Spellscribed: Resurgence (11 page)

Endrance awoke only moments later, outside the library of his mind and staring awkwardly up at the ceiling of the glass bubble supporting him. His limbs and head were splayed at an odd angle, so much so that he suspected immediately that he had seized when the Bastille's magic subdued him. He had a horrible headache, and a buzzing feeling in his head that was almost physical it was so intense.

He reached out with his senses and almost immediately felt a response. The queen's presence was still connected to his mind. He now had time to explore the senses he'd not had time to before he was rendered unconscious.

The queen's mind had never encountered a will as strong as his. She was capable of directing potentially millions of drones. Their minds were little more than blank paper dolls that she could control with little to no effort. Endrance had literally been training his willpower in ways that no one but a mage could do. The mental battle of wills with the succubus had been more than enough of an example that he needed to be stronger. Perhaps he would have been able to succeed without harming himself if Valeria hadn't been leeching off of his will to exist, but because of it, he had broken through a ceiling that he would not have if he hadn't been stretched to his breaking point.

The moment reminded him of what the succubus had told him; that Valeria loved him, regardless of what she was doing. At least in some way she did. Endrance could see how her actions had made him stronger far faster than he would have become naturally or through the traditional methods; but he had been on the verge of death through those methods so many times he had lost count.

It was that strength that he had underestimated. His will had not only reached the queen's ego, it had completely shattered it with his sudden arrival. It was fragmented and her own will, while more than sufficient to direct her swarms, would not be capable of efficiently directing them where he needed them. They would most likely not be able to survive very long if he didn't do something to help direct them. If he didn't, the swarm would end up killing innocents as they rampaged.

He sat up, and looked down at himself. He had spent too much of his life energy, and his body was having a hard time keeping up. His ribs were showing proudly through his skin, and his muscles had shrunk thinner than before he had even set out on his journey years before. He might not even have a month left. His body's aching and his stomach's churning made sitting up difficult. He twisted, instead sliding down the glass until he was laying on his side, his head resting on the natural spherical incline of the orb he was trapped within. This way he would at least be somewhat comfortable as he slowly starved to death.

He closed his eyes, knowing that he might not open them to the real world again. He slowly descended into the library of his mind, savoring the sensation as he slowly cut off his consciousness of the real world. Anna was nowhere to be found when he opened his eyes to his library. He was on the second floor balcony where he had been when he had blacked out. The lights from the outside had gone dim, and the only source of light within was a glowing orb hovering over the reflecting pool. As Endrance walked down the stairs to the first floor and down the central approach to the pool, he saw the source of the light.

Anna stood, holding a single candle that burned, flickering and casting scattered glimmers across the shelves nearby. Endrance walked across the reflecting pool, noticing that Anna waited for him with a wan smile on her lips.

"I'm sorry, dear husband." she said. "I don't know if they're going to come in time."

Endrance embraced her, Anna holding the candle out of the way as he did so. "I know." he said. "If I can direct them? Maybe."

"What are you going to do?" she asked him when they separated.

Endrance gestured to the reflecting pool, and it shivered, revealing his study. "We look through what I learned." he said. "Same as if we weren't on the edge of death. Maybe there's something there that can help keep me going."

The fell through the mirrored surface, coming up standing on the other side. "Start pouring through the life magic section." Endrance ordered. "Look for anything relating to creating sustenance, or sustaining life to the malnourished. I'm going to look through Kaelob's spells."

"Won't we have a problem with the Bastille?" Anna asked as she trotted over to the shelf and flipped open the only book on practical spellwork.

Endrance shrugged as he flipped open the first of what was many books of spell knowledge. "I'd rather get knocked unconscious a few times and increase my survival rate."

"That's if you can get the spell off before it subdues you." She replied.

"That's what the spell matrix was meant to do." he explained. "To allow me to cast a spell from within my library completely internally. It took days to cast the matrix, much less any spells within it."

"It worked." Anna stated. "At least the one time."

