The Path of the Storm (The Evermen Saga, Book Three) Page 13

  The Dain turned, his eyebrow raised. "You mean one of the Evermen?"

  "Yes." Ella met his gaze.

  "I didn't see any lore," Barden said. "I saw some kind of chemical explosive, a substance that is also toxic when introduced to the blood."

  Ella was surprised at the Dain's insight. He didn't just rule his people by might.

  "There are other reasons," Ella said. She thought about Evrin's words. Someone had crossed. "I need to know. Has any stranger come to these lands, seeking essence?"

  "Now I'm getting worried, Enchantress," the Dain said.

  "Perhaps it's time to be worried."

  "Yes," said Dain Barden, and the one syllable sent chills through Ella's spine. "I can't say for certain that a stranger came here, but Renrik, one of my most senior necromancers, fled, along with several others of his order. I am the only one who can access our essence reserves, but they took several flasks with them. They also took a ship."

  Ella was surprised. "You have ships?"

  "We don't like those of the houses to know, but yes, we have ships. They took the Icebreaker, one of our best ships."

  It had to be, Ella realised. Evrin was right. One of the Evermen was in Merralya, and he had with him several necromancers.

  "Is it enough?" Ella asked.

  "Enough for what?"

  "You know what I'm asking! Did they take enough essence to build the vats? Enough to build the machines that extract essence from the dead."

  "Yes," the Dain said, sighing. "They took enough."

  "How long ago did this happen?"

  "Some time ago."

  "Why didn't you say anything?" Ella cried.

  "Who are you, woman, to question me in my own palace?" Dain Barden growled, rising to his full height.

  Ella reminded herself she needed the Dain's help, not his ire. She calmed.

  "Where could they have gone?"

  "Where?" Barden said. "I have no idea. And now that I've answered your questions…"

  "There's something else," Ella said.

  "What is it?"

  She took a deep breath. Ella knew Evrin would never teach her the things she needed to know, and this was her only chance.

  "I need you to teach me."

  "Teach you? Teach you what?"

  "I need you to teach me how to bring the dead back to life."

  The Dain laughed. "I learned my lesson with that one. No, never again will we share the knowledge outside my people."

  "There must be something I can offer you that will change your mind."

  "Ha," Barden snorted. "Nothing. You may stay in Ku Kara one more night after tonight, Enchantress. I know it has been a long journey north for you. But then I'll ask you to leave."

  14

  ELLA wandered about Ku Kara. It took her hours but she walked from one end to the other, watching the Akari at work and play, opening her mind to their way of life.

  She thought about Killian.

  With no idea what strange world lay on the other side of the portal, Ella couldn't even picture him. When she tried, she simply saw him as she'd last seen him, bare-chested, near-naked, looking at her with eyes that spoke volumes as he took a step into the unknown.

  Ella held his necklace as she walked, rubbing the worn pendant between her fingers. Lost in thought, she was oblivious to the cold.

  Where was he right now? Was he cold, also?

  His face floated in a void of darkness. Ella again saw his fiery red hair and intense blue eyes, a shade she had only seen before in Evrin.

  Killian had been raised an orphan, and become a street thief in Salvation, under the gaze of Stonewater. He had been offered a chance at a normal life when he'd joined a performing troupe, and with his lean, athletic build, Ella was sure he could have enjoyed a life of success.

  But the Emperor had destroyed the troupe, murdering the only family Killian had ever known. Lost, Killian had returned to Salvation, the only home he knew. The Primate had found him, and turned the young thief to his own evil ends.

  Yet Killian had met Ella, and somehow, she knew she had touched him, and he'd been saved again.

  All he had ever wanted was to find his own family, and feel the sense of belonging that Ella knew he had always wanted to know. Evrin had given Ella part of the story, revealing that Killian was descended in a long line from Evrin himself.

  Sadly, Killian was already gone. He hadn't been present to hear Evrin's confession. And the mystery of Killian's upbringing remained. Who were his parents? Why had they left him?

  Ella remembered the promise she'd made at the Sentinel. She had made a promise to bring Killian home.

