After he breathed the vapors in, his head cleared almost instantly. He saw the dark sheets, felt the silk, and sensed himself kneeling, naked, in front of her while she stood over him.
“
Um…hi,” he said.
“
Welcome back,” she smiled. She put two fingers up to his forehead and closed her eyes.
He badly wanted to reach up and grab her exposed midriff – he’d never have guessed she was so skinny, even with the slinky outfits that she always wore – but he had the feeling it would be wrong of him to do so, especially when he realized how aroused he was.
“
Um…shit…this is a bit awkward…”
“
It’s okay, I expected it,” she smiled, her eyes still closed. “You seem to be okay, at least for the moment. Good.” She opened her eyes. “Your clothes are on the chest over there. You may want to get dressed.”
Those are probably the saddest words I’ve ever heard.
“
Why was I naked in the first place?” he asked, pulling the sheets around his body.
“
I was curious…” Warfield smiled. Cross didn’t like the sound of that, and it must have shown on his face. “I’m kidding, Eric. I had to get you cleansed…which, of course, meant getting you
clean
.”
“
Wait…you
bathed
me?”
“
Yeah,” Warfield nodded. She crossed the room and stood at one of the short pillars, which glowed beneath her outstretched hand.
“
And I missed it?”
“
You were sort of in a state of delirium,” she laughed.
Crap!
Cross shook his head and got his thoughts together.
Stay focused on the task at hand, you idiot.
“
So what the hell is happening to me?” he asked.
The stone floor felt freezing against his bare feet. He shivered while he hunted for his clothes, which he was relieved to discover had also been washed. His weapons had also been neatly arranged on a short table.
He only tangentially sensed his spirit. She circled the room like a marauding shark. He didn’t like the notion of being in Warfield’s abode defenseless.
“
Your spirit is sick,” Warfield answered. She looked straight at him, and she didn’t seem to care in the least that he was hastily trying to put on his pants. “Whatever you found in the Bonespire soiled her, and she’s having a difficult time recovering.”
“
Sick?” Cross said. “What does that mean? Spirits can’t get sick. They can’t be harmed, not unless it happens through their bonded mage.”
“
Well, yes,” Warfield said. She walked away from the stone and moved towards her bureau. “That’s what we’ve always believed…but you know as well as I, Cross, that what we
really
know about arcane spirits doesn’t amount to much.”
There was no argument against that. Humankind had only scratched the surface of understanding how and why magic really worked.
Cross knew more than most. He knew who had brought magic into the world, and how. But that didn’t mean he had any clearer understanding of the intricacies of the relationship between humans and arcane spirits.
He still had no idea why his original spirit, the one he’d been born with, had been forced to sacrifice herself in order to save his life, and he guessed he never would. He didn’t understand how Warfield’s necroblades – keen kukri designed to sever the bond between a mage and their spirit – functioned, or what happened to a spirit when that occurred. No one really understood what happened to a spirit when their bonded mage died, either: some thought they ceased to exist, some thought they were somehow freed from their obelisk prison, and some thought they were “recycled”, put back into a sort of general spiritual population to bond with new mages when they were born.
“
The fluid...” Cross started. “Any idea what its purpose is?”
Warfield opened the bureau. Cross saw an arrangement of knives, whips, armor and arcane implements. He saw helmets shaped like insects and spiked harnesses, coils of bio-thaumaturgic wiring and stacks of dusty and leather-bound books. Dark mirrors that offered no reflection occupied the tall doors of the bureau, and spectral smoke emanated from vents in the floor.
She turned and looked at him. She held a small book and a thin gauntlet made of dark steel.
“
Why aren’t you having this conversation with Laros?” she asked. “Isn’t he the resident Southern Claw expert on magic?”
“
I’m not Southern Claw,” he said. It actually hurt to say that. He’d hoped that as time went on he’d get used to it.
“
And I’m not a criminal,” Warfield smiled. “You chose to be something other than a soldier…are you actually surprised they’re keeping you out of the loop?”
“
No,” Cross said. He pulled on his dark tee-shirt. “Not at all. But that doesn’t change the fact that I need to know what’s going on.”
“
What do
you
think?” she asked him.
“
If I knew that…I wouldn’t be here.”
“
Really?” Warfield smiled. “You can think of no other reason why you’d be here, aside from this?” Her lips were painted black, stark against her pale skin.
Cross watched her longingly.
Why not?
he wondered.
You may never have another chance to be with her.
He couldn’t think of a good reason not to, except that it still
felt
wrong.
“
Can you help me or not?” he asked.
Warfield licked her lips, and smiled.
“
I don’t get you, Eric.”
“
That makes two of us.”
“
The black blood is an undead animation coagulant,” she said as she stepped away. “It’s the same variety of fluid that the Ebon Cities uses in its Zero Engines.”
The Zero Engines were arcane machines that turned corpses into soldiers for the Ebon Cities. They were powered by a mixture of trapped soul energy and recycled organic tissue. No human knew exactly how they worked. Some of the devices had been captured and studied, but very little had actually been learned about them.
“
This isn’t the same,” he said. Cross was dizzy and nauseous, so he quietly sat back down on the bed. “I’ve seen the fuel they use for the Engines, and this is different.”
