The God-Stone War

Chapter 40

We had only brought a couple of servants with us, and my first task after Penny and the others were gone, was to give them the day off, with instructions to return that evening.

With that done, I went to the bedroom and changed into what I called my ‘traveling’ garb. I had been wearing more formal clothes, the sort I’d be expected to have on if I were on my way to an audience with the king. My traveling clothes, by contrast were simple and functional, pretty much the same sort of thing I wore when busy in my workshop; trousers, boots, and a heavy wool overtunic. The main difference was the inclusion of my staff, my belt of pouches and a cloak. I didn’t bother with the cloak since I was indoors.

The important distinction was the fact that I was ready for trouble.

Standing at the head of the stairs leading down into the bedrock beneath the house, I was filled with trepidation. My fear had become so strong it seemed almost a physical thing, palpable and unrelenting. To distract myself, I mentally reviewed my preparations.

I had called the dragon early that morning, commanding him to remain hidden somewhere within a few minutes flight of the capital. The figurine had provided no mental feedback though, so I couldn’t be sure he had heard my instructions. Calling on Gareth Gaelyn for backup had seemed like overkill, but my fear made me excessively cautious.

I had my staff and pouches, which provided easy access to a wide variety of magical aids, devices, and weapons; everything from my iron bombs to the new flying device I had created. With those things and my own experience and abilities, I could confidently handle anything up to and including one of the shining gods. What could I possibly have to fear?

The house was empty, so come what may, I shouldn’t be endangering any innocent lives, unless whatever was down there was so terrible that it drove me into the streets. What will she think when she finds that two thousand years have passed? The thought passed through my mind almost unnoticed. Mentally I grabbed at it and once again found myself empty handed. She… could it be the woman from my dream?

“If that’s the case my greatest danger might be Penny,” I muttered to myself with a half-smile. Gathering my courage, I descended the stairs until they reached the level space at the bottom, and there I faced the stone door.

The air was taut with tension, and the dissonance I had come to associate with death grew to the point that I found it difficult to concentrate. Interestingly it seemed to be strongest behind me, rather than before me, where the door lay. It was as if the grim reaper himself was looking over my shoulder.

“I’ve probably defied Lady Luck and pissed off Mother Nature so many times, that they’ve sent their boyfriend Death to collect me,” I said aloud, though there was no one to laugh at my joke.

Ignoring the distractions, I focused my magesight on the door, seeking any hint of patterns or runes. The last time I had examined it I had had no knowledge of concealing enchantments, so I now had a better idea why I had sensed nothing beyond the door. As before, I sensed nothing, nothing but stone and more stone. It went on for at least forty feet in every direction, featureless and unchanging, before I noticed a difference. At some point beyond forty feet the stone became less homogenous, more varied and flawed, with frequent cracks and occasional changes in its composition.

The conclusion was obvious. The area behind the door was entirely cloaked in an enchantment, making it appear to be solid stone, when in fact it probably contained a room. Why put a door here then? That’s a dead giveaway that something lies beyond, I thought to myself, unless the purpose was merely to conceal the room from some powerful outside observer. I shook my head, I really had no way to know at this point, and further speculation was pointless.

“Open!” I said loudly, wondering if it might be something so simple. Nothing happened.

Focusing my perception closely on the door immediately in front of me, I tried to find the runes that created the concealing enchantment. Generally such inscriptions would be small, and by their very nature hard to perceive unless you were looking for them. If anyone could find them though, it would be me. My family invented enchanting, after all.

I found nothing.

I was beginning to consider trying force, but a random thought stopped me. Why had no other Illeniel wizard opened the door? I couldn’t be the first to wonder at what lay behind it. Unless they already knew, I thought. It might have been the sort of thing taught to each generation, something I might have known if I had received the same instruction every other wizard in my family had been given. My gut told me it was more than that, however. They couldn’t open the door.

“But you can,” said the voice of the earth, startling me. The words were a product of my own mind, but the meaning had come across clearly. While I heard the voice of the earth constantly, it was rare for it to direct anything resembling meaningful communication to me, unless I spoke to it first.

