A wave of power exploded from the woman’s hand, and I leaped sideways, hoping to dodge it somehow. Instead of rushing at me, though, the power tore into the ground, and the floor beneath began to tremble and shake. The stone where the power had passed through it suddenly glowed dull red, brightened swiftly into brilliant orange as a circle about six feet across liquefied. A blast of heat raced through the room as a column of liquid stone erupted upward, spraying fifteen feet into the air. The column of lava twisted and writhed, splattering droplets of hot stone around it. The top of it lengthened and morphed into a roughly snakelike head that turned toward me, glaring with eyes that were dark gray pools of ash.
My spear flashed into my hand as the creature struck at me, and I dove to the side. I rolled out of its way, and its lunge missed, but the heat of its passage beat at my back. The skin there felt reddened and tender, and I could smell singed fur where even the missed attack had burned me. I scrambled to my feet just in time to dodge another strike by the serpentine creature. I stabbed out with a Channeled Strike from my spear, but the serpent twisted away from the blow, nimbly slipping past my attack. Its mouth gaped, and I sprang sideways again, rolling out of the way. I was glad I had when a blast of liquid stone erupted from its jaws, spraying the ground where I’d been with glowing orange lava.
It lunged for me again, and I once more slipped past its strike, feeling the heat of its passage tightening the skin of my face and arms. My spear darted out, sinking into the thing’s body, and it recoiled as the Channeled Strike tore into it. It responded with another blast of lava that I had to leap away from, then surged after me, its black eyes dead and lifeless as its glowing jaws snapped toward me. I batted its attack aside but hissed in pain as droplets of molten stone splattered my arms, burning into my flesh. I stabbed it with another Channeled Strike, and it lurched backward, but even as I watched, the hole I’d made in its side flowed shut.
“Is it healing itself, Sara?” I asked with a touch of despair.
“It’s drawing power from the volcano’s magma pools, I think,” she replied. “Unless you cut it off from those, I don’t think you can hurt it, John.”
“Great. Any suggestions on how to cut it off?”
“Ice.” Kadonsel’s voice replied instantly. “Ice is the counter to lava.”
“Damn shame I’m all out of ice spirits, then,” I thought grimly, dodging another attack. “Sara, what can I do with the spirits I’ve got?”
“You could channel a mortal spirit into an Elemental Ice Blast, but I doubt it would do more than cool off the outer layer of that thing. You’d need a lot more power to actually affect it.”
I glanced around at the steadily strengthening rush of energy flowing into the center of the room. “Can I tap this with my Draining Aura?”
“Yes, but it won’t give you enough. The Aura would have to work against the array’s flow, and it’s so strong that you won’t grab much except what you’re in the direct path of.”
I rolled aside, dodging another strike, then leaped back as the serpent tried to blast me with its lava breath once more. A hoarse scream rose behind me, and I glanced back to see one of the Menskie guards writhing on the floor, his body covered in a skin of swiftly-cooling stone. He thrashed a bit, then fell still, but his presence reminded me that the lava snake wasn’t the only danger in the room. I glanced around and saw more guards drawing near, although they moved more carefully after seeing what happened to the last one. I was running out of time and options.
“I’m going to have to trigger my rituals and hope for the best,” I thought grimly. “The Bargain will remain intact, but I might actually live through this.”
“There might be another option, John. Fifa’s crystal would give you plenty of power, and probably access to other spirits.”
“That’s great, Sara. Have you figured out how to access it?”
“I can only think of one option, the one sure way to link to any spirit. An offering of blood.”
The spirit struck again, but as it did, a sudden flurry of ice wrapped around it. Its glowing skin darkened slightly, and it whipped its head about in seeming pain and confusion, recoiling away from me. I glanced sideways to see Fifa standing not far from me, her hands raised as she battered the spirit with its nemesis. I could tell her attack wasn’t really damaging it, but she’d given me a moment of respite. Now, I had to decide what to do with it.
