Overmage, page 6
In the armory the cultists stared at the statues and racks of weapons and armor with wide eyes. Khashair let them drink it all in as he went to the collection of potions covering a section of the wall. He had several hundred potions of mutagen, more than enough to enhance all his followers. Now to get them to drink one.
“My friends, before we get you geared up, there’s one more matter to attend to. To become a force the empire will fear, you must become strong and tough.” He held up a vial filled with golden liquid flecked with black. “One of these potions combined with the weapons and armor will make you a match for ten legionnaires.”
One of the cultists finally worked up the nerve to speak. “Are they safe?”
“Perfectly.” Khashair popped the cork out of the vial he held and drank down the contents.
His magic neutralized the potion then he used a self-enhancement spell to make his muscles bulge and his skin grow as tough as leather. Khashair drew a dagger and pulled it across his forearm. The razor-sharp steel didn’t bite in the least.
“See what you will become?”
They crowded forward now, eager to gain the power he offered.
“Steady, friends, there’s enough for everyone. When you each have a vial, we’ll drink together. A toast to the empire’s destruction.”
They cheered and he hurried to hand out a potion to each of them. Happily, no one felt the need to take an early sip. He didn’t want anyone getting a sneak peek at what would actually happen when they drank the potion.
When they each had one, Khashair thrust a fist into the air. “Death to the Tiberian Empire!”
“Death!” they all roared before drinking as one.
A few seconds passed before the screaming began. The cultists all fell to the floor in a writhing heap as they moaned and twisted. All but one.
The sole cultist still holding a full vial stared at his fellows in utter horror.
“Well, this is unfortunate,” Khashair said. “You really should have drunk with your fellows. It would have made things much simpler for you.”
“What did you do to them? Why bring us here only to kill us?”
“Kill you?” Khashair shook his head. “I have no intention of killing my loyal followers. The problem is, unlike me, you are just ordinary men. A transformation of this magnitude is much harder for you than me. Rest assured, in a few hours, they will be back on their feet, stronger, faster, and tougher than any human on the planet. Will you drink and take your place at my side as one of the elites of the new world?”
The cultist looked at his still-writhing fellows and swallowed hard. “If I don’t?”
Khashair smiled and tried to make it look unthreatening. “I told you before I brought you here that I had need of noncombatants as well. If you wish to serve me in such a role, that’s perfectly fine. I bear you no ill will either way.”
The man visibly relaxed then straightened, looked Khashair right in the eye, and drank. He collapsed a moment later to join the chorus of moans. It was rare to find a human with guts like that. He made a note of the man’s appearance; the pale skin, red hair, and freckles should make him easy to pick out even after the transformation was complete.
“I doubted you’d be able to talk them into it.” Gomo shimmered into view. “What does that potion really do?”
“Just what I told them.”
Gomo raised a bushy eyebrow.
“Well, not just that. It also makes them totally obedient and removes their ability to know right from wrong. Now they will only know how to obey my orders.”
“So you basically made them into zombies.”
“On the contrary. They will retain their full intellect and will perform whatever task I give them to the best of their ability.” Khashair shook his head. “We learned long ago the limits of the undead. They are tremendously useful in certain situations, but their stupidity and lack of flexibility make them far too limited for my taste. This potion is the best of both worlds. The brains of men and the loyalty of undead. We used them extensively in the Black Iron Empire.”
“I’ll bet. So what now?”
“They’ll be most of a day recovering from the transformation. I intend to find the remaining overseer and collect more soldiers. Once that’s done, it’ll be time for a test.”
“What sort of test?” Gomo asked.
“A raid. We’re going to burn down the church, kill the pope and any other churchmen, and slaughter the imperial family.”
Chapter 11
The imperial dragon ship felt kind of empty to Joran without Alexandra and the Iron Guards aboard. On the one hand it was nice to have the extra room, on the other, everyone looked at him to take charge. Not that there was much to take charge of since they were traveling across a peaceful section of the empire and as far as Joran knew there were no dangers that might knock them out of the sky this time. Of course, he’d thought that before and the geomancers proved him wrong.
He spent the first day standing on the bridge trying to pretend he had any idea what the crew was doing. By the end of the day, he had a pretty good idea how everything worked. Even better, the captain made it clear that he didn’t need Joran to stand there and watch them. If there was a problem, someone would come and get him.
That suited Joran fine. It also allowed him to focus on what he really wanted to do this trip which was learn as much about magic as possible from Grub. They were currently seated on the floor of the hold facing each other. Grub was doing something magical while Joran watched the ether to see exactly how.
Unfortunately, the amount of ether involved confused his eyes and he couldn’t really tell anything. The occasional clash of Mia’s and Stoneheart’s practice weapons didn’t help his concentration. Mia said she needed to stay in practice and Stoneheart seemed eager to spar with her.
“Stop,” Joran said at last. “There’s too much going on with your spell. Can’t we start with something simpler?”
Grub scratched his beard with his new hand. “This is the simplest illusion spell I know. Maybe you just don’t have a knack for this kind of magic. Not every wizard can do every type of magic. Illusion probably isn’t your thing. We’ll try something else.”