This door required an archmage to open. The conclusion was obvious, and I was surprised it had taken me so long to realize. Otherwise they would have taken her. Again I caught myself thinking strange thoughts, and I wished I could force the back of my mind to give me the knowledge I needed, but as soon as I focused upon it, my fear drove the secrets into darkness.

Ignoring my doubts and confusion, I opened my mind and began to listen, allowing myself to fall into a deeper rapport with the earth. What I discovered amazed me, for the stone behind and around the door seemed to have a separate identity. While it was still technically a part of the earth, it held a portion of itself apart, as if it had been given an ego or a ‘self’. Not only was it separate, but it was deceiving me, projecting an image of itself as solid and whole, obscuring the truth behind an illusion.

Show me the truth, I ordered.

The stone responded immediately, None but my master can command me.

He is gone. I am his descendant and inheritor of his will, I told it, and then I put my hand against the stone door, lowering my shield and allowing the stone to come into full contact with my flesh.

Suddenly the illusion vanished, and I could see the room within, while simultaneously the door itself slid aside so that I could enter.

The room was twenty feet in diameter, circular and empty, except for the object in its center, an open stone sarcophagus. The scene was intimately familiar, for I had known what I would find here, just as I knew that the object in the middle of the room was no sarcophagus, it held a living creature.

Stepping closer I looked down upon her, Lyralliantha, the last of her kind, trapped eternally within a stasis enchantment. The woman inside was the most beautiful I had ever beheld, barring my encounter with the goddess Millicenth, and I discounted that immediately. The gods cheated. Her hair was silver, not simply white, but possessing an almost metallic shimmer, and while her eyes were closed, I knew that if they had been open they would have been an icy blue, just like all the children of her grove.

She was clad in a soft white gown that reached past her knees before revealing the smooth skin of her lower legs. Her hands and feet were slender and graceful, with short well-kept nails. Other than her unusual hair color and exceptional beauty, there was nothing that might have indicated her alien nature, except for her delicately pointed ears. Her eye color was slightly unusual, but it fell within the normal range of human color, in fact it was similar in hue to my own eyes.

Illeniel’s promise rose up in my mind, the words of my long dead ancestor, “This is the only way I can save your people. Rest here and I will return to release you… once it is safe again. I give you my word, I will return for you.” Except that he hadn’t.

A feeling of terrible sorrow fell over me as I gazed upon her, and I spoke without premeditation, “Lyralliantha, last of the She’Har, you are alone in this world. It was never meant that you should endure thus for over two millennia. Your husband waits for your return… and your forgiveness.” The words arose from someplace deep within my heart, and I knew as I spoke them that they were the key, the words that would release the stasis enchantment that held her in that timeless moment.

Yet nothing happened.

Puzzled, both at my sudden words and at their lack of effect, I bent my attention to the enchantment that surrounded her. In form and structure it was similar to the stasis enchantments I had created in the past. If anything, it was slightly less refined, lacking certain safeguards that I would have included. In particular it was constructed in such a way that if it were broken or forced, the backlash might kill the occupant. That was deliberate, answered the voice in the back of my mind.

As I studied the enchantment with my magesight, it became readily apparent why the spoken key had not had its intended effect. Woven around the enchantment was a second magical structure, something alien, while at the same time familiar. She’Har spell-weaving, I thought, recognizing it even as the phrase from my dream made sense. I had seen magic like it once before… when I had fought Timothy, the leader of the shiggreth.

“Starting to realize why you can’t release her, animal?” said a voice close to my ear.

A jolt of fear and pure adrenaline ran down my spine, and if it had been possible I might have jumped out of my own skin, instead I reacted defensively. With a word, I created a new shield around myself while stepping sideways. I had fought enough battles that my reactions were more practical than panic stricken. Fear might drive me, but it was a foe I was used to dealing with.

“Who’s there?” I asked, somewhat stridently.

The voice came again, though it seemed to have moved, and now it reached me from somewhere ahead and to my left, “Forgotten your old friend already? How sad.”

I scanned the room frantically with my magesight and still found nothing. Whoever was there was invisible, not just physically, but to magical sight as well. There were only three people capable of such a thing, assuming the voice belonged to a person.

“Wondering why you can’t sense me? Surely you’ve heard the phrase before, ‘when a Prathion doesn’t want to be found, a Prathion isn’t found’.”