My Ritualism skill told me that while Sara’s idea would work, it could also provide the valskab a way past my defenses—which meant Fifa, thanks to her link to her valskab. If I linked to it that way, she could strike at me pretty much with impunity, and there wouldn’t be much I could do to stop her. I could ask if I trusted her that much or not, but that really wasn’t the question. The question was: did I have any other option?
Growling, I pulled the crystal from storage, bit my own tongue, and popped the thing into my mouth. I’d need both hands free to fight, after all. As my blood touched the crystal, a surge of power poured out of it and flooded me, rushing into my body. My center filled with energy almost instantly, and more of it poured out into Kadonsel and my other spirits.
Power wasn’t all I felt, though. I could feel the presence of the spirits of Fifa’s valskab through the link with perfect clarity. There were dozens of them, ranging in strength from weak land spirits that barely had any awareness to the powerful elder spirit tying the valskab together. And beyond that, I could feel the members of the valskab, their thoughts and minds dim glows that I could sense as if seeing them through a fog.
That included Fifa, whose thoughts were far clearer, probably because she was so much closer. I could sense her fear and anger, her sense of betrayal and her terror of what she’d unknowing helped the heltharvis do. I felt her hope that somehow, we could stop this, and her dread that we would, and she’d have to keep watching her people’s children wither and die. As I felt all that, I realized why the valskab meant so much to the Menskies. With this kind of a link between them, they would be closer than any concept of family or friendship I could imagine.
“This—this is a valskab?” Kadonsel asked in a whisper, her voice thick and dreamy. “It’s amazing! I never realized!”
Her words shook me from my sudden paralysis, and I remembered that I was in the middle of a fight, here. I pushed her voice aside as I grabbed that power and channeled it into my hand, concentrating on the concept of ice. To my surprise, a misty cloud of blue-white flowed from the crystal down my arm as an ice spirit answered my call. I pushed power into it in the pattern of my Elemental Blast, and a thick band of ice exploded from my hand, slamming into the base of the lava spirit. The creature thrashed and twisted around madly as the ice sank into it, and its connection to the pool of lava beneath it blackened and crusted as the ice solidified the stone there. The thing lunged at me, but as it did, it tore free from its now-solid base, landing awkwardly like a glowing, writhing worm on the floor.
I pulled more power from the stone, this time guiding it into my spear and activating Spiritual Strike. The weapon shifted into a shaft of nearly transparent power that pulsed in my senses, and I lunged forward with it. The serpent lashed at me, but its strike was much slower, and I easily dodged to the side. I thrust with the spear, activating Lunge and Heartstrike at the same time, and the weapon plunged into the center of the thing’s head with ease. I quickly channeled a blast of ice down the weapon, into the lava spirit’s body, and it whipped about as the inimical power froze its core, radiating out from the wound I’d given it and spreading through its body. Veins of black rock crackled through it as the ice spread swiftly, and a moment later, the thing’s body exploded into a spray of stone shards. A few of the shards sliced my skin as they passed, but I ignored the superficial wounds and watched as the ice spirit and lava spirit both flowed from away from me, sucked into the growing maelstrom around the flawless crystal. I looked from it toward the other Inquisitor, expecting to see exasperation as I quickly dealt with her attack. She ignored me, though; she only had eyes for Fifa.
“Letharvis!” the Inquisitor shouted, glaring at the other woman with an expression of rage. “You dare to betray me?”
“You’re betraying us all, heltharvis!” Fifa shouted back. “I know what you’re doing! You’re going to strip us of our spirits and cast them into Enverthen!”
“What?”
“Don’t try to deny it! Freyd told me what you were doing, and it’s the only thing that makes sense.” She pointed at the flawless crystal, which had begun to pulse and glow as the heltharvis funneled spirits into it. “What else could you do with all those?”
“You believe this—this outsider?” the heltharvis demanded. “Over someone bound to the valskab?”
“He’s part of the valskab, now!” Fifa retorted. “And through it, I can see the truth of his words! Admit it! You intend to tear our spirits from us and hurl them from our world!”
