Lament (Scars of the Sundering Book 2) (23 page)

The shielding spell he taught her
was more advanced than the simple ones the other initiates learned. Azure
tendrils gathered near the top of her staff as Delilah readied herself.

“
Dynami velos!
”

Before he finished speaking,
Delilah chanted, “
Apokryfess kelyfos prostasais!
”

The bolt of energy streaked
toward Delilah and vanished as it slammed into the invisible shell she erected
around herself. According to Master Valyrian, no magic would pass the shield
she created.
This one I must figure out how to cast without speaking
.
She recalled the lessons Gil-Li’s grimoire tried to teach her about voiceless
magic. It was her fervent hope that once this initiate business was finished,
she could resume studying her tome.

“Excellent!” Master Valyrian
twirled his wand in his fingers and slid it up into his sleeve. “You’re going
to be wearing grey robes any day now. I noticed you’re no longer using the
robes provided by the university. Are you sure that was a wise purchase?” He
narrowed his eyes. “Or did you expect to linger as an initiate for a long
time?”

Delilah fingered the trim on her
robe. “I bought a grey one, too. Just in case. I figure the archmage will
figure out some way to keep me down. It’s his new hobby, I think.”

“I cannot fathom why the archmage
has taken such personal interest in you.” Master Valyrian rubbed his chin.

That was a question Delilah
wanted answered as well. “I came all this way just to pay dues so I wouldn’t be
branded a renegade. I never had anything to do with the guild, the university,
or anything. I was just minding my own business in Drak-Anor.”

“Well, I avoid guild politics and
the Court of Wizardry as much as possible. Frankly, I think it’s just another
layer of control humans try to exert over that which cannot be controlled. They
like to delude themselves, you know? Control is the greatest illusion of which
one can convince one’s self.” Master Valyrian uncorked a bottle of wine and
offered a glass to Delilah.

The drak sorceress accepted the
proffered glass and drank it down. After sipping a few more glasses for good
measure, they parted for the evening. Delilah was sure she would pass her
Initiate Trials. The only real question was whether or not the archmage would
allow it.

Chapter 13

Pancras found himself in an
endless expanse of uniform grey. For a moment, he thought he was blind but
realized he could see his extremities. There was, quite literally, nothing else
to see. Somehow, he perceived the difference between sky and land, despite
there being no delineation or horizon.

In the distance, a speck appeared.
It closed in, growing in size, as it approached. He wanted to run, to hide, but
there was no cover in sight. It grew larger than he and then shrank to match
his size. A skull atop robes of black and red stared at him. Its eyes were
black and glistened like pools of still water on a moonless night. Pancras felt
his muscles seize, and his mind screamed as he failed to draw breath.

Paralyzed, unable to breathe,
blink, or move in any fashion, Pancras was utterly helpless as the skull
creature circled him. He felt its presence behind him. When it moved into
sight, the skull was gone, and in its place stood the pale face of a woman. Her
short, raven hair framed her alabaster face, falling to either side of her
eyes, the same eyes that had regarded Pancras from within the skull. In the
back of his mind, Pancras recognized the irony that he appreciated the beauty
of her robes, finer quality than any he ever owned, at this particular moment.

A dark presence battered away his
fleeting bemusement. The shadow that lurked within wrapped its cold claws
around his mind and squeezed. The woman scowled, and she placed a hand on his
chest.

Through his robes, Pancras felt
her icy touch. It traveled through him, as if freezing his very soul. Eternity
sparkled in the woman’s eyes, and when she withdrew her hand, a writhing ball
of shadowy tendrils wrapped itself around her palm and fingers. She made a
fist, crushing it until nothing remained but wisps of smoke, blown away on an
unseen wind.

The woman’s expression softened.
She reached up and caressed his face with her icy fingers. Pancras wanted to
shiver beneath her touch but still could not move. He noted without emotion
that the shadowy presence was gone.

Pancras
. The
woman neither moved her lips, nor changed expression, yet the voice was hers.

Pancras, son of Acrisius and
Voleta of Black Mountain. Faithless, yet devoted. Twice killed. Twice alive.
Tainted.

The minotaur tried to speak. He
wanted to defend himself. Still, he could not move. He could only think. He
needed to cry out, rage against the forces that conspired to separate him from
his friends and granted him only death in exchange for his attempts to atone
for the mistakes of his youth.

Look upon me and know me.

The paralysis faded. The minotaur
felt control return to his muscles, yet, he was compelled to look only at the
woman. The woman beneath whose face laid a skull. A skull with eternity in its
eyes. Aita.

He fell to his knees before the
visage of the goddess to whom he had devoted his work. She caught Pancras’s arm
and pulled him to his feet.

