Scratch an errant lich 2

 

II

Amber had set warnings into the wards and two weeks on, she felt an attempted penetration.

What Amber had not told Zhanargul was that she was, herself, part fey, and could use some of their magics without difficulty, including the mystical forms of travel they used, which Amber called ‘fey space.’  It relied heavily on the flow of power between places of long-established power and talent, but the Carpathian headquarters of the ICCT fast response team was one of them. And Uncle Tulegan had plainly tracked Zhanargul to the vicinity, at least, even if the headquarters itself was so well hidden, it would puzzle them to find it. Amber, being Amber, had added anti-fey wards in their own language. And language was power. She slipped out in fey space to see what she might see.  Any fey who had hit the wards was going to be somewhat disoriented and unlikely to notice her for a while.  And she knew exactly where the boundaries were.

The would-be intruders appeared to be some specie of wild hunt. They appeared to have lost control of the soul-leeches, which were used to herd mortals by the air of despair they carried, which would have been more worrying had not the soul-leeches been as disoriented as their masters. The level of kick she had put on the wards was enough to make them fight to retain cohesiveness of spirit.

“One question, neighbour,” said Amber to the angry and unhappy great spirit who was in charge. “Are you just a group passing through, or are you summoned by the fool Nurtazin?”

“What – what is it to you, High Sidhe Princess?” asked the great form spirit, taking her as such for being in fey space.

“I do the asking; you do the answering,” said Amber.

“I was sent.  What of it?”

“You are still asking questions,” said Amber, using the electricity spell toned down to disrupt his form.  He writhed.  She did not hold it long; it was torture and Amber despised torture.  But one had to convince the fey that one could best them before they actually listened and the only language, unfortunately, that most understood was force.

“I regret my foolishness!” it cried.

“Very well.  I have a message to Tulegen Nurtazin; tell him that I can counter any Great Form Spirit he cares to summon for I scarcely would have had to build up a sweat for one so weak as yourself.  Tell him that his niece is under my protection; and that I will not brook his insolence in opposing her.  You may tell him that I am her fairy godmother if you like” added Amber whimsically.  “I have forgotten more about demonology than he could possibly ever learn.  Tell him to go away and play with himself; it’s about all he’s good for,” she concluded.

With a bit of luck he would overreach himself in anger and try to raise something that was beyond him that would devour him.

“I hear and obey, O princess of the Fey,” said the spirit.

“Good; now sod off,” said Amber.

The spirits collected themselves and roiled off in a rather reeling and drunken fashion, still suffering the effects of the ward line. 

Amber went back to bed.

 

Gosia was acting as go-between for Wojciech, as they had a mind-link. She had reported several times that Nurtazin was irritable about the way that the archaeologists took things so slowly; he had tried the persuasion spell to make them to move faster but one had been seemingly resistant and had thrown off the persuasion and railed at the others that they would be sacked if they did not do things properly.  They were, even so, moving faster than they might otherwise have done and had almost reached a burial chamber. 

Gosia came to Amber in the morning.

“Amber, Wojciech says that he saw Nurtazin raise some fey spirits, and he said the wards you raised would bounce them without trouble,” she said, anxiously.

“They bounced very nicely,” said Amber. “It might have been nice if Wojciech had let us know last night, but never mind.”

“I’m sorry; Michał was restless last night, so he may have tried.”

“Oh, understood,” said Amber.  “I think I’d better work with you and Zhanargul on how to destroy soul leeches, in case any of them slip the control of their fey masters. The spell is Latin, ‘ride’, ree-day it is said, the imperative of ‘to laugh’. They epitomise all that is negative, and consequently, laughter is their natural enemy. Holding your will on them is imperative to drive them inexorably to their inevitable gelastic doom ... to laugh them to death,” she translated.

“Why are some spells in Latin and some in Polish?” asked Zhanargul.

“There are some in other ancient languages, too,” said Amber. “Latin is a language of formula and ritual and has been for a long time. Polish? Well, it seems that it just works. I suspect the language doesn’t matter as much so long as your will is concentrated enough. I used to get a light out of my finger as a child by commanding it ‘shine’ in English, without knowing to use ‘Lumino’ and I don’t even bother with a word these days. Words and spells are there to concentrate the will, and ... no, I won’t say they have no power of themselves because if that was so, then runes would not be so powerful. And there again, runes are inscribed or drawn with intent. It’s one of those debates for long winter nights. And hey, who knows? Maybe Jan Sobieski was the Kwisatz Haderach, and we’re all the second reserve. Oh dear, you do not watch the right films or read the right books,”  she added as Zhanargul looked puzzled.

And then she felt consternation from Lázló and Wojciech; and they turned up looking slightly the worse for wear in the middle of the room.

“My goodness” said Amber mildly “I take it that your dark Talented has been causing you some trouble?”

“It wasn’t him; it was the blasted wight and his zombies” said Lázló.

“Right; as it’s Zhanargul’s ruddy uncle who’s the problem let’s make this lesson for her a practical one and you can tell us all about it; you didn’t call on me to hit the ground running so I assumed you were handling it.”

The boys exchanged sheepish looks.

“We could have sorted it all out then and there couldn’t we, by calling on the whole group?” said Wojciech in a small voice.

“You pair of blithering idiots, we could have hit you with power through the amulets to turn you temporarily into a pair of small gods if you needed it,” said Amber.  “Zhanargul, when you have learned enough, you will get an amulet tied to you, with your blood and that of the team, to be able to share emotions and a degree of power. And I am thinking we might do that sooner rather than later to handle your Uncle Tootles.  Boys! Tell me the worst and how come words like ‘wight’ and ‘zombies’ crept into the conversation.”