The Inquisitor glared at me for a moment before the look of anger slipped off her face. “Yes,” she said simply. “I am.”
“You—you admit it?” Fifa gasped, and I heard loud rumbles echo from around the room as the guards reacted to that admission.
“Why not? It’s too late for any of you to do anything about it. Yes. Your spirits will all be drawn here and sent into the void.” She glanced at the patriarch staring at her in horror. “As will the spirits toiling for your people, Patriarch. After being warned that the outer circle might be broken, I sent a spirit to scry it instead of trusting your reports. The circle is woefully incomplete—your Admiralty and army both betrayed you, taking your money without finishing the job—which means the array will draw all the spirits in Almella and possibly Mellung, as well.”
“Why?” the letharvis demanded in a tearful voice. “Why betray our people this way?”
“Your people, not mine,” the Inquisitor countered. “And my reasons are my own, and of no consequence to you.” She gave us all a thin smile. “Besides, none of you will live to worry about it, anyway.”
She lifted her hands again, and the room shook once more. More pools of lava formed on the floor, and smaller columns of molten stone rose from them. Pseudopod-like tendrils of stone erupted from the walls, dropping to the floor and forming spike-covered stalagmites that surged forward. Swirls of wind formed into foot-tall dust devils and swept toward me as the heltharvis hurled some of her gathered spirits at us. As I watched, the power flowing into the room swept a half-dozen of those away, dragging them back into the flawless crystal, but the rest rushed outward, attacking not just me but Fifa, Aeld, and the guards, as well.
My spear darted out at a wind spirit, charged with the heavy power of stone pulled from the valskab’s crystal. The tip pierced the spirit, and the energy in the weapon poured into the swirling wisp. The whirlwind burst into a blast of air before being sucked into the central crystal, but I’d already turned my focus to a four-foot-long lava serpent that flung itself at me. I felled that one with an icy spear thrust, then spun and smashed the butt of my spear into a stalagmite, pouring energy into it with Channeled Strike.
A wave of flame swept through the air as Aeld struck. It unraveled several whirling air spirits at once, then curved down toward the central crystal as the array and heltharvis’ will both grabbed it and captured the spirit driving it. Fifa’s ice crystals bathed a glowing lava serpent, darkening its hide, and a nearby guard leaped forward and smashed the thing with his spear. Two more guards slashed ineffectually at a slow-moving stalagmite, crying out hoarsely as spiked tendrils shot from the thing and slashed them across the face and chest.
I ignored all of that and ripped apart another whirlwind. None of this mattered, really, and the heltharvis knew that. She was just keeping us busy while her ceremony completed, nothing more. That was fine with me; I was just trying to stay alive until the right moment, myself. That wasn’t as simple as it probably should have been. The power I could draw from the valskab was amazing, an endless well of energy to draw from, but I knew it wouldn’t last. Fifa’s valskab was far from here, but the array would reach it eventually, and then its spirits would get sucked into the crystal where I couldn’t tap them. Even as I fought, I felt that power dwindling as its spirits were drawn into the central crystal and held there where I couldn’t touch them.
“At last!” the Inquisitor shouted as a sudden heaviness entered the room. The wind pressing at my back screamed with the force of a gale, and the air around me grew so heavy and thick I struggled to breathe. The mountain trembled and shook as a silvery mist, one tinged with streaks of gold, flowed into the room, riding the currents of power. A deep and awesome awareness filled that mist, one that awed me with its breadth and power, and a dreadful weight suddenly pushed down on me, trying to force me to my knees. The lesser spirits unraveled instantly, sucked backward into the maelstrom around the heltharvis, and I stared at her in rising awe and concern.
Power rose from the woman in a visible whirlpool of energy. Tendrils of it flickered and danced like lightning, stretching up to touch the spirits lights above. Those lights writhed and twisted madly as if in pain—or as if fighting to escape their eternal enslavement. Flikkur burned above with a brilliant light that speared down on the woman like a spotlight, making the silver circle around her shone like a wall of radiance.
