The Sword and the Soul Ch. 03

Some guards paced by and asked Mag his business, and when he told them who he was, they said something about fetching Lieutenant Glabber to better assist him. Mag had no great desire to deal with that pompous ass Glabber, so he quit the top of the wall and headed for the last place on the grounds he hadn't checked, which was the Magus Tower.

Every castle in Cairen, and most of Angrael besides, had a Magus Tower, built and maintained at the lord's expense for a member of the Order of Magi to come and inhabit it. Mag had met a lot of magi in his years, some kind and avuncular, others pompous and idiotic, and there was even one pretty female wizard he'd taken to bed in Saltea, but Magus Brand was unique even among all those. He wasn't rude, exactly, nor was he gregarious, but he had a dispassionate, antiseptic way of dealing with people that made Mag's blood boil. It made him think Brand was never saying what he really felt, and that was frustrating.

However, as Mag approached the tower, his quarry appeared before him as if by divine providence: Marilla Silver, in the flesh. She looked as beautiful as the night before, today wearing a yellow dress with a low-cut bodice that drew attention to the tops of her bountiful tanned breasts. Her chestnut hair swung in a complex braid, and her patrician features were furrowed in concentration. The Lady of Seleca was walking at a furious pace towards the keep, striding with such purpose that she didn't even see Mag at first. He called a hello and waved to her, and only then did she stop and look at him.

"You!" she said, blinking and seeming to come back to herself somewhat. "Master Vagabond."

"My Lady," said Mag, giving her a lopsided grin. "I was just looking for you. Figured I owed you an apology about last night."

"Oh," said Marilla. "Well, that's as may be, but there are more pressing things just now. I require your immediate aid."

"With what?"

"Norn is in jeopardy."

"The fuck you say?" said Mag, his eyes going wide, feeling very vulnerable all of a sudden. He hadn't expected Marilla to mention Norn.

"The witch. Your mistress. The one you connected me to last night. She's been in my head all morning, and now something called a Soulseeker has attacked her. If we don't act now she'll die, and I have much I want to ask her before that happens. Look, don't stand there gaping like a fish, we can discuss the details later. You must follow me. Now."

The lady stalked off, not waiting for his reply, and he spent a few bewildered moments staring at her shapely arse and wondering just what the fuck was happening. Clearly Marilla knew about Norn, maybe more than even Mag did, and clearly the witch was in trouble. It sounded like the Soulseeker, whatever that was, needed killing, and that was something Mag was good at. So he shrugged and hurried to follow.

They passed through the castle and into the courtyard, where Marilla led them once more into the gardens, following nearly the same path they'd taken the night before, except that last night there'd been a mood of sensual curiosity in the air, while today Mag felt foreboding dread. When they reached the gazebo Marilla stopped, spun on her heel and gave him a curious look, as if puzzled by him and anticipating some action.

"What?" he asked.

"Nothing," she said, with a curt shake of her head. "Just remembering a dream I had. It's not important. Norn said she was beneath the gazebo. There must be a hidden passage someplace. I knew the structure's foundation went deep, but I never considered there could be more below us. Foolish of me, really."

As Marilla scanned the walls of the gazebo, hunting for some secret switch, Mag drew his blade and rapped the steel hard against the stone. At the edge he got only a dull thud, but as he moved inward, repeating the blows against the floor, he heard instead a hollow echo.

"Something's definitely down there," said Mag. "Couldn't say how to open it though."

"I think I've found something," said Marilla.

She pointed to a section of the stone lattice work which, unlike the vine-like structure of the rest, was fashioned into the shape of a series of runes and glyphs.

"What do they say?" said Mag.

"I studied the Old Tongue as a girl," said Marilla. "Let me see if I can figure it out. It's a very difficult language, compared to the common tongue. This one is 'open,' and these two mean 'for me,' and this one is either 'reveal' or 'demonstrate,' I'm not sure. I think it goes like this."

She spoke the words in the Old Tongue, pronouncing the dead language carefully, drawing out each syllable. As soon as she'd made the final sound, the stone characters glowed with sudden blue radiance, and Marilla shivered as if a chill had passed through her. They heard a low grinding of stone on stone, and turned to see a square section of the floor, previously appearing quite solid, had slipped free and lowered a hand's length. It retracted slowly beneath the floor of the gazebo, stowing itself in some hidden chamber, and revealing a dark staircase leading below.

