CHAPTER 111
Things had certainly gone well enough in the beginning for Alsabet; escape from the Norn church had been almost ridiculously easy. She'd left with two other mages, one her lover, and the other his brother.
First there was fear, the fear of getting caught, the fear of being discovered, and the all-too-familiar worry of the inevitable dispatch of Witch Hunters, but as the days stretched into weeks, Hope and optimism began to overcome the fear.
However, hope and optimism died pretty quickly when food became scarce. None of them were experienced woodsmen, and none of them had any comprehensive knowledge of hunting, fishing, preparing game, or even telling which plants were edible or not. Alsabet's lover had told her that occasional and flagrant use of her magical power after she’d left the boundaries of human control could attract beastmen. With some luck, they could be reasoned with. Beastmen were notoriously stupid but had their own intelligence, low and sly. It was rumored that some were fluent already in the languages of men.
Shortly after this revelation, her lover's usefulness came to an end as he slipped on some wet leaves as they crossed the edge of a cliff. His terrified screams as he fell were punctuated with brittle wet snaps each time he hit, as bones inside broke from impacts all the way down. She had loved him in her own way, and she was reasonably sure he had loved her, but there was always a certain distance that mages placed between each other, a respect and wariness, a worry that one was plotting against the other. There was always the worry of betrayal, the fear of complete trust, so when he fell to his death she regretted it, but didn't really miss him too much.
His brother barely had any usable talent, not at all like her, and so he was more than willing to go in with her plans and schemes. Her first plan was to recruit beastmen; and between the two of them she managed to capture a bird-type beastman, a thing sometimes known as a harpy or harridan.
Beastmen were impulsive, emotional creatures. While they could be taught to reason, they never relied upon it like people. They craved sensation, emotional outbursts, and often fell back on instinct. To them, everything was dramatic. Their loves were passionate, their battles full of boasting, posturing for effect, their betrayals savage, their hatreds blinding. When Alsabet captured the harpy, she and her remaining partner simply molested the girl relentlessly until she swore fealty to them. That was a beginning, a reawakening of hope. Opara, as she called herself, let Alsabet and her lackey to an abandoned ruin that consisted of a short, squat tower, a rather large house, and part of a ruined wall. Of the rest of the ruins there was no sign.
Opara had proven more than simply useful as being a tool; she at least knew how to hunt, could catch fish, and had a general knowledge of edible plants, though she herself preferred meat- raw at that- to anything resembling vegetation. To Opara, vegetables and plants were something to be eaten if you were poor and weak.
Her lackey- she didn’t even bother thinking to ask him his name, and oftentimes didn’t even think of him as a person at all- had been all but useless, only providing the essential component necessary to summon a Greater Demon.
That was a calculated risk. A Greater Demon could be bound to a host body, but it put an immense strain on the summoner. One slip, and her bindings and protections would crumble, and an unbound demon would be loosed upon the world. She’d hoped the Demon could give her the information she wanted, but he was as clueless as she was. Her suggestions that he make himself useful were rebuffed; the thing was arrogant and could not be induced or commanded to do the things she needed; namely help her in realistic, pragmatic ways to survive.
The house needed to be rebuilt. The furniture was rotten, termite-riddled, barely usable. She had very little in the way of clothing and bedding. Her food situation was dicey at best.
Things were starting to look bleak for Alsabet. She didn’t have the luxury of time anymore, and so she’d had to take half-measures in the hopes that the short term rewards would offset the long-term consequences. She’d reached out to the few beastmen communities she’d discovered, but aside from Mara’s centaurs, nothing had gone as well. Opara’s people had sneered, mocked her, and then tried to tear Opara apart.
Alsabet had no choice but to burn their entire roost to the ground to save Opara. The community of dogmen and werewolves that lived to the northeast and had built a thriving community in an abandoned city had soundly rebuffed her. They wanted to live apart from people and create their own culture. Serving a mage "would be counter to that goal.".
Mara’s centaurs were loud, brash, and ill-disciplined. She couldn’t ask them to do anything useful except patrol the forest. They often only hunted enough to feed themselves, and the times that they’d brought food back to her, it had either been starting to spoil, or the victim of Mara’s mate. Mara’s mate, an arrogant bay by the name of Rama, had a rather revolting habit of trying to copulate with everything, living or dead. He’d tried once with her, but a blade of magic to threaten his precious organ that he was so proud of, and he’d never tried again.
