Necromancer Falling: Book Two of The Mukhtaar Chronicles (36 page)

As for the dates of Lord Mukhtaar’s reign, the Scrolls of Tal’mon set the dates from 1330 BCE to 1221 BCE.

- Coteon of the Steppes, “The Mukhtaar Chronicles: Coteonic Commentaries” (circa 680 BCE)

The abyss is quite real. Nuuan and I located it some three hundred miles northeast of Dar Saricon. It took more than a dozen penitents longer than a month to unseal the ancient temple complex. But the real challenge was keeping curious nomads away. In our ascended state, I estimate the same task would have taken less than a week.

- Mujahid Mukhtaar, Private Commentaries, 45 CE

It had been a long day on the road, and Nicolas was grateful to finally stop.

Aelron had run out of drinking water, so Kaitlyn had given him her water skin to use. She had a dizzy spell when she handed it to him, but Nicolas chalked it up to being tired from the road.

She wasn’t the only one who was tired. Toridyn and the refugees had fallen asleep not far from the cook fire, which was casting an amber glow on the ring of boulders surrounding their camp.

Aelron, however, had gone off somewhere to hunt the wild boar that roamed about. He said they were easier to sneak up on at night, and no one had any objections. Why should they? Aelron was doing a great job of keeping everyone fed.

Kagan was walking a patrol around the perimeter of the camp, several hundred yards away, and Kaitlyn had volunteered to clean the cooking supplies. A few minutes after she disappeared around a boulder with the cooking implements, a strange set of images emerged from the necromantic link.

They were confusing—a side effect of Arin having summoned Kagan for him—but he got the general idea. Someone was trying to have a conversation with dead Kagan. But Kagan wasn’t responding to the person’s questions because Nicolas hadn’t given him permission to speak.

Nicolas quickly scanned the camp. Toridyn and the refugees were all asleep, and Toby’s nose was poking out from inside Toridyn’s sleeping pallet. Kaitlyn was cleaning pots on the other side of the boulder.

That left Aelron.

Stay quiet,
Nicolas sent through the necromantic link.
Don’t let him know I’m coming.

What the hell was Aelron up to? One minute he was the most straight-shooting guy on the planet, and the next he was a mako shark in a kiddie pool. But there was something familiar about him. Something about his eyes.

Nicolas stood and Toby’s nose flared a few times. He started crawling, but Nicolas held his hand out. Toby got the idea and crawled back in to Toridyn’s sleeping pallet. He didn’t look happy about it, though.

Nicholas used the necromantic link to find Kagan.

No matter how much cover Nicolas had, his footsteps would be loud on the dry ground. Aelron would hear him coming before he got close enough to hear the conversation.

Nicolas paused for a moment. Did Kagan have a way of relaying what Aelron was saying? Even if he did, though, the imagery returning from the link had grown confusing since the wagon rolled over. It would be better to hear it with his own ears.

Nicolas had used necropotency in the past to lift objects and other people. Could he use it to lift himself?

Only one way to find out.

Nicolas began weaving a rope of necropotency, but abandoned the attempt. What would he attach the other end to? Besides, he needed some measure of control over this. All he needed was to get his feet an inch or two off the ground and the noise problem would be solved.

He wrapped himself in a bubble of energy and heaved upwards.

The ground was hard in this part of the Shandarian Union. At least that’s what his shoulder blades told him when he landed on his back after doing a complete somersault.

A high-pitched whine came from behind.

Toby had crawled out of the sleeping pallet and was staring at him.

Maybe I need to control each foot independently.

It would be tricky, but it was worth a shot.

Nicolas pushed himself to his feet, opened his mind, and laid a platform of necropotency under each foot. He couldn’t help smiling as he rose off the ground. Now he needed to walk.

“See Toby?” Nicolas whispered. “I know what I’m doing.”

Toby wagged his tail twice and stopped. He wasn’t convinced.

Nicolas took a step forward with his left foot.