The voice now seemed to be behind me, on my left side, as though the person taunting me was circling. The dissonant song of death was strongest in that direction as well. In a flash I realized that whoever this was they had been shadowing me, not just for weeks or days, but for months, possibly years. My entire life had been visible to them, and I had never even known they were there.

“It’s taken you long enough to reveal yourself,” I answered as calmly as I could. “You’ve been watching for a long time. I had begun to wonder at your sanity.”

“Still lying, Mordecai? You should know better. Your ignorance betrays your bluff. If you had known I was there you’d never have turned off the lights to lie beside your wife, you’d never have left your children alone in my presence. How many nights did I lean over you while you cried like a babe from the night terrors, never knowing I was close enough to smell your fear? How many nights did I wait, wishing I could kill you and put an end to your accursed line?” said the voice from directly behind me.

Turning to keep my hidden opponent in front of me, I struggled to identify the voice. It was familiar and yet I still was unable to place it. It had already claimed to be a Prathion, but I knew all three of the living Prathion wizards intimately, and this voice belonged to none of them.

“If you wanted me dead so badly, why didn’t you kill me?” I asked.

The dissonance, the voice of death that I had been hearing for months, continued to move, so… trusting my instincts I turned to keep it in front of me, even before its source spoke again, “I’ve learned patience,” came the reply. “You surprise me with your movement, it’s almost as if you can sense my location,” it added.

“I can… now that I understand what you are,” I replied.

“So… have you figured out my name yet, animal?” it asked curiously.

“Only the name that you’ve given me in the past, Timothy, but I’m certain that isn’t your real name,” I declared. As I did, it shifted and moved in a different direction, silently and without warning, I changed directions as well, keeping it before me.

“Interesting,” it said, stopping for a moment. “It seems you really can detect me. I suppose there’s no need for this then.” A small figure appeared in front of me, resting its hand casually on Lyralliantha’s resting place. “A pity your small mind can’t remember my true name. She will recognize me,” it added, glancing at the woman in stasis.

The memories in the back of my mind had returned to their former reticence, though the shiggreth’s taunting kept hinting at secrets I should know. He’s a Prathion, yet in the past he said that the shiggreth were created from the spirits of the She’Har that died, I thought, mentally reviewing what I knew. Perhaps he’s a shiggreth created from a dead Prathion? Walter’s uncle?

Even as that thought occurred to me, I knew it to be nonsense, for the body that the undead thing in front of me was using belonged to a small boy from Lancaster. A boy named Timothy, a boy that had been entirely normal as far as I knew. Besides, I told myself, the Prathions were golden haired with ebon skin and red eyes. The thought shocked me into stillness, as the implications of that statement ran through my mind. Prathion was the name of a She’Har grove.

That couldn’t be correct. Prathion was the name of one of the five great wizard lineages, but somewhere, deep down, I remembered. It was originally the name of one of the largest She’Har groves, along with Centyr, Gaelyn, Mordan, and… Illeniel. Along with the knowledge came images, memories of the places connected with those names. The She’Har groves were something like cities, except that the place, the trees, and the people, were all part of one thing, one family. One fact still didn’t fit, the fact that those names were now used in reference to the five great wizard families… human wizards.

“I can almost see the wheels turning in your head, animal. It’s a pity, really. I had hoped you would remember everything before I slew you, so that you would understand the depth of your ancestor’s sin. Perhaps I will tell you my name while you are dying,” said the small boy.

“Then your patience is at an end. You sound as if you have already gained what you sought,” I said, hoping to draw things out.

“We are here. Once you opened the door for me you sealed your fate, along with the fate of the rest of your wretched species,” it told me.

“You want to wipe out humankind?” I asked.

The boy smiled, “I won’t fail this time.”

“You broke the accord,” I said, and then I knew who he was, “Thillmarius Prathion.” The words emerged without warning, but I could feel their truth resonating in my bones. He was the reason she wanted the stasis enchantment created to kill her if it was broken forcibly, I realized, as a wave of emotions began crashing through me. “You’re the reason for this sealed chamber. You killed them!” I said remembering my dream.

“Correction, animal,” he screamed back in rage, “I killed most of them. You ancestor was far more thorough, he slew all of my people… all but one.” He gestured at Lyralliantha as he spoke.

