Spectra's Gambit (23 page)

We talked for a little while longer, then suddenly Shadow’s head snapped up and he said, “Did Kellyn say ‘they’ are due in nine
months?”

I was in my office working on some research when Spectra came in and said, “Hi, Fish-face.”
She came
around my desk and dropped into my lap. She was a bit like a pet cat in that respect, and loved to curl up in my lap. I greatly enjoyed the warmth that her presence brought.

I smiled and set down my datapad, which I could no longer read since her head was now in the way. “Great timing, because apparently I have now finished working.”

“Oh, good!” she said as she snuggled in tighter and wrapped her tail around my leg. She just sat there for a while, absent-mindedly stroking my chest, which I did not mind at all. Eventually she said, “I think we need to split up Greymere and Saraphym on our next mission.”

“Oh?” I asked. Her warm breath on my neck and the beat of her heart had lulled me into a meditative state.

“Yeah. I think you should take Greymere, and I should take Saraphym,” she said.

“Why?” I asked as I reluctantly forced myself to focus again.

“Well, I think we need to know more about them. If I get her alone, we can chat away, just us girls, and you can do the same with Greymere.”

“You do realize that men don’t do ‘girl talk’?” I asked.

“Well, ‘fish talk’ then, or ‘butterfly talk’; whatever,” she said.

“What’s on your mind?” I asked. “Are you worried that we can’t trust Greymere?”

“Oh, no, not at all. His aura is clear. We can definitely trust him. It’s just that when they went outside the ship, I watched them for a while.”

“You mean, after they asked to be alone?” I said.

“Well, yeah, but only for a short while. I left them alone most of the time, but I needed to confirm something and I think I have.”

“What?” I asked.

“Their butterfly form: it’s not physical,” she said. “It is a spirit form.”

I thought back to when I had seen Greymere hiding on the outer skin of Nemesis, how strange he looked and the odd reaction of my spells. “Okay, I can buy that, but what does it mean?”

“For one thing, it means that Greymere belongs with us and is far less of a mundane than any of us thought,” she said. “He may even be able to travel to the Spirit Realm and, unlike us, be accepted as a native.”

“Have you talked to either of them yet about this?” I asked. If they really could visit the Spirit Realm as natives, it would mean there would be two more people in addition to Spectra and myself who could travel there in some degree of safety.

“No. I’m still trying to figure out what this means, and that is why I need you to chat with Greymere. He knows more about his own race than anyone else, and he is far more powerful than any of us gave him credit for,” she said.

“So you want me to interrogate him?” I asked.

“Not exactly, but on a mission you will learn more about him and what he can do. I mean, according to their memory report of the last mission, he was able to absorb the energy of numerous sentries for an extended period of time and turn it back on them. Until now, we thought only a spellweaver could do something like that,” she said.

“We already know they can do that in their native form, as he calls it, but if they can both carry that over to their bipedal form, that would make them very formidable,” I said.

“Right, which means we need to encourage them to develop that skill,” she said.

“And while I am interrogating Greymere, what will you be up to?” I asked.

“The station we are heading for is very large. I am suggesting we break into three teams. Jade and Kymberly can stay with Nemesis and explore the local region. They can find out who is out here, their political alliances and that kind of thing, through passive scans, recordings and the like.

“You and Greymere can get onto the station and try to bluff or sneak your way into their central computer and download all that you can from it. Saraphym and I will head to their command center and learn all we can from that,” she said.

“I see. That gives us both lots of bored downtime to talk with them and get a better idea of what they can do?” I asked.

“Yes, and I don’t plan to be sneaky about it with Saraphym. I intend to ask her openly about Greymere and being a ‘butterfly’, as she calls it. It’s just that she will talk much more freely girl-to-girl than in a formal setting,” she said.

“Okay, that seems reasonable, but we need to get Greymere new armor first,” I said. “How is our order coming?”

