BOOK 12: CHAPTER 18: WYNNLA

18 – Wynnla

Cora, walking beside Victor on the path leading up to his palace from the world hall, exclaimed for the third or fourth time, “It’s so enormous!”

Victor chuckled, nodding. “Well, Ruhn is a world of giants, and Iron Mountain is one of the oldest, richest duchies. When we get up the slope here, you can look that way”—Victor pointed to his left, where the garden walls and the palace currently blocked most of the view—“and you’ll see the mountain.”

She smiled, her cheeks bright with exertion and excitement, and Victor felt better about how stressed he’d made her earlier. He’d doubted himself and his high expectations of her for a while there, but when she’d successfully delivered the Ancestor Stone shards to Ardek and returned, he’d seen a glint of accomplishment in her eye. He was confident that he was on the right track to helping her build up her own confidence. It hadn’t hurt, he supposed, that she’d gotten to walk through the city of Coloss with an enormous bear that could have handily defeated any who dared challenge her.

“I’m surprised there wasn’t a delegation to meet you,” she said, glancing over her shoulder toward the small, six-soldier honor guard that had been trailing them from the portal.

“I didn’t tell anyone I was coming back yet, and my seneschal, Draj Haveshi, whom you met briefly, will be busy putting the staff in order back in the citadel for a few days.” The truth was that Draj was furious with Victor for abandoning him in Coloss; he’d expected Victor to stick around and help organize the staff and set up expectations for the business routines of the citadel. What Victor saw as a show of respect by letting Draj make those decisions, the seneschal saw as a burden.

Victor chuckled as he remembered a particularly clever line he’d used on the man: I’m asking you to be a leader, not a high-ranking servant, Draj. Can you do that? Draj’s attitude had changed after that, and Victor was beginning to wonder if he ought to grant him a share of the conquered lands on Dark Ember. It would do him good to have responsibility for his own lands and people. After all, his family had ruled Iron Mountain before Victor killed his brother in a duel. “Not before he trains a few replacements, though.”

“What, sir?” Cora looked up at him, her brown eyes glinting with flecks of yellow and gold in the bright sunlight.

“Just talking to myself, but I was thinking that I ought to give Draj some new family lands.”

“Oh, I see.” She nodded, smiling. “But you were thinking he’d be hard to replace, so it’ll take several people to fill his shoes.”

Victor winked at her, clicking his tongue. “You’re smart, chica—that’s why you’ll be one of those people.”

Cora opened her mouth, her brow wrinkling as her first impulse was obviously to argue with him, but she seemed to reconsider, instead nodding serenely. “I’ll be proud to help you rule your empire someday.”

“That’s the spirit. Now look!” They’d just passed under a big vine-covered archway, and the lawn stretching toward the palace’s southwestern garden entrance provided a clear view of the mountain beyond it. Victor pointed and watched Cora’s face as she took it in. He wasn’t disappointed as her eyes bulged, her jaw dropped, and she craned her neck, following the slope of the massive peak toward the firmament.

“It’s…” Words seemed to fail her as she stared, and Victor nodded, putting a large hand on her shoulder.

“Wait until you see it at night when the moon shines on its slopes. If the sky is clear, it seems like it stretches all the way into space.”

“Amazing,” she breathed, and Victor paused there, indulging her as she stared for a while. He looked at the slope too, and, as always, felt a sort of kinship with it. After all, it was the resting place of a sleeping, primordial titan. Sometimes he wondered if he ought to pay Azforath a visit, but he figured he’d wait a while; it would seem like hardly any time had passed to the sleeping titan, and Victor wanted to have more to show him when they next met.

“Ready?” he asked after a few minutes.

Cora nodded, jerking her eyes away from the vista. “Ready, sir!”

He smiled and started walking up the path to the garden entrance. “Don’t worry; there’ll be a good view from your room’s balcony.”

“I have a room?”

