The Troll King (The Bowl of Souls Book 9) (43 page)

Locksher willed himself towards the center, thinking as loud as he could,
I’m not here. You don’t see me
.

The black strands parted in his wake, enveloping him, surrounding him, but not directly touching him. His choice of armor seemed to be working well. He reached the center mass which was glistening despite the multitude of tendrils that shot from it, and reminded himself what Jhonate had said. She had taken her staff and plunged it into the mass, thinking of the staff as a direct link back to her conscious. She had then absorbed the memories within. Doing so had alerted the moonrat mother of her presence though, so he had to be more careful.

Locksher focused his mind on the gray staff in his hands, willing it to be unobtrusive.
Don’t let on you’re here. You’re just one of the tendrils doing its job
. He willed the end of it to turn black just in case that helped. Then he pushed it slowly into the mass.

Fist discovered that Maryanne really liked to kiss. ‘One more’ kept turning into another ‘one more’. He was enjoying himself, too, but he worried that he was being irresponsible. After all, it was hard to keep an eye on the wizard with her face in the way.

He placed a finger up between their lips. “I’m sorry, but we must stop for now.”

Finally
, said both Squirrel and Rufus through the bond. The rogue horse, still laying on the ground just outside the cave, sighed for emphasis.

Maryanne gave him a playful scowl and bit his finger before climbing out of his lap. “For now, big guy. We’ll revisit this subject at a later date.”

Fist smiled and watched her walk to the cave entrance. The heavy flakes were falling faster now. Rufus was covered in a thick dusting, all but for his lolling tongue and his open mouth, which caught and dissolved every errant flake within their reach. Maryanne sat on the rogue horse’s belly and the great beast let out a chuckle.

“Oh, don’t laugh. You know he liked it,” she said.

Fist turned his eyes back to the wizard just in time to see his body jerk. His facial expression didn’t change, but his breathing rate increased.

“Locksher?” Fist said softly and touched the wizard’s forehead. It was hot. Fist reached out with his healing magic and saw the infestation. He swallowed. There were larvae throughout the man’s bloodstream as well as tiny eggs. It had grown so quickly, from just a few tiny larvae.

He wondered if it would help to kill some of the larvae. Just a few of them, one-by-one just to ease the burden. But he didn’t dare do it just in case he could accidentally alert the evil to what was going on.

“How is he?” Maryanne asked.

“Not good. The infestation is as expected. But I should be able to bring him back as long as they don’t kill him.” The larvae didn’t seem to kill the ogres they infested, but Locksher was a much frailer human. His body might not be able to handle the stress of a full infestation. He kept monitoring the wizard with his magic, preparing to act if the wizard’s body started to shut down.

Uh oh, the house is opening
, Squirrel said and sent Fist a quick image of the strange building below and the rock in front of the door rolling to the side.

“Maryanne, Squirrel says something is going on down below,” Fist announced.

“I’ll check it out,” the gnome said, trotting off into the snow.

Locksher’s mind was nearly overcome by the sheer power of the thing. Its presence was massive and all consuming. Its thoughts were low and instinctual, but it had the capacity to process immense amounts of information at once. Each of those black strands carried commands, most of which were of a basic nature.
Go. Attack. Stop
. As large as it was, Locksher saw that it wasn’t whole. It was half of a mind, all power and little substance.

This didn’t make sense to him. How did it direct the armies of dead with thought processes so weak? If this was all there was too it, the dead would be stumbling around and walking off cliffs, not a threat to anybody.

As for memories, it had very few for Locksher to absorb. It was as if the thing was a newborn. Its thoughts seemed to have begun about six months ago, just at the end of the war. Locksher found that strange and dug deeper, going back to that beginning and pushing.

He found it and began to understand. He knew what this was. Fascinated, he followed its memories back to the present and noticed something he hadn’t before. A single dark strand protruded from the back of the mass, much thicker than any of the others’ as thick as his arm. This strand had a slight red tint to it, making it the color of dead blood.

Locksher realized that this strand did not originate from the mass, but was attached to it from the far end of the sphere. Another mind had penetrated the mass. A mind that was dark and powerful. He stretched his thoughts into the black mass, finding the joining spot where the red one entered. Then he saw it, a black rune.

The Dark Prophet was involved. Everything fell into place and Locksher knew that he needed to leave right away. He pulled his gray staff from the mass and saw that it wasn’t gray anymore. The blackness had moved up the staff and into his hands. His arms were black from the elbow down.

Fear jolted through him and he flexed his mind, willing the black back down his arms and out of the staff. It remained gray when he was finished, though perhaps a little darker than before. He grasped the silvery cord that linked him to his mind and began soaring back towards that tiny window of light. It looked much smaller than it had when he came in this place.

He was half way there when he was jerked to a halt. He looked down and saw a dark red tendril wrapped around his leg. The thing controlling the evil knew he was there.

Maryanne rushed through the falling snow to the edge of the shelf where Qenzic and Lyramoor crouched, Squirrel on the elf’s shoulder. She knelt down beside them and peered down to the lake below. Heat from the living mass of worms radiated upwards on her face. It melted the snow before it hit the ground below, turning into rain.

She arrived just as a hooded figure walked out of the entrance. It was wearing a dark red cloak that covered most of its body, though Maryanne thought she saw a clawed foot. The dead that were piled around the slope started to move. The figure stopped a few paces outside of the door and peered upwards. Right in their direction.

