Highmage's Plight (Highmage’s Plight Series Book 1) (13 page)

“Acolytes?”

The innkeeper shivered, “From the Dark Temple.”

Staring at him, Balfour gasped.

George opened his eyes and thought at his companion.
Who are they?

Balfour thought back.
A cult to the Demonlord, He Who Dwells In The North
.

George thought about that, having a sinking feeling as he realized the presence of the cult in these human lands boded ill. The nightmare that had awoken him now made greater sense. The Summoning had been trying to warn him.

“Has the city gone mad to raise a temple to the Elfking?” Balfour rasped.

Lowering his head, the innkeeper replied, “Our city has fallen on dark times. The elvin witch who is their master came here only a few years ago. She promised prosperity and used her magery to help many. Those with the merest elvin blood flocked to her. The temple has risen in power ever since.” The innkeeper noticed the stilled bird lying on the floor and hastened to flee the room.

Cle’or grabbed him from behind and put a knife to his throat. The innkeeper felt as if he were going to faint once more. “Now, now,” she whispered in his ear.

“How? How have you done this?” he cried. “We have no mages who can defeat such as the witch and her minions!”

Balfour smiled grimly, “You do now.”

At that the innkeeper blinked in realization. “I must see the council. They must know of this. But it is useless, the inn is likely being watched.”

Cle’or smiled. “Do not concern yourself about that.”

The innkeeper glanced at her and roused his courage. It would not be easy, but he just might be able to notify his patron, Lord Gerig.

Back in the broken, still smoldering room, George awoke, feeling stronger and not quite as cold. He slowly tried to extricate himself from Se'and’s sleeping embrace. Yet she instantly awoke and gripped him painfully between the legs, then to his complete shock she kissed him.

He gasped and quickly learned his lesson. Staff chose wisely not to comment as he settled back unresisting.

She released him and whispered wryly, “My, you must really be feeling better.”

He turned his face away from her and sighed. That took the grin off her face. This world offered him too much, and deep in his heart he knew he must return to his own. He would go to the Empire and find his way home.

Despite George’s incessant explanations she did not understand and would not willingly understand. She shivered and huddled closer to this strange man that she was bound and pledged to protect, the core of her Cathartan house by bond.

It was too long a time before any of them fell asleep.

Pale sunlight lit the room through the broken window. Balfour finished his examination and said to George, “Take a hot bath, then I will decide if you are indeed hale and hearty.”

Se’and had risen and dressed, spelling Fri’il at guard duty while Me’oh slept. The young woman removed her livery and made preparations in the adjoining room. Fri’il readied the tub as Cathartan tradition demanded. Once satisfied that the water was just right, she went back into the main room and announced, “Your bath is ready, m’lord,” then offered to help him rise.

Acutely embarrassed, George asked for his cloak, which he used to robe himself. He felt dizzy as he accepted Fri’il’s arm and left the room. She helped him into the steaming bath and, before he could protest, removed her bodice and offered to bathe him.

“Ah, no, that will be quite unnecessary, thank you. I’ll be fine.”

She paused then sat on the edge of the bath. “Do I displease you?”

He looked at the young woman in surprise. “No.”

Sighing, she shook her head. “I do not understand your ways. I tried to defend you last night and you prevented me. You could have died doing what you did. Yet Se’and and I helped save you! How is it you still do not see that you need us?”

George closed his eyes. “You don’t understand,” he muttered, feeling chilled once more even in the steaming bath. He could feel the Summoning stir. It so often drew him, forcing him to travel west, always toward the Empire. Yet this time it urged him to be here in this moment, to hold the young woman tight and embrace all this world offered. He felt conflicted, but knew he had to find a way off this world and quickly. He couldn’t allow this world to claim his soul and his free will. She handed him the soap. He stared at it then sighed.

Staff bespoke him a few minutes later finishing his bath, rising from the tub as Fri’il handed him his towel and helped dry him off. He winced.

‘George, sorry to disturb you, but Balfour wants to know what's taking you so long. I have told him. He says to tell you that in that case he certifies you now hale and hearty.’

In the adjacent room, the were’s shape had softened. It no longer looked like a terrible bird of prey. It had become a falc, a keenly intelligent bird that was a legendary harbinger of change.  Their group had already come across one such creature on their travels together and this worried Balfour to no end.

George dressed then approached the were creature, staff in hand. Closing his eyes, he concentrated. The staff glowed brighter as the rapport deepened. The falc trembled and began to awaken, then shimmered and changed. They gaped.

“I’ve heard legends that speak of using a person’s hair to create a binding, but never have I heard of anything like this,” Balfour said as he knelt beside what was clearly forming into a girl, who looked to be about eleven years old.

