Necromancer Falling: Book Two of The Mukhtaar Chronicles (19 page)

The young cichlos didn’t so much as nod his bulbous head. What was it with these chimeramancers?

“Siek Lamil,” the young cichlos said. He stepped in front of an opening in the wall, blocking Lamil’s entrance.

“I must speak with one of the cherished,” Lamil said.

Since when do the cichlos refer to people as cherished?

The young cichlos’s eyes spun. One came to rest in the direction of the gray-cowled, sleeping cichlos, and the other came to rest on Nicolas.

“If there is anything you need, I can provide it,” the young cichlos said.

“You are not a Conjurer,” Lamil said. “You are an apprentice.”

“Why do you ask the impossible of me?”

Nicolas stepped forward, his anger returning to the surface, but Siek Lamil stopped him with his enormous hand.

“What is the Prime Duty of a Chimeramancer?” Siek Lamil asked.

Nicolas hadn’t considered it, but it stood to reason if Necromancy had a Prime Duty, another school of magic would as well. Whatever the reality, this poor bastard was going to be sorry he got the siek asking questions!

The young cichlos harrumphed. “You are not my—”

“What is the Prime Duty of a Chimeramancer?” Lamil asked again. “You will proceed at half ration until I get the answer I am looking for.”

The young cichlos’s eyes spun until his gaze came to rest on Lamil.

“You would not do that,” the young cichlos said.

“I’m pretty sure he would,” Nicolas said. “You should see what he does when you give him the
wrong
answer. Hope you have a lot of time on your hands.”

The cichlos glanced down at his hands and back to Lamil with a questioning look on his face.

Nicolas shook his head. When
would
the cichlos understand his sense of humor?

“What is the Prime Duty of a Chimeramancer?” Lamil asked.

“The Prime Duty of a Chimeramancer is to protect all who call Aquonome home, and perform the Great Sacrifice when called upon.”

“That is correct,” Lamil said. “Sab Toridyn. The catalyst, please.”

Toridyn swirled his arms and a pulse of static electricity passed over Nicolas in a wave that made his arm hair stand up.

Kaitlyn rubbed her left arm.

When Toridyn’s arms came to rest, he spread his hands and an electric-blue ball of light formed between them, like the blue ball manipulated by the students in the training hall.

Lamil placed his hand on Nicolas’s shoulder.

“Do you deny the citizenship of Sab Nicolas?” Lamil asked.

The young cichlos appeared flustered, rotating his eyes horizontally, back and forth. “Of course not, Siek!”

“Do you deny Sab Nicolas’s right to take a mate?”

Kaitlyn’s face reddened. Though she didn’t say anything, he knew she’d have plenty to say later about being “taken” as anyone’s “mate”.

“I do not,” the young cichlos said.

“Sab Nicolas’s mate is in grave danger,” Lamil said. “Would you turn her away and violate the Prime Duty?”

The young cichlos stiffened for a moment, then backed away from the opening in the barrier ring.

“Which one?” Lamil asked.

The young cichlos gazed up at the floating bubbles. “Conjurer Torgar,” he said. “But please reconsider.”

Lamil’s eyes spun toward Kaitlyn.

You’re not actually reconsidering, are you?
Nicolas asked Lamil telepathically.

After a pause that dragged on longer than Nicolas would have liked, he sensed a response forming in his mind. It was an image of Kaitlyn standing at the center of his hall of power…the image he had seen when Lamil delved into his mind when he first arrived in Aquonome. It had shaken Lamil when it happened the first time, and if Nicolas didn’t know better, he’d say the siek was still disturbed by it.

She is important for reasons I do not understand,
the siek’s voice rang in his head.
I will do everything I can. But the young one is correct. What we’re about to do is reckless. There will be consequences beyond our ability to predict.

“You must wait until the
guiding dream
permeates the others,” the young cichlos said.

Nicolas had no idea what a
guiding dream
was, but he hoped it would hurry up and
permeate
.

When the topmost bubble changed color, and the others pulsed a matching hue, Lamil faced Toridyn.

“Now,” Lamil said.

Toridyn spun his hands around the ball of light, and the ball shot toward the lowest bubble. When the ball of light struck the bubble, it penetrated it and began to expand, a sphere within a sphere, until the ball broke through the bubble and both evaporated.

