Heart’s Ease swept across the minds and souls of the two newly-Resurrected n.
The shadows made from them were not them. The mories of that ti were shadows from the other side of a mirror, dark reflections that could only taunt and bedevil, things done by negative versions of themselves that had been instantly destroyed when the two were restored to life.
They were not responsible, those things had not been them.
But the ti, the years that had passed, they were real. They knew, and they understood, as if they’d spent months getting used to a new ti and place, that decades had gone by, and they were all alone now.
I watched the tears start to fall as weeks and months of acceptance were distilled into monts by the magic. They didn’t know the details, but they could feel the weight of the passing years, even if only the shadows had experienced them in the tiless manner of the undead.
They had been gone a long ti… and the bastard of a vampire who had killed them was responsible for it.
“I am the Lady Edge. I am a grand-daughter of Prince Mordai by his son Boraz, who you might know of.”
Both of them blinked, at once startled, alard, and intrigued. Andre, the more slender and bookish-appearing of the two, nodded once. “He was… not much of a wizard. His interests tended to be more violent and rakish, especially with the won. He… had sothing of a crush on my little sister…” he trailed off, flushing as he rembered his death.
“Your sister Delia made it out of Zanzyr alive with his help, and now lives in the Seven Shires, safe in her anonymity among the hyn. The rest of your family was not so fortunate. Marquis Boris seems to enjoy the ‘attacked by wild wolves’ manner of mysterious death, as well as ‘wandering brigands’.” I picked up a file folder sitting next to , and held it up and out for him.
He took it rather numbly, a question in his eyes. “A summary of what happened to all your living relatives and where they are now. For your information, it is the year 994, late fall, and you are in Innspot, my own private estate. I recovered both of your bodies from where Marquis Boris had hidden them after I captured your shadows, who led to them. Once I secured them, the power of an Ur-priest was sufficient to return you to life.”
I picked up the other folder and held it out to the more athletically-minded, shorter and trimr wizard from Inclu, whose military traditions encouraged more physical activity than most wizards cared to engage in. “I am afraid Marquis Boris used a subtler hand to dispose of any spellcasters among your own family, too, Master Klannigh, although he ignored your older sister Nikole and your younger brother Buntar, since they never developed magic.
“But it has been forty years. You will find the fate of your relatives within. I will give you an hour to read about them and to consider your place and what you want to do, before I co to you with a proposal of my own.”
I pointed them to the tables sitting in the bright light of the morning sun, peeking over the rocky stone walls visible out there. “I will have bread and wine brought in shortly, and return in an hour. Read, think, talk if you like, ready your questions, although I think you will find a great many answered in the folder.”
I headed for the door as the two forr vampire’s minions looked at one another, the plain white robes they were clad in, and swung down hesitantly from the raised beds they were on to the warm wooden floor.
They were wizards, and when the going got tough, that usually ant there was reading and studying to do…
---
My Disk spun itself out of my sleeve, wedges lotusing into shape and molding themselves into a floating chair for my benefit. I sat down as they watched with Zanzyran appreciation for the flagrant style, attracted to despite the sharp and dangerous edge to my appearance.
“Gentlen,” I said calmly, looking back and forth from tall and slender to compact and trim. “You’ve read of what has beco of your blood relatives. You’ve read of the history that has passed while you were dead. You know that you’ve been dead all of this ti, and who survives of your family also thinks you are gone.
“I should not have to tell you that racing off to find your blood relations imperils both them and notifies Marquis Boris and HIS master that you are alive once more. Given what happened last ti, I think it wise you not repeat that series of events.”
Both of them flushed. The competent but uninspired Molochai, raised in the warrior-mage tradition of Inclu, spoke up gruffly, “Neither of us are total fools, although crossing the Marquis and failing the Marquis were certainly foolish things to do,” he admitted gravely. “Our options are few at this point. We do not have the strength to defy the masters of Transyvia, we are both agreed on that. Our kin are mostly dead, slain by the vampires or by simple age and natural causes.” His living siblings had perished of a fever and a heart attack, respectively, within the last five years, victims of hard lives and lack of Divine magic about, to say nothing of proper dical care.
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“Our plans are to either move as far from Zanzyr as is reasonably possible, changing our nas and perhaps our faces as we do, or… whatever proposition you are going to offer us,” the softly-spoken Andre piped up, his eyes deceptively firm. He had died to protect his sister, while Molochai had been stupid enough to ignore the stories and go to work for a well-paying noble who really did turn out to be a vampire, and one who didn’t appreciate soone who fumbled with alchemical tasks.
“Mmm. I propose so revenge.”
