The Splintered Eye (The War of Memory Cycle) (71 page)

Geraad swallowed, then nodded slowly.  He was exchanging one cage for another, but he had been doing so all his life.  “Yes.  I will…endeavor to be a good guest.”

“Then I shall be a good host,” said the necromancer.  Geraad felt him clamp his hands over the shackles on the chair, and the energy that had circulated through the artificed material drained away as swiftly and neatly as water down a pipe.  The shackles clicked apart, then the necromancer gripped him by the upper arms and pulled him free.

Chills ran through him, the intense cold of the necromancer’s presence tangible even through his winter-weight robe.  That was not abnormal; active magic-users always radiated cold because they absorbed ambient energy, and this man must be using a lot.  But through the chills came threads of fire, and Geraad found his awareness clearing, his limbs regaining a hint of strength.  He wobbled on watery legs but the necromancer braced him up, and after a moment he blinked as his eyes finally focused.

The room was large but spare, the same as it had been when he was dragged in except for the glassy-eyed bodies on the floor.  Four men in nondescript clothes, all Wynds, their faces known to him but their minds gone—his Gold Army captors, dead, unnaturally pallid but otherwise unmarked.

The necromancer looked up at him with a raised right brow.  The fine scar that bisected it made Geraad’s stomach roil.  Beyond that, he was a nondescript Amand, rosy-cheeked and broad-shouldered, dressed oddly in drawstring breeches and an open black robe with no undershirt.  What Geraad had taken for boots were instead camp-slippers with some kind of metal sole strapped on like climbing crampons.

Neat surgical stitches made a Y-shape on his bare chest.

The necromancer smiled crookedly, then winked at Geraad.  “Impressive appearance, I know.  You can meet the proper me once we’re in more comfortable surroundings.”

With that, he turned Geraad to see the hole in the basalt wall behind him.  A huge panel had slid aside to reveal a staircase descending into the darkness.  Just the sight of it made Geraad break out in a cold sweat.

The tunnels.  The passageways.  They existed, and they’re still there.

As the necromancer guided Geraad forward, Rian sprang out from behind the chair to attach to his leg.  He looked down at the goblin’s huge sad eyes and felt a pain deep in his heart for having entrusted both their safety to this madman.

But then Rian grinned hugely and rubbed his grey cheek against Geraad’s knee, and Geraad could only pat the goblin’s bald head and try not to let emotion overwhelm him.

The necromancer led them into the depths, the basalt slab grinding into place to cut off their retreat.  Geraad was distinctly aware of the teleport-blocking collar still around his throat.  It cut off his ability to declare Sanctuary and be whisked to safety, so while wearing it he was at the necromancer’s mercy.

The descent seemed endless, but finally the darkness was relieved by a faint reddish glow.  Heat came with it, baking the condensation from the walls and making Geraad uncomfortable in his robe.  By the time the light strengthened to reading-level he felt like he was walking through a sultry summer day.  It dragged on him, and though his fatigue and pain had been pushed out to some degree by the energy the necromancer was feeding him, he felt near to collapse.

Beneath them, the tunnel broadened into some kind of well-lit chamber, and Geraad winced as a gust of sulfur-scented air washed over him.  As he stepped in, his eyes widened in shock.

The balcony that spread before him seemed to have been pulled from the living basalt, creating a platform that jutted out into the massive cavern beyond.  A thin, smoky glass bubble encased the whole of the balcony and the walkways that extended from it.  Through the glass, Geraad saw stalactites hanging from the cavern roof, their tips dripping molten rock; the walls and ceiling were painted with the orange light of magma roiling far below.  Warding sigils etched every surface, some glowing, some dark; as he watched, one section faded and another lit, as if none could bear the strain of protecting this place without rest.

Dark shapes moved on the balcony or stood in clusters, conversing.  People in plain black robes—dozens of them, and more on the walkways or vanishing through other tunnels, going about their business in the bowels of the Citadel.

“
The magma lake…  You never cooled it,” said Geraad, throat suddenly tight.