A murmur of voices rose in the central dome. Groups of cichlos bunched up against the dome wall, pressed forward by the surging crowd behind them. What were they doing?

Then it dawned on him. The transportation bubbles were gone.

“Tor,” Nicolas whispered. “What happened to the transport bubbles? And what the hell do you call those things, anyway? I’m tired of calling them transport bubbles.”

“Aqua-pneumatic chimeraporters,” Toridyn said.

Nicolas nodded. “Well, what the hell happened to the transport bubbles?”

A guttural growl raised the hairs on Nicolas’s arm.

“Siek Lamil,” the voice said in a bass that vibrated Nicolas’s chest. “I saw you approach from within the guiding dream.”

“Conjurer Torgar,” Lamil said. “I trust all is well.”

A corpulent cichlos sat up from a chair under the column of bubbles and waddled toward them.

“You trust all is
well
?” Torgar asked. “This time it is you who are ignorant, Lamil.”

Lamil’s shoulders drew back.

“Did you stop to think I may have been holding the lake at bay beyond a breach in the wall?” Torgar asked. “Did you speculate as to whether I was providing transport to the surface, or protection to pods traveling beneath the city? Did you consider I may have been Traveling?”

“I assure you, Conjurer, I considered all these things. I have brought—”

“I know well why you are here. Did I not say I saw you approach in the dream? I know of the human’s problem.”

Kaitlyn drew closer to Nicolas, who took it as a small sign she might speak to him again at some point.

“But that places me under no obligation to help,” Torgar said. “Nor does the fact she is the human sab’s mate.”

Lamil took a step forward. “The Prime Duty of Chimeramancy—”

“Was used as a cheap philosopher’s trick to manipulate a naive apprentice,” Torgar said. He faced the young cichlos who had backed away from the barrier ring. “We will discuss your lack of critical thinking later.”

The young cichlos apprentice lowered his gaze to the dome floor.

“This is a human problem, not cichlos,” Torgar said. He started walking back toward his seat.

Anxiety bubbled to the surface of Nicolas’s emotions. This conjurer, or whatever he was, had to help!

Nicolas took a step forward, but Lamil stopped him. The complex movement of Lamil’s left eye sent a clear message.
Do not speak
.

“Aquonome is no place for bigotry, Conjurer,” Lamil said.

Torgar stopped in mid step. He turned his massive head until he was looking back over his left shoulder.

“Refusing to help is not
bigotry
,” Torgar said. “I refuse to help not because the human is different, but because doing so would stop me from fulfilling my higher calling. I would think you of all people should know this. You are a moral philosopher, are you not?”

“I am merely a reasonable man,” Lamil said. “But since you mention it, would you agree if I said we live in a world where things frequently go against our best designs?”

Torgar faced Lamil and folded his arms. “I would agree with that statement.”

“And would you agree that in times of great need, we often must seek the aid of others?”

“Obviously.”

“Then you would also agree that you yourself may require such aid in the future?”

“Your point?”

“Would it not be in the best interests of all to provide aid when it is requested and within our ability to do so? If you would expect to receive aid, surely you must expect to offer it.”

“Your argument is flawed,” Torgar said. “By returning to my duty I
am
providing the very aid you accuse me of refusing. And to far more than this single human.”

Lamil’s voice echoed in Nicolas’s mind.
I cannot dispute his logic. His higher calling is of great aid to the entire cichlos people.

Nicolas couldn’t let this drop. He wasn’t going to leave without getting the help he came here for!

Siek, you and Mujahid both told me it was dangerous for a necromancer to remain untrained. A danger to all. Isn’t that true of Chimeramancers too?

Lamil’s eye rotated once, then shifted back and forth. He was amused.

“If you’ll excuse me,” Torgar said.

“If my moral argument falls flat, perhaps you’ll consider a utilitarian line of reasoning?” Lamil asked.

Torgar’s eyes rotated outward then back toward Lamil. He was interested.

“Consider the consequences of Kaitlyn coming into her power without understanding it,” Lamil said. “What action would you take if you discovered an unawakened
cichlos
chimeramancer, Conjurer?”