  Her plan was still in its infancy, but it depended wholly on learning the lore of the Akari.

  What could she do to make Dain Barden agree to teach her their secrets?

  The problem was, Ella could think of plenty of things the Akari might want, but nothing they seemed to need.

  Heating stones? Nightlamps? Enchanted weapons?

  Ella thought again about the revenants she'd faced in the war. The idea of Akari revenants wielding anything more destructive than steel weapons made her blood run cold.

  Even so, Ella knew the promise of enchanted weapons wouldn't be enough. The Dain simply didn't need them.

  Just that morning, Ella had asked Dain Barden if someone could show her around Ku Kara. She'd felt that if someone taught her enough about Akari culture, she would find something they needed.

  Barden had been pleased, in his way, and asked Ada to show Ella around. Ella knew the Dain felt that if the houses knew more about Akari culture, they would cease to be so filled with fear and revulsion.

  Ella had learned a lot, but still hadn't found anything the Akari needed.

  She thought about Dain Barden Mensk and the forces that drove him.

  As it grew dark in Ku Kara, Ella finally realised what it was she could offer.

  ~

  "WHAT is it?" Dain Barden asked.

  "I wish to speak with you," Ella said.

  The Dain dismissed the aide he'd been talking to with a nod.

  "Well? How did you find the tour my daughter gave you? Was it insightful? Are my people degenerate?"

  Ella decided honesty was the best approach with the forthright ruler of the Akari. "You know that's not how I feel. And I still need your help. So I looked for something I could offer you. Some magic device or tool to make your lives easier. Perhaps some toy or entertainment."

  "And what did you find?"

  "Your people are content, and there is little I can offer."

  "I could have told you that. So you'll be leaving in the morning, then? You can save your farewells for the morrow."

  "Whether I leave depends on you, Dain," Ella said. "After learning more about your people I think I do know what I can offer you, and why you should teach me your lore. I believe I can offer you what no one else can."

  The Dain sighed. "And what is that?"

  "People fear your lore, Dain. They don't understand it, and what they don't understand frightens them." Barden frowned, and Ella grew earnest as she saw his interest was piqued. "Dain Barden, I've been shown the secrets of the Hazaran elders, and been taught animator's runes. I've been instructed by a Petryan elementalist and I'm a qualified enchantress from the Academy of Enchanters in Sarostar. People know me as someone who tries to understand the different schools of lore, and how they fit together."

  "Go on," he said warily.

  "I've also known the Lord Regent, Rogan Jarvish, since I was young, and my brother is the Lord Marshal of Altura. My friend Shani, an elementalist, is an adviser to the High Lord of Petrya and the Kalif of the Hazara is a… close friend of mine. You, yourself, saw who came to my brother's wedding."

  "What are you getting at?"

  Ella steadily met Dain Barden's steely gaze without flinching. "Teach me your lore, Dain. Let me show the world there's nothing to be afraid of."

  Barden turned away, and it was some time before he spok
e. "What if we teach you, and what you learn frightens you?"

  "Lore is never frightening, Dain. It's what people do with it that keeps me awake at night."

  The Dain was silent for so long that Ella wondered if he would ever speak. Finally, the words slowly came. "Go back to your lodgings," he said. Ella felt disappointment sink through her. Barden spoke again, and Ella's eyes lit up with hope. "Someone will get you in the morning. We'll see how frightened you get."

  ~

  ELLA woke fresh and excited. She dressed quickly and then paced in the main room of Oma Jen's small house until the old woman made her sit down.

  There was a knock on the door and Ella jumped up, throwing on her cloak and opening the door before Oma Jen could come close.

  A plump Akari in a grey robe bowed when he saw Ella. He wore a circle of bones around his neck and his robe bore the Akari symbol, the withered tree.

  "Enchantress, I am Aldrik. The Dain has spoken to me about you. Please, come with me."

  Ella followed the necromancer through the city and down a stairway cut into the ice. Aldrik started by giving Ella a tour of the vast chambers beneath the city. It was here that the necromancers did their grisly work, patching up the dead, bringing them back to a semblance of life, and recycling their bodies when their long service to the Dain finally ended.

