The loss of my librarians was something of a shock to me, I admit.
Especially as it was all my fault.
As a gentleman, my priority ought to have been on rescuing the ladies first and slaughtering the locals last. Instead, I had assumed I had plenty of time because the skills of the necropolis' inhabitants had felt lacking.
While I had known the ghosts were being channelled via the Ghost Trap and into the green cord-like conduits, I had assumed they were being imprisoned somewhere. I hadn't expected someone to have the talent enough to build a Soul Crucible.
And now it was too late.
Sarah must have fought against the powerful flow of life energy sweeping her through the conduits. Our connection had used up the last of her strength.
By now, her essence would have been obliterated.
Nothing of her would remain.
Even if I could identify her individual soul among the soup within the crucible, it would be a blank slate with nothing of her left and no way to recover her.
My fault.
All my fault.
I tell you there's nothing in the universe more powerful as a motivator than the realisation that you are to blame for something truly horrendous and now need to take responsibility for the consequences.
Firm responsibility.
"Die, rats," I hissed, pulling more fire from the skies.
There weren't as many screams anymore. Whatever magics the necromancers were using to defend themselves had been ground away by my ceaseless attacks.
Stone shrapnel blasted into the sky.
Someone tried sending down a small army of skeletons.
A pathetic attempt at slowing me down.
The skulls of the undead warriors clicked and clacked as they raced towards me. Rusty swords in their hands.
A few fireballs blew them to pieces.
A hooded figure tumbled out of the smoke, most of his right arm missing. Flames chewed at his robes as he staggered to a halt and stared down at me.
"Wait, please," he croaked, coughing hard. "I have treasures! I'll exchange them for my life. Please! I didn't even want to be here…"
Fire shot from my fingers.
A thick line of concentrated heat which burned a hole through his forehead.
He dropped, his corpse rolling past me and into the growing pit of lava which was consuming the necropolis.
Mooks deserved no mercy.
And rats even less.
Without glancing at the bodies, I climbed the last stairs and stood at the peak where the Soul Crucible squatted in the centre. A huge black cauldron whose glutinous ectoplasmic contents swirled like a vortex. A few tattered wisps puffed free and were carried away on the hot wind.
"Forgive me, Sarah," I said to the soup. "A gentleman should never be late. I forgot this."
"You're ruined my home," a calm voice said from behind the cauldron.
He was a short man. Shorter than most short men I've encountered.
Thin, too. With a long crooked nose and sharp cheekbones. His expression was permanently sour and the sweat sliding down his forehead looked tainted with filth.
He clearly hadn't discovered the mysterious technology of baths.
"Lord Varis, I presume?"
"I am he."
"Well," I said. "I am me. Now, to business. I'm thinking I boil you in the Soul Cauldron for a few days. Just to clean you up. Then use Templestowe's Bone Manipulation to break every bone in your body into a fine powder. After that, we'll need to get creative, won't we? Do you have any ideas?"
"Presumptive bastard, aren't you?" He sneered at me while fiddling with something in his hands. It looked like a little black orb. "But you're too late to threaten me. My first work has already been completed. But you're arrival is convenient. I can test my latest creation on you. And your suggestion of Templestowe's work? Well. I like it. I like it a lot."
Ah.
Too late again.
This was most vexing.
He put what he'd been working on into his robes and the smoke behind him cleared as a creature rushed past and dived at me.
The monstrous thing was a twisted patchwork of many people. The flesh tones didn't match. The stitching was still in place. The bones were differing lengths.
Little attempt had been made to make it functional.
To Lord Varis, this was merely a tool. And, like most aristocratic men who'd never worked a day in their life, he had no respect for the quality of a tool. In his mind, if it broke, he could simply get another one.
"Abomination," I hissed, forced to throw myself away from the lunging creature. Its grasping hands surged with life energy and if I'd been caught within those meaty digits, I would have been crushed.
"Yes!" He began to cackle. "At last! I have succeeded where all have failed before me! With the Soul Crucible, I can churn out Abominations by the dozen! The Mage Guild won't be able to stop me. No one can stop me! Do you feel fear now, Taran? Yes, I know who you are, void mage. I've been waiting for you."
The Abomination lifted its arms and roared.
Then vaulted over the cauldron. Its eyes, mismatched, blazed fiercely with its singular desire to kill. A solid wave of energy slashed out at me. It screamed past my face, almost shattering my eardrums.
I felt the violent pulse of its passage and, if I'd been slower in refining a shield of life energy in front of me, I would have been sliced to pieces by it. As it was, my shield didn't survive. It shattered like glass, sending glassy fragments skittering across the floor.
The backlash from the failed spell snapped through my body like an electric shock, numbing my arms. The crackle of energy caused sparks to spit loose from my tongue and I shook my head to force my next spell's words through my teeth.
Desperately, I threw a fireball as hard as I could. It slammed into the creature's chest and splashed like water. Molten flame seared its flesh as it dribbled down to melt into the stone floor.
In other words, it had little effect other than to cause it to stumble.
"You think a fireball can harm an Abomination?" Lord Varis called mockingly. "That might work on skeletons or zombies, but an Abomination is the peak of necromantic power! I had heard you had some small talents in the Great Arts of Death, Taran, but clearly you are little more than a dabbler!"
