Necromancer Awakening (31 page)

“You know my name.”

“Few things related to the priestly caste happen in Aquonome absent my awareness. But I have known you would come for a very long time.”

First Mujahid and now this guy. Enough was enough. “Everybody has a prophecy in this dang place, but nobody ever tells me anything. What good’s a prophecy if you keep it secret?”

“There are many prophecies, just as there are many….” Lamil stopped for a few moments and his eyes spun around in his head. When they came to rest he continued. “Your language is limited. Let’s call them
gods
for the sake of simplicity. There are many prophecies, just as there are many
gods
. Some are intended for multitudes of people to hear, while others are meant for the ears of a few or even one. A prophecy meant for one is meaningless to another, and prone to misinterpretation. Therefore it is best left unspoken. The people you refer to are acting appropriately.”

Nicolas wanted a straight answer, and his frustration levels were climbing. He felt the probing fingers of energy in his mind, and he suspected the siek had something to do with it.

“You are an impatient person,” Lamil said. “This keeps you far from your cet.” He glanced toward the top of the dome. “I could say the way home for you is up…but we both know it is not that simple.”

Nicolas’s eyes grew large as he realized what Lamil was implying.

“In order to find your way home, you must first understand why you left.”

“It’s not like I got lost wandering around the fair grounds. Something
did this
to me.”

Lamil looked Nicolas up and down. “When you find your cet, you will find your direction. You cannot have one without the other.”

Nicolas rolled his eyes.

“Do not take these words lightly, for I do not offer them lightly. I can teach you more about necromancy than you have imagined possible. But I cannot teach you anything if you are unwilling to learn.”

“I want nothing more than—”

“Your impatience is a form of unwillingness. To be impatient, by definition, is to be unwilling to suffer delay. But wisdom requires delay, for wisdom is a thing that takes time to acquire. And knowledge in the absence of wisdom is dangerous.”

That last sentence was almost verbatim what Mujahid had said. He looked away, thinking about the first day he had spent in Paradise, and wondered if he would ever be powerful enough to get back home.

Lamil chuckled and said “Too much too soon is not a good thing.”

Nicolas’s head snapped back toward Lamil, and his heart raced. This was more than a coincidence.

“Of course it is no coincidence,” Lamil said.

So that was his trick. Lamil was using the strands of energy to read his thoughts.

“The Mukhtaar Lords were among my finest students.”

“You’re more powerful than they are?”

Lamil
harrumphed
. “Your question betrays your ignorance. I do not offer power…not in the way you expect. I offer a journey towards wisdom.”

Lamil raised his hands and spread his webbed fingers in front of Nicolas’s face. “Now, in order to reach a destination, one must first know one’s starting point. I am going to delve into your mind to see how much of the art you possess, and how much you are capable of possessing.”

Nicolas’s neck shook with an involuntary spasm as the probing energy dove deeper into his mind. Strands of energy intertwined themselves around his symbols of power and probed the depth of his energy well.

“You have a basic understanding of the source of your power, but not its purpose,” Lamil said.

The energy strands grew tighter and dissolved into the symbols of power, and images ran through Nicolas’s mind. They resolved into a single image, repeated over and over—the entrance to his hall of power.

A strand of energy touched the white door, entered it and recoiled away from it. When it entered the black door an image of Kaitlyn appeared, and Lamil inhaled.

He tilted his head. “You have come into the second tier of your power.” Lamil tilted his head to the opposite side. “Now…let’s have a look at what you may be capable of.”

The strands reached deeper, opening door after door in the hall of power. Every time a new door opened Kaitlyn appeared for just a moment before dissolving into mist. Deeper and deeper the energy probed, and Lamil’s hand trembled, yet the energy delved deeper still, racing through rooms too quickly for Nicolas to keep track. Again he heard Lamil inhale.

“Potential runs deep. You have as many halls as a Mukhtaar—wait…there is another.”

The probing strands reached a large, circular room in Nicolas’s mind. Multiple black doors dotted the room…too many to count. This was something different, and, judging by Lamil’s reaction, unexpected.

The room was a hollow, tubular column climbing to a height beyond the limits of his vision, ringed with black doors stacked one on top of the other that reached up into a black, starless sky.

There was a presence in the room he hadn’t noticed before, and he spun around to see what it was.

Kaitlyn stood no more than two feet away, holding a rose and smiling her infectious smile. He reached out to touch her, but she dissolved into wispy strands of cloud that rose up through the hollow column and became one with the starless sky.

Lamil pulled his hand away and he circled Nicolas, as if wanting to see him from every angle.

He might not be able to read the expression on Lamil’s face, but he could see the siek was shaken. And the siek wasn’t the only one. What in blazes was Kaitlyn doing there?

Lamil completed the full circle and stopped.

“I need time to meditate on what I have just seen,” Lamil said. “There are things I do not understand about your pathways…and that is saying something. I will seek the High Priest’s council. Let us continue your studies tomorrow. You will train with me. The formations are for cichlos, not human.”

Nicolas looked down.

“Learn to develop your patience. We have a long journey ahead of us.” Lamil nodded to a nearby student. “Take Nicolas to the sleeping dome.”

The student bowed and led Nicolas from the dome.