As I watched, some of those tendrils of power stretched out and grasped the incoming spirit, one that I suspected had to be the spirit of the Haelendi. The powerful spirit thrashed and twisted in the grip of the woman’s power, and the air echoed and thrummed just from its struggles. Her face firmed and her chin set, though, and more of the tendrils wrapped about the spirit, slowly compressing it from a silvery mist to something far denser, almost liquid. The pressure in the room increased as the spirit fought for its freedom, and for a moment, I thought it might escape.
The array’s spiritual wind rose in fury to a howling tempest that ripped at me with unseen but clearly felt fingers. That storm slammed into the high spirit, driving it toward the waiting crystal. I felt its rage and fury shift to uncertainty and fear as it was brought closer to the gleaming obelisk. A tendril of it touched the surface, and the thing roared in pain and anger as it began to be drawn inside. The crystal’s glow steadily brightened as the spirit began to vanish, increasing in intensity and shifting from dull orange to bright white in seconds. I could barely even look at the pillar of light, and as it grew even brighter, I had to look away.
“And now,” the Inquisitor said triumphantly, “the Bargain will be broken!”
“Is it time, Sara?” I asked silently.
“Almost, John. Try watching with See Spirits and See Magic. It’ll be easier to tell.”
I closed my eyes and turned back toward the heltharvis, turning on both abilities as I did. Power flared around her, still too brightly to look directly at, but after a moment, the intensity dimmed as if I’d put on a pair of very dark glasses.
“Sorry about that,” Sara said apologetically.
“You’re getting better at adjusting it, at least,” I pointed out. “That used to take you a minute or so.”
“Lots of practice,” she chuckled. “Keep looking at things that are incredibly energy-dense, and I’ll get even better.”
I turned my focus back to the heltharvis. Through my closed lids, she was a pillar of bright energy, filled with power but empty of spirits except her brownish mortal one. The silver shape of the spirit of the Haelendi radiated brilliantly from within the central crystal, but with both abilities active, it looked less like a spirit and more like the center of an incredibly thick and elaborate web. Strands of power streaked out from it, reaching into the sky, down into the earth, and shooting out through the walls in every direction. One strand, I noticed, touched Fifa, while another shot out toward Aeld; one even connected to my face, which I assumed meant the crystal in my mouth was linked to it. The strands clustered so densely that there was barely any space between them, shrouding everything else in a dim haze that made anything but the heltharvis and the spirit hard to see.
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Power exploded from the woman in a blast that Sara quickly dimmed to the point I could see it clearly. Thick bands of energy snaked from her and curled around the flawless crystal, forming a perfect circle a few feet away from it. Slimmer bands slithered forward, slipping into the circle and weaving throughout it, splitting into even thinner lines and curves. As they twisted and writhed about, I watched them with a feeling of amazement. I recognized what she was doing, and I knew that there was no way I could possibly do it.
“Sara, is she…?”
“Creating her severing ritual with nothing but will alone? Yes, John.”
“Shit. What kind of skill level in Ritualism does it take to do that?”
“Master, at least. Remember, though, she’s also got much higher mental stats than you, and she’s had decades of practice with these rituals. I’m not sure you could do this right now even with a master ranking in the skill. Practice really does make perfect.”
Even as the ritual slowly activated, a beam of light shot up from the perfect crystal and streaked into the sky. In seeming response, Flikkur suddenly blazed with brilliant fire, its light brightening until it burned like a moon in the air above. That light was enough for me to see the beam of power streaming up from the crystal reaching a spot in the sky and tearing a hole in it. Blackness loomed in the center of that hole, a darkness deeper and more profound than the night sky. As the hole grew, the stars behind it winked out, blotted out by its blackness. The stream of power poured into it, and I watched helplessly as a rainbow-hued column of spirits vanished into that darkness.
“She started the banishment early,” I thought with a touch of desperation. “Sara, what happens if I activate the rituals now?”
“The Bargain will probably be weakened, John. But it’ll still hold. Look.”
