III
“Now we use blood magic to get a line on Nurtazin at least; and hope that where he is, so too is our wight,” said Amber. “On account of how we can’t hope that the wight would go along with Uncle Tulegen’s immediate plans of kill the wench grab the country. Unless Tulegen can talk very fast and suggest too killing Zhanargul’s parents shortly after so there is one country under the joint control. It depends on the personality of Abaris; whether he is paranoid about an underling having power or whether he is content to move slowly and through another.” She looked around. “Since Ágnes is a dowser, we have a better way to do this than usual. Normally we should take blood ritually from Zhanargul and get a direction of her uncle from it and approximate distance; then move to a sufficiently distant place for another such reading and triangulate. I however intend to make use of Ágnes’s unusual ability and have her dowse with Zhanka’s blood on a map. And I have borrowed for the purpose a scrolling globe that projects an appropriate part of the world; it was made by a kobold artificer of considerable power and skill and has been gifted to us for dealing with a little problem he had last year.”
“The nasty accusations from that nasty little racist?” asked Jeronim.
“Even so,” said Amber.
“How does it work?” asked Wojciech. “Is it programmed like a computer?”
“It’s different” said Amber “Much relies on understanding the properties of the metals kobolds use and the special enchantments they can be made to take. He’s improving on it, for us, having adopted a Familyless Talented who is also a dowser; he’s making a frame with a set of divining rods attached and the rods will tell the flat plate what part of the world to show. It’s a quirky sort of skill, and can’t be easily aimed at the problem you are looking for.”
“And it certainly doesn’t always work to order with a crystal ball,” said Ágnes. “I looked into the damn ball to see if I could divine the health of the examiner last year’s exams, and fetched up telling her where to find a lost ring, because it showed me a large scale map. Divination is hit and miss.”
“That’s why it has to be taught, to pick up those who can do something, and then try to develop their individual skills,” said Amber. “I’ve got a cousin who sometimes looks at someone and draws a picture of their near future. He finds it scary.”
“So would I,” said Ágnes. “Give me something reliable any day; at least I’m fairly reliable with my copper rods.”
“Which is why you’re here,” said Amber.
“What do we do with my blood?” asked Zhanargul.
“We write a finding charm around you on the floor, slit a part of your body you don’t mind having a scar on, and take twenty three drops of blood” said Amber.
“Why twenty three?” asked Takeo “The number was not mentioned in the book on blood magic.”
“That’s because some rather original research has been done since,” said Amber “By my genius kid sister as it happens; and checked over by others. This is partly tied in to knowledge from science; because we each have 23 pairs of chromosomes carrying our heritance. This is why we can interbreed with kobolds and elves who have the same number, and suggests a common ancestry. Horses and donkeys have a number that relate to each other but are not the same and so can produce a – usually – sterile hybrid in a mule. It’s important to know for higher transmogrificational skills and helps no end with human transmogrification. We take a drop of blood to represent every part of her heritance which a mundane biologist would find bad science, but then science and Talent may interrelate but do not always march well together. One reason it works is because of the assimilative correlation that focuses our will because we believe it will work. Anyway, this blood goes into a vial on a chain of vanadium gold alloy. Vanadium has a molecular weight of twenty three. Gold is traditionally good. Ágnes swings it over the globe, concentrating on finding those of the blood of Zhanargul and we should get her parents and her uncle showing up on a projected map. We eliminate the parents from the search and home in on the uncle with greater detail. Zhanka and I have spent time this evening adding details to the map of what her country is like. We can add to it as we need it,” she said.
Zhanargul stood inside a chalk circle and counted blood drops from the end of her finger; and stoppered the tiny bottle when she reached twenty three. She had to squeeze the last few. Ágnes took up the chain.
“My, that is powerful!” she said “I already have direction just from the feel; lead me to the map!”
At Ágnes’s touch the globe projected a map with two pulsing lights at one corner and one at the other.
“That’s my parents’ palace,” Zhanargul pointed to the double light.
Ágnes concentrated and the map centred on the other light, homing in and drawing up a tiny aerial view of a deep valley with a fortification hardly big enough to be called a castle nestling on the lip of the valley. Amber was heard to mutter about it looking like the abbey in ‘Hawk the Slayer’ which was no information of use to anyone else. Amber’s film watching was eclectic and occasionally obscure.
“Good; we have a location,” said Amber “Boys, what did you unearth about Abaris before we go in all Talent blazing?”
“Not a lot” said Wojciech, speaking for both of them; they had pooled information.
“Let’s just say he isn’t the sort of chap to accept a coalition power,” said Lázló. “As I understand it, Tulegen was going to bring him back to er, undeath, to use as a servant; but the tables got turned when his knife did its stuff. Evidently it was attuned to sense a living body and was used to channel life force.”