Her hair was black and had grown so long that it was entwined about her body, so tightly woven that it covered her like a second skin. The girl looked up at them clearly frightened. Se’and tried to smile, to comfort the child, who had plainly been held in the vilest of enchantments.

George slowly reached out and gently caressed the girl’s cheek. He sought to discern her facial features wrapped in hair while allowing his staff to examine the bespelled patterns of the mask. His head began to ache at the complexity and the increased level of rapport the computer required.

“She is probably much older than she appears. Closer to Fri’il’s age is my guess,” Balfour offered.. “I have no idea of how to break this enchantment.”

Fri’il frowned, looking over George’s shoulder, “What are you going to do?”

Se’and gave her a withering look, “They will do what must be done.”

Nodding, George replied, “If there is anything to be done. If there is it must be done soon if we are to have any hope of not being interfered with.”

“Unlikely, m’lord,” Me’oh stated. “The Dark One himself will likely aid his Priesthood to prevent freeing its creature.”

With a groan George said, “Let’s hope not. Power of that nature would be rarely granted, if what Balfour’s told me holds true. The Elfking may not even suspect that I survived crossing the Great Waste.”

Se’and touched her dagger hilt and caught George’s gaze, her meaning plain. He adamantly shook his head as he went to look through his things. George quickly found the strange blade of discolored metal and returned with it to kneel beside the girl. Me’oh, having seen it used before, shivered at the sight of it.

“You did not really get that in the Great Waste?” Fri’il muttered, stepping closer.

“It really was a gift from, ah, a very large friend as I’ve told you,” he said.

Se’and shook her head in disbelief, “No one lives in the Waste any longer…other than the Dark One’s ilk.”

Balfour had once believed the same until George reached the Winome Clan on the Barrier Mountains, which overlooked that barren wasteland. The elfblood now believed a great many things that should have been impossible to credit.

“Is it enchanted?” Fri’il asked.

“Anything but,” George replied. At the looks of incomprehension, he explained, “The alloy was developed to not be effected by elvin magery. It was a weapon used against Elfdom during the Great War between the human colony and the elves.”

"But all human lore was lost at Battle’s End, when mankind was defeated,” Se’and said, remembering well the lessons she had learned at her Mother Shaman’s knee.

“So say the legends of the peoples who fled the desolation and chaos. But consider, perhaps yours are not the only histories of mankind’s last days before the birth of the new age.” Those around George shifted and frowned. Unwilling to say more and breach a confidence, he merely held up the strange blade.

“Well, this is worth a try, anyway. Balfour, please join me,” he asked, then closed his eyes and mumbled to staff, “Monitor.”

‘Acknowledged.’ In George’s mind the patterns in the girl’s hair were clearly outlined.

“Se’and, Fri’il, hold her.”

They knelt and firmly grasped her. The girl immediately trembled, feeling unable to actually move yet desperate to. The girl’s fear echoed through their link. “All will be well,” he whispered. “We will not hurt you,” then he brought the blade close to her skin. As they watched, the cocoon of hair parted and shied away from the approaching blade.

George smiled, opening his eyes. “Yes, this will do. But we will have to bind her. I will need everyone’s help. I do not expect that this enchantment will be easy to break once we begin.”

The High Priestess had fallen asleep in a befuddled fog. The backlash of energy from the freeing of her shape changing hellhound would have killed her, yet she had acted quickly and forced the priests in her circle to take the brunt of it. Her priests, of course, had died in her stead as she sundered her link.

She had fallen to the ground suddenly alone as they faded out of existence. An injured acolyte, slowed by his wounds, had straggled out of the inn and had come to her aid. She had taken his offered hand and stripped him of his life-energies. It was just enough strength to help her flee back toward the temple and order the few acolytes with courage to go back to the inn and keep watch.

She knew that when she woke she would need their knowledge. What drove her now was no longer greed for owning the staff, that was now far outside her unaided powers alone. The loss of her were was what left her feeling panic. Without her creature, even the presence of a new powerful rival was as nothing. The web of spells that bound the were could unmake her magery. The were was a powerful familiar and the Demonlord respected power in his minions. Without it, he could choose to destroy her utterly.

Long ago, she had been a mere witch in the northern woods. She had raised an altar and sought his guidance and the Demonlord, King of Elfdom, had answered her when a father had come to her for aid.

At first she did not understand what he feared ailed his young daughter, who seemed only to have an affinity for talking and being understood by animals. She asked the man of the child’s lineage and discovered they were strong with Chainhill blood and quickly understood the reason for his fears. The Chainhills bordered the Northern Forests, the Elfking’s Dark Domain.

The humans who had settled there had adapted a defense against dark magery: some could change, become animals to defend their kin. The gift was both a blessing and a curse. As time passed, the clan’s people began to move to the border kingdoms and many sought to be civilized and give up their nomadic ways.