I turned my gaze back to the heltharvis and watched as the bands of power twisted and curled around, finally ending by slipping around the crystal to create the innermost circle. Another surge of power rolled out of the Inquisitor, and the ritual began to light up as that energy flowed into it. The high spirit roared again in fury and pain, twisting and writhing inside its crystal, but even as it struggled, a shimmering blade flared from the ritual and lashed up at it. A section of the strands stretching from the spirit parted as the blade cut through them, withering and curling like a burnt spiderweb before vanishing in a cloud of mist that was sucked right back into the crystal. The spirit screeched in pain, but it seemed helpless to resist as another blade swept upward, cutting another swath of tendrils free. The woman’s plan was working; pretty soon, the Bargain would be gone.
“Outsider!” Kadonsel screamed in my thoughts, startling the shit out of me. “The void in the sky! Something’s coming through it!”
I glanced upward, and my eyes widened as I saw a golden glow shimmering in the heart of the inky blackness hovering above us. That darkness suddenly began to expand, growing swiftly until it blotted out everything above us, leaving only Flikkur somehow burning through its shroud like a tiny sun. The glow intensified, and a feeling of incredible power rolled out of the sky and crashed into me, nearly dropping me to my knees. Fifa and the nearby guards did fall, the letharvis sinking to one knee while the guards fell to both. Near the crystal, the patriarch writhed on the floor, sobbing wordlessly, while the two ojaini shivered in obvious terror.
“Heltharvis!” Fifa screamed. “End this! The First Spirits—they’re returning!”
The Inquisitor turned her face upward to stare at the golden glow in the sky. “Irrelevant!” she finally shouted back. “With the power I hold, even your First Spirits can’t stop me!” She glanced at me, her face creased with an evil grin. “And neither can you! Observe!”
Power surged into the ritual as blade after blade slashed upward, parting more of the strands linking the spirit of the Haelendi to the world around it. As that ritual unfolded, though, a surge of power flowed out from the woman, pouring into the circle enclosing the two ojaini. Both screamed into their gags as the power flooded the ritual, lighting it up step by step.
“My people!” Kadonsel shrieked in my head. “Outsider! Do something!”
“The Bargain isn’t broken, John,” Sara said quietly. “If you do it now, it’ll stay intact.”
I gritted my teeth but stood in place, watching as the power sank into the chaining ritual and poured over the Oikithikiim inside. The two ojaini screamed in pain as the power blasted into them, bucking and twisting, but rather than simply tearing free their spirits as it had Kadonsel’s, it surged into them, and a beam of power shot outward into the distance. The patriarch screamed as it passed, and I saw tendrils of the ritual sinking into him, wrapping around his spirit and beginning to cut it free of his body.
I tore my gaze away from that sight and pushed down Kadonsel’s wails in my mind. It wasn’t the right time, yet. It sucked that some of the Oikies were dying, but if I moved too quickly, it might kill a whole lot more. Instead, I watched the spiritual blades flashing around the flawless crystals, slashing at the spirit trapped within. Each cut severed another group of tendrils, causing them to blacken, curl, and evaporate. One sweep of a blade cut the ties leading upward into the sky, and the spirit lights above us tensed for a moment before exploding into a rainbow of colors. Energy raced from the sky in a ring, and I watched as thousands of tattered, brownish mortal spirits fell from the sky in a rain, quickly losing coherence and fading into mist that was sucked upward into the blackness above.
The golden glow there intensified as that mist reached it, and the light in the center of the darkness brightened into a brilliant glow that shone as bright as the sun, making it impossible to look at. That radiance dimmed as Sara adapted to it, though, and I watched with slowly growing fear as a pseudopod-like tendril of golden light dropped out of the blackness and descended into the air below. Another wave of power exploded from it, followed by a terrible weight of presence that bore down on me, as if something far beyond my comprehension pressed against my mind, demanding my submission. I snarled and fought against it, staying erect, but beside me, Fifa dropped to the floor, pressing her forehead against it with a sob of fear.