“He destroyed you, you’re dead,” I mumbled, as a series of violent images cascaded through my mind. I was reeling in shock.

Thillmarius sneered, “Congratulations! I still am, but I intend to correct that.” As he finished his statement his hands came up, and a wave of darkness flew toward me at the speed of thought.

My shield was ready, but it made little difference. The She’Har spell-weaving shredded it in an instant, and then it tore into my skin, ripping and slicing like a thousand knives. The last time I had fought the leader of the shiggreth, I had a Knight of Stone beside me, not to mention Walter. Without their help I would have been unable to survive long enough to trap Thillmarius underground, although I now knew that that tactic hadn’t been successful.

Today I had no one beside me. A potentially fatal mistake on my part, but I wasn’t ready to concede the fight yet. I had prepared for the possibility of this rematch, if only I could gain enough time to respond properly.

Experience had been an excellent teacher, and as the pain of my enemy’s spell-weaving threatened to overwhelm me, my mind quickly sought refuge in the stone. The pain of my physical body receded even as I sent a spray of stone shards upward. Reaching out to the wind, I spun them into a twisting storm of razor sharp death.

The deadly spell-weaving fell away from my flesh body as Thillmarius was forced to defend himself from the destructive stone storm. Resuming more direct control of my human form, my eyes opened and followed his movement. “Enjoying the fruits of my training?” I asked, taunting the undead creature.

The stone shards had torn his small body, but the shiggreth’s response was quick, and another spell-weaving flew from his fingers and lips, wrapping itself around him like a powerful shield and preventing further damage. I knew it would be only seconds before he regained the initiative, unless I could find a way to protect myself from his spell-weavings.

Reaching into one of my belt pouches, I withdrew a stone disk, the same one I had attempted to use the day the enchanted furniture had attacked. With a word I tossed it into the air above my head and watched as it split into a multitude of small pieces. Extending my hand, I began channeling power, feeding it to the enchanted shield stones, while in turn they began to spin and whirl around me with increasing speed, becoming a blur.

Another spell-weaving struck, but this time it skittered away harmlessly, unable to pierce the shield created by my stones. “Let’s go outside. We both have too much to lose here,” I told my opponent, indicating the still body in the center of the room. Turning toward the door I walked out and up the stairs, leaving a trail of blood behind as I went.

His first attack had left me with a collection of shallow cuts. The pain they caused might have been a distraction, but I kept my mind in an in-between state, partly connected to the earth and wind around me, which made the sensations of my human body seem small, almost insignificant. It was a technique I had practiced often since my battle with Celior and it afforded me numerous advantages.

The minor connection afforded me more power for my spells, while at the same time numbing my perception of pain. It also enabled me to control the environment around me in an automatic, almost unconscious manner that left my human mind free to cast spells at the same time. I had yet to come up with a marvelous name for my in-between state, but Penny, with her usual candor, had suggested I name it the ‘idiot-trance’. She had explained that my lack of pain made me less concerned for my physical body and thus, less likely to defend myself. I knew the truth though; she just liked finding new ways to call me an idiot.

Her worry about defending my human body was a valid concern though, which was yet another reason I had created the enchanted shield-stones. Even as I left the underground room, I continued to channel more power into them with my human mind.

As I had hoped, Thillmarius followed me without protest, though I suspected he was preparing other weavings as we went. I led him to the front door and out into the street before he struck again, a probing attack meant to test the strength of my new shield.

“You’ll have to do better than that,” I taunted, while at the same time reaching into another pouch to touch the small figurine within. I need you now, I said silently, projecting my thought at the small statuette.

By the time I returned my full attention to him, it was almost too late. Thillmarius had sent his second attack into the base of the building beside me, and whatever he used, it turned a large portion of one wall and some of the foundation into fine dust, leaving the rest of the structure unsupported. It was in the process of falling on top of me, as I realized my mistake.

The neighbors are never going to forgive me for today. The observation flickered through the back of my head, while the more practical parts of my mind were busy figuring out how to prevent my imminent future as a pancake. While my enchanted shield stones had many advantages over my normal impromptu shields, it wasn’t as easy to change their strength or the shape of the area they protected. They could probably stop anything Thillmarius might cast at me, but they would definitely fail if a building fell on me.