He gestured to the enormous, sprawling edifice of his palace. “I could give you a dozen and no one would notice. Anyway, there’s one in my tower next to Arona’s.” 𝖗𝐚𝐍о𝔟Ęs̩

“Is she here?”

Victor shook his head. “Not yet. I’ll write to her when we get settled. I think we’ll be here for a few days—maybe a week or two. I’ve got some things to prepare before we go to Sojourn.”

“Oh! From what you said back in Coloss, I thought we’d be going there immediately.”

“Let’s just say it’s the next stop.” They walked in silence for a while, which Victor preferred, and Cora was distracted by the sights along the way, exclaiming at the many strange and wondrous flowers that lined the pathway, and again at the sight of the palace up close as they emerged on a broad patio where staff and minor nobility sometimes took meals. Victor tried to avoid causing a scene with his presence, but as they walked through the opulent halls and corridors, some folks invariably recognized him and fell over themselves to genuflect.

That said, the journey to his tower and elevator took half a dozen times longer than it ought to have, and by the time Victor dropped Cora off, the staff had been alerted and were already freshening up her suite. They paused outside her door, and he gestured back to the elevator. “I’m one level above you, but you can always fly up to my balcony if you need something.”

“Is there aught that you’d have me work on while…” She trailed off, obviously fishing for information about what Victor would be doing.

“I’ll be doing some research tonight. Why don’t you explore the palace grounds? They always serve dinner in the eastern gallery, but you can also order food brought to your room. Just a minute—” Victor stopped one of the passing housekeeping staff, her arms laden with fresh linens, and asked, “Have attendants been assigned to Lady Cora yet?”

“Yes, milord! Mistress Haveshi is seeing to the assignments, but the first is already on her way—it’s her granddaughter Twylla, daughter of Lady Tyla.”

Victor nodded. “Perfect.” He turned back to Cora, who looked mortified. “Get used to it. Don’t worry, you don’t have to entertain her; that’s her job.”

Cora watched the staff member curtsy and hurry off, then said, “But what if I want to—”

“Be alone? Just tell her so. Nobody will take offense.” Victor stretched his back, then nodded toward the elevator. “I’ll be upstairs.” As he started to walk away, Cora hastily curtsied, and Victor struggled to contain a chuckle. It seemed formality was contagious. Over his shoulder, he said, “If nothing comes up, I’ll see you for breakfast.”

When he reached his quarters, he found the balcony thrown wide to air the chambers out, a fresh candle burning on the mantle, and fresh sheets in his bed. New flowers were in the vase on the table, and an array of his favorite snacks was laid out on the counter—smoked meats, cheeses, oven-warm breads, and half a dozen spreads. He paused for a quick bite, then walked through his office, into the workshop, and from there, into his cultivation chamber. Ever since he’d had the idea, he couldn’t stop thinking about the petrified bone containing the fear geist.

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The Energy was thick in the chamber, and it was more attuned to his needs, but it still paled in comparison to the dense atmosphere in the Warlord’s. Victor inhaled deeply, savoring it, then walked to the container built into the amber ore wall that radiated with the cold, spine-tingling Energy of fear. He twisted open the seal, reached into the space, and closed his hand around the stone-like, petrified, rune-inscribed bone. With his prize in hand, he moved back to the catwalk, climbed up, and exited the chamber.

In his workshop, Victor walked over to one of the benches, sat down, and put the bone before him. He studied it, turning it this way and that, examining the runes. It was easy to differentiate Dar’s enchantment from the one Lo’ro the Grim had placed upon it—the one meant to capture and hold the geist. Just as he’d assumed, he understood immediately how to remove the wards Dar had applied.

It wasn’t a difficult matter to read the runes, and Victor knew very well how to unravel them, but it was a matter of strength. Back when Dar had crafted the wards, Victor wouldn’t have had the strength of will or the raw Energy required to unmake them. Now, though? Probing with his aura, Victor felt sure he could do the job. He hesitated, though, reviewing his motivations and ensuring he wasn’t doing something rash.