“
You have a talent for stating the obvious, Cross,” Warfield laughed. “Yes, it’s different. It’s a concentrated formula. I haven’t had a chance to fully break it down yet, but it looks like in addition to the animation properties this stuff also acts as a sort of arcane conduit.”
Cross nodded, and then shook his head.
“
Wait…what?”
“
It doesn’t just reanimate. It gives whatever it reanimates arcane abilities. It doesn’t give them true magic, but it’s the same type of energy used in the Bonespires. Dead souls, trapped spirits, raw spirit matter…that sort of thing.” Warfield shrugged. “Whatever you want to call it.”
A chill ran up his spine. He felt the whispers. They circled like predators at the edge of his brain.
“
Those bodies,” he said. “Those avatars…”
“
I’m not so sure that’s what they are,” Warfield said.
“
What, then?”
“
I don’t know,” she answered. “But if they were all identical, it has to be for a purpose. Maybe they’re some sort of genetically crafted bodies capable of withstanding the energies in that blood. I mean…it’s possible that a normal, run-of-the-mill corpse wouldn’t be able to handle that stuff. They’d probably just explode.” Her eyes went wide, and she smiled. She obviously found it all impressive.
Cross put his face in his hands, and tried to get everything through his mind.
“
So they’re creating some sort of…army. Special bodies made to handle this necro-arcane cocktail of theirs. Is that right?”
He looked up, and she nodded.
“
So far, so good,” she said.
“
So I ask again…what the hell is happening to
me
?”
Warfield looked him square in the eye.
She’s considering how much she should tell me
, he realized.
God damn it, that can’t be good, especially with
her
.
“
Your spirit is changing.”
Cross blinked, nodded, and took a breath.
“
Can you elaborate, please?”
“
That fluid is making her more powerful. It’s also making her less stable. And there’s a good chance that it’s going to render her more hostile…more aggressive.” Warfield walked up to him. The platinum and iron gauntlet glinted with an unnatural shine. “Cross…I think she’s turning into something evil.”
Cross felt a shudder run up his chest, like he’d swallowed something cold. He tensed his fingers.
Turning evil?
he wondered.
Or was she evil all along, and now that this has happened she’s just reverting back to the way she used to be?
He wasn’t sure why that last thought had occurred to him, but it chilled his blood.
“
Those whispers I heard…”
“
That’s her,” Warfield said. “I
think
. Cross, there’s no way to know any of this for certain…”
“
The Ebon Cities knows,” he said. “They created these women for a reason. I have to find out what that reason is.” He lowered his head, and tried to keep himself from shaking. “Where is she now? My spirit?”
“
I…calmed her.”
“
How?”
“
With a special drug called Narcosm,” Warfield said. “It renders her lethargic. She shouldn’t be able to do much while she’s sedated.”
Cross tested, and he found the truth behind Warfield’s words. His spirit was barely there, an echo. He sensed her at the edge of his soul, but she was more of an afterthought than a presence. Even reduced to a shade, he felt something wrong with her…something sick. She’d become a wraith, weighed down with disease.
“
How long?” he asked. Warfield just shook her head to indicate that she didn’t know. “Could I even channel her right now?”
“
This will help,” she said, and she handed him the strange gauntlet apparatus. “This will help you shape her.” She stepped back. “It won’t be easy. And there’s no guarantee you’ll be able to do
anything
with her, not when she’s drugged.”
The gauntlet was cold and heavy in his hand, and it sparked with cold electric light when he held it up for inspection. Deep black runes had been cast into the steel, arcane sigils of curved blades and clusters of jagged points. Miniature reproductions of the same rune had been cast into the tip of each finger.
He remembered losing his spirit – his old spirit – some years ago. He’d lost his sister Snow at that same instant, and even then he’d been unable to determine which loss had left a deeper scar inside of him.
He and his new spirit had never gotten used to one another. It was as if they were still strangers. But that didn’t make her current state any easier for him to accept.
“
And if she’s not drugged?” he asked.
“
Then you very likely will not be able to control her at all. And if that happens…” Warfield took a step back. “Well, just remind me to be somewhere else if it does.”
Cross nodded. He thought about Danica and Mike, Ronan and Maur, the siblings Ash and Grissom. He knew each of them much better than he’d ever intended to. Cross had trouble imagining his life without them.
He closed his eyes, and he saw flames. He saw burning bodies and crumbling skies, and his fear was cold and absolute.
“
What do I…what do I owe you?” he asked as he stood up. He’d finished getting dressed. He didn’t even remember doing that.
Warfield watched him carefully. She smiled, but Cross had learned to be wary of her smiles. It was easy to get lost in her deep green eyes. Once, he’d wanted nothing more than to put his lips to hers. Now he wasn’t so sure.
There are more important things to worry about.
“
Nothing,” she said. “I’m pretty sure that I owe
you
one by now.” She looked at the vials of Narcosm in her hand. “Do you want these?”
Cross almost said ‘No’. With what he planned to do, he wasn’t sure if he needed her drugged. But plans never seemed to go right around him. It was best, he’d learned, to be prepared for the worst.
“
Thanks,” he said, and he put the vials and the gauntlet into his pack. “How do I give it to her?”
“
You
drink it,” Warfield said. “It won’t actually affect you, but that’s how it will get into
her
. Just a few sips every three or four hours. There should be enough for a couple of days.”