Step
, however, would imply a far greater degree of control than what Nicolas exercised. It wasn’t so much a
step
as it was an uncontrollable slide with ever-increasing momentum and no possibility of recovery. Worse, his right foot was stuck where he’d left it.

Shit! Shit! Shit!

This was going to get real painful real fast if he didn’t do something. But all he could do was release his grip on the necropotency.

He landed in front splits and rolled over in pain holding his groin.

Toby whined and laid his head on his front paws.

“Yeah, get a good laugh,” Nicolas whispered.

This wasn’t going to work. He had no idea how to lift himself in a controlled way. It wasn’t the same as lifting something else. The physics of it was all wrong, like he was violating some fundamental law or something. He’d have to do this the old-fashioned way.

He told Toby to stay and set out in Kagan’s direction, using the sparse dwarf trees for as much cover as he could get. He’d need to be careful. Erindor’s night sky provided substantial ambient light, and only Nicolas’s scapular was dark. His robes were white. Covered in mud, but white just the same.

The images from the necromantic link were scattered and confusing, but Nicolas concentrated. He needed information before he walked into something he couldn’t handle.

An image of a child in danger, followed by an overwhelming sense of abandonment, made Nicolas pause for a minute. The pain was visceral. But it didn’t make sense. Why would Kagan feel
abandoned
? Was he in danger?

Nicolas shook it off and crouched on his way to the next dwarf tree. He was close. He couldn’t see them, but Aelron’s baritone voice, subdued to a hoarse whisper, was impossible to miss.

“Why?” Aelron asked. “Don’t you have anything to say for yourself?”

Kagan came into view. He was scanning the horizon.

Ignore me
, Nicolas told him.

Aelron was right behind Kagan, gesturing furiously.

“Damn you,” Aelron said. “How could you do it? Nicolas wouldn’t abandon a crippled old man, but you send me away? And what of my birthright, old man? Did you give me so much as a second thought after I left?”

Send him away? Who the hell is this guy?

Something glinted near Aelron’s waist. Aelron was holding a dull, chipped dagger the size of a large hunting knife behind Kagan’s back.

Nicolas prepared to summon another penitent. But as he reached for ambient necropotency, there was little of it around. Enough to pull off a few simple tricks, maybe, but summoning a penitent was out of the question. He’d have to grant Kagan permission to cast if he needed to. Neither of them would be able to accomplish much, but combined they may be able to incapacitate Aelron.

“It’s telling me to kill him,” Aelron said. “Do you know
that
? Does
that
loosen your dead tongue, old man?”

Who is he talking about?

Aelron was bouncing something in his other hand. That damned coin again.

A confusing series of images erupted from the necromantic link, but Nicolas couldn’t make anything out of them. All they shared in common was an overall sense of urgency. But Kagan wouldn’t be fearful of Aelron, even if he knew about the dagger at his back. The blade would mark him up a bit, sure, but it wouldn’t destroy him.

Aelron tossed the coin and flipped it onto his left wrist, which was holding the dagger at the back of Kagan’s neck.

“See?” Aelron said. “The same thing. Over and over and over. I can’t fight this much longer!”

A wave of necropotency emanated from Kagan, and he flew up and forward as if a bomb had exploded behind him.

Why the hell did he do that?

Aelron flipped the dagger into his hand blade-first, then launched it over his shoulder without looking.

The dagger dug into the dwarf tree next to Nicolas’s face, pinning the hood of his robe, until the guard let it burrow no farther. Nicolas tried to step forward, but his robe was cut from thick cloth, and the dagger was firmly planted.

“You sneak like an adda carrying a desert nomad’s belongings,” Aelron said. “You’ll be tempted to use magic. A word of advice…
don’t
.”

There wasn’t a lot of time. Nicolas had to do something before Aelron closed the distance between them. A physical confrontation was out of the question. It was clear Aelron was a fighter. And a good one at that.

Nicolas caught himself weaving a net of necropotency until he remembered the incident with the wagon. If he cast the net at Aelron, it would rebound back onto him. He’d accomplish nothing.