"It will again." Endrance touted. "It's pretty much the slowest form of casting imaginable. You construct the spell entirely in your mind, and coax your flows of power into that shape." he scratched his head, closing the book and tossing it on the silver table before grabbing another. "Done that way, the spell is not only easily adjusted as the spell is being cast, but the cost is marginal. It's practically one-hundred percent efficient use of power."

"Which explains why you were able to do it without the Bastille catching on." She explained. "Wouldn't it be nice if you could cast with it faster?"

Endrance chuckled, for once feeling a little humor in the grim situation. "Yep." he replied. "I bet I could, if I live long enough to get practiced with the spell formulation portion of it."

Anna stopped paging through the book and stared at one of the pages, walking over to the silver table and setting the book down, a frown furrowing her brows. "Endrance." she said.

"Hmm?" he replied, reading through another page of spells. "So that was how he could pick me up from a distance." he muttered.

"I think I found something." she whispered. "But it's something you won't be able to complete as you are now, without taking back some volition."

Endrance closed his book and turned to her. "What?" he asked.

She put a fingertip on one line of text. "This paragraph mentions the principles the elves used to transplant life magic dependent plant life. They mention a spell that could allow it to live while it is uprooted."

Endrance set his book on the other he had discarded and stepped next to her. "But why do you say-" he started to say, but then it occurred to him.

"Oh." he said, realizing what she meant. "The spell isn't directly mentioned, and I don't have the time to slowly extrapolate the spell." he said. "I'd need all my focus on designing it."

"You wouldn't even be able to maintain the library." she said. "If only you had Kaelob and Valeria's volition too."

Endrance shook his head. "I'm certain that I've grown to the point that even the amount she had taken from me was but a fraction of what I'm capable of now."

Anna nodded. "Then there's no time to waste." she replied. She stepped in to him and kissed him on the forehead. "I give this back to you, dear husband."

She slipped the volition, the very will to exist and act that she had been borrowing from him, back to him. As she did so her image faded, becoming transparent and then disappearing. Endrance could tell that the only part of her that remained was the impression catalogued in his mind.

"Dammit." he muttered. "I missed her. I still do." A tear threatened to escape his eye. Instead, he reached into his construct and shut it all down but the very room he was in. The library of his mind vanished in an instant, filled in with darkness. Taking every bit of his concentration and will, he started working. The book he needed floated up into the air, and the two others appeared back in their shelves, his mind not bothering to visualize the act of actually putting them back.

"I will survive this." he said to himself, as the lines in the spell table began to glow one after another. "I cannot let this end now. I will escape here, and make Valeria regret ever conceiving the idea of conceiving me."

He started working the spell as quickly as he could. When he found a part of the spell form that needed something similar to what he already knew, he copied over the part from a spell he did know, without worrying about complete precision. If the crude workings of the spell succeeded, then he could live long enough to refine the spell properly. He would still need days, and he hoped that the sand hornets wouldn't dally. As it was, the queen was buzzing in the back of his thoughts, and he had to take precious seconds of his time to occasionally redirect the damaged creature.

He hoped that they would arrive in time.

The two Draugnoa met up only days later and were immediately sent south by General Balen to catch up with General Kurgen, who had pushed his forces past Balen's and hit the southern third of the countries around Ironsoul City. They found a supply train heading in to resupply Kurgen's forces and managed to use that opportunity to hitch a ride, instead of riding alone.

Tanya looked at Bridget and smirked. "Well, looks like we both have had a hard time."

Bridget looked out of the flaps of the wagon they sat within, watching the Ironsoul countryside roll by at a decent clip. "Riding with the supply trains is a nice rest. All we do is ride along and hop out to give them a hand every so often."

The two weeks on the road had been eventful, coming across a number of Kurgen's captured towns. The Azure Kingdom was also along the way, but the capital city was completely empty, with no bodies to be found excepting for piles of clothes scattered everywhere - like everyone had just decided one day to strip naked and vanish. There was one corpse discovered; a woman with many piercings and short cropped hair. Her body was shriveled and withered, her eyes and hair bleached white. Bridget recognized her as one of the High Magus that had been on Endrance's side when he had been on trial. She could not figure out what had taken her life in such an unnatural way. Nobody could live long enough to become that dehydrated.