The necromancer smiled flatly, which looked strange on his broad Amandic lips.  “Like any bastion of magic-users, the Citadel needs a power source,” he said, pulling Geraad along the wall toward another tunnel opening.  “Sacrificing the magma spring to make the Circle feel more comfortable would have had a deleterious effect on the surrounding countryside.  Crop death, miscarriages, eventual desertification.  We’ve learned much from our predecessors about how to destroy ourselves, but little about how to prevent it.  So I ignored the council and kept it.

“Anyway, I like fire.”

Geraad eyed the necromancer, but his persistent smile showed nothing.  They progressed down the corridor, black glass doors irising open at their approach then sealing shut swiftly in their wake.  The air freshened in stages, though the scent of sulfur never entirely vanished, until finally they entered another broad chamber: crisp in temperature and lined with laboratory benches, its low ceiling studded with luminous white globes, its floor-space filled with mortuary slabs.

Most if not all of them were occupied.

Geraad blanched as they passed the first: a young woman half-covered by a sheet, her left arm flayed apart to reveal the strata of muscle and vein and tendon.  Silver pins gleamed in the wound, holding sections separate.  The next was an older man, torso cut open to reveal pulsating pink globs where nothing should still be alive, and Geraad had to look away as a wave of dizziness threatened to dunk him.

“Perhaps you should walk on my other side,” said the necromancer dryly.  “No matter.  Nearly there.”

Keeping his gaze on the floor, Geraad forced himself to ignore all the strange smells, the soft squelching sounds, the occasional groan from the distance.  Rian clung so tightly to his leg that he had to limp as if wearing a brace.  He thought it would never end, but finally the necromancer’s grip left him.

“Take these,” said the necromancer, shucking his robe and peeling the metal cleats from his feet.  He bundled them up and handed them to Geraad, then gestured toward a black metal door in the wall that Geraad just now realized they had reached.  “Give them to me.  I’ll be just a moment.”

Baffled and terrified, Geraad watched as the necromancer moved to the nearest empty slab, swung himself onto it and stretched out as if to nap.  The moment his head touched the stone, his limbs sagged lifelessly, and a burbling breath rushed from his mouth.

For what seemed like an eternity, Geraad stood there in the clinical chill, staring out over the field of corpses.

Then the black door hissed open, and he turned to see Evoker Archmagus Enkhaelen standing in the archway, beckoning for his gear.

“Can’t be too careful,” said Enkhaelen as Geraad numbly approached.  “They haven’t been this aware of me in a long time.  But we can't be scryed upon here; too much interference.  You may relax.”

Geraad nodded mutely, too afraid to speak, and entered at the necromancer's urging.  A tingle ran over him as he stepped across the iron circle embedded in the floor, then the door sealed shut in his wake.

The newest chamber was small and circular but for a flat panel of basalt behind the huge black desk.  Ceiling, walls and floor were riddled with faintly luminous, incomprehensible runes, infusing the whole place with a steady light.  The desk itself was more like a laboratory bench, taking up a vast area and nearly buried beneath scrolls, wax tablets, books, ink-bottles, stone idols, time-candles, empty teacups and dozens of other oddments.  Low stone bookcases ringed the room just inside the iron circle, filled to the brim, and a few heavy lidded chests sat just behind the wings of the desk.  Enkhaelen took the robe and cleats from Geraad and shoved them into one of those, slammed it shut, then moved to perch on the edge of the desk as he gestured Geraad into the petitioner’s chair before it.

As Geraad sank down, his gaze was drawn to the portrait that hung on the flat panel-wall behind the desk.  It showed a tall, elegant dusky-skinned woman with hair like liquid silver, her ankle-length braid half-unraveled, her face turned to regard the sunrise through the black door in which she leaned.  Her sea-green dress seemed to float around her in diaphanous layers, adding an underwater swirl to the otherwise-realistic portrait.  There was something concealed in her cupped hands, but Geraad could not tell what.

“My wife,” Enkhaelen said with a curious lack of inflection.  Geraad looked back to him, unsure what to think.  Dimly he sensed Rian cringing under the chair, and hoped the goblin would get no bad ideas about assaulting the necromancer here in his sanctum.

Enkhaelen planted one foot on Geraad’s chair, next to his knee, and leaned forward.  He was dressed as Geraad had seen him in council: black robe over dark blue, a few silver charms but none of the overwhelming frippery of some advanced mages.  His eyes were the same shallow-water blue as the stars in Geraad’s vision, and the slice in his right eyebrow as plain as day.

