Akatika's Legacy Read online

  He had come up with the idea after a few trips on the sea. Somehow rats found their way into his quarters. He hated the vermin and figured a way to make a profit off them. He purchased a soul delver to syphon the soul essence out of them.

  His hatred of rats didn’t end at sea. Every time he found droppings in his workshop; he made a new shining stone. He had jars of the things all over the shelves. It was a small fortune to the comparative wealth of the area. Now every time he walked in his shop looked like noonday.

  Few in this town could appreciate the complex nature of the desk Siliras sat at. Most would think the patterns of the wood and metal inlay were merely an abstract decoration of rings and triangles with the occasional square or oval. The desk had been made to aid him in magic. The interlocking rings in the center could be used for shielding spells or conjuration, all be it very small ones. The shapes were necessary for connecting essence stones and powering the spells with out his attention.

  Usually, magical practitioners had to draw these out by hand each time they needed one. He had done that for most of his life, then one day he made a mistake and nearly died. The circle had not been closed correctly and the shield was weak. It bust and the small fire imp inside had broken out. That was when he got the idea to make the necessary shapes out of metal and have them embedded in the desktop. After making sure that the shape was true, he would never have to worry the spells failing.

  Now the ancient tome lay inside a shield made by the copper circles. A faint purple light being cast on it from the baby fist-sized amethyst being used to power the shield. It was Siliras’ most powerful essence stones, imbued with the soul essence from a troll he had drained completely with the soul delver.

  He had noticed the essence stone in the books cover. A massive ruby, and even though it didn’t give off any light he could feel the power in it. Someone had gone to a lot of trouble to hide the true nature of this book. Some powerful glamour was on it, hiding what was in it. The pages looked like the notes from an entry level student at one of the arcane universities. Pictures depicting movements that novices used to master basic spells. No one would waste such an essence stone on a mere note pad, this had to be more.

  Siliras checked the shield one last time using a tiny metal probe. As he probed the top and sides of the shield it pushed back and flashed with each attempt to pierce it. The shield looked to be functioning correctly. The time had come to attempt to break the glamour and uncover the secrets locked in the book.

  The glamour was a net of illusions and Siliras probed it with his mind. It was a strong one with some obvious traps laced into it. A typical shock spell and a subtler poison or was it a sickness spell. It was toxic, he could tell that much from the feel of it. He reached deeper into it looking for hidden traps and found only one. A massive fire spell that would engulf the book in a massive conflagration of hellfire. Without a shield, if it was triggered the whole workshop would be incinerated in a flash of the black flames.

  Going deeper still, Siliras pushed his mind into the core of the glamour. There he found the nest of overlapping spells. If he could find the right one… There, that had to be it, he thought. He located the tiny nest of power that should be used to anchor the spells. He syphoned the power from the little nest.

  A bright blue flash filled the shielded area and frost clung to the sides of everything in the shield. Siliras shouted a string of curses. He had been wrong, there was another trap, a frost trap. Hopefully, the book was not damaged. He slapped the essence stone aside in his anger and the shield snapped out of existence.

  A thin layer of frost and ice hung in the air where the shield had been. Siliras pulled a rock from out of the drawer in the desk and started to channel some heat into it. He stopped as it started to burn his fingers and dropped it on to the icy dome. The frost melted away instantly, tiny drops of water dripping onto the desk and book. Once the cover was free of frost, he tried to open the book. The cover came off along with several pages. This produced another slew of curses from Siliras. If that hadn’t been enough, the remaining pages began to dissolve. He scrambled for a tin filled with fine wood ash. He poured the entire contents of the tin on the book.

  Siliras continued, now shouting curses. He had been sloppy and now the book was being destroyed. Once he was sure that the ash had neutralized the acid, he held the book up. Several holes went all the way through. It was mostly ruined; he might be able to get something useful from it, but he doubted it.

  A few hours of study provided him some insight into what it was. The Tomus Arcanum seemed to be a treatise on necromancy, or at least the turning living to undeath or raising dead into undeath. Many pages explained how to syphon energy from others and consume it to heal wounds. Others seemed to postulate how to reanimate the dead. One interesting page seemed to illustrate how to summon a necrotic horse covered in hellfire, but too much was missing to make any attempt.

  Several full pages were all but destroyed. The last third of the book was completely unreadable except a part about some blessed instrument. It was only a reference and had no context other than; “and when used with the blessed instrument it is thought to be able to reverse the process. Kelvishanna extended this blessing to those that were corrupted in…” The rest was unreadable, and he had no idea what it was talking about.

  Siliras had read anything and everything on necromancy he could find in his university studies. This book was the only he had com across with a reference to Kelvishanna, the two were complete opposites. He like most people wanted to live forever. Necromancy seemed to provide some answers to the longevity question. And it was tempting he had to admit but most reports suggested you had to die first, and the spark of life is what granted arcane power.