“The First Spirits!” she wailed. “They’re coming!”
“Let them!” the heltharvis laughed. Another slash from her ritual severed the line leading toward me, and instantly, the crystal in my mouth went dead as the power to it cut off. Fifa cried out again at that, and I glanced at her to see if she was okay. She definitely wasn’t; she lay on the floor, curled up in a ball, her arms wrapped around herself, shaking and trembling.
“The valskab!” she cried out in an anguished voice. “It-it’s gone! I can’t feel it! Oh, spirits, it’s gone!” Tears streamed from her eyes as she shook and shuddered.
Yeah, definitely not okay, but she’d get over it. At least, I hoped.
Fifa wasn’t the only one to suffer, of course. The guards around me all crumpled, most of them sobbing as their ties to one another were forcibly severed. I had a feeling that all over the Haelendi, the same scene was playing out over and over again. At least Fifa had known this was coming; to most of the Menskies, losing the valskabs would be a horrific shock. It might even be a lethal one, and I predicted a rash of suicides over the next few days among their people.
That thought made me glance over at the writhing, thrashing ojaini. Power still poured into the ritual binding them and rushed out into the distance, and I knew that somewhere out there, Oikithikiim were dying by the second, their souls stripped from their bodies. There would be plenty of death for everyone, it seemed.
I glanced upward as the voice rolled out of the sky, silencing Fifa and the guards, and I swore silently at what I saw. The golden glow had solidified, and now a shimmering mass of power so dense it looked almost solid filled the sky above us. The pressure of it bore down on me, and I had to fight to stand.
The First Spirits were here, and that I certainly hadn’t planned for. If I didn’t act soon, all this was going to go to shit in a hurry.
“Now, John,” Sara said urgently, her voice breaking into my thoughts. “It’s time!”
“As promised, the Bargain is broken!” the heltharvis suddenly shouted triumphantly as the last of the ties fell away from the spirit of the Haelendi. “Now, to breach the barrier and complete my mission!”
“Yeah, I don’t think so,” I shouted back, flexing my will. She froze and whipped around as all about her, my tiny rituals sprang to life. Twenty blazing crystals shone with power stolen from the incoming current, and that energy flooded the rather simple rituals surrounding them, shedding a baneful light that seemed to coalesce around her.
“What’s this?” the heltharvis asked contemptuously in Verkish. “The blade part of my severing ritual?”
“Twenty of them, actually,” I called out to be heard over the eldritch wind screaming inward. “All aimed at you thanks to this array that you’ve built.”
“Clever, but pointless!” she laughed derisively. “The circle around me is more than strong enough to hold out any attack you could muster!”
“You sure about that?” I laughed as well. “What if I mixed a little of your blood into the ritual paint—the blood you left behind when I turned your ritual against you? Pretty sure that’ll make a difference.”
Her eyes widened as the rituals flared into being, hurling a score of shimmering, iridescent spears at her. The arcane currents drove them to terrific speeds, and they crossed the room in an eyeblink. Fast as they were, though, the Inquisitor was faster. Energy burst from her, flooding the circle around her, turning the wall of translucent energy into something that felt more solid than stone. The spears met that wall—and slid through it, carried on the bridge of her blood, one that bypassed all her resistances and defenses. The spears plunged into her, and she screamed as they slid deep into her body, transfixing her completely.
“You—accomplished—nothing!” she shrieked, still gathering power to herself and holding a trembling hand toward the crystal behind her. “I still have—the power—to do this!” As I watched, energy poured into the crystal, and the spirit of the Haelendi began to be pulled from it, flowing slowly upward into the current of spirits streaming into the First Spirit above.