"Damn," remarked Mag. "That worked well enough. You didn't say you knew magic, My Lady."

He looked at Marilla, who wobbled a bit, as though dizzy. Mag went and put an arm around her instinctively, and his hand brushed some of the bare skin of her arm. It was chill to the touch and covered in gooseflesh.

"I don't," said Marilla. "But those characters were ensorcelled. All it takes to perform magic is runes and glyphs, composed in the proper sequence, and a tongue to speak their names. That's how the magi do it, at any rate. Some of one's Soul is needed to fire the spell, but the glyphs do most of the work."

"Well I'm fucking impressed," said Mag.

She'd leaned her head on his shoulder while she steadied herself, and now she inclined her head back, looking up into his eyes. He gazed back, captivated by her stare, and the way her full lips parted just slightly, in a way that made him want to kiss her. He was considering it when Marilla pulled out of his grasp and brushed past him towards the hole she'd created in the floor.

"We'd best get moving," she said over her shoulder. "Your mistress is in jeopardy, after all."

The lady descended the staircase into the gloom below, and Mag shook his head ruefully as he followed her. My mistress, eh? Norn certainly thought of herself that way. Mag had never really been the subservient type, though. Maybe Marilla's just jealous. That thought gave him a little twinge of pride.

Down the stairs, beneath the garden, a stone tunnel stretched before them, its walls etched with runic characters which glowed with soft blue incandescence. They could see down the passage a short way before it took a sharp turn, obscuring what might lie beyond. Marilla had stopped to peer at the writing on the walls.

"What do the walls say?" asked Mag.

"Nothing intelligible," she replied. "To me, at least. It's not complete sentences or thoughts. More like poetry, or an incantation of some kind. Phrases having to do with the Other Place and the gods seem to be repeated, as well as commands for light, which explains the glow. Norn must have spoken the words necessary to illuminate them. But as I said, the Old Tongue is very difficult. It does not have tenses in the way our common language does. Past, present, future: all appear the same to the untrained reader. Context is everything, and I have no reference point for this script."

She shrugged, and they continued on their way. Reaching the bend in the tunnel, they turned to find another section of passage before them, the same glowing scrawl covering its walls as well.

"You never knew this was down here?" asked Mag.

"No," said Marilla. "But I suppose I should have suspected. My father always said that Seleca was built on a place of power, a nexus point where leylines coalesce, whatever that means. Some magus must have advised my great-grandfather's architects to make this addition, possibly for magical reasons, or possibly just because they enjoy the occult. Magi love symbols and assignations, after all. I wonder if Brand knows about this place?"

"Huh," said Mag. "And here I thought lizard clan architecture was confusing."

The passage took two more turns and reached an intersection. Four paths, including the one they were on, intersected there, and all seemed roughly identical, with the same blue runes running along them.

"Any idea where these lead?" asked Mag.

"Perhaps to the catacombs or the crypt," replied Marilla, stroking her chin thoughtfully. "They are rumored to all be connected somehow. Then she indicated the passage to their left with her pointer finger. "I think we should go this way. I can't explain why. Just a feeling. Perhaps my connection with Norn."

Mag nodded his agreement. "If I'm being honest, I was thinking the same thing. I've been connected to her like that too. Maybe there's some lingering effects, like. But it feels like she's that way."

Marilla gave Mag a curious look, narrowing her eyes, and he felt a bit guilty. She's probably thinking it's my fault she's connected to Norn now. And she's right, sort of. He smiled sheepishly and shrugged, and puffed air through her nose, shaking her head. She walked away down the passage they'd indicated, and Mag followed.

After another turn, the tunnel ended abruptly at a simple wooden door with an iron handle. They hesitated before it, and the hairs on Mag's neck stood on end. He wondered if it was his own natural instincts telling him danger lurked up ahead, or if maybe his association with Norn was giving him a sixth sense for these things. Either way, he put out an arm to guide Marilla back away from the door, and drew his sword.

"I'm gonna kick this down," he explained, his voice a low whisper. "Doesn't look too sturdy. One good kick oughta do it. You hang back. If there's a Soulkin in there that needs killing, this could get messy pretty fast. Understand?"

