Asheron's Fall: The Power of Ten, Book Six

“Twelve, actually. The infighting and backstabbing among the Viamontian High Clans led to an easier victory in Viamont, helped along by the abrupt deaths of those shrilling about unity in their time of strife.” Princess Kristie’s predatory smile emerged, and the two Aluvians, one living and one dead, stared at her eight canines accenting her Cursemark and counterpointing her actual mesmerizing beauty and curves, absent any chest to speak of.

“And now you are here, and saying the Portals might be closed forever?” MacNaill broke in shortly. Kris looked at me, and I harrumphed.

“Are you familiar with the name Nuhmudira?” I asked them calmly.

Their glance at one another showed that they most certainly did. “Aye,” the Mick confirmed slowly. “One o’ the most powerful mages that ever lived here on Dereth. ‘tis said that she even mastered the higher magicks o’ the Empyreans, which no Isparian has managed to attain since!” he informed me, complex emotions in his eyes.

“That sounds like her, both in managing to attain heights of power, and not passing that knowledge on,” I replied softly, and they both blinked at my viewpoint. “Did she pass herself off as Gharu’n here? She was not. She was Milantean.”

The Mick regarded me for a long breath. “She... did,” he said slowly. “She even had the Gharu’n head-wrapped little book guardians wrapped around her finger...”

“She was under a death sentence from the Imperial Academy for suborning the Zharalim and pursuing studies into forbidden magic... magic that her daughter took up when her mother took her most fanatic followers and fled into a Portal to avoid those hunting for her. Did her habit of sacrificing her students and servants to offer to horrendous creatures from Beyond for power and knowledge follow her here? Because she passed the tradition down beautifully to her daughter.”

The Mick pursed his lips as he stared at the two of us. “There were... rumors that she was engaging in blood magic and foul rituals, but her followers denied it, or spoke of sacrifices for the greater cause...”

“That cause being ‘make me stronger, and vortch the lot of you’,” I said knowingly, glancing at Princess Kristie. “The name her daughter was known by in the Imperial Academy was Calliona. Her real name was Xunidira of Milantea, although she passed herself off as Gharu’n like her mother had, and even suborned more of the Zharalim.”

I waved up a Holo of her appearance, Mira’s memories and mine of her searingly accurate. The malice hiding behind her wise and matronly smile was apparent if you knew what to look for... and Aluvians had always been good at taking the measure of people.

“That... is a nice trick,” the Mick said thoughtfully, looking at the casual floating Illusion, and I belatedly remembered that Isparians did not have nearly the experience or skill with casual Illusions that Power of Ten gamers did. “I see ye’re not having much problems with the changes in magic...”

“I am a fully trained magos from the Imperial Academy in Roulea, not a hedge mage!” I stated frostily, instantly putting him on the defensive. “While the changes in the manafield here are interesting and many, I have been cataloging and working through them in a proper and systematic manner, as I was taught how to do, not stumbling in blind experiments and Summoning in eldritch soul-eaters for quick lore and foul gifts of sanity-shattering power!”

He held up his hands, flinching back at the acid in my voice. “Easy, Miss Ryin. I meant nay disrespect. It’s just... the changes in magic have been pretty widespread, an’ the price...” He trailed off and looked at MacNaill tellingly, who just looked back silently, and let out an equally long empty-winded sigh.

“We naturally have no knowledge of what actually happened here, other than what we’ve been able to deduce by the actions of those real beings we’ve passed on the way down here from Holtburg,” Princess Kristie interjected, breaking up the mood smoothly and pulling me back artfully from my ire. Mira was very proud of her magic, and prouder yet of mine!

“Well, isn’t that a long tale for the telling. However, ‘tis late for the living, an’ ye’ve interrupted me beauty sleep.” The Mick very carefully did not yawn, but we both could tell he very much wanted to. “Ye seem to be sleeping days an’ moving nights, which is both wise an’ foolish, but then, so is moving during the day on Dereth. Not to put a binder on things, but the tale will be long in the telling, an’ so, would it be alright if we indulged Your Highness’ curiosity in the morning?”

Kristie didn’t bat an eye, other than to look him up and down once. “Get your rest, elder,” she said, and that phrase alone took any smug cheek and turned it into admission of weakness, very much not his intention. “I’ve no ale for your throat, but there’ll be plenty of water, cold and pure, for your tongue in the morning.” She nodded at MacNaill. “I’m sure your great-uncle here can fill in a great deal.”

I could probably do better than that as far as drinks, but he didn’t have to know that.

Any idea of getting any sleep was washed from the Mick’s thoughts. “This lying old man is going to be feeding ye history?” he proclaimed in disbelief, and even MacNaill grinned rather horrifically at that. “If ye’ve some good sweet water, then let’s be about the tale-telling, even if I be having to stay sober!”

Kris didn’t blink an eye at the instant shift in attitude. Typical Highlander, I’d been told. “Well, then, let’s find a place I can park my carriage, and we’ll see about filling in some details on what is happening on this world.”

--------

We had the fires we could put in place to warm his bones, so there was no problem with that. The Wagon made an effective wind-block, and Disks made wonderful seats that the two men couldn’t help scooting around on like little kids while we watched tolerantly. When I Cast Water to Wine on our cold, clean stone jug of water, the Mick spluttered and nearly spilled his entire glass, especially when the Lesser Restoration in the drink went off and wiped away his fatigue, rendering him instantly as alert as if he’d had a full night’s rest and was ready to face the day.