“Oh!” she said and jumped to her feet. “I forgot. It’s ready. I’ll Spirit-walk home and get it. I should be back pretty quickly.”

I opened my mouth to say something, but she had already left. I started to turn back to my datapad to return to my work when my door chimed. “Come in.”

Jade walked in and said, “Master, may I ask a question?”

“Sure, Jade. What’s on your mind?” I asked. It still seemed odd having people treat me as a superior in rank, although this was technically correct.

“Master, we were wondering,” he began. “When will we visit the Spirit Realm?”

“We?” I asked. “Tell the others to come in and let everyone hear, then,” I said.

He opened the door and called in the others from the hall. Once they were settled in, I noticed that Greymere was among them.
“Greymere, do you want to go, too?”
I sent privately.

“Master, I don’t really know what all the fuss is about. I am just here because Saraphym convinced me it was important
,
”
he sent back.

I smiled at that. “Okay, Jade tells me you all want to know when you will get to visit the Spirit Realm. First of all, let me say this: you will go there, and it is a required part of your training as members of the Spiritual Corps.” Greymere looked up in surprise. “Yes, Greymere, that includes you.”

“But I am not a spiritualist,” he said.

“One of us may have to bring you, but you can’t understand what we are dealing with unless you have been there and experienced it firsthand,” I said.

“Well, okay, Master; but what is this place?” he asked.

“Great question. Who can explain it to him?” I asked.

“Master, I can,” said Kymberly.

“Okay, then tell us all what you know,” I said.

“The Spirit Realm is a unique realm where the most dangerous evil spirits are imprisoned permanently,” she said.

“That’s a good start. Now, who created it?” I asked.

“Created? What do you mean?” she asked.

“Let me fill in the rest,” I said. “We live in a vast multiverse with an unknown number of realms. Each realm is floating in something we call the weave, which permeates all the realms and gives us life and the ability to perform magic. Without the weave there would be no life. There are probably a vast number of realms, but we have direct knowledge of only a few. Obviously, there is this realm and Korshalemia, and beyond that there are the realms where the elementals live and some where demons live; but unique among them all is the Spirit Realm. As far as we can tell,
there is only one.

“Long ago, long enough that no one can remember how long ago it was, spirits wandered freely through all the realms, most of them of a purely evil nature. They were responsible for countless horrors throughout history. Clerics fought them constantly, but they were not mortal and could not be permanently destroyed, so they created the Spirit Realm as a prison for these evil ones. From that point onward, clerics have actively hunted spirits of all kinds and banished them to the Spirit Realm whenever they could.”

“If it is a prison of great horrors, why would we want to go there?” asked Greymere.

“There are many reasons for us to go there. For example, Spectra has just gone to get your armor from the Wizard Kingdom. By conventional means of travel that would take years, but since she can use Spirit Walk to travel through the Spirit Realm, it will only take a few minutes for her to arrive there and a few minutes to come back when she is ready.”

“Seems like a big risk, though?” he asked.

“Not for spiritualists. We are welcomed there because what the spirits want more than anything else is to get out of that prison, and spiritualists and necromancers are the only ones who can free them,” I said.

“I see, but what about mundanes or other magi?” he asked.

“Most could travel there briefly and be ignored, but that would depend on which spirits noticed them,” I said. “But that is not the real danger of the realm. Who can tell me how Grandmaster Vydor defeated the grandmaster sorcerer?”

Kymberly jumped in again and said, “Master, I remember it well. He and the council traveled to the Spirit Realm and fought with sorcerers. They overpowered the grandmaster, and the rest scattered and are still in hiding.”