Marilla had a steely look in her eye, as if she meant to argue with him, but she pursed her lips and gave a curt nod. Mag nodded back. He checked that his knives were all in place, that his armor and boots were on tight, and that his headband was fastened snugly around his brow. All being to his satisfaction, Mag drew back his right leg and kicked the door as hard as he could. It splintered open with a single blow, the latch snapping easily, and then Mag rushed into the room, screaming a bloody war cry.

The chamber was hexagon-shaped, and Norn lay in the center, completely nude, her pale skin even whiter than usual. A cluster of red candles burned before her, the only source of light in the room. She reclined within a pentagram drawn in green chalk dust, a glyph at each point, several of which had been smeared beyond recognition by something. The likely culprit was a disgusting reptilian creature with an elongated body and greenish-blue scales, which hunched over Norn, pawing at her body with webbed hands. A sucker-like appendage was curling out of the thing's mouth, and had affixed itself to Norn's left breast, where it pulsed regularly as it pumped something from her. A quick glance at Norn's exposed right breast, bearing angry red bruises from the sucker's rough treatment and leaking a silvery substance from the nipple, revealed to Mag what had been going on. The Soulseeker had been leeching liquid Soul from the witch, and judging by her wan, shrunken appearance and unconscious state, it seemed to have nearly drained her dry.

At Mag's entrance, howling like a demon and twirling his sword as he barged into the room, the creature paused, unlatching its sucker from Norn and pulling it back into its mouth. It blinked two huge, wet, eyes which bulged from its tiny, puckered face, and gave a sort of gurgling hiss.

"Come get me, you fucker," shouted Mag.

The Soulseeker moved with inhuman alacrity, bounding to the left with almost no shifting of stance, and spat out its sucker at Mag. He barely had time to duck and roll away, feeling the air woosh around his head as the sucker passed over him before retracting frog-like into the Soulseeker's mouth. Mag came up into a crouch and whipped a dagger from his bandolier, hurling it at the creature with deadly accuracy. But it leaped into the air with shocking reflexes, seeming to anticipate Mag's attack, and twisted its rubbery body as it did so. The thing collided with the ceiling and stayed there, its webbed hands and feet sticking to the stones.

"Fucking hell," muttered Mag, standing.

The Soulseeker shot out its sucker again, and Mag danced backward, taking it on his breastplate. The sucker stuck there, and Mag was hauled off his feet, swung like a stone in a sling, and hurled across the room. He hit the ground in a roll and crashed into the wall, exhaling sharply as the wind was knocked from his lungs. Somehow he'd kept his grip on his sword, and he used the blade to lever himself up again, watching the creature warily, his vision swimming. The monster was still on the ceiling, and it blinked again, sizing him up, deciding how best to finish him off, no doubt.

Gotta be faster, he told himself. Gotta be better. He pictured the night before, and how he'd reacted to Arnis Glabber tossing that cake at his head. It was as though time had slowed for him, and his senses had all been heightened. Mag concentrated hard, breathing in through the nose and out through the mouth. Then it happened.

He could see each greenish-blue scale on the Soulseeker's body, and how they interlocked with one another like shields overlapping one another. He could smell the reek of mud and brackish water coming off of it. He could hear its heart beating quickly, indicating how agitated it was, and the frightened gleam in those bulbous eyes. And in that moment, Mag knew he could beat the fucker.

Deception was often the key to any great victory. Mag could have stood up straight, but he stayed leaning on his sword, hoping it would lull the creature into attacking, and he was right. The Soulseeker snapped out its sucker, hoping to catch Mag in the face and end things, but Mag sidestepped the attack easily. It was as though the Soulseeker was moving slower now, and the sucker seemed lethargic as it slid through the air to the spot where Mag used to be. He whirled his sword around in a savage arc and sliced into the pink flesh of the sucker, severing the appendage in a one clean swing. Bright silvery blood -- Soul, maybe? -- gushed from the wound, and the end of the sucker flopped to the ground where it quivered like a fish on land.

The Soulseeker gurgled and whined with pain, retracting its maimed appendage into its mouth. It dropped from the ceiling and bounced towards the entrance to the hexagon chamber, hoping to escape. Mag chased after it, but even with his newfound speed he didn't think he'd be able to catch it. Then Marilla appeared in the doorway, holding some kind of pouch in her hand. She flung it at the creature's face, and a burst of brown powder exploded into the thing's eyes and mouth. It whined again, stumbling backwards, seeming dizzy after inhaling whatever Marilla had hit it with.