“Too bad I’m not giving you the chance,” I said grimly. I raced forward, my spear held low as I ran at the woman. She staggered, barely able to stand as the ghostly blades cut deep into her spirit, but she still eyed me with contempt. I didn’t blame her. Her shield still held, and there was no way I was getting through it with my spear. Even if I did, with stats like hers, she could probably hand me my ass without even trying, even with all that spiritual damage. She straightened and readied herself, preparing to counter my attack, but I dropped to a knee and slid toward her. Unfortunately for her, my spear wasn’t meant for her. It shimmered into translucence as I activated Spiritual Strike and plunged it into the stone at her feet, touching the ritual I’d hidden under the stone. The weapon plunged into the glowing spot Sara highlighted for me, and I poured energy into it through my Channeled Strike. The glowing bands of silver lit up quickly beneath the woman’s feet, and her eyes grew even wider as she recognized what I’d painted around her.
“What—what have you done?” she screeched.
“Ritual of Chaining,” I grinned at her. “Also painted in your blood. I wonder how easy it’ll be to send those spirits to Enverthen when you can’t touch or sense them?”
She screamed and swept a hand at me, and a wall of force crashed into me, flinging me backward. I landed hard and rolled, my head ringing and darkness framing my vision. I managed to cling to consciousness long enough to trigger Adrenaline Surge, which pushed away the creeping blackness and cleared my head immediately.
The woman screamed as power surged around her, wrapping her in a web of energy. Grayish light shrouded her as the ritual swiftly enclosed her, racing inward toward her much faster than Aeld’s had so long ago on that windswept beach at the top of nowhere. The innermost circle lit up, and she screamed again as the power tore through her defenses with ease, riding the blood link I’d placed within it directly into her core. The ritual plunged into the center of her and spread into her chest, and as I watched, the power flooding her body slowly leaked out, leaving a dark hole in her center. That hole grew swiftly as the ritual rushed through her, and she shrieked again as it washed into her body.
The spirit rising from the crystal froze and sank back into it as the power flowing from the woman sputtered and died. The circle around the ojaini began to dim as the woman’s chaining cut off her ability to guide energy into the ritual. She staggered backward and stared at me with horror-filled eyes.
“No! You unkrakev! Filthy blatemakt! You’ve trapped me here!” she screeched in Verkish, dropping to her knees as the last of the power fled from her body.
“Insults, I take it?” I asked Sara a little woozily as I reached into my storage and pulled out the last of my adulterated silver paint. I quickly poured it onto the knife I’d stolen; I had a feeling this was going to go south in a hurry.
“More like things that don’t translate well,” she said apologetically. “But yes, also insulting. ‘Unkrakev’ implies that you do things with your mother that are both unhygienic and might be anatomically impossible, for example.”
“That’s a lot to put into one word.”
“Verkish is an advanced language, for sure.”
“You may have stopped me,” the Inquisitor snarled, steadying herself, “but I’ll take you with me!” She lunged forward, sprinting from her circle and rushing toward me far faster than I could have moved. Even bereft of her spirits and with a ton of spiritual damage, it seemed, her stats simply dwarfed mine. Before she took two steps, though, Bregg’s spear flew out of nowhere and slammed into her side, punching deep into her body. The man had stayed hidden and waited, just as I’d instructed. I’d probably have to thank him later, which might end up being the hardest part of the day.
The heltharvis stumbled and fell hard on her side, curling up around the wound. I assumed she had abilities like mine that would let her ignore it, but I wasn’t about to give her the chance. I leaped atop her, taking her back swiftly. She roared and lashed out, flinging her head back to try and knock me away and swinging her elbows at my sides. She was enormously strong, but her body still moved like a normal one, and she couldn’t reach me on her back—at least, not before I took my knife and jammed it into her stomach. She hissed with pain, but that wasn’t why I stabbed her. As the knife broke her skin, I triggered my severing spell, pushing it through the blade and down the bridge of blood into her. Her body stiffened as the spiritual blades of the spell slashed at the ties holding her spirit in place, freezing as she lost all mobility for a moment.