“Let’s play – Master and Servant,” sang Amber “You people don’t listen to the right sort of music, either, do you? Oh, well. He ain’t going to be so happy to be stuck in the middle of nowhere without life forces to sustain him, is he?”
“No but having discovered that there were two wizards Uncle Tulegen wasn’t aware of is going to mean they both want to consolidate,” said Lázló. “My guess is he left the zombies to mop up us and any reinforcements we brought in; because as I understand it a lot of dark Talented are most awfully impressed with themselves that they can recycle dead bodies and expect everyone else to run away. Though if you ask me any four or five competent Talented could have mopped up that lot without getting hit with blood magic.”
“Oh I agree; the hit was for if he was still there.” said Amber. “Uncle Tootles is moderately competent and he acknowledged a master; so Abaris the once and future skank might even be more powerful than me on my own. We have to assume it. We also have to wonder if he has a phylacterion. Greek word, meaning phylacterion,” she added.
“You’re a git sometimes, Amber,” said Wojciech. “She means a phylactery or soul-jar as beloved of great immortal mages in fairy tales, whose souls, or hearts, are hidden in a pearl inside an oyster inside the belly of a great fish in the bottom of some vast, legendary lake.”
“It would rot,” said Zhanargul.
“Of course it would rot, but that’s why those versions are pure fantasy,” said Amber. “It was a fashion amongst a selection of Egyptian magicians at the time and earlier; now I know you’ve all seen ‘The Mummy.’
“Yes, that was cool,” said Lázló.
“If he has we’re a bit sunk” said Jeronim.
“I gather he had a solidity?” Amber asked Wojciech. He nodded.
“He looked a little the worse for wear; kind of shrivelled and mummified but essentially human” he said.
“A lich then more than a wight,” said Amber “Technically a wight is a kind of angry ghost. So probably no phylacterion but a very nasty knife. We may need an artefact to destroy it; still, a chant should work. And first catch your knife as they say. Well they would if they were after knives not fish. Sorry,” she added.
“You talk the most awful rubbish at times Amber,” said Lázló. “Even more than me.”
“I need to let my mind freewheel; sometimes it throws up the best ideas that way; Wulf will tell you” she added leaning back against Wulf who smiled tenderly and nodded.
“Her lunacies often have purpose,” he said. “We have little information save that Abaris is going to want people to drain soon; but that also he is going to want to find out from Uncle Tulegen just exactly how long he has been er, indisposed and what exactly has been happening in the last couple of millennia or so; he is no fool I think and is not about to act without data to work with. It’s a lot of history lesson.”
The others nodded, reminded again why the quiet Wulf was second in command; he had an excellent grasp of the essentials.
“Right; so we need to interrupt them at it while we know where they are,” said Amber. “No finesse; kill Abaris. Er, again. And it would be nice to capture Tulegen and drag him in chains before Zhanargul’s father; we have two good and true witnesses who saw him deliberately engage in an act that led to the deaths of a number of mundanes; and he has allied with the killer. That is enough isn’t it Zhanka?”
“I would think so,” said Zhanargul. “And you can witness that he sent the wild hunt also.”
“So I can.” said Amber. “I think that’s an instant sentence to a crystal cave more or less without appeal. I have a spare amulet for Zhanka; now let her open that cut again and bleed on each of ours, and her own, and she will be linked.”
This was rapidly done; adding people was easier than the initial ritual making the amulets from pure Baltic amber. Zhanargul put on the undistinguished looking yellow lump on its silver chain, and her eyes opened to have a sense of the people she was with, most of them amused at her reaction.
“I’m going to suggest the full ritual later, now you all know how damned useful the limited link with the amulet is,” said Amber. “All right people; link hands, we’re going in.”
The group arrived on the roof of the fortress; there were no guards. A flock of rooks were disturbed from their slumbers and fluttered briefly up cawing disapproval.
Amber and Zhanargul led the way; and the others focused amulets on Zhanargul. She was to arrest her uncle and startle him with what she could do against him. Amber had every confidence that she could hold the lich by herself; if she could not, she would call on her comrades. There was some matter of pride; but most of it was, as usual for Amber, academic curiosity.
They came to a main chamber; and burst in.
It was something of an anticlimax to see a wizard of similar appearance to Zhanargul slumped barely conscious on the floor, a serving maid weeping over the body of another servant.
“Neighbour, my apologies for disturbing your grief, but has the other one, Abaris the Lich, left this place?” asked Amber gently.
The servant lifted a tearstained face.
“Yes Mistress” she said.