Torgar’s eyes made the same rotation and he stepped forward. “We would take that person into our training dome immediately.”

“And why would you do this?” Lamil asked.

“The reasons are as many as there are stars between here and Terilya.”

Torgar was approaching. Was this a good sign?

“Consider what could happen if she entered the trance and
imagined
the city,” Lamil said. “Think of the consequences if she got a single detail wrong. Details such as the contents of the secret places. The containment chamber. The—”

Torgar held up his webbed hand. “Enough.” He glanced at the young cichlos apprentice. “Rouse the others. The Siek is correct, and in my anger I refused to see it.”

“Righteous indignation can be justified,” Lamil said. “But sometimes it clouds our better judgment.”

“Yes, well, correct or not, you took exceedingly great risk in waking me.” Torgar faced the young apprentice once more. “Do it.”

The young cichlos nodded and hunched over something on the surface of the barrier ring. One by one the large floating bubbles changed color and evaporated, followed by the grumbling of the other two rotund cichlos in the reclining barrier chairs.

The dome grew silent except for the occasional murmur among cichlos near the transport bubbles. Nicolas had never noticed until this moment that there had always been a faint hum in the background, all throughout the city. The humming stopped, and the remaining transport bubbles vanished, leaving many cichlos stranded in the central dome. For the cichlos who lived at the extreme ends of the barrier tubes, that meant several miles of walking. Those inside the transport bubbles were left swimming back toward the city wall.

“It is in their hands now,” Lamil said as he faced Nicolas and Kaitlyn. “You must do as they instruct. To do otherwise will be to invite disaster.”

Kaitlyn nodded. “Thank you, Siek.”

Lamil glanced at Nicolas. “She’s far more polite than you were when we first met.”

“I seem to remember there were…extenuating circumstances, Siek.”

“Yes, well it seems we have new circumstances,” Lamil said as he faced the approaching chimeramancers. “It is not common for them all to be awake at once. This will put a great strain on the city. They will be…
agitated
.”

“He wasn’t agitated already?” Kaitlyn asked.

“Step forward,” Torgar said.

They entered the central ring together.

The three chimeramancers gathered with Torgar at their center, glancing back and forth at one another. Two of the chimeramancers shook their head and rapidly moved their eyes from side to side—worry.

Torgar spoke.

“Then it is settled,” Torgar said. “I will lead the Awakening and take her into my fold.”

Kaitlyn raised an eyebrow at Nicolas.

“There’s nothing to worry about,” Nicolas said. “Right, Siek?”

For once, Lamil had nothing to say. In fact, he seemed to be purposely not looking at Nicolas.

“Let the candidate step forward,” Torgar said.

Kaitlyn swallowed and took several steps forward.

“What is your name?” Torgar said.

“Kaitlyn.”

The three chimeramancers surrounded her and were communicating again, judging from the way they stared at one another.

They spent several minutes going over Kaitlyn’s account of everything she’d experienced since arriving on Erindor, paying particular attention to her sleeping patterns. When she described her last headache, the one that left her doubled over, they adjusted their positions until they stood in a line in front of her.

Torgar nodded to the chimeramancer at his right, who closed his eyes and lowered his head.

The barrier floor bubbled up behind them and formed a ring that floated bench-height in the air.

“Be seated,” Torgar said.

Kaitlyn pressed down on the ring, as if testing it.

When she sat, Torgar kneeled beside her. It struck Nicolas as oddly nurturing for the otherwise angry cichlos.

“Conjure your hall of power,” Torgar said.

“My what?” Kaitlin asked.

“The room with two doors,” Nicolas said. “Imagine it.”

Kaitlyn closed her eyes.

“Do you see your…room with two doors?” Torgar asked.

“Yeah. A red one and a blue one.”

“Good. Perceive yourself moving toward the red door.”

Nothing happened for several moments, but Kaitlyn started fidgeting in her seat. She broke into a sweat.

“I can’t,” Kaitlyn said.

“You must,” Torgar said. “If you cannot, it is not for lack of ability. It is for lack of imagination.”

“Nice bedside manner you got there,” Nicolas said. “I bet we don’t even get a lollipop when we leave.”

Lamil’s left eye spun toward Nicolas and rotated.
Be quiet
.