The Lich Queen works through you.

“What? No! I have only ever
served you.” Pancras despised necromancers who used their power to conquer and
destroy. Even when he practiced the dark art, he limited himself to animating
only volunteers and created mindless automatons, never intelligent or
free-willed undead.

I know. What you have done. I see
all. From my faithful. And devoted.
The cadence of her speech in his
head was odd, stilted, as though communication of any type was unfamiliar to
her.

“I tried to fight the shadow
demon. It was within me. It used me.”

Aita took Pancras’s withered
hand. The chill in her touch spread up his arm.
You. Are strong. The Lich
Queen is stronger. Her power grows. She seeks to return.

“I don’t know—”

Silence. Listen. Understand.
Aurora was first to act. The love goddess shames us all. Cultists defile. The
shadow waits and strikes at opportunities. You served. As one agent. Among
many. I have destroyed the shadow. You will serve me again. Still. As always.

Pancras’s mind raced to parse the
words he heard. She continued, unabated.

Twice, you have died. Twice, you
have lived. I will return you for a third life. A final life.
A hint
of a smile crept upon her face.
Do not. Fall again.

“I have never broken your faith.
You have always been my patron.”

Aita placed a finger on his lips.
You speak when you should listen.
You listen when you should speak.
You served well. You lack faith. You ignored the knock of opportunity.

Pancras clutched at his head as a
flood of images flashed before him. Growing up in Black Mountain. Moving to
Muncifer with his family. Learning magic at the Arcane University. Choosing
necromancy but rebuffing a priest’s suggestion to formalize his relationship
with Aita. Falling in love with Thanos. Losing Thanos. Every milestone of his
life raced through his mind, yet Pancras still knew not of what Aita spoke.

Bonelord.

Realization hit Pancras like a
runaway potato cart. Aita, ever present, and while he venerated her, she
offered him so much more than he was willing to admit in his youth. In his
ignorance, he turned away from his calling.

He fell to his knees, and again,
she caught him. He looked up into eternity. “I will serve in any way you wish.
Faithfully. Until my last breath leaves my body.” He chuckled. “Again.”

Aita steadied him on his hooves
and then placed a hand on his brow as he bowed his head.
Return to Calliome,
Bonelord. The faithful servant of Aurora will guide you. She harbors a secret,
but it will aid your struggle. She is with you now. She will believe. You must
convince her. Listen, and remember: Bekkhildr’s blood, blood of Vibeke.

More images engulfed Pancras’s
mind as the grey expanse fell away. The visage of Aita faded until the skull
with eyes of eternity was all that remained, and finally, it, too, faded away.
In an instant, the goddess’s purpose was as clear as the crystals in the
caverns beneath Drak-Anor. He understood his task. His purpose. Why he was
given another chance. He recognized what tools he needed to be successful and
how to obtain them. Clarity conquered his doubt.

And Pancras lived once more.

* * *

A one-armed cultist lunged at
Gisella, his mouth torn open from the trauma that killed him. She slashed at
him with her sword and then rammed her armored elbow into his face. He
staggered backward, leaving enough space for her to remove his head with one
well-placed swing.

The most unnerving thing about
the creatures they fought was their silence. No cries of pain at the horrible
wounds Gisella, Qaliah, and Edric inflicted, no sound issued from their
screaming maws as they attacked. Qaliah ducked and slashed, serving more as a
distraction. The fiendling’s blade was effective against most living opponents,
just not against the walking dead.

Edric’s position near the
entrance was less busy than where Gisella and Qaliah stood fighting. The dwarf
fought off zombies intent on killing their mounts. With one swing of his axe,
he cut the legs out from under one of the rotting corpses and then buried his
axe in its head. Once it was down, he severed its head from its body and kicked
it away like a ball.

As Qaliah slashed open a dead
cultist’s belly, an undead soldier grabbed her shoulders from behind. Gisella
stabbed her sword upward, impaling him through the back. The Golden Slayer
swept his legs out from under him as she withdrew her sword, ichor following
her blade in an arcing spray. He fell prone, and the fiendling stabbed him
through the head.

More zombies advanced on them,
faces locked in screams of silent rage and hungry for the flesh of the living.
Two more grabbed Qaliah. The fiendling slashed at them, her small blade
ineffective against the remnants of their armor, which still covered them. They
pulled her down.

Edric roared, racing across to
her as fast as his stubby legs allowed. He dove toward Qaliah, rolling under
the zombies and bowling them to the ground. In a flash, he rocked to his feet
and hacked at their heads.