“We will help you to bury him presently,” said Amber. “I missed asking Uncle Marcus something; I must globe him to ask him to dig out all his ancient texts to find out what was around in the time of Pythagoras that’s still standing.”
Zhanargul put binding spells on her uncle. Tulegen moaned.
Amber laid a hand to his head and gave him enough power to come fully to consciousness. He screamed.
“A little early to terrorise him isn’t it?” asked Jeronim.
“Haven’t done a thing yet” said Amber laconically “Tulegen, stop screaming and look at me; tell me what Abaris is up to and I shan’t have to hurt you by taking it forcibly from your mind.”
“That’s what he did” moaned the broken Talented. “Took all my knowledge; it hurt, oh how it hurt!” he moaned, rocking back and forth. “He said that telling him was too slow. Made me call for my servants; he needed power to go somewhere. Then he teleported. Cost me my manservant; bastard, how was I to know he had the means to come back for himself? The text only said he would rise again with aid from the living!”
“Well!” said Amber. “Lázló, Wojciech, take this creep to Zhanargul’s parents; she’ll give you a visualisation. The rest of you go through this place and – here, take the cushion covers as bags – fill them with every book you find. Use gloves or pull your sleeves over your hands to pick them up do not place bare flesh to any of them. Just in case,” she added.
“You know, I don’t think any of us who graduated from the ICCT college in Kraków really have any idea about real dark arts,” said Jeronim.
“You don’t; that’s why you leave it to the experts,” said Amber. “Like my family who have forgotten more about the dark arts than most people ever learn. The dark arts are actually rather nasty; and not the simple and childish toys you get to play with at school.”
“What when we have all books?” asked Jeronim
“Back to Festung Amber,” said Amber, which was the nickname they had bestowed on their headquarters.
Marcus arrived later that day.
“All right; we have large portions of Egypt; also Athens and actually large portions of Greece. Which he would know quite a lot about though it’s doubtful if Nurtazin did. Then we still have cities extant at Byzantium, or rather Istanbul; Samarkand; and some of the settlements and towns on the trade route that became the Silk Road like Leninabad and Kokand were probably around in his day. I’d lay odds on him going places first that are known landmarks in the cultural knowledge of Nurtazin that he’s know either from description or first-hand experience. Like the pyramids at Ghiza or the Acropolis in Athens. And assuming that he uses some kind of transfiguration or disillusionment and isn’t walking around looking undead he is not going to stand out. If he acts unfamiliarly he’ll be put down as one more stupid tourist. And unless he attacks wealthy tourists I’m afraid he is going to disappear unless his appetite is horrendous. Who reports dead prostitutes in the less savoury parts of Egyptian or Hellenic tourist cities?” he said.
“You are a pessimist Marcus,” said Amber. “And I’m afraid you’re also probably right. So we have to wait until he makes some move towards consolidating a power base? I hate to be reactive.”
“If we keep an eye out on international TV news in case he is greedy – or sloppy, as he might well be, not realising that we can keep tabs on mundane activity, because they didn’t in his day, as much – and on news of say, a new teacher of the arts in these places we might pick up something. I have a few business interests in Istanbul who might be able to keep their ears to the ground for me; though they are mostly mundane.”
“Gun running, Marcus?”
“Silk,” said Marcus. “And probably a bit of gun running on the side for some of my less scrupulous contacts. Don’t knock it; where do you think the last lot of AK’s came from?”
“Fair point,” Amber admitted. Sometimes looking like mundane mercenaries came in handy, and would-be Talented dictators tended to despise mundane methods. Often to their costs. “Well I hope at least Nurtazin will be safe in prison; though I might just pop up there and get a fey-proof exclusion zone around it. We don’t want him calling up a great form spirit to spirit him out, literally, through feyspace.”
“Yes; you can’t be too paranoid over things like that,” said Marcus. “I’d think about it now I know more about the fey. Have I been any use?”
“Tremendously; thanks” said Amber, kissing him on the cheek. “I suppose you wouldn’t like to go through Nurtazin’s book collection for me would you? I’m itching to do it myself but I am alive to my faults; if I once engaged with such a collection I’d forget to eat and sleep let alone lead the team.”
Marcus laughed.
“Just like your father,” he said. “Nobody knows cursed and grubby literature like me though, I think; I’ll be glad to do it. I’ll give you potted précis of any that seem interesting and bring in anything I think you should see.”
“Ta” said Amber. Her uncle had been an incipient dark Talented once, but her adoptive father had stopped him, and turned him, and he was a valuable ally, and the taint on his soul less virulent for his own part fey heritance.
She hated the waiting, but took the time to pray for the souls of those unfortunates killed by Abaris until they could catch up with him.
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