There was nothing he could do but try to talk Aelron down.

“I don’t know what’s going on with you,” Nicolas said, “but I know it doesn’t have to be like this.”

Aelron flipped the coin.

“Festering adda-ki!” Aelron yelled. “Twenty-seven tosses in a row!”

Aelron closed the coin in a tight fist and pounded it against his forehead several times, scrunching his face as if he were in pain. He opened his eyes and flipped it again.

When he slapped the coin onto his left wrist, his breath was ragged.

A moment later, Aelron chuckled.

“I tried, friend,” Aelron said. “I really did. I swear it on my honor. But the multiverse wants you dead for some reason. Any idea why?”

“All I know is there’s some grade-A freaky shit going on here as usual. It wouldn’t surprise me to find out something is manipulating that coin of yours.”

Sweat beaded on Aelron’s forehead. He paced. When he spoke, his voice broke, choking back a sob.

“You were going to carry that old man back there,” Aelron said. “Why’d you have to do that? Why couldn’t you be the man I’d envisioned? A man like Kagan, or worse.”

Aelron pulled the dagger from the tree and held the blade to Nicolas’s throat. His arm trembled, and Nicolas felt a drop of moisture form where the dagger touched.

“It doesn’t have to be like this,” Nicolas said.

As the blade’s pressure increased against Nicolas’s throat, Aelron yelled a guttural cry and pulled away.

“No,” Aelron said. “Damn it all!”

Kaitlyn walked out from among the dwarf trees and Nicolas’s stomach did a somersault.

“It’s okay, Aelron,” Kaitlyn said. “You don’t need it.”

“I don’t
want
to,” Aelron said. “I
have
to.”

“I know. I’ve…seen.”

“Something worse will happen.”

Kaitlyn shrugged. “Maybe. But if it does, it has nothing to do with that coin.”

What was she talking about? How could she know what Aelron wanted or didn’t want to do?

“I’ve gone against it in the past,” Aelron says. “It never ends well. Something bad always happens.”

“And how many times have you listened only to have something bad happen anyway?” Kaitlyn asked.

Aelron turned his gaze from the balled fist holding the coin to Kaitlyn.

“Yes, I’ve seen,” Kaitlyn said. “That coin doesn’t control anything. Whatever is going to happen is going to happen.”

Aelron shook his fist.

“This coin has saved my life in ways you wouldn’t believe,” Aelron said. “It kept me from entering a building that collapsed less than five minutes later. It told me to set a trap at my door that killed a man who was sent to assassinate me that same night. It led me to
you
, Nicolas. And in no uncertain terms, it’s told me one singular thing about you from the moment we met. Kill him! Don’t let him get any farther! And if you don’t believe me, I’ll show you.”

Aelron opened his fist and tossed the coin. When he saw the result, he laughed.

“Adda-ki,” Aelron said. “For the twenty-ninth time. Let me translate that for you.
Adda-ki
means
kill the archmage
. Tell me, how is it possible for a fair coin to land the same way twenty-nine times in a row? It isn’t. That’s how.”

Aelron raised the dagger to Nicolas’s throat.

“No,” Kaitlyn said. “Please.”

A change came over Aelron’s face, like the look a person gets when they’ve made a decision they can’t be talked out of.

Nicolas tensed. If he was going to try something, it would have to be soon.

Kaitlyn gave him a look that was clear;
Not yet
.

Aelron flipped the dagger until he held it by the blade.

“They told me it was impractical to learn how to throw these,” Aelron said. He tossed the dagger to his right, where it stuck in a tree next to Kagan, about ten feet away. “The secret’s in the weight. I prefer mine handle-heavy. The extra weight takes some getting used to, though.”

Aelron retrieved the dagger and tucked it into his cloak. He held the coin up for Kaitlyn to see. The moonlight reflected off it, creating silvery patches of light that danced from the ground to the surrounding trees as he spun it between his fingers.