  Slabs of ice were laid out in neat rows and columns. On each a body stared sightlessly up at the ceiling high above. The necromancer took Ella to one of the closest.

  "A new arrival," Aldrik said. "She was killed in a whaling accident."

  The woman had been middle-aged, yet obviously fit and strong. A wide gash bared her ribs to the world; the blood must have been washed away.

  "She was caught in the trailing line of a harpoon," the necromancer said matter-of-factly. "There was no way to save her."

  Ella fought to maintain her composure. She couldn't show weakness, or the Dain might decide she was too squeamish and would portray his lore negatively. "What happens next?"

  "Today, before she grows stiff, we will stitch her wounds and wash her skin with an acid solution. The skin must be completely clean before we can begin work on the runes."

  "I see," said Ella.

  "She will then wait here with the others until we are ready to bring her back. Here, let me take you to another example."

  Aldrik led Ella past the rows of dead bodies to a raised platform. On the platform, four wooden tables stood side-by-side.

  Only one of the tables was the scene of activity. Half a dozen necromancers in grey robes hovered around a body, their moves smooth and synchronous.

  Aldrik took Ella close enough that she could see something of what they were doing without getting in the way.

  "It's a complex process," Aldrik said, "and we never work on more than four at a time. First, the frozen body is thawed in warm water and cleaned a second time. Then it's brought here," he gestured, "and the work begins."

  Ella watched the men at work. They used scrills and protective gloves just like enchanters, dipping them in tiny vials of essence and drawing runes with smooth strokes.

  "Will you teach me the runes?" Ella asked.

  "Yes, yes," Aldrik said. "Later."

  "Can I ask you a question?"

  "What is it?" he said.

  "How much of the original personality remains? The woman we saw earlier, you said she was a whaler. What will she become?"

  Aldrik hesitated. "It's something we don't speak of much. Her skill memory remains, but she will not remember her loved ones — to them she is dead. If ordered, she will be able to throw a harpoon as well as she could in life, but that does not necessarily mean she would make a good whaler. There is more to being a whaler than possessing a good throwing arm. It is the team working together that brings in the whale."

  "So what will she be, then?"

  "A warrior, most likely. She will join the Dain's armies, I should think."

  "Will she be able to speak?"

  "Ella," Aldrik took her aside, "I perhaps am not explaining myself well. You see, we choose not to bring back much of the draug's personality."

  "Why?"

  "There can be… problems."

  "What kind of problems?"

  Aldrik sighed. "A draug's eyes are turned white by the animation process. This is the sign of a healthy draug. There are some, servants and the like, who we bring back with a little more of who they were, so that they may speak. If you look, you will see their eyes are tinged with pink. We don't do this often, because they require more essence to animate, and they do not last as long. Also, there is a risk."

  "A risk of what?"

  "It happens only once in a while, and only to the draugar we bring back with more of who they were. Sometimes the eyes turn entirely red, and the life leaves them." The necromancer's voice turned ominous. "But before they go, they become berserk."

  Aldrik's words stayed with Ella as he next took her to the vats. The knowledge complicated her plan, a risk she hoped to mitigate by applying herself and learning as much as possible.

  Ella suppressed a shudder as she saw the huge vats, as large as trees. She remembered seeing them in Tingara, when the Primate's mad plan saw multitudes murdered for the essence in their bodies.

  There were six of the great vessels, with steam rising from vents in the sides. Ella wrinkled her nose at a putrid smell in the air. Aldrik said there were more, elsewhere under the ice city.

  "When the energy leaves a draug, we bring the body here," the necromancer explained. "The process is simple to operate, a fool could do it, yet the runes on the vats are complex. Only the wisest of my order understand how they work."

  "Is Renrik one of those?" Ella asked.

  "Yes," Aldrik said stiffly.

  Ella could see she was discussing a sore point. "What do you do with the bodies?"

  "There's a door in the side. First, an activation sequence is spoken to bring the temperature down. Then the door is opened, with the operator careful to avoid the escaping gases. The body, or bodies, are thrown in. We wait."