The three of them dropped to their bellies.

“No way,” said Lyramoor.

“You think it saw us?” Qenzic asked.

“No way,” Lyramoor repeated.

“I don’t know if it saw us but it knows something’s up here.” Maryanne was sure of it.

Lyramoor groaned. “Our wizard just pissed the bed, didn’t he?”

“That’s a way of saying it,” Maryanne replied. “Squirrel, let Fist know.”

The little creature nodded and shook a tiny fist, chattering angrily.

“Yeah, I’m not happy with Locksher either,” the gnome agreed.

She looked again. The hooded figure hadn’t moved, but a pale arm rose from within the cloak and a long finger pointed up at them. A chorus of screeches rang out and a flurry of hairy figures burst out of the goblin caves that were scattered up and down the cliff side below.

“What are those?” Qenzic asked.

“I don’t know,” Maryanne said.

She shifted her eyes to spirit sight and saw a gray blur covering most of the slope. She blinked and realized that she was seeing the thousands of tiny strands of black spirit magic linking the larvae inside the dead to whatever was in the lake. She focused on the hairy beasts and noticed a thicker strand of dark red that connected them to the hooded figure.

The hairy creatures ran towards the three friends. They reached the cliff face below and started climbing. Their snarls could be heard up above as the creatures made their way nimbly up the wall. The three friends stood, drawing their weapons.

“What do we do?” Lyramoor asked, small throwing knives in each hand.

“Unless Fist and Locksher tell us otherwise, I guess we fight,” Qenzic said, drawing his father’s famous sabre, The Commander, with one hand, while pulling a small shield off his back with the other.

“We may not have to.” Maryanne said. She pulled her bow off her shoulder and drew an electric arrow from Chester, the magical quiver at her waist. “Whoever that person down there is, they’re controlling those creatures. I can hit ‘em from here.”

“Do it then,” Qenzic said. “Whatever it is, it’s definitely an enemy.”

Maryanne fitted the arrow to her bow and pulled it back, aiming right for the center of the shadow under that hood. She fired, her magically-enhanced bow sending the arrow at a much faster speed than a regular bow would.

At the last possible moment, the figure’s pale hand reached up and snatched the arrow out of the air. There was a crackle of electric energy as the arrow expended its power, but the figure below seemed unharmed. It turned the arrow over in its fingers.

“No way,” said Lyramoor again.

Maryanne was just as stunned. More so. That was an inhuman feat. She grabbed another arrow, wondering if it could catch two fired in quick succession. Then the figure looked back up at her.

It reached out and opened its pale hand, the arrow balanced on its palm. It raised its arm until the arrow pointed back at her. She caught a brief glimpse of a pair of black lips on a pale face as it blew.

The arrow shot back up at Maryanne, pointed straight for the center of her head. The arrow flew just as fast as it had when she had shot it. Her honed gnomish reflexes reacted just in time and she dodged to the side. The arrow caught her in the cheek and tore a deep furrow before continuing onward into the falling snow.

Maryanne’s hand flew to the side of her face. Somewhere within the figure’s hood amber eyes met hers. The gnome growled a promise, “Oh you’re mine.”

“Well! Time to fight,” Lyramoor said. He threw one of his knives down at the beasts climbing up from below. There was a yelp and the creature fell. “Hey, I know what these are. I’ve seen ‘em before. In a dwarf menagerie. Lupolds.”

“Lupolds?” Maryanne tore her eyes away from her new nemesis for a moment and looked at the approaching creatures closer. They had the heads and bodies of wolves, but had long legs and humanoid hands that could grasp and claw. “You’re right. But lupolds only live in Khalpany. The orcs sometimes keep them as pets.”

“Well, they’re here,” Lyramoor said. He threw another knife and there was another yelp. He shook his head and drew his falchions. “I could throw away all my knives, but I don’t have enough to get ‘em all.”

Maryanne glared a promise at the figure, but didn’t dare fire another arrow at it just yet. She began firing at the lupolds, sending them hurtling one at a time down to the black lake below. That didn’t stop most of them from reaching the top.

Locksher fought hard. Swinging his staff, willing it to a blade-like edge. He severed the red tendril, but more came. This was not the kind of battle he was used to. He made slow progress towards his slowly fading light as he sliced and hacked, shooting forward, just to be halted again.

This wouldn’t do. He had to reach the light before Fist electrified him. Otherwise, he had grown certain that part of his mind would remain trapped behind. He would lose the information he had gained, and possibly a large part of his faculties, forever.

He hacked and sliced until his sword arm ached, the arm he never trained with a sword, and he realized his problem. He was fighting the way Jhonate had. He wasn’t a warrior and in this mental space, why did he have to be? How ridiculous of him.

He reached out and flames shot from his fingers, igniting the red threads. A cluster of fireballs formed into existence and swirled around him, burning any tentacles that came close. He shot towards his destination, popping right through the window and back into his world.

He hit the wall beside his desk with a crash, but stood up triumphant, only to find that the rot had spread while he was gone. The walls were back with mold. The paint had peeled. The bookcases sagged and many of the books had fallen on the floor, their pages warped and water damaged. There was only one corner of the room that was still pristine and that was right by the front door.