The Greater demon she’d summoned was far too arrogant to hunt or till the fields, and the lesser demons it in turn had summoned were insensate, shambling horrors that attacked and devoured everything they could.
So she turned to necromancy. Whatever place her little home, tower, and wall used to be, it was rife with buried dead- likely the site of some great battle hundreds of years before the Anglish set foot on the continent.
She’d raised as many dead she she could, and set them to building the terraced gardens, tilling the fields and planting the crops, but it wasn’t enough; she’d had to overextend herself and raise still more to rebuild the wall and restore the tower, and even then, that wasn’t enough, so she had raised yet more and sent them out into the forest to hunt.
The results were atrocious. animals fled at the sight or smell of them, and she didn’t have the ability to craft bows for them. The dead were slow and only able to follow the simplest of commands.
Her belly rumbled. It did that more often, of late. Opara was off hunting, but there really wasn’t anything she could eat. She considered heading up to her room on the second floor of the house and immersing herself in study; she felt close to a breakthrough. She nodded, and went to the stairs, when a commotion outside caught her attention. She mentally went through a list of all the magical implements she had on her person, and went outside.
The skeletons had killed a small party of people, likely from Norn, and had brought them to her. What was she to do with them? her powers were stretched to the limit in sustaining her existing undead, she couldn’t raise any more. If she did, then her concentration might waver and then she was in very real danger from the Greater Demon she’d bound into the body of the other mage.
She examined the bodies carefully. The clothes were of poor cut and quality, but layered against the cold. The skeletons had performed brilliantly this once; they had brought everything in their camp, including foodstuffs and bedrolls and the like. From their gear and the contents of their camp, they were lumberjacks. She went through their belongings, and found some bread, a bit of cheese, and a small boon; a pouch of tea. She sniffed it. It seemed a simple herb tea, without refinement or melody. Beggars couldn’t be choosers, though.
"Strip them of their clothes." She commanded. "Don’t cut or tear the fabric. I need it." She commanded. She gnawed on the bread, a dark, tough loaf that was made and sold cheaply. She would decide what to do with the bodies after she ate, she decided.
She ate as she studied. She was researching what the Church of the Golden Lady referred to as the ‘Heretic Stone’; an artifact of unimaginable power, possibly dating back to before the church existed. It was a thing spoken of in whispered stories. Mages often wished for artifacts of great power. There was always something more that was just beyond their reach. Many times she could preface pretty much everything on her wish list with "If I had just a bit more power, I could..." If she had just a bit more power, she could raise more undead to do her bidding. Or perhaps she could create her own kind of servants, flexible, versatile, capable of understanding more than simple commands. She could raise a defense of this place so that she could be safe from the Church. She could grow her crops. Or perhaps- Her thoughts broke off when she heard something hit the roof. She stepped out of the room that functioned both as her room and her study, and Opara hopped in through the window.
Opara was a harpy, a winged humanoid that was smaller and lighter than most people. They had a magic in their song that allowed them to daze and charm their prey. Alsabet had befriended the smaller beastman some months back, and the two had become fast friends, though the beastwoman worshipped Alsabet with almost reverent awe.
"It worked as you suggested, Mistress." Opara announced. "I was able to kill the deer and the skeletons you gave to me to use were able to bring it back." Since Opara could only carry things in her feet, she had a problem carrying nearly anything of real value, and a deer was at least three times her weight.
"I’m glad, Opara. you have no idea how hungry I was getting. The lumberjacks the skeletons brought in even started looking tasty."
Opara preened under her mistress’ praise, happy to be of service.
Her studies in the books she’d copied were limited; the usable data nil. The books she’d painstakingly copied all the relevant information from had come from the Church, and were so heavily biased and filled with misinformation there were likely useless, but she hadn’t really hoped for the books to reveal anything. Her studies really revolved around the surrounding woods and lands.
Deep beneath the world, or perhaps within the world in a way she could not really explain or describe there existed a fine network of ley lines; lines of power, lines from which all mages drew their magic from. These lines of power threaded and flowed through the world in irregular, incomprehensible patterns.
A mage could not directly tap the ley lines. Using spell circles and focuses like crystals, staves, wands, rods, tiles, scrolls or any other number of artifacts, they filtered and refined the smallest of fractions of power and focused it into their spells. To try and tap a ley line directly was to invite catastrophe. Natural magic was wild, uncontrollable, and corrosive. It could rot you out from within or induce bizarre and horrific mutation, insanity, or all at the same time. Worse perhaps is that you could be overwhelmed completely losing your sense of self and becoming nothing but a shambling, rotting, mutating abomination.