“True, but that is not the whole story,” I said. “The grandmaster sorcerer had been building his power for ten thousand years and had more raw strength than even Grandmaster Vydor, but Grandmaster Vydor was more clever than his opponent. You see, the Spirit Realm latches onto the darkness in all of us, and the more darkness you have, the tighter its grasp. It offers itself to you, and if you accept it, it starts to transform you. Grandmaster Vydor knew this, and he constantly baited the grandmaster sorcerer’s attacks. The sorcerer foolishly drew on the power that the realm was offering him, thinking it would give him a greater advantage, but the power is like a drug; it makes you want it, need it, even lust after it. Once you start using it you desperately want more and more, and all that power comes with a price. The realm eventually absorbs you, and you become a native of the realm, trapped there forever as just another evil spirit.”

Kymberly said, “Does that mean he is still alive?”

“Well, yes and no,” I said. “He still exists somewhere there as a spirit, but all that was his physical nature is gone. We lost track of his spirit after that battle, but I suspect we will see it again someday. You see, that is the problem. We all have some darkness in us; none of us is purely good. When you travel there for the first time, the realm will slowly begin to draw you in. It will by its very nature strengthen the darkness in you and over time take you just as it did the grandmaster sorcerer. Even if it does not, one of the main reasons spiritualists turn into necromancers is the influence which that realm exerts over all of us.”

“Master,” said Jade. “I assume then that you don’t want us to go there until we have a stronger foundation?”

“Yes. Even I am still tempted by the realm when I visit,” said Spectra, who had somehow crept in while I was talking. “Greymere, here’s your armor. You will find that it fits perfectly, just as your other set did.”

“Thank you, Master,” he said. His new armor was the same ultra-flat black that the rest of us wore. Usually a wizard would wear the color of his or her rank, but I had successfully argued that colorful armor and covert operations did not go well together and got us an exemption.

“Each of you will spend some time there,” said Spectra. “It is important for many reasons, not the least of which is to teach you how to deal with that temptation. I will tell you this: it is very seldom that anyone succeeds, which is why so many of our number become necromancers.”

“Then how are we to resist?” asked Saraphym.

“You have a big advantage that most others don’t,” said Spectra.

“What’s that?” asked Greymere.

“You have me. I lived in the Spirit Realm for years, and I know its secrets. Given enough time, I can teach them to you and as a unit we can rise above all the failures before us and teach those who will come after us,” she said. She drew me to her side. “Dusty has spent more time in the Spirit Realm than anyone else from our realm other than myself, and I think you will all agree he is not evil. It can be done, and we will do it.”

“So, Jade,” I said, “the answer to your question is: not for a while. We have to develop your power and knowledge first. Trust me. I was thrust in there before I was ready, and if it were not for Spectra, I might very well have fallen prey to its attraction. I do not want to subject any of you to that.”

When we finally reached the station we followed Spectra’s plan, which had Dusty and I drifting though space, looking for a way in on one side of the station while the girls worked the other half.
“Master, we could split up and reconnect once we are inside
,
”
I sent. He would normally just pass through a wall, while I used an exhaust port or other waste egress.

“No, you find a way in that works for you, and I will follow
,
”
he sent.

“Where I go, you would not survive
,
”
I sent.

“I might surprise you,”
he replied.

“Very well,”
I sent back. I figured it was easier to show him than to argue, so I went looking for the robotic maintenance shaft that all stations had.
“Through that hatch there, but the radiation will destroy your flesh.”

“I won’t have any flesh to be destroyed,”
he sent and began casting. In a few moments he was gone.
“I’ll follow you.”

With the limited vision of the eyes in my bipedal form I could not see him anywhere, but I could feel his presence.
“Okay,”
I sent and removed the outer hatch from the door. The radiation flowed out over me and tasted foul.
“Yuck, low-grade reactors.”

“Yuck?”
he queried.

“It tastes foul, like food left out to go bad. Typical of low-grade reactors. This station must be using the cheapest power source they can
,
”
I sent and fired my armor thruster for a short burst into the shaft.

“I would have thought they would use something better,”
he sent back.
“If this power is foul, will it make you sick?”

“No, thankfully it does not work like that
,
”
I sent back.

“What about the Shadow People? Would they avoid a tunnel like this due to the bad taste?”
he asked.