All this passed through my mind in an instant, and despite the timelessness of such adrenaline soaked moments, I still managed to do the wrong thing. Lifting my hand, I shouted a word and used my own power to brace the building. Such a move would have been fatal for most wizards, but as I had learned from countless other stupid moments in the past, I was the wizardly equivalent of a giant… and sometimes I was about that smart as well.

I understood my mistake immediately as the weight of untold tons of stone and timber made themselves felt against my invisible brace. Stumbling I gasped at the shock, but somehow I held it. The dumb part of my action was that I was now entirely consumed with the effort of holding the building up, it wasn’t something I could simply stop doing when it became inconvenient. Given a second thought, I realized I should have called on the earth and allowed it to hold the building for me, keeping my own power free to respond to Thillmarius’ next attack.

My foe was approaching rapidly now, charging toward me with a long dagger in hand. The blade was writhing with alien magics, and I knew instinctively that whatever he had put on the weapon would be able to pierce my new shield. Thillmarius had been one of the greatest lore-masters of his grove. Another bit of information had presented itself to me when I least expected it.

With my magic fully engaged holding up the building, I had no choice but to call upon the elements to defend me, and in my desperation I took a risk that I probably should have considered more carefully. I reached for that which the undead fear most, and the very thing that my ancestor had used to eradicate Thillmarius’ body, two thousand years ago.

I reached for fire, calling to the small flames in the oven within the very house I was holding up. Opening my mind I spoke to them, I called them… and I gave them a home, joining them with my own spirit. What might have been an entirely innocuous feat of magic, if I were using my regular wizardly abilities, took on an entirely more deadly meaning when done as an archmage, for the fire infused my mind as well as my actions.

Roaring my hatred at him I sent spiraling streams of flame at Thillmarius, seeking to engulf him before he could reach me. The wind guided and goaded the fire to an incandescent heat, as it surged toward the undead creature.

Suffused with the fire’s rage and desire for destruction, I laughed as I watched my foe stop, stunned at the conflagration racing toward him, but my glee was presumptuous. Reacting with incredible speed, Thillmarius wrapped himself within a slightly different shield that seemed to flow from his hands without effort. The ease with which he created spontaneous spell-weavings; magics that were as durable and as difficult to destroy as any enchantment I could craft… was simply unfair.

I had my own advantages though; in particular, I possessed a near limitless resource as an archmage, I wasn’t limited to just my individual strength. The fire demonstrated that point quite eloquently as it engulfed the shiggreth’s shield. The long dead lore-warden’s defense held despite the incredible force I brought to bear, but even it couldn’t last forever. Seconds ticked by, five, ten, fifteen, and with each passing moment the fire grew hotter while the wind whipped it into a fury, creating a sound not unlike a scream.

Inevitably the creature’s shield failed, popping like a bubble as the flames rushed inward, to devour… nothing. Thillmarius wasn’t there.

My own carefully crafted defense crumbled, as Thillmarius’ knife severed the links between my enchanted stones in a gracefully complex stroke before plunging into my lower back. The monster had hidden himself and diverted my attention with a powerful illusion. I had to marvel at his skill, to be able to manage so many things at once, for the shield he had created for his illusory double had been quite real. Too late I realized I should have kept my attention on the source of the dissonant song of death, for it was the only reliable way I could be sure of his location.

“Did you think yourself a match for an elder lore-warden, animal?” he said sneeringly into my ear, as the blade sent waves of eldritch agony rippling through my body.

I was still in my ‘idiot-trance’ as my kindly wife had named it, and while my human form should have been incapacitated by the energies coursing through it, I was still largely able to act. Willing my human lips to move, I spat out my defiance, even as my elemental mind acted upon the stones beneath our feet, “I’ve got a collection of ‘gods’ at home. I really don’t think you’re that special.”

Looking down, Thillmarius saw that his lower legs were fully encased in granite that had until recently, been street paving stones. Struggling to free himself, he tried to withdraw his blade from my back, to begin a new weaving, but I had the wrist of his knife-hand firmly within my grasp.

The child’s body he occupied was no match for my adult frame, but the effort caused even more pain to shoot through my body. Showing his teeth, he growled at me, “Does it hurt? That body can’t take much more before it expires, and unlike me… you can die.”