I had all of their attention imdiately. “What… manner of revenge?” Molochai asked carefully, but he did not say no.
“The utter destruction of all Transyvian nobility, the undead they control, the lycanthropes who serve them, and the necromancers who seek to enter their ranks.” I glanced back and forth between them slowly. “No, I do not seek my grandfather’s throne. However, if successful, the Principality of Transyvia will effectively be shattered, and all those noble seats will be up for replacent… and a new Prince would need to be appointed to it.
“If you are powerful enough, that could be one of you.”
Their eyes widened, and they bent forward, gazes hardening. Zanzyrans had no problems with political ambition, considering it a right of wizards, after all. “How would this be done?” Andre asked imdiately. “We certainly do not have the power to face Marquis Boris, let alone the Prince!” he admitted readily.
“Of course you do not. You have not the power, the skillset, or the proper mindset to do so. But these are things that can be taught. You rely need ti, the correct teachers, and the experience of using them against dangerous foes. I can give you all of those things.”
The reborn young n looked at one another, saw the agreent in the other’s eyes. Molochai asked simply, “What must we do?”
“Well, to start with, you’re going to go back in ti, to the ancient Empire of Iberon, at the height of its decadence. There is a great amount of necromancy and the curse of vampirism running through that place.
“You will be joining a rather large group of undead hunters who will be training for the exact sa task as you, and for the exact sa reasons, but doing so four thousand years in the past, far away from prying eyes.
“When you are good enough at your jobs, you will return, and we shall see how long the vampires continue to rule Transyvia.”
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She strolled into the town on foot, coming up from the south. High boots, breeches, a leather vest, bracers on her wrists, and a dagger sheathed behind her waist seed to be all that she was wearing, which wasn’t too much off the truth, although the pockets of her Vest could hold a cow if she were to cut it up enough to fit inside.
The Mick had arrived ho for a visit three days prior, she’d been told. His cousin Isadora was still at the Great School, now motivated and driving to graduate, but clearly in a much better position to do so after returning with Lady Edge from far Siricil, a grand adventure whose exciting stories were the talk of the place.
Naturally Sama didn’t give a damn care about so place that trained mages at all. She was here to look at these highlanders from a parallel earth, a mystic Scotland whose magic had been slowly fading as the sciences took over the world, and whose magical clans had urgently sought ans and thods of escaping a world turning very unfriendly to their kind.
So they’d co to so special gates, crossed the alternity gap, and wound up here, in a strange multiverse whose rules of reality were different, and where magic was strong and revered.
Just the thing a bunch of powerful wizards wanted to see!
The locals didn’t see many long-legged won not in skirts, especially ones with a mane of hair as long and golden as hers. She carried herself without a care in the world, and yet the rest glance of her sky-blue eyes and the shadows of the scars she bore was enough to silence the rudest and coarsest of them before the crude comnts, jests, and calls could escape their lips.
It was like they could hear the beat of two silent notes, and if they heard them for real, it would be as funeral bells as they were fed into a grave.
Proud and belligerent, the warrior-folk of the hills nevertheless knew a dragon when they saw one, and this woman, this woman would feed dragons their teeth!
Whistling cheerfully, her pace eating up the miles with preternatural speed and vigor, Sama swept down onto the little hill town that was the source of many of the scrappiest mountain-fighters of Zanzyr, not that most of the wizards cared about such a distinctive skill-set, including their own clansfolk.
As the weather was wont to do here, it soon turned cold and windy, bringing with it dampness and rain threatening to burst at any mont. Completely undeterred and largely uncaring of sothing so mundane as rain stopping her progress, Sama Rantha, the Golden Hag, Grandmaster, adventurer, buccaneer, warlord, gladiator, maester, assassin, and forger of swords, ended her thousand-mile journey afoot on a carefree trot into the hotown of Miklan McMikal, a son of one of the subordinate clans to the McKlannister necromancers who ruled them.
Also, the first other Forsaken Null she’d run across on this world. Which might just change everything.
Coming down the mountainside, she saw the bright yellow flag erected behind the house at the edge of town, and the tent raised there for what looked to be a fairly sizable collection of attendees. Most of them would hopefully be young aspiring warriors, male and female alike, looking for a better way forward than being continually second-fiddle to so spellcaster, but doubtless so of the older and more skeptical warriors were going to be in attendance.
The Kladelanders and their beliefs had wide support in all of House Caergard’s lands, even if paranoid wizards were always attempting to sniff them out. The nobility converged instantly and eagerly on any organized attempt by warriors to rise up and throw off the rule of wizards. The warriors never quite got the ssage, nor did the wizards ever digest the fact that the common people really didn’t believe their hype.
Forsaken would change a great many things…
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