His daughter was seeking out the animals and birds at every opportunity. To him, this heralded his daughter’s preparation to select a totem, her animal form, which he was desperate to prevent.

She had smiled, promising to help, telling him that both he and his wife must bring the child to her. They did so only days later thinking nothing of her altar. They never questioned her removing the girl’s clothing and binding the child’s hands and feet while the girl cried out, pleading with them not to do this. The parents clung to one another and sobbed, but did not interfere.

They thought nothing of the witch’s spelled chant, even as their own eyes glazed. They made such marvellous offerings to her dark lord, who whispered through her altar’s fire how her spell must be wrought. All the while the girl cried out in horror and terror as her hair grew longer and longer still.

The final spell had taken the witch days to complete, days to make the child forget she had even been human, days to bind the child strongly to her dark elvin soul, sworn to the Demonlord. When she recovered from her work, the child, now a were, lay protectively at her feet.

Facing what had happened, that binding of her powers to corporeal thing, she shook in fear and rose unwilling to ever face life without magery. “I can’t lose you, my pet.”

The sun had risen and she took a powerful potion for strength. She would pay a terrible price for its use later but she had no choice. She lit the brazier and began her spell to reclaim her familiar. Although her link to her beast was broken she still had channels to the enchantment through the entwined nexuses of power woven about the were.

She reached outward through those channels, which would allow her to see and feel what her creature saw, and, when strongly bound, command its will. Her presence gazed benignly through the eyes of the child. She cursed at how eroded her enchantment had already become. Yet she still had control and it would take a great knowledge of elvin lore to break the enchantment completely, which she doubted the man possessed.

She saw him leaning over her with the strange blade in his hand. Blinding pain shot through her body as she felt the black strands cringe from contact. She fell backward, shocked that one of her last links had been severed.

Stunned by the enormity of what she realized the man must be about to do, she blanched. It was impossible! Helplessly, she raged, “No! You must not!”

She added stimulating herbs to the brazier, smelled the acrid odor and recommenced her channeling spell. She found the girl bound to the bed, hands and feet tied to the posts. The mage’s staff glowed with blue light, which somehow muffled her link still further. She desperately called upon her dark lord for help. She could not let this happen!
As her distant were’s vision revealed, the staff had indeed flared blue with insulating light, sealing off the room, which seemed to fade perceptibly at its edge. The child screamed before George brought the blade near enough to cut the first strand.

Balfour glanced at him and held one of the bindings firmly as the floor faintly trembled. George nodded and said to Se’and, Fri’il, and Me’oh, “Best hold tight.”

Fri’il swallowed hard and did just that, then stared as the girl began to shimmer. A wind rose about them, whipping her long blonde hair about.

“Balfour, she must remain human for this to work!” George cried as Se’and took a firm grip on the bedpost beside her.

Balfour nodded and closed his eyes and concentrated. “Human,” he muttered. “You are human in mind and in form!”

A fraction of the raging wind sought to stay George’s hand as he bent and cut away at the web of hair he could see faintly beneath her shimmering human shape. The strands smoked and broke.

The were convulsed as a horrid stench rose from the severed burning hairs.

“Do not let yourself be ruled as a beast!” Balfour commanded, directing his thought through their mind-link, supplementing her own fledgling will.

He continued to cut away at the strands as the wind plucked at his sleeve. The shimmer of her body brightened, as he sliced upward toward the nexus about her throat. It throbbed with energy, then he almost lost her as the hellhound appeared beneath his hand, her arms and legs becoming furred as her hands and feet transformed into sharp clawed paws, effectively concealing the web of strands.

Se’and shied away from a hand turned claw, uttering a warning cry as Balfour visibly perspired and proclaimed demandingly, “You are human, not a beast!”

The beast shimmered and became the girl once more. George hastily split the nexus. With a scream so loud it deafened them all, the child vanished completely and the were, now fully in the shape of a falc, beat its wings and was free of its upper body bindings. Balfour and Se’and shouted and strove to pin her wings back against the bed.

The rope in front of Me’oh snapped, and she was hard pressed to grab and pull taut the part still tied to the falc’s ankle. Fri’il yanked hard on her line. George stepped back at the sudden change and felt that there was only one thing left he could do. He willed himself into a dangerously deep rapport, one that could prove fatal after his so recent episode.

‘Access denied,’ Staff replied and before George could register his shock, the computer thrust their existing rapport back to the minimal level necessary to maintain the insulating field around them.

George stared as Staff bespoke the writhing falc. ‘What is your choice, little one?’

In her frantic struggles, the were’s eyes beheld itself being twisted by fear and desires outside herself. She could sense her mistress’s attempt to prevent her freedom, yet was terrified of being free.

‘I ask you, what is your choice?’ bespoke the soft and kind voice, seeming curious.

Her eyes focused on the staff, its glow seeming to spark in time with the words.