  Frustrated and tired he moved to the cot in the workshop. He didn’t feel like walking up the few flights of stairs to his room. He would sleep here and, in the morning, would try to track the wolves.

  Siliras again vigorously shook the vial the next morning. To his delight, there looked to have been enough flecks of blood free of the fabric to use a location spell on them, provided it didn’t belong to anything dead. He poured the alcohol into a wider bottle, being careful not to leave any of the flecks behind. There was enough to cover the liquid with a small layer of brown crumbs. He corked the bottle and cast the spell on it.

  The alcohol glowed briefly, bubbled once and started to foam. A few moments later a vortex made a brief showing in the bottle, spinning the blood around. Nothing happened. The blood spun in a lazy circle. Either the wolves were dead, or this was only the blood from one of the lumberjacks, which was more likely. Then as if someone had put a fine mesh in the alcohol the flecks of blood stopped spinning at one point piling up in a small heap pointing northeast. It was the opposite direction of where the lumberjacks were found.

  “You’re alive.” Siliras said with surprise.

  He had not actually believed there would be any trace of the wolves’ blood in the vial. The lumberjack must have cut it with a knife, he thought. The spell only worked if the blood could be linked back to its own life essence.

  He walked out of the Red Wave inn, bottle in hand, following the indicated route. After thirty minutes of walking around, he was led to a hill on the edge of town. Siliras had never been to this section before, he was not a religious man, and this was where all Maerryth’s devotees gathered. He was still within the walls which was very strange.

  He walked in a wide circle around the hilltop and every lap pointed to the same spot. The wolf or wolves were somehow under the hill behind Maerryth’s Kitchen. They may have slipped in through the stone door he saw built on the side facing Maerryth’s Kitchen.

  Siliras walked through the door into a dark stone hewn room. He pulled a shining stone out of his belt pouch and commanded it to light. The room was empty except for a few stone tables. Dark black soot coated the underside of everything. He walked back toward a long door lined hall; each had a set of numbers over it. Some sort of storeh
ouse judging from the musty smell and some odor of rancid meat, he thought.

  At the end of the hall, he reached a stairwell that spiraled down and exited back under the main hall he had been in. The second level was vast and open. The smell of mold and rancid meat was much stronger. He produced another shining stone to get a better look at the dark chamber.

  There were holes dug out of the wall. Large wooden boxes filled all the holes, some looked to be decades old and others looked newer. The bottle again pushed him onward to the back of the hall. Here there were several empty holes next to the box filled ones.

  Out of the silence came banging as if someone were pounding on a door. Siliras looked and saw the bottle was pointed at one of the boxes. He was about to turn around and go fetch Gabby having completed his task when he heard another sound come from the box.

  “Help! I’m’ trapped! Someone let me out! Can anyone hear me?!” the box shouted.

  Chapter 15

  The thing that Lafe remembered right before waking to the blackness that surrounded him, was being hit by something heavy from behind followed by a blinding pain in his neck. He recalled holding his neck as his own blood spilled from it, then nothing.

  His whole life he had been told what the afterlife was going to be like. It was not supposed to be like this. He was cold and it was dark. There was almost no room for him to attempt loosening his bounds. He was supposed to be welcomed in by Maerryth and her sons, not be gagged, tied up and stuffed in a box. He knew he had lived a good life and worked hard as Maerryth taught.

  Lafe couldn’t help but wonder why this was happening. The worst thing he could think of that he had done was as a child he and a few friends had stolen some meat pies from the neighbor. Could that have prevented his passage to Maerryth’s hearth? The alternative was to spend the afterlife being tortured in Belthir.

  This didn’t seem like torture, it was uncomfortable, but the stories all said it was supposed to be in agony and despair. This was more of an inconvenience than anything else. Perhaps spending all eternity like this was the torture. He could see that, not being able to move more than a few inches in any direction. He hadn’t eaten in what felt like days, so maybe his life hadn’t been as pious as he believed.

  He had tried calling for help several times, but no answer came in any form. He spent the better part of what he judged was two days getting his arms free of the cloth that bound him. With his arms free he noted that he was inside a wooden box, from how difficult it was to dig his fingernails in he guessed oak or something similar.

  Lafe was utterly alone, except for this nagging feeling in the back of his mind telling him to come. He felt it more than heard it. It wanted him to go somewhere, it left like to his left. This part was kind of like torture, feeling like you needed to be someplace but not be able to move. The more time went by the stronger the compulsion was to go. He needed to get where he was being directed.

  Lafe’s compulsion peaked and he began to toss back and forth, banging around inside the box. He and the box fell and crashed hard. He was now face down in the box, but it felt different now. Something must have broken in the fall. He shifted his arms under his chest and heaven with all his might.

  The box groaned and creaked then something gave way and Lafe was able to push himself off the lid of the box. Still no light to help him, though he was able to stand now. He felt his way around the room and found shelves about chest high in the wall. That must have been where he was before the fall he figured.