In that moment, I let go of the knife, lifted my hand, and triggered Spiritual Strike. My paint-coated, translucent hand plunged into her back and slid into her without breaking the flesh. It was an odd sensation as I felt her spirit wriggling like a handful of tadpoles beneath my touch, struggling to free itself from my spell. Before she could, I grabbed it and yanked, pulling hard. Her spirit resisted, but weakened by the twenty blades I’d sunk into her, the chaining ritual, and the severing spell, it had no real ability to fight back. My hand tore free of her body, holding her misty, struggling spirit in my grasp. I pushed free of her and let the spirit go, watching as it swiftly evaporated into mist that flowed upward and sank into the First Spirit still hovering above.
“What did you do to her?” Kadonsel asked in a whispered voice.
“I took her spirit from her.” I turned my thoughts toward Sara. “Can she recover from that?”
“Eventually? Probably. She’s not dead, and the Ritual of Chaining won’t have cut her SARA off from the world’s energy field, just her. It can theoretically regrow her spirit with enough time and power, and that new spirit might not be chained anymore.”
“Then there’s only one thing to do.” I rose to my feet and flipped the woman over onto her back. She stared at me with dull eyes, but deep inside them, I could still see a spark burning. She wasn’t just alive; she was aware, trapped in her own body. It wasn’t the first time I’d had a mark helpless before me, of course, and idly, part of me wondered which type she was. Was she silently cursing me and promising vengeance? Or was she quietly begging for her life? Was she resigned to her fate, maybe offering prayers to some god that she probably barely believed in? I didn’t know, and the fact was, I never would.
“Sorry about this,” I said with only a touch of regret as I lifted my knife. “But I don’t want to end up back here in a few years when you heal and try this again.” I slammed the blade down, directly into her heart, using Death’s Touch, Heartstrike and Lunge to make sure it got through any defenses she might have. I twisted the blade, expecting her to convulse or spasm, but her spiritless body lay there, limp and unmoving as the light faded from her eyes and her breath stilled.
And that easily, an Inquisitor died. It was a chilling reminder that despite all my abilities, all my strengths, all my professions, a knife in my chest would end me just as quickly. I wasn’t immortal. I wasn’t invincible. No matter what body I inhabited, I was still flesh and blood, and one day, I was going to die—and it wasn’t likely to be in bed on some tropical island somewhere. All my dreams and ambitions would end as quickly and violently as the heltharvis’ had.
“Not today, though, John,” Sara said quietly in my head
“Nope. Not today, it seems.”
“Well done, Freyd!” a voice called out, and my head snapped up to see Aeld walking toward the central crystal, heading for the opposite side of where the heltharvis had stood—the secondary focus of power that I’d forgotten about. I blinked in surprise as I looked at him; I’d totally forgotten about the man somehow, as if his existence had been wiped from my thoughts.
“Did he do that?” I asked Sara.
“I think so, John.”
“How? He lost his spirits!”
“I don’t think he did. Look closer.”
I looked more closely at the man. At first, all I could see was his speckled brown mortal spirit, but as I peered at him, I made out something else. A shadowy sort of pall writhed around him, one that I could barely see, and then only because all his other spirits were gone. Something about that shade set my teeth on edge, and my stomach roiled as Sense Imbalance went haywire on seeing it.
“What the fuck is that, Sara?”
“I don’t know, John. It doesn’t look like any of the spirits I’ve seen. Its fundamental nature is different, as if it’s made of pure shadow instead of spiritual energy.”
“An outer spirit,” Kadonsel whispered. “One from beyond Enverthen. I thought they were just stories!”
I looked away from the spirit that Aeld had somehow hidden from me and probably tapped to shield his presence from me and looked at his face. If I hadn’t known who he was, I probably wouldn’t have recognized him at all. The humble and reserved expression he usually wore was, replaced with a look of haughty contempt I’d never seen before. He hesitated for only a moment before stepping into the second focus, and power surged through his body as he drew it into himself through the inert staff he still held in his hand. The power plunged downward, sinking into the floor and lighting up a series of swirling lines hidden beneath the stone the same way my ritual had been. This one was much larger, though, and much more elaborate. As I stared at it, a sense of dread stole over me.
Maybe I’d jumped the gun on whether or not I’d die today, after all.