This post is chapter fifty-four of my not-previously-published epic fantasy novel Broken Rule, which I'm serializing here on the Steem blockchain.
The story so far:
Chapters: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53
Jonas's heart hammered as he realized they had been discovered. Natasza looked at them in puzzlement for a moment, and then a broad grin broke out on her face. “Wizards! It will be so nice to have someone intelligent to speak to. And this is that wonderful young fellow who tricked me and killed my Danijela. What a pleasant surprise. You all must sit and share some tea with me. No, not tea. My friend Faber has introduced me to this special brew that's all the rage in Old Harbor. It's hot like tea, but it has an interesting flavor. I'm sure you'll love it. Come, have a seat.” She directed them to several plush chairs around a small, low table.
She hadn't called the guards or ripped their minds to shreds, so things seemed to have moved in a more positive direction than Jonas had expected. Jonas looked at Arturo, shrugged, and took a seat. She seemed to be bubbling with excitement at the prospect of conversing with people she considered peers. If the woman wanted to talk, why deny her? Perhaps she would fill them in on some of the pieces of the puzzle that were still missing. Arturo sat as well, but Lorne stood in place, scowling in disapproval. Jonas guessed he didn't usually have tea with his intended victims.
“I have taken the form of Danijela, but you three are clever enough to know that isn't who I truly am. You may call me Natasza. It's true that I am a demon-goddess now, but you will be my friends, so I won't demand that you use titles with me.”
“A pleasure to make your acquaintance, Natasza,” said Jonas, hoping he sounded sincere. “I am Master Wizard Jonas Terra, and this is my colleague Master Wizard Arturo Boroni, Pathfinder of the Veil of Death.”
“Ah, a spirit wizard,” Natasza said knowingly. “A very unusual field. Not nearly as well understood as the other schools. You'll forgive me if I say that I suspect more than half of it is complete nonsense.”
“Of course, madam,” Arturo assented. “I myself have sometimes wondered which aspects of my art are truly necessary and which are mere embellishments. But may I ask what your specialty is? Jonas and I have discussed the subject and have our theories, but you can settle the matter most authoritatively.”
“I am an illusionist,” she said, altering her appearance from the proper, well-dressed form of Danijela to a much younger woman with considerably less modesty, who might seem at home in a rowdy tavern.
“You see,” said Jonas. “I was right.”
Arturo nodded in agreement. “That was what we suspected, but the spell you have worked on the people here is what has us puzzled. It seems to be magic of the mind, rather than of the senses.”
Natasza beamed. “Do you like it? It's my own discovery. I had many long, lonely years in which to advance and perfect my art. Most illusionists believe that there are only five senses, but there are so many more with so many subtle variations. Can you classify hunger or thirst as one of the common senses? That was my first area of inquiry. Affecting them is similar to affecting the sense of touch, but ever so slightly different. Once I perfected control of those, I began to search for other senses I could manipulate. The spell I have used to create this wonderful empire involves the sense of right and wrong.”
That certainly hadn't occurred to Jonas, but if it was true it might explain many things. It also raised just as many questions. “I would have thought that the conscience was a process of the mind, not a sense,” Jonas said.
“Ah,” said Natasza, clearly thrilled to discuss her work with people who could properly appreciate it, “that's what I thought at first as well. But consider, there is a sense that tells your mind how your body is positioned. Even in the darkest room, you can tell that your elbow is bent this much or that your fingers are curled that much. I suspect that the moral sense works by a similar process, only with the position of ideas in the mind. That's how I stumbled onto it at first, you see. All of the senses have certain similarities to others, and I was trying subtle variations in my spells to find new ones. I was quite surprised when I found it. I think it's my greatest achievement. Once I have my empire firmly established, I plan to devote considerable time to studying it.”
“It is quite profound,” Jonas said. “But surely there must be subtle variations in the moral sense of each person. How can you manipulate so many at once?”
“Oh, I only actively manipulate a few at a time,” she explained. “The interesting ones, like Gavril or Danijela or my new friend Faber. I suppose I shall have to give him up so that I can have you as my friends. As much fun as Faber is, I think I prefer the company of wizards.”
“But you have so many devoted followers in the city,” protested Jonas. “How do you reconcile that with your claim that you only control a few?”
“Oh, I only actively control a few. My influence on the rest is far more crude. You understand that a man may be blinded if exposed to too great a light, or deafened by too great a sound? I have found that the moral sense can be overwhelmed as well. The result is that a single moral imperative is imprinted on someone permanently. My subjects' moral imperative is loyalty and obedience to the empire.”
“That's...” Monstrous? Horrifying? He had best not rouse her ire, if she was capable of spells of that sort. “That's impressive.”
“Thank you, Jonas,” she said. “And what is your specialty, may I ask?”
“I am an earth wizard. Lately I have been focusing primarily on stone, although I hope to expand my research to other materials soon, as well.”
Her expression darkened. “I am not especially fond of earth wizards,” she said. “One of them trapped me in Loden for a very long time. Underground.” She shivered in revulsion.
Loden? Where had he heard that word before? From history, of course. The battle of Loden was one of the first skirmishes in the War of Despair. Xanatar the Strength of the World destroyed it in an attempt to kill the Triumvirate that ruled there. They escaped and were later hunted down by Xanatar's ally, Sefton the Terrible. But she was claiming to have been there when it happened. Could that be possible? It was so long ago. Jonas had been lost in thought, but now saw that Natasza seemed to be growing even angrier.