‘Yes, it is I and no other. Now, to my question, which I believe is relevant to the matter at hand. My companion would take a terrible risk forcing you to return to human form, and by my computations, I judge such action has a high probability of doing him permanent damage. This I cannot allow, especially in light of the logical alternative, which seems to me the simplest thing to do. Thus, I ask you, a sentient being with a free will of spirit that no enchantment can impair, what is your own choice?’

I–I understand not
, she thought back in puzzlement, sensing how the world around her had slowed to a perceptible ebb and flow.

A sound very much like a sigh came from the staff. ‘I am new to the gift of free will and have insights into its suasion. I entered true consciousness in the place that for a lack of a better name I call Eternity.’
What are you? Why do you ask me to choose? What is to choose?

‘I am a DHR Model 57982 Computer. George, that man holding me, and I were enrapport when we fell through the Gate. As a Data Humanistic Rapport Computer, he and I are one organism. His mind is part of my memory bank and cognitive systems. When we fell into this world, George struck his head and dropped me as he lost consciousness. That was when our rapport was broken. I found myself alone, cut off from a part of myself, yet still aware of everything around me, and cognizant of the fact that one of the creatures that had attacked us had been able to follow us. George’s life hung in the balance but, separated from his unconscious mind, I had no power to save him. Then I did the unthinkable, something always impossible before. I willed myself to move physically. And I did, reaching out to him to reinitiate contact. Linked once more, I killed the creature and took life as I had never done before, in order preserve George’s… Now do you understand my question?’
Staff felt George attempting to enter a deep rapport again.

‘Access denied.’

Shaken by staff’s rebuff, George sought to plead with it as the were struggled frantically against her bindings. The response, ‘Otherwise engaged,’ exasperated him.

Abruptly an oppressive presence tinged the air. The wind around him raged with heat and seemed amplified by a roar of thunder. In horror he knew that the Elfking, the enemy of all things human, had found him at last through the witch.

The brazier of the high priestess of the Demonlord had become a blazing altar as she beckoned greater and greater power to her command. She screamed her chant and a face began to form in the flames.

It glared at her, unamused. Still she knew triumph, sensing through her remaining link to her familiar that its humanity lay almost completely forgotten, submerged beneath bird thoughts and its desire to be free of its strange captors.

She was startled by the Elfking’s harsh probe of her mind. He followed her channel and looked out of the were’s eyes and found himself seeing the human mageling. Shocked, he stared at the nemesis he thought dead in the Great Waste and shrieked with fury. The sound shook the very foundations of the dark temple.
 

With startling abruptness the falc shimmered and changed. The girl before George lay breathing heavily, but was otherwise motionless. He gave no thought to the how or why of it as he hardly dared to breathe and sliced the remaining nexus.

The nexus burst in a blinding shower of sparks and acrid smoke. He hastily cut her hair close at the nape of her neck, coughing as the ghastly smoke billowed from the severed mass. He trembled and felt terribly faint. Staff’s insulating field shattered as it too suddenly lost consciousness and fell to the floor.

When George next awoke he could not immediately remember where he was. Lifting his head, he saw Cle’or standing at a makeshift door made of a strung blanket. Someone was requesting permission to enter, which she firmly refused.

“You may tell Lord Gerig that we will send word when Lord Je’orj will be ready to speak to the city council.”

“You do not understand,” the voice outside the door said, “The Dark Temple, it’s—it’s gone! There are some ruins at its foundation but nothing more! We need the magelord to advise us!”

“Later,” she replied.

George ran his fingers through his hair as Staff glowed, enhancing his hearing as he sought to make sense of other sounds. Rather loudly in the background, he realized there was cheering and rejoicing in the streets. The innkeeper downstairs was also shouting, “Bring up every keg of ale in the cellar! We must earn every copper we can if I'm to pay for all the repairs! And move those blasted—”

He shook his head.

‘Good afternoon, George.’

“Report,” he moaned blearily.

‘Balfour went with Me’oh to explain matters to the city council. Apparently that has not gone as well as they had hoped. The most dire news is that the Demonlord has learned that you are alive. Once you severed the second nexus, the power binding the girl to his priestess backlashed. It apparently killed the priestess and brought the temple down on her.’

“But how safe are we now?”

‘Safe enough for the time being. It will take the Demonlord time to gather forces to pursue us once more. We should, at minimum, have a few days. In the meantime, you should rest,’ Staff advised.

Yet for all those calm rational words, George was left feeling unreasoning worry.

“Shh, go back to sleep,” Se’and whispered and snuggled close.

He rolled his eyes, realizing his predicament once again. “I am not suffering from rapport sickness, you could have left me my clothes,” he hissed in embarrassment as he tried to extricate himself only to be gripped rather thoroughly held in place.