  "How long?"

  "Only a few days. Can you see that tube coming out of the side? It leaves this chamber and flows down into the vault, an area only the Dain can access."

  "Do you only insert the bodies of draugar?" Ella asked.

  Aldrik rounded on her, and his eyes blazed. "Certainly! This idea of murdering people for the energy in their bodies is something only you people of the houses would come up with. It's an abomination. Do you hear me?"

  "Yes," Ella said. "I hear you, and I apologise if I've offended you. The Dain has told you, I'm here to learn, and to understand, so I can explain to those less tolerant. I haven't seen anything here to warrant the prejudice of those in the south. Thank you, Necromancer Aldrik, for showing me."

  Mollified, Aldrik led Ella out of the underground chambers, and into his workroom.

  There, Ella's instruction began in earnest.

  15

  DAYS passed, with Ella learning from dawn to dusk, and the prickly necromancer trying to hide his surprise at the pace of Ella's learning. He hesitated when Ella asked to take some of his books back to her room to study, but Ella again mentioned the Dain, and he grudgingly acquiesced.

  Ella's dreams became filled with the whorls and bridges of runes, circling through her consciousness and joining together to become the complex matrices of the Akari's lore.

  Aldrik said she would be able to try animating her first draug after a month. Ella was ready after a week.

  Aldrik chose the body of the woman killed in the whaling accident.

  Ella stood silently over the corpse laid out on the wooden table, recently thawed and ready for the essence. Her eyes ran over the pale skin, no longer seeing it as a woman, but seeing it as a canvas for the runes. She put on the protective gloves and took a scrill and vial of essence from a stand nearby.

  Aldrik and three other necromancers looked on as Ella began to draw.

  She kept her hand
steady, a thin line of vapour rising from the symbols as Ella drew them one by one. She kept her head turned to the side; if the vapour got into her lungs it would make her quite ill.

  Ella's heart fluttered. If she made the slightest mistake, put a line out of place, she would have failed. Unlike a work of enchantment, this wasn't a sword, or armour; this was a woman's body. If she failed, the woman wouldn't even go into the vats; she would be burned to ash.

  In Ella's mind she turned to pages in the books she'd read, added symbols where they seemed appropriate, inserted a gap between matrices to delineate them. She added activation sequences, scores of them. This wasn't a nightlamp, with a sequence to bring light and another to restore darkness. This was a draug, a revenant; it would be woken once, and once only.

  Ella lifted the scrill away from the body. Her arm was tired and she stretched, careful to avoid making any fateful motions.

  Ella looked at the men watching her. Her eyes widened in surprise.

  Dain Barden stood with the necromancers, his arms folded across his chest. His expression was inscrutable as he saw Ella dip her scrill in the essence, and continue.

  Finally, Ella was done.

  She put away her tools and the essence before removing the protective gloves. She leaned backwards and heard her back crack painfully. How long had it been? It was hard to tell down here, under the ice city.

  "Your work is not complete," Aldrik said.

  "I know," Ella said, frowning at him.

  Ella looked down at the rune on the revenant's cold chest. She placed her fingers on it, tracing the heart-rune, larger than the rest, as she spoke. "Mordet-ahl. Sudhet-ahl. Suth-eroth. Soth-eruth. Mordet-suth-ahn."

  Ella continued to chant as the woman's eyes suddenly opened. Ella fought to remain impassive and still the raucous beating of her heart. Her palms were sweaty, even though the air was frigid. It wasn't over yet.

  "Tsu-tulara-ahn. Morth-thul-ahlara. Sudhet-ahlara-ahn. Shah-lahra-rahn!"

  Blue light travelled from the heart-rune to the matrix beside it, a fiery glow moving in a spiral pattern as it lit up the symbols covering the revenant's body. Ella saw it move down the woman's chest, over her hips and down to the runes covering her legs. The arcane symbols on her arms began to glow eerily, from her shoulders to her hands. Her face remained clear, but her eyes were solid white, the colour of the frozen snow.