“You really shouldn’t piss me off,” I bit back through clenched jaws. “Do you think it’s that easy to hold all that back?” my eyes flicked upwards, and then I dropped the building on our heads.

Thillmarius’ expression was priceless as he saw the stone wall and heavy timbers falling toward him, but I kept his hand firmly in my grip, and his feet were completely trapped. His body was crushed under untold tons of wreckage… while my own slipped through, stone and wood parting like water to let my human form pass unharmed.

Pulling free I left the dagger and the hand clutching it behind, while I used my now free magic to lift myself up and out of the pile of rubble, that had once been part of my neighbor’s rather large and ostentatious home. As I climbed down from the top of the heap, I let my mind collapse inward, becoming once more merely human.

My physical condition was alarming, to say the least. The cuts I had received earlier had left me light headed from loss of blood, and my new stab wound had done terrible damage to my left kidney and some of the muscles in my back. I was still hemorrhaging, and my strength was diminishing with each passing second. Pain made it nearly impossible to move, and I already regretted leaving my ‘idiot-trance’, but it was clear that if I hadn’t, I might have ignored my wounds until they left me dead.

Looking back at the wreckage I had just left behind, I prepared to finish what I had started. My wounds were dangerous but they didn’t worry me too much. Given a moment’s respite I could stop the bleeding, and with a bit more effort I should be able to restore myself to full health. Regaining my energy would take longer, but that was simply a matter of proper rest.

More important was eradicating the undead creature I had temporarily beaten. I knew better than to think Thillmarius was permanently defeated. My ancestor had burned him to ash and yet the magic that kept him alive had still preserved his spirit against the void, until first Balinthor, and then later, Millicenth, could resurrect him.

I had no way of unraveling the spell-weaving that kept his spirit and its eternal hatred tied to our world, but I could at least do as much as my predecessors had done, and destroy his body. Drawing my will inward, I focused my remaining magic and readied myself to turn the pile of rubble into a funeral pyre… even stone will burn if you get it hot enough, and I planned to spare nothing to make sure Thillmarius was thoroughly eradicated.

“Mordecai?!” came Penny’s voice, yelling from a block away.

As I turned to look backward, the wound in my back caught when damaged muscles failed to do their job. Stumbling, I fell and found myself having difficulty getting back to my feet. Shit, maybe I should have fixed my back first, I thought silently, but I knew I had little time. My magesight, now that my focus had expanded, showed me that the carriage containing my family was returning, with Dorian, Rose, and the children still inside it. They were a few blocks further away but approaching quickly. For some reason Penny had chosen to run ahead, using her strength and speed to arrive sooner.

My attempt to stand didn’t go well, so I quickly abandoned it. On hands and knees, I returned my attention to my fallen foe; I didn’t need to be on my feet to incinerate him. My head came around just in time to intercept a heavy piece of masonry, as the pile of wood and stone exploded outward. I was fortunate in that the blow was a glancing one, otherwise it might have crushed my skull. Lady Luck wasn’t doing me any favors though; her idea of ‘fortunate’ was more painful than being killed outright. I heard a snap, followed by blinding pain that sent me tumbling back as my jaw broke from the force of the impact.

Things became much more confused after that point, for I lost track of the world around me for an uncertain period of time. As my senses returned I noticed two things immediately; one, Thillmarius was now standing over me, and two, Penny was racing towards him at a speed that would have made a racehorse jealous. She had her sword in hand, and her skirts had again been hacked off. And that’s why we can’t have nice things, I said silently to myself, because you keep chopping up your dresses. Of course, I had to be silent, my jaw was a mass of blood and pain… speaking aloud wasn’t an option. That’s going to make magic more difficult too, I realized, not that I had much strength left.

My enemy didn’t look like much now; his body had originally been that of a child, and it appeared to have been through some hard use… being crushed under a wall often had that effect. It was animated now purely by magic, and I could see that his bones had been shattered in numerous places, not that it seemed to bother him much. My chance to finish him off had disappeared, turning my hard won victory into a crushing defeat.

Gesturing idly with one hand, he sent a twenty pound block of stone flying toward my enraged wife. It shot toward her as if it had been fired from a siege engine, with bone crushing speed, but even before he had finished that weaving, I saw he had begun another spell weaving with his other hand.