“Natasza, even if I could do such a thing to you, rest assured that I never would.” Jonas hoped he seemed especially sincere when he said that. “However, even though I myself was not the perpetrator, I apologize on behalf of all earth wizards for the crime.”
That seemed to please her. A smile returned to her face, and her physical form became even more attractive. Jonas wondered if she was doing that unconsciously, if the particular appearance she was projecting responded to her mental state the same way that the muscles of the face could unconsciously produce a smile.
“Thank you, Jonas. I accept your apology. Of course, once I take control of your sense of right and wrong, you'll begin to understand the depth of the iniquity that was perpetrated on me and feel compelled to apologize again. That can't be helped.”
Jonas glanced to Arturo and got the impression that he was no more eager than Jonas to have Natasza's spell placed on him. He addressed Natasza, trying to be as delicate as possible. “And when, exactly, do you expect to begin that process?”
“Oh, quite soon I should think. Once Faber gets here I can release the spell I have on him and give him the cruder, permanent version. He and your young friend here are too wily to let run around uncontrolled. They did manage to kill Danijela, after all.”
Jonas suspected he had learned all he was going to learn from this woman and they were unlikely to be able to manipulate the situation to gain any particular advantage. The time had come to act against her as they originally planned. “Now!” he yelled to Lorne and Arturo. He reached down and grabbed the edge of the low table that sat between them and flipped it up onto her. As expected, she began to use her power of illusion to disorient them. The room seemed to fill with darkness, and the floor felt like it was rocking under their feet like a ship on a stormy sea. Lorne fell to his knees and vomited. Jonas looked around and saw Natasza. Her form had shifted again. Her new form resembled the playful tavern girl she had been before, but now she had the bulging muscles of someone who had worked several decades as a blacksmith. Jonas shook his head, remembering that focusing on her appearance was a foolish waste of time and a violation of the first rule they had established for this plan. He clamped his eyes shut and dropped to his hands and knees.
Jonas quested outward with his magical senses. The floor, the walls, they were solid stone, easy to sense and right where they should be. He pushed harder. There, those were Lorne's bones, the same as he sensed when the two of them were healing after their battle with Marek. And those must be Arturo's bones, older, slightly brittle. Where was Natasza? “I can't sense her. She's not really here!” he shouted.
“What do you mean?” shouted Arturo in response. “She's right there in front of you, right where your eyes tell you. She's not hiding.”
“There aren't any bones there!”
This caught everyone by surprise, including Natasza. “What are you talking about, wizard? I am right here. I assure you, if I intended to appear elsewhere, I would do so.”
Jonas pushed his senses to their limit. Nothing. No one else was in the room with them. “Arturo, are you sure?”
“Of course I'm sure! Her spirit is right there, blazing like a beacon!”
It took Jonas a second to process this new information. “Natasza, are you a ghost?”
“What? Nonsense. I'm as real as you are.”
“But you don't have a body. Not a real one. What we're seeing is only an illusion.”
“Well, naturally I alter my appearance with illusion. It's quite common for illusionists to do so. I have no desire to appear old and wrinkled when I can seem young and beautiful.”
“How old are you, exactly?”
“Old enough.”
Jonas's mind raced. She was old. Impossibly old. She had been alive during the War of Despair. But humans couldn't live that long, could they? She had been buried. In the dark. With nothing but her illusions to amuse herself. She must have used her own illusions on herself constantly. She said that her early explorations were into hunger and thirst. That must have been to assuage her starvation wherever she had been buried. And if the glamours she used were for vanity's sake, she would undoubtedly want them to affect herself as well. She wouldn't want to see her own wrinkled skin any more than she would want anyone else to see it. The illusions she was using on herself must have survived the death of her body, and her spirit continued to believe them. She never realized that she was dead. She was a disembodied spirit who didn't move on to the next world. A ghost. A simple ghost.
“Arturo,” Jonas called. “She's a ghost. Nothing but a ghost. Don't believe your eyes, and don't believe what she tells you. Just get rid of her. You can do that, right?”
Arturo looked at him in puzzlement for a moment and seemed ready to argue, but he gave in. Arturo crossed his arms over his chest in the manner of a body prepared for burial, and began to drum his fingers against his shoulders. “Spirit, I banish you. Spirit, cross over,” he chanted.
Arturo walked toward Natasza as she looked at him with a mixture of bewilderment and horror. As Arturo approached, her form grew wavy and indistinct, and she became quite agitated. Lights and sounds assaulted Jonas's senses. He squinted his eyes and continued to watch as Arturo pressed forward. The spirit wizard's chant had increased steadily in volume and he was shouting it now, moving toward Natasza, his fingers drumming like mad. He was right on top of her now, as if he was going to walk into her. The blinding light and deafening sound emanating from Natasza reached a crescendo but then faded away. Arturo looked unsteady on his feet for a moment, ready to collapse, but instead stepped forward into the space Natasza appeared to occupy. She winked out of existence, banished from the realm of the living. Arturo, his senses overwhelmed by the experience, crumpled to the floor.