“Give me your right hand,” he said.  When Geraad hesitated, he arched the scarred brow.  "You asked me to dull your pain."

Trapped, Geraad obeyed.  Enkhaelen closed his deathly-cold hands over it, and Geraad noticed a thick silver band on his ring-finger but could not concentrate on that as the necromancer began to test his bones.

Inch by inch, Enkhaelen felt along the full length of each finger and his palm, then up his wrist and forearm as well.  Everywhere the necromancer touched went painless, and Geraad felt the movement of the tiny bone-splinters beneath Enkhaelen’s thumb, the ones that had still not fused.  Frowning faintly, eyes half-lidded and distant, the necromancer retracted one hand and flexed it, and Geraad felt his cold aura move like a muscle.

Blue-black energy ignited along Enkhaelen’s fingers, filling the room with a midnight light.  Geraad tried to recoil but the necromancer’s grip was firm as iron.  “Wait—“ Geraad whispered hoarsely, but Enkhaelen just closed that dark hand over his.

The badly-fused bones disintegrated into their component shards, and a whimper welled up in Geraad’s throat.  His fingers sagged fleshily, grotesquely, and his stomach heaved.  Had there been anything in it, he might have retched.

“
Deep breaths,” Enkhaelen said, all attention on the mangled fingers.  His expression was a deathmask in the shadowed blue light, only his eyes showing life.  “Try not to move.  I don’t want to have to redo this.”

Geraad could not find the strength to make an acknowledging noise, but it did not matter, because Enkhaelen proceeded anyway.

And from the horror came a tiny wonder, because piece by piece, starting with the small bones of Geraad’s wrist, Enkhaelen began putting his hand back together.  He manipulated the splinters through the flesh with tiny massaging motions, pressing them into place as if they were bits of a puzzle uniquely shaped for their slots, and with each rejoining of the bone, a flare of heat passed through Geraad’s hand, momentarily igniting his nerves.  It sickened Geraad as he felt the floppy ruin of his fingers, but afterward, the splinters Enkhaelen had replaced were sealed where they belonged.

Slowly, Enkhaelen worked on, his cold fingers drawing heat into the longer bones of Geraad’s palm as they positioned the shards.  Though it was hard to watch, Geraad could not help himself.  The necromancer pulled Geraad’s fingers straight with short tugs and twists, carefully setting the bones in their joints, and by the time he reached the thumb, the vile black light had diminished into a thread-thin strand twined across the necromancer’s knuckles.  A few more modifications and the last of it flowed into Geraad to mend a crack in his thumbnail.

Enkhaelen inspected the hand carefully, stretching the mended fingers one by one, then chafed it between his.  Pins and needles shot through it, and Geraad gasped as full feeling returned.

Full, painless feeling beneath the tingle of reignited nerves.

“Well, try that one out,” said Enkhaelen, and sat back on his perch.

Geraad stared at it, hardly able to believe this was real.  He flexed his fingers slowly and they responded without pain, without tightness, without any of the aftereffects of his torture.  He looked up at Enkhaelen, unwilling gratitude making a lump in his throat.

Enkhaelen smirked and beckoned for his other hand.  “You shouldn’t listen to the propaganda.  Over and over, I’ve tried to make advancements, but every time I turn my back some reactionary fanatic bans them for ‘stinking of necromancy’.  It’s gotten to the point where they don’t even know what the word means.”

“
This…this is necromancy?” Geraad said cautiously, letting Enkhaelen take his other hand.  The first he kept clenching and unclenching slowly, reveling in that little miracle.

“
This is medical magic,” Enkhaelen corrected as he inspected the new hand.  “
Dalurvykhe
—body magic.  It’s no more necromancy than Trifolder healing.  True necromancy is the summoning, imprisonment and abuse of the souls of the dead; everything else you hear about necromancers has just been tossed onto the ‘bad things’ pile with it over the millennia.  Animating corpses with puppetry—no different from commanding golems.  The soul is gone, the flesh just a husk with convenient muscle-memory.  Something that doesn’t have to be carved motion-by-motion into a jointless stone.