Penny leapt skyward, taking to the air like a falcon springing into flight, rising over the stone and twisting in mid-air, to prepare for her landing. Thillmarius released his second spell as soon as he had seen her trajectory, sending a writhing mass of snakelike bands to intercept her as she came down. Her sword flicked out to strike the spell-weaving, but it flowed up and around it, catching woman and weapon alike in a tangled mesh of magic.

Penny screamed in anger as the tendrils of magic constricted around her painfully, but she refused to surrender, struggling with a strength that caused the bindings to cut into her skin and flesh. She might have torn free, but the shiggreth reached her first, putting his hand to her cheek.

“Relax Penelope, it will be so much less painful if you relax,” he said, as his touch began to drain her life away. A shudder ran through her as she felt once again the cold touch that had haunted her for so many years after her kidnapping, and a look of wild terror passed across her face. It disappeared quickly though as she sagged downward, gradually losing the will or energy to fight.

An expression of delight and pleasure was on Thillmarius’ face now as he followed her to the ground, and I could see some of his wounds healing even as he drew out her life, with one hand on her neck and the other on her bare thigh.

I might have roared my indignation, but my mouth was no longer cooperating. Drawing on my will, I sent a lance of force toward him, hoping to drive him away, but my magic dissipated the moment it touched his undead body. I cursed my own stupidity for wasting my last chance, as a wave of dizziness washed over me. My eyesight was growing dim and unconsciousness was approaching when I heard Moira’s voice.

“Momma!” she shrieked, in a high tone that pierced my heart, and as she cried, I saw as much as felt her power awaken, blooming outward in a flash of aythar. The carriage had drawn close, and somehow she had gotten out before Dorian or Rose could stop her. The sight of Penny dying had driven her to desperation. Her call was a summons, a heartfelt plea to her mother to rise and resist the creature that was killing her, but it fell on deaf ears. Penny no longer had the strength to stand, much less fight off her attacker.

But someone else heard her cry, a different mother that Moira knew nothing of… and she answered instantly. Rising from the broken road, was the earthen form of Moira Centyr, the magical remnant of my daughter’s actual mother.

Thillmarius was so surprised at her sudden appearance, that he released Penny and took two steps backward, but even caught off guard, his hands were already moving, preparing new attacks. He stood now directly in front of me, and I feared his next move would kill one of us.

The ground rippled and a wave of earth carried Penny back toward the carriage where Dorian and the others now stood. I am fading already, this is more than I can handle, said Moira Centyr within my mind.

Save them if you can, I responded instantly, pleading.

It might have been my imagination, but her gemstone eyes focused upon me for a moment before the world shook, and a massive ring of bedrock rose up around the carriage until it had formed an unbroken sphere.

Thillmarius turned and looked down, mock pity in his gaze. “So much for the cavalry, animal, but at least they’re safe… right? Everyone gets a happy ending but you.” He smiled, showing shattered teeth as he bent down to run his fingers through my hair. A cold wind passed through my soul, as I felt even that brief touch draw away some of my remaining vitality.

Drawing his hand back he spoke again, “I’m lying of course. Once I finish with you, I’ll take that dome apart and give the rest of your family my undivided attention. It’s just a pity that I can’t keep you alive to see it; you’re just too dangerous to ignore. I bet you wished you had learned that lesson before today… don’t you? You almost won.”

I struggled to speak but nothing worked, and I only managed to spit more blood upon the ground. My strength was gone, my magic weak and ultimately useless against the creature standing above me. My only hope was my abilities as an archmage, but I could no longer hear the voices of the earth and wind. They were drowned out by the dissonant wailing of the voice of death, loud and incessant.

The awful sound grew yet louder as Thillmarius reached down again, placing his hand on my neck. “What did you say earlier? You’ve got a collection of gods at home? Your boasting was meaningless to me. I’m the last lore-warden of the She’Har and my people created the gods. No matter what your bestial kind achieves, you’ll never be more than animals in our eyes.”

My last sight was his terrible eyes staring hatefully down at me. My last regret was that I couldn’t respond with something clever before I passed away. Stupid broken jaw, I thought, and then darkness stole the world from me.