What was he hoping to gain from the geist? It was a powerful spirit, but whatever or whoever it had been in life had likely been far more powerful. Moreover, a person didn’t become a fear geist without having been consumed by the emotion in life. Despite its lucidity and its promises, there was a very strong likelihood that the spirit was utterly mad. True, Victor had drained away much of the fear over the last few years when he’d spent time in his chamber, cultivating from it, but it was still heavy with it.

Again, he asked himself what he was hoping to gain, and this time, he tried to answer the question. The truth was that he felt stumped about the “breakthrough” the Warlord’s notes had inspired. He wanted to try to restructure his Core construct so that all of his Energies flowed into his spirit space undiluted, but to do so, he’d be throwing his Core out of balance.

He knew he could rebalance by building the different Energy affinities into orbs again, as they’d been in an earlier iteration, but if he did that, he’d lose a great deal of potency and one of the crucial benefits of his current construct: his Energy pools were combined. In the old days, he’d had separate pools for rage, fear, inspiration, and glory. If he split up his Core, he’d have to deal with that again.

Did he really think this fear geist would have more insight for him? Why go to a likely insane spirit before consulting Dar or any of the other masters on Sojourn? Was it stubbornness? Was he being secretive? The question seemed absurd, but wasn’t that how all the great masters operated, keeping their breakthroughs to themselves? Was he doing that out of some instinctive desire to seize power without other potential rivals learning what he’d done?

The truth was that Victor didn’t fully trust anyone who was thousands of years old. Even Chantico had her motivations that didn’t take into account Victor’s safety, let alone that of his loved ones. Dar and the other masters of Sojourn were always scheming, and many of those schemes had been in motion long before Victor was born. If Victor went there and asked people how to build a Core construct that allowed his “negative” Energies to flow unfettered into his Core space, there would be questions, speculation, and distrust—on all sides.

Of course, there was Tes; Victor trusted her almost completely—far more than any of the other great powers he’d met. Nevertheless, she wasn’t easy to get hold of. He’d been trying lately, sleeping periodically with his dream-crystal ring, but it didn’t seem the fates wanted him to talk to her yet. He smiled, despite his frustration; it was a romantic, perhaps silly, notion, but he and Tes both liked it, so they persisted with the absurd inconvenience.

If he didn’t trust the great masters of Sojourn—or Ruhn, for that matter—there were, of course, texts, but he’d collected every book, scroll, and parchment he could get his hands on when it came to Spirit Cores. The few that delved into advanced Core constructs tended to agree with what Ranish Dar had already taught him: one should place their “best” affinity near the aperture to the spirit, forcing the others to pass through it. Could he find more texts? Of course, he could, but it might take months or years to find one that actually broached the topic, and the answer he sought wasn’t a sure thing.

“Nothing is,” Victor muttered, hefting the bone. His mind had gotten away from him again, and he’d begun to operate as though he believed the fear geist had the answers he sought. For all he knew, it wouldn’t be able to teach him a single thing about Spirit Core constructs. He doubted that would be the case, but he had a feeling it would know less than he hoped.

Victor yawned, bored with his procrastinating, and gathered up a thread of Energy. Bolstering it with his will, he began to destroy the wards that Ranish Dar had put upon the bone. It took him the better part of an hour to chip away at the bonds of Energy, but when he finally broke through the last ward, he couldn’t help the surge of pride when he realized he’d hardly taxed himself. His Core still flared with Energy, and his mind was far from exhausted.

Perhaps he was lucky he’d waited so long—grown so powerful—before attempting the task because the geist didn’t hesitate before it pressed its will against his. The bone grew icy cold, and a wave of fear-attuned Energy poured out of it, stabbing like clawing talons at the aperture to the pathway in Victor’s palm. It was strong and hungry, and almost immediately gained a foothold, pushing into his pathway and surging up into his wrist.