Bridget watched as Tanya nodded, pain on her face. "Yeah." Tanya replied. "I'm starting to hate riding on horses all the time.

"Are you going to be okay?" Bridget asked, concerned. Her headaches had been coming almost daily now, and not only when she was shooting or concentrating. She noticed that Tanya had almost never strung her bow during the last two weeks, and she only knocked her bow while they were exploring the Azure Kingdom's castle.

Tanya rubbed the bridge of her nose. "Yeah." she said. "I think this is stress." she replied. "I was never cut out for extended military action."

Bridget looked at her skeptically. "You're full of shit." she said with a chuckle. "You seem to have forgotten that we grew up together. Your head's been getting worse over the last eight months, Tanya."

Tanya sighed, "It's nothing that healers seem to be able to do anything about. Maybe Endrance could have whipped up some kind of spell that would fix this, but… we have to save him first."

"Tanya," Bridget said quietly, concerned. "You should have told me. We could have-"

"Could have what?" Tanya snapped. "Hurried?" She pulled open the other flap of canvas on the back of the wagon and gestured to the horizon. The capitol city of Ironsoul stood resolutely in the distance, strangely and inexplicably missing the tall tower that was the Circle of Magi. "We know where he is! I could ride a horse there in days! We just don't know how to free him without hundreds of strong backs to help dig!"

Bridget snapped. "I know!" she exclaimed with a snarl. "And if I could, I would have dug him out with my bare fucking hands if it would have made one moment's difference!" She pounded her human fist into the wooden bench, cracking the unpolished wood. "I couldn't even dig up Joven's body; how would I save Endrance? Tell me!"

"I don't know!" Tanya shouted in response. "I don't know."

"We made the right choice, Tanya." Bridget said, realizing she had jumped to her feet. She sat down, taking a deep breath to calm herself. "But we may need to think about other options."

Tanya looked at Bridget through strands of her hair. "Like what?"

Bridget picked a splinter out of her hand as she spoke. "We are almost to General Kurgen's forces. They were going to take the Sunken Tower next. Once we get there, we can split from their forces and continue south. Through the desert."

"Through the Sea of Glass? Again?" Tanya replied incredulously. "We hardly survived it last time we went on foot, and that was with Endrance."

"But there are elves on the other side who know us. And they have healers better than any we've ever  seen. They could fix your injuries and send us back across the Sea of Glass in no time." Bridget reasoned.

"I…" Tanya trailed off, trying to think through her headache. The logic seemed sound to her, but she knew that crossing the desert would be the toughest part. Her headaches would slow them down; bright lights like the kind that happened during the day there would entirely incapacitate her. "Let's see how the campaign to capture Sunken Tower goes. Maybe one of Endrance's mage friends could help us."

Bridget nodded. "Fine. Deal." she said. "I'm going to try to sleep. I suggest you do the same."

Tanya sighed. "Yeah." she said. "I'll try."

They spent five more days riding with the supply train until they finally got within sight of General Kurgen's troops. The man had been one of General Balen's friendly childhood rivals, so while he was tolerant of the Draugnoa's presence, he was not going to be speaking with them directly.

Balen had anticipated this and had directed them to assist in any capacity they could in battle. and in any invasion operations. While the barbarians of Balator refused to interact with the dead, the sight of one of the ghost-women fighting alongside them was something that raised their morale.

Tanya was sleeping the day away while Bridget rode the advance guard of the supply train. The night had been kinder to her, but sleep was restless and fitful as her headache made it almost impossible to lose consciousness. It was nearly midday when it felt like something exploded inside her head, forcing her to awaken to full alertness with a scream and fly to her feet. Her vision went red, her nose and ears dripping with blood.

She had been lightly dreaming when another presence seemed to run over her mind like a stampeding bull. It carried a booming voice that she could barely register, and a flood of images flashed through her mind; each one hitting her as hard as one of Bridget's full force punches. Hands clenched to her head, she slowly sank to her knees as the two words echoed through her mind and out her mouth.

"Save… me…" she murmured.