If the Heretic stone really existed, if it did have a power that the church feared, then it would leave a mark on the ley lines it connected to. Power would either be drawn to it or flow from it in a unique way, and by "listening" to the currents of the ley lines, she hoped she could locate it. She’d already begun mapping the threads that were nearby; indeed, she’d had to create a spell circle of unsurpassed size and complexity here on her lands. The circle powered her undead, fed her Greater Demon, who in turn fed his masses of lesser demons, and replenished her own reserves. It still was not enough, however. It was enough to maintain her current work, but was not nearly enough for her future plans. She needed more power so that she could forward her goals. She reasoned it as thus: if she had ten units of power that she could expend, then those ten were taken in sustaining everything she’d done, magically. The circle offset her going into power debt, but was never enough to allow her to progress. She couldn’t sound the ley lines because her power was allocated elsewhere. Something had to change.
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She had tried attacking the problem from other angles, but really, she had only one choice: she would have to kill off her tireless workforce of undead if she hoped at all to move forward. she couldn’t afford to do that yet, though. The tower was not yet rebuilt, the wall was only partially constructed, and the gardens had not yet yielded anything. About the only thing her workers had completed was to fix the house completely. New walls, a new roof, a heavily thatched ceiling, a new door, and comfortable furniture.
She mentally summoned six of her skeletons to stand outside the house as she finished her meal with Opara. She went outside and cancelled the spell that kept them movable. Immediately she felt a sense of relief as her power was restored.
She went over to the wall, which, when completed, would be twenty feet tall and six feet thick at the top, and would wrap around her entire keep, containing house, garden, and joining the tower. Using magic, she stacked stones, mixed and spread mortar, and before her eyes, the wall rose. Another spell pulled earth to fill in the gaps. Yes, this was better. using her skeletal workers around the clock wasn’t nearly as fast. The work was exhausting though, much more so if she had allowed the workers to continue at their pace. She called more of her skeletons to her and cancelled their spells, reclaiming her power and increasing her ability to do more work. The spell circle she had carefully described in the ground glowed in delicate traceries of molten silver.
A gate between the tower and the house- trees uprooted themselves, bark peeling off and thick planks carving themselves out of the trunks, where shafts of heat sizzled the free-flowing sap and cured the wood. Stones, mortar, and earth flowed together as the soft inner bark was rolled and twisted and cured into a fibrous rope. The planks were bound together into heavy doors, but what was she to do about hinges?
Without thinking, she cast another spell, delving for minerals, but none were to be had. Oh well, we’ll set that aside for another time, she decided.
Day turned into afternoon, afternoon turned into dusk, and the first part of her wall was finally complete; a hundred-yard section of wall extending along the edge of what she considered "her property" to intersect the tower. She released her spells and nearly fainted from exhaustion. She barely made it inside her house, where she dragged herself to bed and slept.
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When she awoke she chided herself for not raising the skeletons again and posting them as guards. anything could have happened to her as she slept. Anyone could sneak in.
"Hello." A male voice greeted. She turned over in her bed, ice forming around her heart in terror. A wiry man with a thin moustache smiled at her. He was a tall, thin man with an angular, pinched face and hair pulled back tightly against his head. his clothes were snug and form-fitting, which made him nearly emaciated.
"Who are you?" she asked warily, mentally running through the spells she felt she could cast.
"Relax, relax. I mean you no harm." He said, and smiled at her. She figured that the smile was meant to be disarming, but with his irregular teeth, it instead looked vulpine and predatory.
"As for my name, I don’t really have one. I’ve had so many over the years I’ve forgotten my real name. You can pick one for me, if you like."
She frowned. He had an odd way of speaking, stressing words at random.
He held his hands up, palms out. "I swear I have no intention of harming you. I wouldn’t have let you wake up, if I had." He gestured to the right, Alsabet followed his gaze. Opara was wrapped in layers of magical spells that kept her asleep.
"Fantastic magical resistance, that one." He murmured. "I put her under like that so that we could talk civilly, like adults. Will you hear me out?" he asked.
She nodded grudgingly. He smiled again.
"Spectacular. Then, to begin; wolves in the wild are fierce and deadly hunters, you know. Ruthless, merciless, calculating. You know this, right?"
"Would you get to the point?" She demanded, sitting up in bed.
"I am telling you the point, dear girl. Pay attention. How do you hunt a wolf? You use hunting dogs. That is what I am, in a sense. I am a mage, like you. However, my talents lie in ... hunting the hunter. How long have you been here? Weeks? Months? Have the Witch Hunters from the Church of the Golden Lady been dispatched to hunt you down yet?"