On the far side of the hold the clanging stopped when Mia sent Stoneheart’s blunt wooden axe flying.
“Ha!” Mia said. “Three in a row.”
Stoneheart scrubbed a hand across his face as he stalked over to pick up his practice weapon. “I can’t believe a girl young enough to be my great-granddaughter can take me three in a row. It’s not natural.”
“Don’t feel too bad, Stoneheart,” Joran said. “I doubt there are a handful of people in the empire that can fight on even footing with Mia.”
“We’ll see. Fourth time’s the charm.”
Joran grinned at his determination. Stoneheart didn’t quit for anything. He admired that about the dwarf.
When he turned back, Grub had placed three knuckle-sized pebbles on the floor.
“I know this game. One of them has a pea under it, right?”
Grub snorted. “Hardly. Since illusion isn’t your thing, we’ll try telekinesis. As far as magic is concerned, this is about as totally opposite as you can get. Ready?”
Joran nodded and shifted his vision back to the ether. This time, instead of a mass of ether writhing in front of him, he saw only a single braid with a three-pronged hand at the end. The hand opened, clamped on to the central stone, and moved it beside the right-hand one. This looked doable. He understood everything he saw.
Whether he could duplicate it or not was another matter.
The spell vanished and Grub asked, “What do you think?”
“I think I’ll try it. This spell at least made a certain amount of sense to me.”
Grub nodded. “If the ethereal construct is clear to you, that’s an excellent sign. Try to do what I did. Take your time. No one’s trying to kill us today, so speed isn’t essential.”
Joran took a deep breath to settle his nerves. He’d been dabbling at magic for a little while now. A simple experiment like this shouldn’t make him so nervous.
Right, to business. Grub’s spell had resembled braided rope. Joran pictured three strands of ether as big around as his pinky. When they appeared, his chest tightened and his breathing grew shallow.
That was new.
“Don’t add any more ether,” Grub said. “You’re right at your limit. Transform the end into a claw.”
Joran focused. Careful not to draw any more power to him, he formed a three-pronged claw out of the end of the rope.
Now for the stone.
Painfully, slowly, he opened the claw just enough to grab the left-hand stone. He clamped down and tried to lift it.
The pebble felt like a boulder at first, but it did finally shift, lifting a fraction off the deck and sliding over beside the other two. When he dropped it, Joran let out a gasp. He hadn’t been this tired after fighting the giant serpent.
“Well done, Lord Den Cade,” Grub said. “Telekinesis is clearly a type of magic you have a talent for.”
Joran nodded, not trusting himself to speak yet. When his heart had slowed to something approaching normal, he said, “Thanks. Is it supposed to be this hard?”
“Unfortunately, yes. But the more you practice, the easier it’ll get. Eventually you’ll be able to lift bigger and bigger objects and your control will grow more refined until you reach your personal limit.”
“What’s that?”
“Every wizard has a limit, a point past which you can’t push. You’ll know it when you reach that point. The pain will be such that you can think of nothing beyond ending it.”
“Any more good news?”
Grub grinned. “Not at the moment. Do you want to try a different sort of spell?”
Joran laughed and shook his head. “Not today. All I want now is food and a nap.”
“That’s good. Understanding how much you can handle is important for a wizard. When you’re ready let me know and we can try some elemental magic.”
Intrigued despite his exhaustion Joran asked, “What’s that?”
“Just what it sounds like, magic that lets you influence the elements: earth, fire, wind, and water. We won’t get into the powers of life and death, too complicated and way outside my area of expertise. Wind is also one I can’t use.”
“Why not wind?” Joran asked.
“As a geomancer, earth magic is my specialty and wind magic is directly opposed to it. Like I said earlier, there are some types of magic that some wizards just can’t use.”
“Fascinating. Has someone codified all this knowledge? Perhaps in the dwarven archive?”
Grub shook his head. “My people hate magic and geomancers along with it. What I know—in the grand scheme of things, it isn’t much—I learned by word of mouth from my mentor, just as he did from his.”
“That’s horribly inefficient.”
Grub shrugged. “Better than nothing.”
Joran couldn’t argue with that. He stood. “Thank you for the lesson. Shall we pick up here tomorrow?”
“Sure. It’s not like I have anything else to do on this ship. And it feels good to pass on what I learned, even if I am passing it on to a human instead of a fellow geomancer.”
“Maybe when our current troubles are over, we can see about doing something for your fellows. The empire owes you a debt for all you’ve done. I’ll do my best to see it gets paid back.”
“I won’t hold my breath.”
Joran smiled at the retort. Typical Grub and he wasn’t wrong. The emperor might be his future father-in-law, but he certainly wouldn’t act on just Joran’s request.
But that was a problem for later.
“Mia. I’m going for a bite to eat. Do you want to come or are you going to abuse Stoneheart some more?”
His soulmate grinned and tossed her practice sword to Stoneheart. “I’m starving. Five in a row’s enough for today.”
“Five in a row,” Stoneheart muttered and shook his head.