The wagon flaps were flung open and a warrior thrust his head in. "What the hells are-" he started to exclaim, but recognized the Draugnoa. His face whitened. His face vanished, and he started shouting for someone else. Moments passed until Bridget finally arrived, dashing up to the wagon and leaping onto the back in one stride.

"What is it?" she demanded, ducking inside. She saw Tanya crouched on the ground, her clothes rumpled and blood spattered. She was rocking back and forth on her heels, grasping her head and whispering something repetitive with wide eyes staring into the distance. As Bridget cautiously approached, she could make out what she was saying.

"Save me. Save me. Save me. Save me…" Tanya whispered.

"Tanya!" Bridget exclaimed. "Tanya I'm here! You're safe!"

Tanya's whispering stopped, and she numbly turned to stare through Bridget as if she were really fifty yards further back than she was. "No." she said. "Not me. We need to save him."

"Who?" Bridget asked. "Was this magic? Did someone cast a spell on you?"

"Save me. Save him? He needs us." Tanya continued to mutter.

Bridget grabbed her friend by the shoulders and gave her a light shake. "Tanya!" she shouted. "Focus!"

The Draugnoa blinked several times, her eyes finally registering Bridget. "Bridget…" she whispered. "Something's wrong. I… I think my head is broken."

"Well that much is obvious." Bridget replied. "You're bleeding from your ears."

"I could swear I heard Endrance's voice." Tanya replied. "And I saw all kinds of images. Pictures. They were leading to Ironsoul, but underground."

Bridget's face brightened. "That might be him!" she exclaimed, looking around for something to help clean her friend up. "Maybe he figured out how to get a message out to us. Maybe that's what's been giving you your headaches."

Tanya nodded. "Maybe." she said.

"Get cleaned up, okay?" Bridget asked. "I'll go and see if we can move faster."

Bridget was gone for several minutes before the wagon suddenly stopped, and Tanya had to clutch at some of the boxes of supplies to prevent herself from falling to the floor. A cry of confusion could be heard from outside. Moments later Bridget rushed into the wagon, her face pale.

"Change of plans." she said to Tanya. "Get out here and look at this."

Tanya wobbled on her feet, but managed to clamber out of the wagon without falling. She looked to Bridget, who pointed ahead. "There." Bridget said, her expression puzzled.

Tanya looked, and where she expected to see the Sunken Tower and two armies fighting for dominance, she found General Kurgen's forces pulling back. The Sunken Tower looked strange, until her eyes finally focused enough to clearly see it.

The Sunken Tower was blanketed in sand hornets. What had to be at least a hundred thousand or more of the small drones swarmed over the building, biting and hacking away at any soldiers of Ironsoul that had not the good sense to go for cover or hide. Among the drones were dozens of larger pony-sized hornets, which sported armor-shearing sharp blades and a stinger that was nearly a foot long and able to punch through steel plate. As the two Draugnoa stared at the carnage, a large shape rose over the top of the Sunken Tower, standing on the roof and raising her clawed forelimbs to the sky as she screeched loud enough that it could be heard from several miles away where they stood.

"I…" Bridget stammered. "I've got nothing."

Tanya watched as the queen immediately started down the front of the tower, and her drones surged to her side. The sand hornets started clustering around their queen, but something seemed to feel right about it to the beleaguered archer.

"Bridget." she said. "I think… I think she heard the call, too."

"The sand hornet queen?" Bridget asked. "Why would she have heard Endrance's message?"

Tanya sighed. "I don't know," she started. "But I think they're going to start heading towards Ironsoul."

Bridget watched the insects as they gathered, and the queen screeched one more time before taking off at a trundling charge across the denser soil of Ironsoul. She set off north, and untold numbers of her brood followed in her wake, like a tidal wave made of someone's worst nightmares.

"Yep. Heading north." Bridget confirmed. "I swear to the gods, if this is Endrance's idea of asking for a rescue, then I don't even know what I'm going to do to him when I find him."

"We should follow them." Tanya suggested. "From a safe distance."

Bridget nodded. "Yeah." she said, worry easily heard on her voice. "A very safe distance." She sighed. "I'll go find our horses."