The damn thing didn't even see Mag coming. He almost felt sorry for it. Almost. Mag caught up to it while it staggered woozily, bringing his sword around in a horizontal arc that chopped halfway through the Soulseeker's elongated midsection. Its slippery flesh pulled away from the blade and the thing went down hard, writhing in pain as another gout of silvery Soul-blood gushed from this fresh wound. Mag stepped forward and put a heavy boot down on the thing's rubbery back to keep it from flopping around. Then, with a single measured cut, he took off its head. It quivered a few more times and was still.

Mag stepped back, admiring his handiwork. The trance he'd been in ended, his senses returning to normal, with him not even sure how he'd engaged that heightened state in the first place. Then he creased his brow as something strange happened. The Soulseeker's corpse began to pulse, and then with a popping sound it burst open like a ripe fruit, spilling liquid Soul onto the stone floor of the hexagon room. The silvery substance began to steam, as if boiling, and then evaporated clean away. The Soulseeker's corpse went with it, melting and dissipating until nothing remained.

"Well, that was fucking strange," said Mag. "Why do you think it did that?"

"Pure Soul cannot long remain exposed in our realm," said Marilla. "I read that in a book once. Norn called this a Soulseeker, something that feeds off of pure Soul. When it died, all of that Soul leaked out, and then it was pulled back to the source of all Soul, Fal'Angrael."

"Makes sense, I guess," said Mag. He didn't really get it, but he figured it was best to just play along. "What was that powder you used?"

"Just some crushed valerian," said Marilla. "Good for curing insomnia and many other things besides. I grow it in my gardens and happened to be carrying some. A large dose can induce drowsiness or even stop the heart."

"Well, it worked. Nice timing."

"You did most of the work," said Marilla. She smiled appreciatively, looking Mag up and down. "Very impressive job, Master Vagabond."

"Ah, it was nothing," said Mag, rubbing his upper lip. "We make a good team."

"Do you know, I believe I agree."

He chuckled. Then he remembered that there was a naked, unconscious Soul Witch lying half-dead in the center of the room, and he sobered up. Something told him their work was only beginning.

#~#~#~#~#~#~#

Marilla had only seen the woman in visions before, and heard her speak through Mag's voice, but even so she felt like she was already under the witch's hypnotic spell. The witch lay on the floor, seeming shrunken and as white as snow. Sweat covered her body, and her breathing came in ragged gasps. Even like this, sickly and vulnerable, she looked alluring. Norn's pale breasts, not exceedingly large but pert and supple, rose and fell with each breath, and the shapely swell of her hips was on display as she lay sprawled on her side within the pentagram.

"What do we do?" asked Marilla. "That is, can we save her?"

Mag's brow was furrowed. The big man, so confident in battle earlier, seemed at a loss now. Marilla wondered what exactly the relationship between him and this woman was. Was he truly her servant? Were they paramours, so to speak? And where does that leave me?

"I'm not sure," he said. "She makes her power from... uh... well, she calls it 'vital essence.' You know what I mean?"

"Ah," said Marilla, blushing. "Yes, I think I do. So you mean to... make love to her, in this state?"

Mag frowned, and she wondered if there was a bit of color to his cheeks as well as he considered it. Seeing the mercenary embarrassed and at a loss was endearing.

"Seems a little rude, doesn't it? Fucking her while she's asleep? Pardon my language."

"You've been inside me, Mag, I don't think we need to worry about profanity."

"Uh. Yeah. Well, anyway. I don't like to fuck a woman unless she's agreed to it, not that I think she'd say no, but still. We could feed it to her. That might be, you know, more considerate."

Marilla considered the idea, tilting her head to one side. It was intriguing, and she felt a bit hot wondering at the logistics of it. The core of the witch's Soul began throbbing again inside her core, and she felt a thrill imagining the possibilities.

"How would that work?" she asked. "You can't just stuff your manhood down her throat."

"Nah," returned Mag. "I'd have to pull myself off, I guess. And catch it in my hand or something."

"You could," said Marilla. She turned and met his wolfish yellow eyes, sensing the heat and the need there. He was aroused as well, and thinking about the implications of their discussion. "But that method seems a bit messy. What if you missed your hand and spilled it on the ground? What if instead, I helped bring you off, and caught it in my mouth, and fed her your seed from my lips?"