Nicolas couldn’t help wondering what Kaitlyn had to do with his hall of power.

“Learn anything useful, human sab?”

The voice surprised Nicolas as he left the dome. He was expecting to find Jurn waiting for him, but instead he saw a red-skinned cichlos wearing the white cowl of a student, leaning against the archway that led into the dome. The cichlos was standing in such a way that the left side of his face was hidden from view. His right eye, however, was staring straight at Nicolas.

“Nicolas. The name’s Nicolas. Not
human
, or
sab
, or…whatever the hell the cichlos equivalent of
dumbass
is. Got it?
Nic…o…las
.”

The cichlos made an unfamiliar noise and turned away from the arch. When the left side of his face came into view, Nicolas took a step back. The fish man’s left eye was completely black, as if the pupil had dilated and remained that way. It was hard to tell with the cichlos, but the skin surrounding the black eye looked burned, as if the entire side of his face had been engulfed in flame at some point. Nicolas couldn’t stop staring at the scars.

The cichlos’s right eye crossed to the left, as if trying to see what Nicolas was staring at.

Nicolas realized what he was doing and looked down.

“You don’t look so pretty to us either, you know,” the cichlos said.

“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean—”

“Personally, I find it hard to believe you’re the one he’s been waiting for. You’re not even one of us.”

This was getting old. “We now continue with the verbal abuse portion of the program, I see. It doesn’t have quite the effect you’re going for when you do it all the time, you know. Someone should teach you people about that.”

“Toridyn,” the cichlos said.

Nicolas laughed. “And there it is. The cichlos word for
dumbass
. I knew we’d get there eventually.”

“Toridyn is the cichlos word for my name, human…I mean…
Nicolas
.”

Ahh hell. I
am
a dumbass.

“You haven’t been treated well by us,” Toridyn said. “I understand. But we’re not all like Jurn. Few of us are.” He paused when Nicolas didn’t react. “It was a training accident.”

“Jurn was an accident? That explains some things.”

Toridyn made a noise like a chuckle. “Not
Jurn
. My face. You were curious. About a year ago, I conjured an energy sphere and something went wrong. It blew up, I cried like a hatchling, and now I have this to remind me.” He pointed to his left eye.

“I didn’t mean to pry.”

“Why wouldn’t you be curious? Even my own people stare at me from time to time.”

“Well, they don’t seem like the most sensitive bunch.”

“And the best part is I’m not even supposed to be here.”

“I know the feeling. So how’d you get trapped here?”

“It’s a sad story.”

“Well the universe seems to think I’ve been too happy lately. I could use a little more depression in my life.”

Toridyn looked away as if considering something, and then he took a step toward Nicolas.

“I wanted to work with the chimeramancers, and then the stupid skull dreams started,” Toridyn said. He spoke with animated gestures, and his voice grew excited.

“Excuse me…the
whatmancers
now?”

“The grey cowls…never mind that. My point is once the skull dreams start, it’s all over. No one cares what you want anymore. It’s all
sab
this and
priestly caste
that. And don’t even get me started on the prophecies. ‘
You are destined for greatness, Toridyn, but your ignorance blinds you
.’” He spoke the last in a fake, deep voice that sounded remarkably similar to Lamil’s.

Nicolas let a small laugh escape before he realized it. This was incredible. Toridyn was just like him.

A snapping noise caught their attention, and Nicolas turned to see one of the instructors giving Toridyn a strange look.

“Come on,” Toridyn said. “There’ll be time for talking later. I’m supposed to show you to the sleeping dome. There isn’t really a place for you, so you’re going to have to bunk with me.”

“Works for me.”

Nicolas followed Toridyn toward another archway leading out of the temple dome.

“Can I ask you a question?” Nicolas said.

“Sure.”

“Just what the hell
is
a cet, anyway?”

Toridyn chuckled and led him into the dormitory.

Nicolas lost track of the days after eight weeks of training, and every morning was the same—a breakfast of raw fish and water, an hour of meditation, and several hours training with the siek. Meal times were difficult for him, but hanging out with Toridyn helped.

The cichlos students lived in pods, small rooms made from barrier material that were large enough for five or six students, and these pods were stacked from floor to ceiling around the dome, leaving a large common area in the center. Ladders hung from pod entrances and small platforms. In a way, it reminded Nicolas of Montezuma’s Castle in Arizona. He’d gone there with Dr. Murray on their Rocky Mountain trip.

There was something disturbing about Aquonome, however. Just like in Paradise and Caspardis, there were no children here…or hatchlings, as the Cichlos called them.

He got up earlier than usual to watch an orb ritual in the temple. Cichlos would bring small objects to a temple priest, who would walk behind the orb for a few moments, then bring the object back. Nicolas was just as confused as the first time he’d seen it. After a few minutes staring at the murals on the dome ceiling and the strange sparkles on the floor, he headed back to his dorm to eat.

He sat on a bench, which Toridyn had fashioned for him out of barrier magic, and stared at his breakfast plate, wishing he had some tartar sauce. He took a bite of the disgusting fish. They didn’t even clean it for him. They just tossed it on a table, fresh from the lake, and expected him to dig in, fins and all. The one time he asked to cook it they looked at him like he’d farted in church.