  Lafe felt stone as he moved around the room, probing for a way out of this larger stone box of a room. After a few moments, he felt a draft coming from behind him. He stretched his hands out, waving them from side to side feeling for where the draft was coming from. He slammed his bare foot into something hard.

  “Mother’s milk!” He shouted.

  Lafe leaned against a wall and lifted his foot to feel if he had broken anything. What he had thought was a wall suddenly opened and he fell backward, slamming his head into the ground.

  This afterlife was disappointing, Lafe decided. Nothing was as he was taught; he wasn’t being tortured or blessed. He existed in some dark, lightless realm. He didn’t know if he had been knocked unconscious by the fall or merely dazed, either way, his mind swirled. The sudden realization of the pain in his big toe made him think he was knocked out.

  He felt around the rest of his body for a moment and realized for the first time that the afterlife he was in offered nothing in the way of clothing. Of course, he would be naked in the afterlife, he thought. Why should he have clothes? Nothing else was the way he was expecting it.

  Lafe lifted himself off the ground and started to walk to where the impression in his mind was telling him to go. Now free of the box and moving it seemed to be less intense. Cautiously he probed his way through the dark, navigating what he guessed was a hall. Eventually, he made his way into an open room and ran directly into a waist-high stone table.

  He changed his mind. It wasn’t dark he must be blind. He couldn’t figure out why there would be a table if there was no way to see it. Lafe continued his search around the room and found what felt like a doorknob.

  With a twist and a push, the door opened. As it turned out Lafe was not blind, as the door opened the dim light spilled over him from the moonlit night. The fog began to roll in around his legs. He recognized this place, he was behind Maerryth’s Kitchen. He was in the mausoleum, and that meant the box he was in was a coffin.

  Lafe’s mind raced trying to piece all the implications together. Either the afterlife was modeled after the town he had lived in or he had not passed into the afterlife. He reached up and felt at his neck, the wound that he remembered wasn’t there. The pain in his foot was also gone as well. Something was wrong and as soon as he found some pants, he was going to figure it out.

  It was late enough that Lafe had little problems navigating around the outskirts of the town without being seen. The fog was nice as it hid his nakedness. He looked everywhere but couldn’t find clothing. He went to houses and looked for clothes left out to dry but try as he might he could not find any clothes out on lines.

  An idea came to him. He could borrow some clothes from Gabby’s father’s shop. He wasn’t too far away, and he knew how to get in. For the moment the need for clothes drove him harder than the compulsion was to find his way to where his mind was telling him to go.

  Lafe made his way into the clothier’s shop and put on some clothing. The clothes were nicer than what he usually wore. Gabby’s father rarely had anything Lafe would be found in day to day. He was a fine clothes merchant, and Lafe was a common clothes person. It wasn’t practical to be in anything nice when out felling trees.

  Lafe dressed and started to leave when he saw a mannequin adorned in the same outfit Gabby had worn the day they went to the monastery. Suddenly he longed to see her. He didn’t know how long it had been or what she was told when he hadn’t returned from hunting the wolves. He was being pulled somewhere outside of town, but he was determined that he would see her before he left.

  After locking the shop back up and replacing the hidden key Lafe began the short trip to Gabby’s house. He sprinted, as fast as he could, to the fence that separated the small yard and garden from the road. What usually took him the better part of an hour to walk, took him under ten minutes. He grabbed the top of the fence and heaved himself to the top. Carefully he navigated the roof to the window that was where Gabby’s room was.

  Gabby didn’t look at all like he was picturing she would. She lay sprawled out, arms and legs peaking in and out of the covers. Her mouth was agape and appeared to be snoring heavily. In his mind he had always imagined her looking like she always did, beautiful and cheery. This, however, was a mess of blankets and body parts.

  Lafe took one more moment trying to figure out if everyone looked like that or if Gabby was an exception, he tapped on the window. Gabby showed no response. He tried to tap a little harder. This time, she swatted at the air
with a hand. Finally, he knocked on the glass as hard as he dared. He didn’t want to wake Gabby’s parents and get caught. This caused Gabby to roll over creating more of a tangled mess and bury her head deeper into the pillow.

  Lafe sighed; this was more difficult than he imagined it would be. He began to wipe the condensation off the glass with the bottom of his shirt, so his hand didn’t slide when he attempted to open the window. Normally, he would never do this, but the impression to find the place called to him in his head had turned to anxiety. A moment later he had the window open and called to her.

  “Gabby” Lafe whispered.

  Gabby laid there snoring.

  He tried again a little louder; “Gabby.”

  Nothing at all happened. She had boasted several times that she couldn’t be caught off guard, yet thieves had set upon her once and now he couldn’t wake her even calling her using a normal voice. He was growing more frustrated by the minute.