The Golden Slayer slashed at the
legs of a zombie that reached for Edric, taking a leg off at the knee. The
zombie fell onto Qaliah, but Gisella grabbed him by the back of his tunic,
yanked him off the fiendling, and flung him down. She stabbed him through the
mouth as Edric helped the fiendling to her feet.

“Where’s the minotaur?”

“He did this! He’s dead.” She
yanked her sword out of the corpse and slashed at another zombie, sending it
backward.

“What? Again?”

Gisella furrowed her brow and
stared at the dwarf. Qaliah shrieked and punched a soldier’s corpse in the nose
and sent it staggering. “It’s true. He raised an army. Then I killed him!”

“There’s too many of them! We
have to find a defensible position.” Gisella scanned the area as she fended off
another one. More poured from the keep with every passing minute. Soon, the
entire garrison would surround them.

Edric pointed toward the gate.
“Get to the horses!” He cut down another zombie and then ran.

A half-skeletal creature blocked
their path. The blacksmith. His blackened arms held a massive sword. He raised
it as Edric charged.

Gisella heard a voice behind her.

“
Aita pairnei piso tee
dyaenamee pou eiche klapei. Ypoloipo nekrees psychees. Peegainete sto aionio
yeapno sas!
”

She turned to face the voice.
Pancras held his bejeweled rod aloft, green tendrils writhing around him like
serpents and then exploding in a flash of emerald light. The energy washed over
her like a blast of warm wind. She shielded her eyes against the light.

Wet, sticky liquid splashed her,
and when she opened her eyes, Gisella stared in shock at the carnage. Only she,
Edric, Qaliah, and Pancras remained standing. All the undead and severed
remnants were obliterated, reduced to bloody mounds of decaying flesh, bones,
and clothing, as if the hammer of the gods pounded them into the earth.

Gisella turned to face Pancras
and leveled her sword. He secured his rod in the loop on his belt and then
stood before them, hands clasped in front of him. She regarded the bloody hole
in his robe where Qaliah shot him. However, he seemed to be in perfect health.

“You’re dead! I killed you!”
Qaliah held her sword under his chin.

“You’re not wrong, but please.”
He took the tip of her blade with two fingers and moved it away. “Hear me out
before you kill me again.”

“You’re making a habit of this,
Minotaur.” Edric wiped his axe with a cloak he took from a dead soldier’s
remains as he approached them. Gisella glared at the dwarf. Of the three of
them, he seemed to be the only one not surprised by Pancras’s reappearance.

“Everyone be quiet!” Gisella
needed to make sense of things before she decided to kill the renegade before
her. “Explain yourself, Wizard.”

“It is a long story, and until
just a few minutes ago, I didn’t understand all of it myself.” He pressed his
palms together. “Perhaps we should see to our horses?”

“No.” Gisella raised her blade.
“You will tell us, now.”

Pancras held up his hands. “Yes,
very well. Nearly a year ago now, I was tasked with investigating a ghoul
outbreak under Ironkrag. With the assistance of Edric and Kale, we discovered a
chaos rift and a shadow demon of some sort. We closed the rift and killed the
demon, or so I thought.”

He lowered his hands and clasped
them behind his back. “The demon survived by binding itself to me. I didn’t
realize it at first, but when the twins told me I was raising undead in my
sleep, I realized something was wrong. It could only act through me when I
utilized my magic. The demon manipulated my dreams. In an attempt to stop it, I
even changed my arcane focus. It came to a head in Almeria, and the creature
manifested itself. Again, I thought it was defeated. Shortly thereafter, I was
killed while defending myself in a petty altercation.”

“Petty?” Edric scoffed. “You
killed the Prince of Etrunia!”

Gisella heard of Prince Gavril’s
death, but no word had reached Muncifer as to the cause of his death.

Pancras cleared his throat.
“Technically, he was no longer prince, nor did I deliver the fatal blow. He lived
until after he ran me through.” The minotaur rubbed his right horn as he
regarded Gisella. “He wanted me to curse his wife. After becoming acquainted
with the princess, I could not go through with it. She is a good, honorable
leader. Almeria and Etrunia are better off. I died that day.”

“Yet, here you stand.” Gisella
lowered her blade to rest her arm, but did not sheath it in case she needed
defend herself.

“Indeed. I saw a terrible visage.
Not Aita, but something… someone else. I believe it now to have been the Lich
Queen. She was accompanied by the shadow demon. They brought me back, exacting
this toll…” Pancras reached up his robe and pulled off the leather sleeve
covering his right arm. He clenched his blackened, withered claw into a fist.
Though he was glad to be alive, he was disappointed Aita had not deemed it
necessary to restore his arm.