"I'm well aware of its strengths," I told him calmly. "And it's weaknesses. K'n Bakku P'rei!"
Thick tendrils of burst out of the ground to wrap themselves around the undead creature. They coiled around its legs, then up its torso before racing around its arms.
It let out a strangled roar but was soon bound firmly enough that all sound was muffled.
"That won't hold it," Lord Varis laughed, blasting the tentacles with necrotic energy. "It will tear free in moments!"
"A moment is all I need."
With a jerk of my fist, I pulled a meteor from the heavens which speared down from the sky in a roar of heat and light.
"Paltry fire magic!" Lord Varis snarled, forming a Necroshield. The green dome was perfectly formed, too. "Such insolence! I am the Supreme High Lord Necromancer of the Order of Dessicated Remains! Not some feeble little novice! You will need greater magics than this to even wrinkle my robe!"
"Khlept'o," I muttered as the meteor slammed into his shield. Despite a shimmer of necrotic energy as the impact warped the shield, it did no damage.
He rounded on me, the sneer still on his face as he shook his head with disappointment. "I expected more from the famous Taran of Wintershire," he said. "But it seems the legends of your abilities are truly inflated. However, I am curious. With these childish spells, how did you defeat the Dark Lord of the North?"
"Hmm?" I lifted my hand and studied the black orb in my palm. "Oh, it was relatively simple in the end."
"You!" Lord Varis patted down his robes. Disbelief had wiped the smirk from his face. "Give that back! Give it back to me immediately!"
The orb was leaking. Small wisps of smoke gently wafted off its surface as though something within was burning.
That's not what was happening, though.
It had been made far too hastily, and small cracks were allowing the condensed souls within to escape.
"You really should have reinforced it," I told him. "But I'll give you the benefit of the doubt and assume you didn't have the time before I arrived."
"How? How did you-"
"The void is a very good at portals," I said dismissively. "But this particular one required you to be distracted when I cast it. Oh, look. You used Ferdinald's Soul Tie to keep the souls inside. How adorably quaint."
"Quaint?" He let out an offended sputter.
"Yes, well. It was in the first book of necromancy the Old Twit gave me. Julien's Grande Necromancie in Fyve Parts." I smiled fondly at the memory of the simple book. The illustrations in it had been very entertaining. "Do you still have a copy, by chance?"
He glared at me. "It was in the library."
"Where is that now?"
"Probably turned to ash," he said with a nod to the expanding crater of lava which had now encircled the remnants of the ziggurat.
"Oh, that's a shame. I would have liked it for nostalgic purposes. I sold mine."
"I don't need an Abomination to kill you." He lifted his arms and prepared to duel, starting to condense multiple balls of life energy. "Your spells are weak. You rely instead on cheap tricks. I, however, am a true master of magic!"
I could feel the necrotic power boiling in his veins as he prepared to show his mastery over the necromantic arts.
I had a vague feeling he could probably beat me.
Judging by the creepy grin forming on his face, he felt so, too.
"I'm going to-"
"No," I said. "No more monologuing. Wait your turn. K'n Bakku P'rei."
He didn't have a chance to scream as the tentacles wrapped him up completely. While he squirmed and writhed, I crushed the orb in my fist.
The Abomination within the cocoon of void tentacles, exploded.
Thankfully, for my robes at least, the cocoon contained the blast, but the tentacles gave a disgusted wiggle as they submerged again, leaving behind a puddle of gore.
I winced.
The Old Twit wouldn't be happy with getting Undead on His tentacles. The smell was very difficult to wash off.
"I'm sorry," I called out. "I didn't expect it to explode like that!"
I felt the Old Twit's pressure on my mind. He wasn't happy.
But He patted my head anyway.
Then He slowly turned my neck so I was staring at the Soul Cauldron with its churning soup of damaged and tortured souls.
"Oh, yes," I said, giving myself a mental shake. "Thank you for the reminder."
Another pat.
"Would you mind terribly if I asked you to transport my guest back to the Tower? Into the basement should be fine. Grimsby will know what to do with him."
The tentacle-wrapped Lord Varis let out a muffled scream as he was forcibly dragged into the ground.
"Thank you," I said. Then turned back to the cauldron with a sigh. "Puh'ta Fran Gr'ohn."
I felt the warm sheath of void magic slide over me. Stretching my awareness, I extended the field to cover the cauldron, too. Then I cleaved reality and forcibly bent the laws of space and time.
And took the cauldron into the void where a large menacing form waited.
"Hello, Mary."
"Taran!" She loomed over the cauldron, her eyes bright with joy. "You bring nom noms for Mary?"
***
My apologies for missing yesterday's chapter. It's been a bit depressing as I'm not getting very much support for this story or my others. My last book, Nekomancer, did not do well on Amazon at all. It feels I work hard for no return.
I'm trying hard today. But if you like this story...
I'm not sure if you can be motivated to help by these words. I feel this world is too used to demanding so much for free, that it is difficult to get support now. But I hope you do enjoy it enough to do something for me. Comment, vote for it, add it to your library. Share it with friends. Anything.
In all honesty, I could just use some comfort knowing that someone human is reading. Mostly I just get spammed by people trying to make me buy their stuff on here, so I don't know if anyone actually liked this story.