Joran felt bad for him, but at least Mia seemed happy. Hopefully a good meal and a nap would restore Joran’s strength enough to practice his new spell at least once more before bed. He wanted to build up as much magical strength as possible before they arrived.
It might end up being the difference between life and death.
Chapter 12
Beastmaster felt like he’d been reading forever. When he arrived, he’d found the largely intact citadel empty save for a smashed golem surrounded by a heap of broken black iron. Not that he was about to complain. Dealing with demons was a pain, even if the weak ones had no hope of hurting him. And golems weren’t much better.
On the second floor he found another library, bigger than the ruined one he left. In it sat a catalogue written in those strange symbols that resisted his translation spell. When he tried again, they still resisted, but this time he forced the matter. If they ended up erased, he’d be no worse off and he was sick of playing around here. Back home, Fane was probably having a fit that he hadn’t returned yet.
Of course, since she was always having a fit about something, that would be no surprise.
To his delight, he got to read some of the catalogue before the symbols vanished. It gave him a starting place anyway. Of course, there were easily ten thousand books in the library, so even a starting place would only help so much.
In the end, what saved him from wasting a fair chunk of his immortality was luck. Six books in he stumbled across one about the overmages, specifically one that talked about the training they gave their apprentices. Turned out, the reason they were so strong was that they knew how to draw on the power of the Black Bile from a distance. Basically, as long as the pipes flowed under their feet, they had access to unlimited power.
At the very least that explained why Khashair beat Fane. Unfortunately, there was no hint as to how they did it or how to stop them from doing it. No doubt that secret was only passed on by word of mouth. Still, combined with the atlas he found mapping the pipes, they could at least figure out how far Khashair’s power reached.
Beastmaster hoped that would be enough to satisfy Fane. For the time being, he’d had his fill of this miserable place. He still planned to come back at some point to explore, but on his timetable, not hers.
After a long sigh, he added the journal to the atlas in his satchel. Time to go home.
He retreated to the courtyard then out beyond the walls. One thing the overmages had a knack for was warding their citadels. This one had the most powerful anti-teleportation ward he’d ever encountered. Probably powered by the bile as well.
Once clear, Beastmaster became one with the ether and a moment later found himself back in his throne room. Or what he thought of as his throne room. It was really just a big chair with a button that opened the trapdoor leading to the maze.
The door slammed open and Fane stalked in. “Tell me you have good news.”
He winced. “I have news. How good it is, you’ll have to decide for yourself.”
Beastmaster explained about the bile.
“Stop!” Fane stared at him, her eyes glowing brighter than usual. “You’re telling me Khashair can call on the bile’s power without holding it in his hand? How is that possible? I can’t do it.”
“The book didn’t say.” Beastmaster dug the journal out of his satchel and offered it to her. “It’s probably one of the overmages’ big secrets. Anyway, all we have to do is stay beyond the pipes, and we’ll be fine. Without the power boost, I doubt he’d be a match for you.”
“Of course he wouldn’t be. But we’d have to leave behind everything we’ve built here. And if the source of the bile is somewhere near the pipes, we’ll never reach it.”
“Do you know what the source is?” He’d been wondering for a while, but having seen firsthand what happened in the Black Iron Empire, he felt like he needed to know.
Fane glared at him but Beastmaster didn’t flinch. He was tired of all her secrets.
“The source is a dragon, the most powerful creature on the planet. I plan to wake it and then enslave it after the beast exhausts itself. But if I can’t reach it, that will never happen.”
“Is that such a terrible thing?” Beastmaster dared ask.
When she shot him a particularly hard glare he hastened to add, “I mean, you don’t even need to wake it to seize its power. You just need to figure out how Khashair wields the bile’s power and you could do the same thing. Then it’s just a matter of extending the pipe network all over the world and you’ll be unstoppable everywhere. As long as it’s nighttime anyway.”
Her expression softened and he knew she was finally thinking about what he said rather than getting ready to dismiss it out of hand.
“There may be something to what you say. I’ve been thinking about it off and on since I learned the fate of the Black Iron Empire. When Lord Sur returns, I don’t want to hand him an entirely dead world. If, on the other hand, I hand him a world where his power was even greater, he might at last teach me the secret of becoming a true arcane lord.”
Beastmaster nodded. He’d be happy to encourage her in this line of thinking. If all the animals ended up dead, he’d have nothing to experiment on.
He knew little about the arcane lords that brought his long-dead master to this world, but from what he picked up during his apprenticeship, he gathered they were the most powerful wizards around. The way Fane worshipped her master told Beastmaster everything he needed to know about how powerful they were. Fane certainly wouldn’t worship anybody that didn’t totally outclass her.
“So,” Beastmaster said. “How do we figure out Khashair’s technique? I mean, there’s got to be some trick to it, right? I haven’t actually seen him cast. Did you notice what he did?”
She grimaced, baring her fangs. “No. At the time, I was busy trying to stay in one piece. We’re going to need to arrange a test for the good overmage. Something that will require him to really exert that power of his.”