“This is... what is this?” he asked, looking at the white wine in his glass.

“It’s not the real thing, more a memory of it. Al-Blyssa green wine, from the Kovi grapes of Qomiira, my vintage of choice.” I made a dismissive gesture at Kris. “This barbarian likes the reds of Monchaveil, but I suppose that is why she is a conquering Imperial princess, and I am a scholar.”

“I’d kill a man for a handcask of Monchaveil Red,” MacNaill admitted, looking longingly at the drinks, “were I even able to taste it.”

I eyed the undead Fool of a pirate, grabbed another mug with a hand of magical force, filled it, then murmured something rather dark and hostile over the light wine within it. I floated it his way, and he took it with a strange expression, looking down at it with his one remaining eye.

He looked at me, I looked back at him, and he took a draw.

He jumped right to his feet, his bones rattling in shock inside him. “Gah!” he blurted out, then his hand came up, trying to stop from losing any of the pale liquid coming down from the sides of his mouth.

“That’s interesting,” Kris remarked, while the Mick just looked suitably shocked. “What did you do?”

“Putrefy Food and Drink, reverse of the standard magic. Makes food palatable to the undead, if totally unfit for anything alive.”

The former pirate and current Chief Fool was staring at his mug, then at me, and I could well trace the path of his thoughts as he looked at the jug of wine.

“I’ll make up a full jug or six for you and your men before I leave,” I told him calmly, and a deep rattling sigh escaped him. The dead man collapsed back into his floating chair, and this time the draw he took was not hesitant, but the deep and slow swallow of a man who’d not known he was dying of thirst until he took his first sip.

“Ask away, lass. I’ll tell you anything you want to know for another mug of this,” Rober MacNaill admitted shamelessly. Kris just nodded, and the questions began.

-------

Rober MacNaill’s life had not been easy when he and his cousin MacDugal had led the very demoralized remnants of their bandits and pirates through the Portal into this world, and to this island that they’d named as Dereth, which in an older tongue simply translated to ‘new place’.

Once here, they’d been promptly overcome and enslaved by the olthoi.

Kris and I were surprised that the insectile beings would actually use humans for labor, but it turned out that intelligent beings were very useful in expanding their nests, as the Summoned creatures didn’t do menial work and maintenance. The Isparians they captured were obviously new and alien, and so if they were willing to work, the olthoi put them to use.

If they weren’t, they fed the vats of goo they nurtured their larvae in, no loss to the bugs.

Their weapons barely able to injure the bugs, the motley band had been quickly overcome, but had mostly managed to survive after a few examples of evisceration and disassembly motivated them. They’d learned enough to realize the bugs mostly operated on scent, not sight, and being the cunning lot they were, they’d figured out a way to hide their scent and flee into the night from the bugs, armed with crude weapons and armor made from the chitin of deceased bugs that hadn’t been recycled by the living ones.

Their flight was hard, but they were survivors used to living in the wilds, especially MacDugal’s bandits. Still, the bugs were everywhere, the creatures here were dangerous, and the cousins had parted ways when confronted with a random Portal that had popped open in the middle of nowhere, offering an escape from any trackers and the creatures there. MacNaill and his band of scalawags had gone through, while MacDugal’s men had continued on into the hills and mountains the olthoi seemed to avoid.

Thus had the pirate come to the Vesayan Islands, and specifically stumbled into an equally fortunate band of Aluvians and Sho who’d started setting up a settlement there. The dangers of the place were evident, but there were no olthoi, there was the sea to fish in, and the weather was warm and balmy.

To the motley band of pirates, it was nearly a form of paradise, save for the fact the leader of the Aluvians was a Pwyll-worshipping sanctimonious idiot, and the leader of the Sho was a fanatically depressing Joji adherent.

Pwyll III was considered the most virtuous of the Aluvian High Kings, and Joji’s zen-like tradition was revered among the Sho as a harmoniously centered and balanced philosophical lifestyle. I juxtaposed both lifestyles against the free-wheeling mindset of a bunch of freebooters and pirates, and wasn’t at all surprised when Rober admitted he’d eventually taken his men and set up another, ‘right proper’ settlement on a nearby island, soon enough attracting other ne'er-do-wells from other scattered Isparian enclaves about the islands.

---

I sliced up the reedshark into thin strips of bacon, laid them over circles of shreth steak, and seasoned them with peppers from the Blackmire Swamp to the north of us, the place duly named by Rober in passing. Wheat harvested from fields long gone wild, powdered into flour and now cooked into buns, accented the greasy lot, and after a muttered word or two over one plate, I served both of our hosts a breakfast after Kris and I Saluted the morning, the joint Ritual drawing the curious attention of both men.

MacNaill would have cried if he could,as the Putrefied food went down, the first joy he could have in eating that he could remember in years.

“So, tell me what ye’ve seen and thought of, and I’ll fill in the gaps. There were many a thing that happened atween me uncle’s arrival an’ the Fall, an’ more that happened after, but that can be filled in as we go,” the Mick said, watching us.

I let Kris handle that in her crisp oratory, commanding and precise, keeping both men fixated on her words, while I politely withdrew to work on Imbuing. I was listening in as I worked, just out of sight of both men so as not to distract them with what I was doing.