given to Penny for her
protection.

Kneeling, I gently picked it from the
leaves and draped it across my left hand. The chain had snapped, as if its
wearer couldn’t be bothered with the clasp. In my mind I could see her eyes
glazing over as the life was drawn from her, till at last her dead hand had
reached up to pull the last remaining annoyance from her prior life away. The
creature she had become had ripped the pendant from her neck and tossed it as
far away as possible.

There were tears on my face now, but I
paid them no heed. Standing I tried to think of a course of action, but all my
paths seemed dark and meaningless without her.
I will have to hunt them
down, all of them,
I thought to myself. The shiggreth were a scourge meant
to destroy humanity. Too long I had waited to act, and now my wife and unborn
child had paid the price. Eventually I would find her too.
And I’ll have to
burn her as well,
came the unbidden thought to my mind. With it came a
torrent of rage as the floodgates of my soul opened up.

The air turned red as my anger boiled
up, like blood from the earth, filling my mind and erasing my doubt. My heart
beat like thunder and my body swelled as adrenaline filled my muscles with
energy. A small voice in my mind warned me, I was losing control, but I didn’t
care, not any longer. Power filled me with exhilarating potential to match the
rage that had consumed my mind. I could see the world below me for miles; I
could feel the earth’s blood deep below, crying out in anger and pain to match
my own.

Around me the world grew smaller with
each passing heartbeat and soon I could see all the way to Albamarl and
further, beyond even that. Below it all the earth boiled and seethed in
anger. The world of men was built upon a thin skin of crusted rock that barely
covered the hot reality underneath it. It would take very little to unleash
the fury below and wipe the surface clean with fire and magma. The thought had
just occurred to me when I knew I must do it. Too long I had lain dormant, too
long I had slumbered while the world grew cold and strange around me. I would
wipe it clean.

I felt a hand resting atop mine now, a woman’s
hand, long and slender. I looked down to see whose it was and I was surprised
to see that my arm was red and swollen. It appeared to be made of molten
rock. Resting atop it was a dark brown arm and following it I found its owner,
Moira Centyr. “Stop Mordecai, this is not the way,” she rebuked me softly.

I gazed at her with tears in my eyes,
tears that fell to the earth and set the dry leaves there aflame. Moira was
tiny now; she had never looked so small to me before. “Who is Mordecai?” I
asked her. The name felt familiar but it held little meaning for me.

“Mordecai is the man you were, the man
you must remain,” she answered sadly. “Do not let your anger destroy
everything you have worked to build.”

Her words brought my memories back and I
suddenly understood my anger. “They must be punished,” I told her.

“No,” she said. “Not all of them, if
you do this everyone will die. Does your mother deserve to suffer?”

A face appeared in my mind when she said
those words and I remembered Miriam. I didn’t want to hurt her, yet my anger
was beyond restraint. “I cannot stop now,” I told her.

“You must Mordecai, let go of your
anger. You must not give up your humanity, not yet. Let the fires cool.
Remember how your father banked the hearth at night? Relax… the fire will not
die, just let it slumber, it does not need to burn so hotly.” As she spoke I
grew calmer and I began to breathe again, though it seemed an unfamiliar
practice.

After an unknowable period I finally
regained myself. Moira talked to me through it all, soothing me and reminding
me of things from my mortal life, helping me to regain my perspective. When I
had finally recovered my sanity I was astonished at the change in my physical
body.

I seemed to be made of molten rock; I
was so hot I glowed like an iron pulled from a furnace. Now that I had calmed
down though I was cooling off and my color had changed to a dull orange. I was
also a lot bigger than normal. I stood at least fifteen feet in height and
everything else had increased proportionally. Now that my mind was back to
normal I felt close to panic at the changes in my body. I had no idea how to
return to being flesh and blood again.

I looked down at Moira, desperate, “What
do I do now?”

“I’m just relieved you’ve finally recovered
your senses,” she replied.

“What about this?!” I said in a panicked
tone, holding up my enormous stony hand.

“Now that you are yourself again I would
think that part should be simple for you,” she said. “In case you don’t
remember you just nearly wiped the face of the earth clean of all life. I
think the rest of us deserve a minute to collect our wits.”

“Perhaps if you could just explain how I
got this way,” I offered.

“I’m not sure how you did any of what
you just did,” she said in an odd tone. “Normally when someone melds with the
earth the way you did their mind is completely absorbed and they lose all
conception of their prior emotions, yet somehow you projected your emotions
onto everything else in the process. I even felt angry. You didn’t just
become part of the earth, you made the earth become part of you.”

“What is that supposed to mean?” I
asked.

“I don’t know,” she said. Her voice
held an almost petulant tone. “Except that you shouldn’t still be yourself.
You went too far, and that’s an understatement. You should be like me now.”

I glanced at my body, “I think we do
share certain features.”

“That’s not what I mean,” she snapped.
“I’m not real; I’m a shadow of a person that once existed. You are still
yourself.”

“I can’t go back to Lancaster like
this,” I informed her.

She sighed, if elemental beings can be
said to sigh that is. “You have shifted your physical body. In this case it
was a side effect of your joining the earth but if you had gone any further
your body would have completely lost humanoid form and become indistinguishable
from the earth itself, does that make sense?”

I nodded. “So how do I undo this?”

“Idiot,” she said suddenly. “To think
you would do so much yet be unable to manage the most fundamental part of shape
shifting.”

“I haven’t had the most communicative
teachers,” I replied sarcastically.

“Close your eyes and envisage yourself
as you were before,” she replied, not deigning to respond to my remark. “Block
everything out but your personal self, cut your ties to everything else. You
must not think of anything but your body, and it must be the body you
remember. Listen to the substance of your current self and coax it into
becoming the self you remember.”

I thought about what she said for a
moment before speaking. “Can I change anything?”

“What do you mean?” she said with a
frown.

“I had a chipped tooth,” I said by way
of example, “could I reimagine myself with a whole tooth?”

“You occupy the body of a giant,
composed of rock and magma, and you want to know if you can rebuild yourself
without a chip in your tooth?” Her expression was less than sympathetic.

“Yes.”

She stared at me for a long moment,
pondering before she spoke, “Yes you could rebuild your body with a perfect tooth;
however such a thing would be risky. You must remember your body, not just
mentally, but viscerally. If you make a mistake you could die. Trying to
alter your remembrance during the process could produce a tragic failure.”