Alsabet pressed her hand to her chest as shock went through her. Of course, she knew, but she’d filed it away in favor of other concerns. Food, water, shelter, dry clothes. "Katarina." She whispered, but immediately shook her head. the Church wouldn’t be so cruel as to force her sister to hunt her... would they?
"Are you saying-" She started, but he waved her off.
"No, no no, I have no idea if they have called for a Witch Hunter." He shrugged indifferently. "For all I know, their Witch Hunter could be in your dining area downstairs right now, drinking that revolting tea. Or they could still not be aware that you left your post with your lover and... my brother."
"Your brother..." she breathed.
"The very one that houses that blighted monstrosity of a demon in that tower of yours." He agreed, nodding sagely.
"Revenge?" She asked. He shrugged. "I don’t remember my own name, and you expect vengeance? No, I don’t care about that. He did call for me, though, some weeks back. Told me that he thought you two would need some help against the Golden Lady’s wolves. He’s gone, but ... you aren’t."
"You can’t be doing this for free." She stated bluntly. "And you can’t be doing this for family, as any chance of that dried up when you saw what became of your brother. So what do you get from it?" She asked.
He frowned, opened his mouth, closed it again. "You’re right. You’re absolutely right, of course. There are many reasons for me to ... offer my ... services." He said, and firmed his lips. "Yes. Let’s start with the simplest: I have been trained to hunt the hunter, and my brother had called for my services. A job is unfulfilled." He shrugged. "If you have steel, I’ll take it, or perhaps you could craft for me some magical items if you have the skill. I don’t particularly care, as long as the value of the job is met."
"Any other other reason?" she asked.
He shook his head. "No, no other reason. I relish the thought of fighting one of the so-called Witch Hunters. They have certain... gaps in their protections that can be exploited. Killing them is a rare pleasure."
Alsabet nodded. "All right. An alliance, for now." He nodded and smiled his predatory grin again.
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It had taken nearly a year, but Alsabet had finally reached a small breakthrough in her research; she was able to detect a resonance in her experiments that seemed to be what she was looking for, but she couldn’t tell for certain. It was like an echo, or a resonance, or the shadow of a resonance, something intangible and ephemeral but there. It was time for her to move on. it seemed to lead north and east; she needed to hurry, if she expected to catch it.
She summoned Durm, her centaur, and Opara, and told them to prepare to leave. As she was packing, she heard a thunderous hammering at her door. It was Ulqwait, the Greater Demon.
"You are aware, yes?" It demanded imperiously. "The humans, they march, yes? The skraelings, they go and do not come back, yes? My spies see an army marching on this place, yes?" He hollered. "I am demanding you do something of this, yes? Do not renege your bargain, yes?"
Alsabet opened the door and frowned up at him.
"You have spent plenty of time here, summoning your ... skraelings, your lesser demons. Fight them. Beat them back. Feed on their souls, if you like. I don’t care." She remarked. "I finally have the breakthrough I needed in my research, so it means it’s time to move on."
"You expect me to stay and die, yes?" The demon demanded angrily. Alsabet laughed up at him. "What can a few farmers with spears and pitchforks do against the mighty Ulqwait?" She challenged mockingly. "Will you not smash them to blood and pulp and devour their entrails?" She demanded.
His thunderous brow lowered dangerously. "Ulqwait fears nothing. Free me, mage. I will show you my fearlessness, yes?"
Alsabet chuckled. freeing a Greater Demon was utter madness. Nobody would dare do such a thing.
"No. You are still bound, Ulqwait. Bound to me, to my will. You will defend this place until every one of them are dead or you are banished. Those are your new terms. You are free to return to your realm if either of those conditions are met."
He hissed at her, furious, and then stalked back towards the tower.
She let out a breath she couldn’t remember holding, and went looking for the hunter-killer, and found him in the terraced gardens.
"I have taken the liberty of setting up various traps for any hunter killers that happen along." He remarked with his predatory, toothy smile.
"You may be using them sooner than you think. There is an army of villagers on their way. no doubt led by a witch hunter." She warned.
He grinned up at her, hands laced together and resting on his knee. "Will you stay and watch me work my craft?" he asked, "Or will you be leaving to pursue your own agenda?"
She nodded. "I’m leaving." He nodded. "Very well. I have received payment. Rest assured that I will slay the witch hunter for you."