“The tomb they were digging up belonged to a chap called Abaris” said Wojciech “And we mooched off to find a Familied library; Ritter’s dad’s actually.  Turns out he was some well known priest or wizard or both who may or may not have taught magic to Pythagorus; only he wasn’t a very nice character.  And when we got back they’d broken into the tomb and he had a knife on his chest that wasn’t imbued with a soul or personality as such but it plainly had some awareness and independent action. It stabbed the first archaeologist who bent over him and drained his life force so old Abaris sat up because it went into him; and then he starts raising zombies that were ready prepared in his burial chamber; and killing the other archaeologists to fuel his power.  And Tulegen Nurtazin tries to cast a spell of control because from the wild and rather panicked tone in his voice he was expecting to have to raise Abaris and would then expect him to be grateful, instead of which the fellow is doing it all on his own.”

“And then” said Lázló “Abaris waves a hand and Nurtazin flies backward; which was the point he started gabbling about being useful to the master and begging to serve him.  He was using ancient Greek; and we’ve covered that so we were able to follow it.  I don’t know any Scythian.”

“They didn’t have a written language; the best you’ll do is a few words and names written down by mundanes,” said Amber.  “It does make using runes against the bugger more powerful though, as if he’s literate it’ll only be in ancient Greek.  Illiterate peoples tend to place less value on the written word because generally they have a very competent oral record and trained memories accordingly.  Which is one reason I train my memory by learning yards of poetry; sometimes an oral tradition comes in handy too.  I take it you decided there was too much going on and hoofed it?”

“We forgot we could use everyone,” said Wojciech. “It’s all pretty new to us. We should have just creamed him and the zombies; but we’re too used to thinking of fifty odd zombies  as being overkill.”

“Fire generally discourages any number of zombies” said Amber.  “Are they still there?”

“No; he had tried to draw us in and we resisted” said Lázló “And he was busy asking Nurtazin who the other Talented were and Nurtazin was gabbling about getting to a place of safety to use as a base from which to take over the eastern extents of Europe.”

“Well let us go and see” said Amber.  “Zhanargul you should come; we’ll protect you, we can carry you with us.” she added “Stay at the back and only watch. Wojciech, give me a visualisation.”

They teleported smoothly to an opened mound with a scene of carnage.  Of Nurtazin and Abaris there was no sign; but there were fifty zombies.  Zhanargul gasped.

“Wojciech; Lázló; you shall be the foci so you know what to do next time,” said Amber.  They gasped as power hit them from all of those for whom Amber had made amulets; and then they were concentrating their Talent in fire fiercer than any one Talented could produce, a veritable firestorm.  And the zombies burned.

“That’s the way to do it” said Amber. “Let me see if I can’t pick up a geomantic trail on this ruddy wight and Nurtazin,” she walked around, feeling with her aura-sensing and grimaced. “I think he knows enough to have summoned some fey to cloud it by passing through the place he teleported,” she said.  “We can use Zhanargul’s blood to locate him later; poor bastards of archaeologists, this is going to have to be so hushed up; you can see the ones that weren’t caught in the fire have been exsanguinated.  I think we’re going to have to burn them too and fake up some kind of freak lightening strike.  Well, Zhanka, you won’t learn any younger; help me set the scene.  Your uncle doesn’t seem to care much what mundanes see,” she added to Zhanargul

“Excuse me Amber but if you ask me he was too busy shitting bricks to even consider it,” said Wojciech. “Abaris was casting fetyshless and wordless for all the world like he had an Oxford accent and Bellamy connections.”

Amber laughed. Some Talented used a fetysh of some kind to focus their power as well as spell words; Amber discouraged it amongst her team. The amulets were enough of a crutch in her opinion, and she had half a mind to go to a higher level of ritual.

“Well it does go to prove we aren’t the only ones to do it” she said. 

“I think you should make Zhanargul an amulet,” said Lázló.  “And you will need my little sister to douse for where Uncle Tootles – Uncle Tootles, really, Amber?  That’s off the wall even for you.”

“It worked for me,” shrugged Amber. “Yes, Ágnes is going to be needed, and I suppose we won’t exclude Árpád if his twin is involved.”

“Not hardly,” said Lázló.

“Fine, you can heave them out of school,” said Amber. “I’ll sign a chit for you, and you can face down their headmistress.”

Lázló pulled a face.

“Don’t you have some stray soul-leeches to let me face instead, or a great-form fey with attitude, or something harmless?” he said plaintively.

“It is not well to joke about such things,” said Takeo, severely.

“You don’t know the old witch,” said Lázló. “She’ll agree – Ágnes has an extraordinary Talent in her field and she won’t be in danger – but the Head will make difficulties. And she will make me feel as though I have just entered her school, my pubescent Talent bubbling away and in need of training when my rampant hormones have made me teleport all the clothes off every female at the airport.”

“You didn’t!” said Amber.

“I’ve never been so embarrassed in my life,” said Lázló.  “It was a beautiful sight though ... mostly.”

Amber laughed.

“Well, I managed to set on fire the abbreviated costume of a lady in a parade” said Jeronim. “My father managed to convince people it was the sun through her diamante jewellery.  I was all of nine.”

“Now, that’s precocious,” said Lázló.

“Cossack; what do you expect?” said Amber.

“Fair point,” said Lázló.

“In the meantime, send Ritter back into his father’s library, Wojciech, Gosia, pester Councillor Wąz; and I’ll contact my Uncle Marcus and see what he has.”