It startled Victor at first, and he was a little slow to react, almost as curious as he was concerned. Still, when the frigid Energy continued to climb, he gathered his will, grabbed a torrent of hope-attuned Energy, and slammed against it, driving it back. As the Energy lost its grip and fell away, sliding out of his pathway like water from a faucet, the soft, sibilant whisper he’d heard so long ago came to him again.

“You feel different—not so young! You’ve grown stronger since we last spoke. Was it I who gave you this power? Did you feed off me? How long has it been? A century? Ten?”

As the last of the dark Energy returned to the bone, Victor gripped the bone more firmly, squeezing it in his fist. “Try that again and I’ll shatter this bone and rip your spirit to shreds before feeding the scraps to my ancestors.”

“Peace! Such anger! Did I not promise you secrets? Will you treat me so poorly? I only explored my freedom. Can you blame me?

”

“I guess not, but you know the rules now. Don’t break them.”

“Understood, Master.”

The whisper was soft and feminine, but it carried an edge that told Victor that the spirit—the geist—was anything but broken. He’d have to be careful not to let it near anyone it might dominate. Of course, he immediately thought of Cora and resolved to keep the bone locked away when he wasn’t using it.

“Young, naïve, and eager to please. She idolizes you, Master. I would never hurt her.”

Victor couldn’t stop the hot anger and outpouring of rage-attuned Energy that exploded into his pathways. “Don’t read my thoughts!” he growled, squeezing the bone to the point where he was sure it was near shattering.

“Apologies, master! Your touch—our connection—it flows both ways. Please guard your thoughts a bit more, if you can. I cannot stop them when they flow so freely.”

Victor inhaled deeply and, with a conscious effort, slammed his aura around his mind, sealing it like a vault. The connection he felt from the geist disappeared, and he very carefully opened a small aperture in his mental shield, allowing the connection, far thinner than before, to reestablish itself. “Speak.”

“That helped. I will endeavor to avoid the few stray thoughts leaking past your barrier. If you like, master, I can instruct you on a better structure for your mental fortress. I seek only to aid you.”

“Perhaps, but for now, explain to me what you gain from helping me. Why do you sound rational? Should you not be driven mad by your obsession with fear and terror?” A memory of the geist before he’d captured it came to him—how it had towered over the other geists, a pillar of Energy to their much smaller flames. He’d had no hope of capturing it, not being nearly strong enough, and when it had volunteered to bind itself, he’d taken the offer—a hell of a gamble, looking back—and Lo’ro had been impressed, to say the least.

“Madness ruled me for a time, aye, master.My obsession ruined my life; I destroyed all whom I loved and brought ruin to my nation. In death, my power diminished greatly as I wandered the planes, drifting through veils, wallowing in my personal hell. I relived the horror of my later years a hundred thousand times. I lived in the fear and terror—breathed it, ate it, drank it—until, eventually, after a hundred lifetimes of nightmare, I began to understand the other side of it.”

“Go on—what do you mean by the other side of it?”

“I almost can’t recall what it meant to be alive, master, but the emotions of those times are as strong as ever. I learned to see the true nature of fear—that it is rooted in other feelings. One can only fear when one has things to lose: love, companionship, comfort—even life. In my anguished existence, I began to focus on those things that gave power to my fear. Through those precious feelings, I found my sanity again.”

Victor could well relate to the notion that fear was rooted in positive emotions; hadn’t Chantico guided him to similar revelations? Still, he was suspicious. “And my other question?”

“What do I gain by seeking to help you? For one, master, you pulled me from the pocket hell to which I’d drifted. By aiding you, I hope to further cleanse my spirit. When I’m ready, I pray that you’ll set me free on the spirit plane where I might drift through the proper veils to a new life—one in which I might atone for my failures in the last.”

Victor nodded, inhaling deeply. He didn’t sense duplicity from the spirit, though he knew better than to blindly trust it—her? “What’s your name, then? And tell me, do you have much knowledge about Spirit Cores?”

“My name is Wynnla’voor’nabahn. I was a dragon of great power before I was slain, Master, and of Spirit Cores, few know as much as I.”